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As his size 10s spun through the air towards George W Bush, Muntazer al-Zaidi – the man the world now knows as the shoe-thrower – was bracing for an American bullet.
“He thought the secret service was going to shoot him,” says Zaidi’s younger brother, Maitham. “He expected that, and he was not afraid to die.”
Zaidi’s actions during the former US president’s swansong visit to Iraq last December have not stopped reverberating in the nine months since.
Next Monday, when the journalist walks out of prison, his 10 raging seconds, which came to define his country’s last six miserable years, are set to take on a new life even more dramatic than the opening act.
Across Iraq and in every corner of the Arab world, Zaidi is being feted. The 20 words or so he spat at Bush – “This is your farewell kiss, you dog. This is for the widows and orphans of Iraq” – have been immortalised, and in many cases memorised.
Pictures of the president ducking have been etched onto walls across Baghdad, made into T-shirts in Egypt, and appeared in children’s games in Turkey.
Zaidi has won the adulation of millions, who believe his act of defiance did what their leaders had been too cowed to do.
RTFA. Reflect, perhaps, on how much of the world feels about the New American Century.
At the time, I thought Bush ought to say something like: “Leave that man alone. America stands for free Political Speech. For throwing shoes, just remove him from this room.”
Course he didn’t say that. Any guesses why?
1 bobbo,
Just taking a guess… maybe Bush has really small feet and didn’t like being measured up to a bigger man?
Where can I buy one of those Egyptian T-shirts?
#2–named==very good guess. All the more reason to have the guy removed from the room===which was happening anyway I guess.
Good food for thought though.
Whatever happened to the actual shoes? My guess is that Iraqui’s will build a shrine around them.
Somehow when I see that shoe throwing moment in my mind, what I see is the entire world expressing their outrage as to what the America they admired had become.
Well done Muntazer al-Zaidi!
Barefoot and free…
Shoo!
I hope they make T-shirts of Bush and Cheney ducking court subpoenas.
Maybe a Spanish version is already in the works.
Somehow, it needs more pizzaz.
http://zazzle.com/shoe_thrower_tshirt-235090113558003023
The guy that did that Obama as the Joker poster could mop up on this one.
I hope those shoes show up in the Smithsonian for all to see.
Supposedly the iraqi made shoes he woreare a big hit among the populace.
The U.S. will never again be the proud independent and successful country it was prior to the repukelican run of the past eight years with their hero, the shrub in control.
Most discouraging is the way the same people who squandered our future, destroyed our economy and made our country one to be ashamed of, now say it is to expensive to provide health care to it’s citizens on the same level as the great nations of the world we pretend to be a part of. The people who many still follow as though they actually were contributing something other than attempts to further destroy the country we grew up in.
It sickens reasonable people.