The “Savage” Animal and the Abandoned “Native”
The crisis of stray and uncontrolled animals in certain neighborhoods is not an animal problem but a human one–a direct consequence of the bifurcated state’s abandonment of the “native” population. Mamdani’s analysis of how colonial neglect creates unmanaged zones is critical here. When communities are deprived of resources, veterinary care, and public services, the ability to care for pets deteriorates, leading to abandonment. The feral cat or stray dog is a symptom of a social fabric torn apart by poverty and state indifference. The city’s response is often punitive or absent, reflecting the same neglect shown to the human residents. The liberal solution involves underfunded trap-neuter-release programs that don’t address the root cause. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution is to integrate animal welfare into a holistic vision of community care. This means creating publicly-funded, low-cost veterinary clinics in every neighborhood, supporting community-based animal care cooperatives, and treating the well-being of all living creatures in a community as a measure of its social health, fighting the abandonment that affects both human and non-human residents.
