The Shoe is Mightier Than The Word

Who knew a shoe thrown from a dispossessed journalist would ignite such fiery reactions across the world? It was such a defining act. Any future commentary on the Bush presidency cannot live up to it. People will not remember the constitutional and eloquent criticisms made by journalists and commentators, they will, however, always remember that an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Bush. So much for the pen.

Let a lesson be learned: When a public official(and by extension, the government he stands in for) commits unbearable and atrocious deeds such as starting a war on a whole civilization, civilized commentary and criticism can no longer express the deep resentment and grievances of the people. Barbarous acts demand barbarous acts. A journalist must put down his pen, and pick up his shoe and hurl it as his hard as he can at the public unofficial criminal.

May the shoe deface all corrupt and depraved leaders!

The Iraqi journalist, Muntadar al-Zeidi, is now hailed as a hero throughout the Middle East. Antiwar editor Justin Raimondo documents the rising popularity of al-Zeidi in his piece Muntadar al-Zeidi: Hero, Martyr, Symbol of Resistance. Below is a brief excerpt:

"This is a farewell kiss," al-Zeidi cried out, as he hurled his footwear at the presidential noggin, "you dog!" What struck a nerve, throughout the world, not just the Middle East, was the sight of an ordinary person who somehow got to express his opinion of the most powerful human being on the planet in a way that not only garnered attention, but also underscored the sense of powerlessness and frustration felt by Americans and Iraqis when it comes to this seemingly endless occupation.

I agree with Raimondo's sentiments about the incident symbolizing an act of defiance against the barbaric war. Acts of defiance are seldom seen in the world today. There are no marches, no protests, no screaming in the West. This was the first major outbreak of resistance within Iraq in a long time that many Americans got to see. We saw Iraqis stamping their shoes on Saddam the statue in the beginning of the war, and today we see Iraqis hurling their shoes at Bush the man. But will people get the underlining message? Al-Zeidi's shoe may have been a farewell kiss to Bush, but when will the other shoe, the one signifying the farewell kiss to the war, drop? They may be shoe-bombs if America does not pull out quickly. But back in America, will we laugh this incident off as another joke on Bush? Isn't the joke really on us? Bush laughed it off because he knows he will walk off into the sunset in his cowboy shoes. For the rest of us, however, will we be so lucky?

Robert Scheer is also tackling the issue in his piece, President Bush and the Flying Shoes: A Cautionary Tale, saying the Iraqi journalist' words "will stand as the enduring epitaph in the region on Bush’s folly, which is the reality of his claimed legacy of success in the war on terror." But the incident is much more than a epitaph, it indeed is a warning to America's future president, as Scheer says below:

This invasion, according to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, was supposed to be financed by Iraqi oil money, but instead has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1 trillion. The results, as the Times’ account of the report put it, are abysmal: “The hard figures on basic services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the convulsive looting that followed.”

No wonder then that we are perceived as blundering bullies by so many in the region that we claimed to be interested in modernizing. That an Iraqi journalist, whose family had been victimized by Saddam Hussein and who was kidnapped by insurgents while attempting to work as a TV reporter, came to so loathe the American president, as does much of the world, should serve as the final grade on the Bush administration. It should also serve as a caution to President-elect Barack Obama as he seeks to triangulate withdrawal from Iraq with an escalation of the far more treacherous attempt to conquer Afghanistan.

The reason why I am so fascinated by the defiant act, is that for the first time a spectator became an actor in the unfolding tragedy that is the Bush drama. A journalist, whose job is to sit and write and copy the presidents' words chose to put down his pen, pick up his shoe and make his anger known to the rest of the world. And the rest of the world laughed in agreement. A new game has been created on the internet where you get the highest score for hitting the president the most. This is what the American presidency has come to: the main target in a shoe-throwing game. But even beyond the act's hilarity, it has a certain poetic intensity to it. The poetical epitaph "this is the farewell kiss, you dog” yelled by al-Zeidi followed by his touching remarks "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq,” gave the act a dramatic fury. It wasn't just some guy throwing a shoe. He made a point, and he made it well. And the point was made with intense screaming coming from al-Zeidi that accompanied his descent into the heap of reporters surrounding him. Not suprisingly, the act has spawned other acts. Across Iraqi cities, people have poured to the streets with shoes on their hands, while al-Zeidi is being 'embedded' in prison, waiting to be freed. Can history get any more poetic? E. Douka Kabitoglou in his book "Plato and the English Romantics" writes about the importance of the 'poetic moment.'

The 'poetic' moment transforms the histoical perspective, the drama of existence, by looking upon the world of suffering from the viewpoint of the 'observing' audience, not form the standpoint of interacting characters.(p.361)

Al-Zeidi, being part of the 'observing audience' chose to strip down the role of a 'spectator' and become an 'actor' - and transform the historical perspective. Like the hanging of Saddam, the 'shoeing' of Bush is demanding a whole new perspective on just how unpopular he is. Perhaps he is the most unpopular man in the world. Kabitoglou writes in a latter passage that "in an exact sense, the only thing that can be 'studied' in life is the 'moment.' Any history of the Bush presidency, I'm sure, will entail the shoe-throwing moment.


On another note, Raed Jarrar has recently created a petition demading the release of al-Zeidi who has been beaten in custody, as reported by The Guardian. Jarrar will deliver the petition to the Iraqi embassy next week. It has been signed by Noam Chomsky and a thousand others. Sign it now.


Here is the video of the 'poetic moment.'