By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large
As the media has the nation hyper-focused on the war with Iran over 6,000 miles away from the five boroughs, healthcare, housing, and groceries, are the concerns of most New Yorkers. This, alongside crime on the streets, food insecurity, unemployment, the increasing cost of daily living, and high transportation costs.
But President Donald Trump’s major combat operations in Iran dominates the 24-hour news cycle.
Un-or-under-reported by the mainstream press are several countries struggling with violent conflicts, regional instability, and social unrest–such as Sudan, DR Congo, Nigeria, Haiti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, France, Cuba, Mexico, and the Ukraine.
“We ourselves live in the global world, and we often times don’t have time to think about it because we are so busy with our daily crisis,”Colette Pean, member of the human rights community advocacy December 12th Movement organization told Our Time Press. “But, I think we will feel it in the cut back of essential services, as more money gets spent on a war that we didn’t need to be in. I think we will feel the inflation in gas prices, both when we go to the pump, when we purchase items that have to travel, as the price of everything goes up”.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani slammed what he called, “Opening a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis.
They want peace…I am focused on making sure that every New Yorker is safe. I have been in contact with our Police Commissioner and emergency management officials. We are taking proactive steps, including increasing coordination across agencies and enhancing patrols of sensitive locations out of an abundance of caution.”
Attorney General Letitia James urged New Yorkers to remain vigilant for price hiking in the wake of heightened geopolitical conflict in the “Middle East,” affecting supply chains. “There is no excuse for unfairly raising prices of essential goods and services that New Yorkers depend on. With sudden increases in oil prices poised to drive up costs for New Yorkers, I am encouraging everyone to be on the lookout for unreasonable price hikes.”
“While events overseas are beyond New York’s control, they can affect the price of food and fuel costs and report price gouging to my office…so that it can be investigated and appropriate action can be taken,” said New York Secretary of State Walter T. Mosley.
Governor Kathy Hochul called on folk to report price gouging, so she can hold “unscrupulous actors accountable.”
As the Iran battle–Trump has called a pre-emptive measure, stretches into its third week, he termed the deadly conflict “a short-term excursion.” Despite mixed messages, with cabinet statements that it may be a prolonged battle, Trump said this week that the war, “is very complete, pretty much,” adding that his military had decimated Iran’s ability to respond to the American bombardment.
As Iran has struck back, hitting nations like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Dubai, Trump has denied that it was a U.S. Tomahawk missile that hit a girls school in Iran, killing more than 170 people, many of them children.
While Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that they may block oil shipments sailing from the Gulf, Trump threatened that if Iran attacked ships within the Strait of Hormuz “death, fire and fury will reign upon them.”
“I think everyone is just deeply concerned with irrational, unchecked, unstructured, impromptu behavior of our president, without really looking at how these issues impact upon everybody else,”
Rev. Dennis Dillon told Our Time Press. “Such as, the price of gas, the price of travel flights, people getting stranded, myself included coming from the Jesse Jackson funeral and celebration of his life in Chicago.”
Stranded for two days, Dillon, the publisher of The New York Christian Times, and pastor of Broklyn’s New Rise Church Global said, “The airline said there were delays because of the war, and JFK Airport was overbooked because of the extra flights for people who are trying to get back. So, obviously we have a president who is not thinking through these things. He is impulsive, arrogant and ignorant, and that’s what drives him and it is sad.
This is a man who is totally devoid of love and compassion. The concern of the community is that this is an unnecessary war, with the killing of innocent people, including our service men and women for no good reason.”
Meanwhile on Saturday, close to Mayor Mamdani’s Gracie Mansion home on the Upper West Side, opposing protestors got into a violent confrontation where a smoking explosive device was thrown.
The Florida-based far-right “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” demonstration organizer Jake Lang, is a Trump-pardoned January 6 riot participant and current U.S. Senate candidate, who thought bringing a roasted pig to Mamadani’s home during Ramadan–was a flex.
His twenty or so supporters were met by over a hundred counter protestors. Now facing federal terrorism charges, police said that two men, Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, drove from Pennsylvania with at least 3 improvised explosives–one was thrown into the crowd, and none of the devices detonated.
Mamdani called it “A vile protest rooted in white supremacy.” Neither he nor his wife Rama were home.
“I’m the first Muslim mayor of our city. Anti-Muslim bigotry is nothing new to me, nor is it anything new for the 1 million or so Muslim New Yorkers who know this city as our home.”
At a press conference on Monday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said, “We have been in a heightened state of alert in New York City since the start of hostilities in Iran, and we remain in that posture …[with] additional counterterrorism resources throughout New York City.”
Saying that people should “stay hopeful that this difficult time will pass,” Bed Stuy businessman Lookman O. Afolayan, owner of Buka New York restaurant, told Our Time Press, “The war we now face is troubling and unexpected for many Americans. Families were already dealing with rising costs, and this conflict will likely make life even more expensive and uncertain…
This moment should also remind us of the importance of leadership and accountability in the leaders we elect.”
Activist Colette Pean told Our time Press, “The impact of the war I think we will feel it as the focus of so many things gets distorted, and people have to think ‘Who are we?’ ‘What is our place in the world, and how do we relate,’ because when we talk about this particular action, we have to talk about what happened when they bombed Nigeria? And when they took President Maduro and his wife out of Venezuela? What does it mean when they are bombing small boats in the Caribbean where so many people are from; and blockading Cuba? It’s all part of a global conflict.
Those of us with relatives in different parts of the world, are going to feel it when they go into a financial crisis because of the cost of energy, because a lot of this is based on economics.”