Shoe-thrower captures Mideast rage at Bush
Publish Date: Monday,15 December, 2008, at 10:58 PM Doha Time
By Alistair Lyon
BEIRUT: The hurling of shoes at US President George W Bush on his farewell visit to Iraq strikes many in the Middle East as a fittingly furious comment on what they see as his calamitous legacy in the region.Arab and Iranian TV stations have gleefully replayed the clip, sometimes in slow motion, of an Iraqi reporter calling Bush a “dog” and throwing his shoes at him - the Middle East’s tastiest insults - at a Baghdad news conference on Sunday.The affront was a twisted echo of the triumphal moment for Bush when joyous Iraqis used their footwear to beat a statue of Saddam Hussain toppled by US invading troops in 2003.“It indicates how much antagonism he’s been able to create in the whole region,” former Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said, adding that the incident was regrettable.Bush had harmed America’s reputation and the friendship many had felt for it. “Despite past mistakes in its policies, there was always a redeeming factor. In this particular case, there doesn’t seem to have ever been a redeeming factor,” Maher said.Muntazer al-Zaidi, who works for independent al-Baghdadiya television, has shot to local stardom for his attack on Bush and his cry: “This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog.”He has also won instant fame abroad - a poem on an Islamist website praises him as “a hero with a lion’s heart” – although the Iraqi government slated his “barbaric and ignominious act”.Zaidi’s crude public display of disdain for an incumbent US president hit a chord with many in the Middle East.“The Iraqi journalist is a true and free Baghdadi,” said a Saudi private sector employee who gave his name as Abu Faisal. “He was brave and did us proud. Bush destroyed (Iraq) so surely he deserved to be beaten with a shoe”.Khalid al-Dakhil, a Saudi university lecturer in social politics, said the incident summed up Bush’s impact on the Middle East, which “will haunt this region for a long time”.Dakhil, who said Bush had committed war crimes in Iraq after launching a war based on “lies” that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, nevertheless fretted about the shoe-throwing.“While understandable, it wasn’t the most sophisticated and constructive way to express one’s anger at Bush, especially coming from an educated Arab journalist. It reinforces the stereotype ideas in the Western world about Arabs.”Some Palestinians, whose hopes of independent statehood have withered in the eight-year Bush era, relished the moment.“A shoe company in Hebron claimed the attack on Bush and they will give the attacker shoes all his life,” runs one joke being exchanged on mobile telephones in the Gaza Strip.In Iran, under US pressure over its nuclear programme, ordinary people had no good words for the outgoing president.“He left a legacy of disgrace for America. His name will certainly go down in history and be remembered for all bad things for ever,” said pensioner Assadollah Ghorbani, 67.Parviz Alousi, 59, a former Iranian industry ministry employee, said the Bush had only created problems for the world, which “because of his ego” he had sought to dominate.Some political analysts in Lebanon took an equally scathing view of Bush’s policy record in the region.“To say disaster is an under-statement. The best thing he can do is exit the White House,” said Hilal Khashan, political science professor at the American University of Beirut. “I can’t remember a lower point in US prestige abroad.”Arabs have long fumed at American support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians, but Bush’s war in Iraq created a new source of anger and instability in the Middle East.“It’s a sore, open and bleeding wound, just as the Palestine issue is,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an expert on Hezbollah.The Iraqi shoe-thrower had found a far more telling protest than raising a banner or poster showing war victims, she argued.“It’s a sign of empowerment. He was saying not only that your (Bush’s) legacy is one of disgrace, not only do we see you as lowly, but that we can overpower and defeat you.”Mohamed al-Masri, a researcher at Jordan University’s Centre for Strategic Studies, saw the vignette as iconic.“Arabs will always remember the shoes hurled at Bush as symbolising their deep frustration with his failed policies.”The insult to Bush also embarrassed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who was standing beside him at the time.They were marking the recent passage of a security pact that calls for US troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011 - a major challenge awaiting President-elect Barack Obama.Many in the Middle East are pinning hopes on the next US president, despite past disappointments.“Any change appears welcome because we had reached the bottom,” said Maher, Egypt’s former foreign minister. – Reuters
See video ----------------> http://tinyurl.com/57epa2
Sorry , the previous link seems not working.
ReplyDeleteTry this one:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XwknittryFo
Didn’t G.W. Bush say that the Americans would be greeted in the streets of Baghdad with flowers and roses?
ReplyDeleteSeven years later G.W. Bush himself is greeted with a pair of shoes!
Yesterday while Bush was speaking at the office of the Iraqi prime minister in Baghdad, an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at the President, who ducked it, only to have the second shoe thrown at him, and again he ducked it. The President has been showing off his skills of ducking since 9-11. The man said: “This is the farewell kiss you dog!” and then he said: ““This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”
Both, the throwing of the shoe and calling him a dog are ultimate forms of humiliation and disrespect in the Arab world. This, alHamdulillah, is proper greeting for this invader of Muslim land. But the even more proper treatment is that which is leveled against the invading troops on the streets of Baghdad.
The shoes of this journalist are better than those leaders in the Arab world who paraded their daughters to dance for Bush.
Before the Green Zone Scholars, and RAND Muslims, the promoters of the fiqh of humiliation, step up to the stage in defense of Bush and claim that this act is ‘against the Sunnah!’ let it be known that the Muslim is kind with the disbeliever who is decent and pays due respect to Islamic authority, but the Muslim is harsh against the arrogant and the transgressor. The words of Rasulullah to the leaders of Quraish were: “I came to with slaughter,” Abu Bakr cursed the disbelievers in Hudaybiyyah, and Omar would consistently beat these disbelievers, curse them and threaten them. On another note, and as ridiculous as it may sound, for those who say that al Maliki is “wali amr” and as Muslims we should not revolt against him, is this journalist at sin for not having sought the permission of al Maliki to throw his shoes? Because to them, this is definitely an act of fitnah!
Unfortunately he missed. As someone on the net has rightfully stated:
“Nobody wants to see President Bush being missed by a flying shoe like this. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity that has been missed here.”
In the End, if anyone of you gets to know the brand of shoes this journalist was wearing please inform us about it. We would all like to go out and buy some, in solidarity with our brother!