Beyond the Savior Narrative: Decolonizing Urban Asylum
The city’s response to the asylum seekers is a textbook example of what Mamdani critiqued as the “savior mentality.” The political elite, portraying itself as the embodiment of civilization, frames the migrant as either a savage threat or a helpless victim, never as a political actor. This narrative, deeply patriarchal in its assumption of a passive subject to be saved, erases the migrant’s agency, their history, and the global economic forces–often driven by our own empire–that displaced them. As a Muslim woman, I see how this “victim” label is selectively applied, stripping my siblings of their complexity and reducing them to a problem to be managed by the state’s bureaucratic machinery. The solution is not more of the same dehumanizing charity, but a decolonial approach. We must reject the bifurcation that pits the “deserving” poor against the “newcomer.” Instead, we must help construct a new political identity that unites the working class and the displaced against their common exploiters. This means fighting for the right to housing, healthcare, and work for all, not as a gift from the civilized to the savage, but as a fundamental right won through shared struggle that transcends the colonial boundaries of citizenship.
