<\/p>\n
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo during last week’s final New\u00a0York City mayoral debate at Rockefeller Center. (Photo by Angelina\u00a0Katsanis-Pool\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Pool\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
In late December 1657, the citizens of the small town of\u00a0Vlissingen,\u00a0now known as Flushing in the proud borough of Queens, wrote to Peter Stuyvesant, the director-general of New Netherland. Their subject was the increasingly draconian enforcement of a provision of the 17-year-old Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions, which restricted public religious expression in the colony to the Dutch Reformed faith.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The authors of what has become known as the Flushing Remonstrance<\/a> expressed their disdain for the director-general\u2019s recent statements and actions that persecuted Quakers, Lutherans and Jews \u2014 policies that stood in opposition to both the Bible and the Dutch tradition of tolerance.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThe law of love, peace and liberty in the states extending to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered sons of Adam, which is the glory of the outward state of Holland, so love, peace and liberty, extending to all in Christ Jesus, condemns hatred, war and bondage,\u201d they wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n In one of the high points of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg\u2019s tenure, he invoked the Flushing Remonstrance in an August 2010 speech<\/a> on Governors Island, where he defended a city panel\u2019s decision to not stand in the way of the development of a mosque in Lower Manhattan. The project (which never came to fruition) had become the locus of ugly post-9\/11 Islamophobia stirred by Mr. Bloomberg\u2019s fellow Republicans during an election year. With the Statue of Liberty in the background, Mr. Bloomberg said the people of New York City \u201cwould betray our values \u00a0and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists\u00a0\u2014 and we should not stand for that.\u201d<\/p>\n With two weeks remaining in the New York City mayoral race, the public is being subjected to some of the worst expressions of Islamophobia since the \u201cGround Zero mosque\u201d moral panic. The reason: State Assemblyman\u00a0Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim, is ahead in almost every poll, and his main opponent, former\u00a0Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, is responding to the possibility of a career-ending defeat with all the grace of a cornered badger.\u00a0<\/p>\n Just days ago, his campaign was forced to apologize<\/a> for releasing a starkly racist AI-generated video <\/a>depicting Mr.\u00a0Mamdani eating rice with his hands alongside a cast of villainous ethnic stereotypes, including a Black pimp in \u201cSuperfly\u201d garb and a Black shoplifter who is for extra measure wearing a keffiyeh. A campaign spokesman said the ad \u201cwasn\u2019t done yet,\u201d which in theory means the now-scuttled final edit might have been even worse.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The next morning, Mr. Cuomo appeared on Sid\u00a0Rosenberg’s radio show \u2014 which has been a comfy media berth for Mr.\u00a0Cuomo\u2019s fellow Queens boy, President Donald J. Trump\u00a0\u2014 to castigate<\/a> Mr. Mamdani\u2019s fitness for the job in an oddly specific way: \u201cAny given morning there\u2019s a crisis and people\u2019s lives are at stake,\u201d Mr. Cuomo said. \u201cGod forbid another 9\/11. Can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I could: He\u2019d be cheering,\u201d Mr. Rosenberg responded, providing Mr. Cuomo with a golden opportunity to say something along the lines of, Well, that\u2019s taking things a bit too far\u00a0\u2014 I\u2019m just saying he wouldn\u2019t be equipped for the job.<\/p>\n Instead, Mr. Cuomo laughed and agreed with the host: \u201cThat\u2019s another problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A few hours later, Mayor Eric Adams \u2014 who, just weeks after calling Mr. Cuomo \u201ca snake and a liar,\u201d<\/a> decided to endorse him\u00a0\u2014 poured more kerosene<\/a> on the bonfire: \u201cNew York can\u2019t be Europe, folks; I don\u2019t know what is wrong with people,\u201d he said, raising the question of which \u201cpeople\u201d he was referring to. \u201cYou see what\u2019s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism\u00a0\u2014 not Muslims, let\u2019s not mix this up\u00a0\u2014 but those Islamic extremisms (sic) that are burning churches in Nigeria, that are destroying communities in Germany.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n What any of this had to do with Mr.\u00a0Mamdani, who has advocated for none of the things the scandal-scarred mayor mentioned, was not made clear. Despite his aside that he was not talking about Muslims, the mayor appeared to be mixing things up intentionally.<\/p>\n Speaking of Europeans: It would be nice to report that Peter\u00a0Stuyvesant was sufficiently moved by the Flushing Remonstrance \u2014 which resides in the State Archives in Albany \u2014 that he abandoned his efforts to clamp down on other faiths. Instead, the persecutions continued for several more years, until a group of prominent merchants warned that the resulting drop in immigration was bad for business, and the Dutch West India Company ordered Mr.\u00a0Stuyvesant to dial it down.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the digital age, a more immediate response to Mr. Cuomo\u2019s rhetoric is required from the new burghers of New York City and the rest of the state, as well as the politicians who purport to stand for the principles on which New York was founded.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n It is not surprising to once again find the ex-governor on the low road; the voters of New York City should ensure that he proceeds to the exit ramp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo during last week’s final New\u00a0York City mayoral debate at Rockefeller Center. 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