Shoe Explosion in Iraq!
by Jim Washburn
One sign that American-style democracy is taking hold in Iraq is that the country now has its own Joe the Plumber—an ordinary citizen thrust suddenly into the political limelight, a lightning rod for the angry, unheard currents of public sentiment. We’re talking of Muntadhar the Shoe-Hurler, of course, the Iraqi journalist who on Sunday found words just didn’t say enough and hurled shoes from both the left and right at President George W. Bush during a press conference there.
Was he mistakenly trying to return some Nunn Bush loafers? Nope, as CNN’s report informed us, throwing your shoes at a person is considered an insult in Arab societies. You know, as opposed to other societies.
Bush was in Iraq on a farewell tour of the regions he’s devastated, and that apparently was what motivated Muntadhar Al Zaidi’s shoe explosion (a term I must properly credit to Big 5 sporting goods, who were using the term years before crazed shoe bomber Richard Reid). As he hurled his shoes at our president, he reportedly shouted something on the order of “Here’s a farewell kiss, you dog!” and “You have killed Iraq!”
Bush joked it off with several comments, one being, “I don’t know what the guy said, but I saw his sole,” which may have been a sly comment on one of his other grand misjudgments, when he said years ago that he’d looked into Vladimir Putin’s soul and pronounced it good, which given Putin’s subsequent repressions was sort of like saying Chernobyl is for lovers.
Bush also commented, “This is what happens in free societies when people try to draw attention to themselves.” In that “free society” reporters had been warned by Iraqi officials just minutes before not to ask any questions, according to a Modesto Bee reporter who was there. It’s also where millions of persons have been made refugees by the war, where tens of thousands of person are being held prisoner without charge in squalid prisons and where hundreds of thousands have died and continue to die in a needless war started by Bush. Though I’m not an expert on Arab societies, I think that may also be considered an insult there.
At this writing al-Zaidi has become another of those tens of thousands of prisoners. He was reportedly being tested for alcohol and drugs, though co-workers at TV station al-Baghdadi have suggested more sober motives for his actions. CNN reports one of them saying al-Zaidi “awoke daily to the cries of widows and funerals and U.S. airstrikes on Sadr City,” while in a statement calling for his release, the station’s board said, “Any action taken against Muntadhar will remind us of the actions and behaviors taken by the reign of the dictator and the violence, the random arrests, the mass graves and confiscations of freedom from the people.”
Protests in support of al-Zaidi have been filling the streets in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, with protestors calling Bush “the leader of evil and terror” and a “terrorist ... whose hands are covered in children and women's blood.” They have taken to hoisting shoes on flagpoles.
It remains to be seen what, if anything, al-Zaidi will be charged with, not that charges are needed to detain him indefinitely there. Meanwhile, his odd attack makes one wonder if everyone isn’t so tired of Bush that even the Secret Service isn’t willing to take a shoe for the chief anymore. I mean, the guy didn’t just toss one shoe, but bent down, removed the other and threw it, too. If he hadn’t been tackled by a fellow journalist, he might have continued the barrage with his socks and underpants.
President Bush just made a surprise visit to Iraq, to give a press conference over the accords that were signed putting the U.S. on a timetable for withdrawal from the country. During the press conference, a journalist named Muntadhar al-Zeidi took off his shoes and hurled them at the President. He exclaimed, “This is your farewell kiss, you dog!” just as he hurled his shoes at the President. In the Muslim world, throwing your shoes at someone is about the worst insult you can give to someone. Just to give you an idea, before the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled, and during and after, the statue was pelted with numerous pairs of shoes. The idea here is that they only do it to people they really hate. People from around the region have been hailing the actions of al-Zeidi as heroic, even though Bush laughed it off as a “sign of a free society” – kind of like having a bevy of financial options, such as payday loans. He was quickly arrested, and taken into custody, and the footwear was taken into the evidence locker. He currently awaits trial.
2008-12-23 by Dillon O.