He is the first Islamic mayor for the British capital.
The Labour Sadiq Khan, 45, son of Islamic Pakistani migrants, is the new mayor of London. More than 24 hours after the polls closed, came the official announcement, delayed due to a problem at the computer system: Khan has distanced the Conservative Zac Goldsmith of more than 300 thousand votes, a margin of 13.6% in percentage terms. Immediately after, the first mayor of Islamic faith of the largest European metropolis thanked those who voted him “for having made possible what was impossible,” in what he called the victory of Islam “over fear and unity over divisions”.
“I look forward to work with you for a more just London,” tweeted the leader of the Labour Jeremy Corbyn, who used the hashtag “#YesWeKhan”, echoing the slogan “Yes we can” of the electoral campaign of Barack Obama.
For the first time, so, the capital of one of the 28 EU Member States (and one of the most powerful nations of the world) will be led by an Islamist.
But who is Sadiq Khan, the outsider who triumphs in London against all odds?
His grandfather moved from India to Pakistan after the Partition in 1947 to contribute creating there “a great Islamic nation”. His father then emigrated to London from Pakistan in search of more money. He became today mayor of the British capital . The story of Sadiq Khan, 45 year old, “New Citizen” of London, “New European”, seems a classical radical-shic novel: the poor young man making his way in a new world, the outsider who triumphs against all odds.
Finally it could become England’s photograph, and maybe a photograph of the future of whole Europe, of the twenty-first century: the sign that globalization, immigration and democracy lead to the victory of Islam over the West, to the gradual disappearance of indigenous populations in their own home. “I want to be the mayor of all migrants”, he repeated during the election campaign, “as well as of the Londoner British. I feel Muslim, first of all, also British, Labor, husband, father and a Liverpool fan”, it is the way in which he presents himself. “I’m pro-business and absolutely pro-European Union,” he said in an interview a few weeks ago.
The family – his parents and eight children, including seven sons and a daughter – lived for years in Earlsfield, the outskirts of the capital, in a “Council House”, the social housing assigned by the state to the poor. The father was bus driver, his mother was a seamstress. “I grew up seeing my parents working and I followed their example,” he says, “since a teen I did every job that happened to me, I distributed newspapers, I washed cars, in the summer I helped in a construction site.” The Khan regularly sent money to relatives in Pakistan, “because we were more rich than them.”
In London he promises to fight against the growing rich-poor gap, to build more houses for migrants and give more rights for Muslims. He is married to Saadiya Ahmed, a lawyer, also of Pakistani origin, they have two daughters aged 17 and 15 years. This is the story of Sadiq Khan, the first Islamic mayor of a large metropolis in Europe. A long history but that has just resumed, and who knows where it could take him.