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Why I Threw the Shoe
I am no hero. I just acted as an Iraqi who witnessed the pain and bloodshed of too many innocents
I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.
Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.
We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.
Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.
I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.
As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.
The opportunity came, and I took it.
I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.
I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.
When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.
If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.
I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.
- Posted in
143 Comments so far
Show AllMr Zaidi, we understand you perfectly. You have done NOTHING that needs forgiveness or apology. Most of us cheered your courage, and wished we could shake your hand and say "Thank you" in person.
May you live a hundred years in full health, peace, and joy!
AOA Brother Zaidi,
What you did was amazing, you had the courage to speak your mind infront of a tryant. This is a quality that is lacking in all muslim leader (except Iran). Our leaders are very comfortable in their chairs no matter what is happening to the country/people. I pray that Allah give you long life and the courage to always tell the truth.
You have done what the Prophet Mohammad (SAWS) always directed us to to speak the truth when odds are incredible aganist you.
I wish that the Americans would throw the book at the shrub.
Mr Zaidi,
I DO consider you an international hero. Bush should be put into his own illegal prisons or violently dealt with as your countryman have been. Unlike Americans, you had the backbone to do what was right. As an average American citizen, I applaud your actions to stand up against a tyrant.
I honor you Mr Zaidi for your noble act
while knowing full well the consequences that awaited you...we need more patriots like you to express the collective indignation we all feel for the suffering Iraq has endured.
Certainly you have more nobility than the elected liars of the United States.
Sorry you missed the mark...
Bush will never be brought to rightful and legal justice for his crimes. History will fairly note the symbolic justice from Mr. al-Zaidi. His act reflected and united the world's conscience.
I don't think America could ever make up for what it did to Iraq. How did Hitler come into power but by using psychological operations on its own people just like George W. Bush did, or to be more precise, Richard Cheney. Perhaps someday we here in America will be able to put these two on trial for genocide, but for now all that we can do is offer our sincerest apologies for what we have done. I can only start with myself, one who was always vehemently against the atrocities proposed and perpetrated by the American Right. I'm sorry.
How does this man's pain make you feel my friends? Do you feel the same shame as I do? I may have been fooled by the O'bomber and voted for him to change this shame--it didn't work we were tricked again just as we have been tricked all along the way, with their use of other supposed good men--we did these atrocities to a sovereign nation and people--we still have to share this terrible feeling of shame even though many of us saw it coming and spoke out loudly against it. Yet they with the 4th estate in hand, overpowered the truth. The only way we can be redeemed from these felonious and dastardly deeds now, is to end these assaults and bring the perpetrators to justice. We can do this but it will take many, many hearts and souls to accomplish it. We need to be focused with one mind and one strong will gathered in a more perfect union to defeat these powerful tyrants who still have in their hand the media--we need to now be our own media by turning away from their established system and initiating our own--they will try and stop us--we must be prepared to go to pen and ink if they do. Turn off all their news systems beginning with TV, Radio, Newspapers, and established internet sites--even yahoo, BBC, and all the others that have been culpable in this crime--you progressives know who they are. We need to communicate to our friends and neighbors today about our plan of action--we need to turn out the people in record numbers--or we are finished--but if that be the case at least we will know--the only path left for us then will be to throw our shoes--or mollitoffs. Here's the plan: get off your lazy butts and take back our country before those who would do us even more harm do. DC 1st week of next month( that's only a couple of weeks away) BE there or prove you don't care! This will be the last chance we get. Veterans muster first to establish security(123)--Citizens by the (456)Let's do this and get it done now.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
2.1 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
2.2 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
2.3 Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
2.4 But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
If you for some reason or other can't make it to DC, then support this action by staying home for that week--don't buy or sell, but go around your neighborhoods and work in conjunction with what the people are doing in DC--Support the march. Together we can change the wrong and end this shame and bring back our country to peace, and Justice. Please see you tube: April 24th 1971 Peace rally (Vietnam) and watch what democracy is all about. We really can have the changes that we wanted but we need to make them happen ourselves.
Mr. Zaidi you are a hero because you speak truth to power, because you threw your shoe at a man who is a war criminal when no one in the media or in global politics would openly call him a liar to his face. I admire your courage and conviction and I am very sorry about the brutality you experienced as a result of your actions.
This week american soldiers committed yet another atrocity in Iraq when they gunned down a man who threw a shoe at them.
al-Zaidi, you're a sweetheart and a hero to all of us who oppose the war and occuption in Iraq as well as the Iraqi people who are also getting persecuted. If Dubya or Obama were in front of me, I'd give them a lesson with my boots on ! :)
Mr. Zaidi,
When I saw your throws, I jumped up and shouted, "Yeah!"
You are one of the bright spots in a time of darkness, showing more courage than the composite u.s. society.
May peace return to your land
"We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ."
Sorry the United States destroyed that for your country!
It all started in 1991!
Before that Iraq was the most modern, secular nation in the Arab world.
Right you are Bill.....Did you notice when the incident was first shown, or in later replays, just how absolutely ignorant G. Wanker appeared when the shoe came at him? He looked like a moron frat boy at a keg party. And look at the similarly moronic Repubs who still think the ignorant SOB was presidential material. No wonder the likes of Fat Boy Limbaugh, Billo the Clown and Glen Beckerhead make millions of $$ pandering to the vast moronic cloud of Repubs.
Every U.S. soldier in Iraq -- or headed there -- should see and digest this. Everyone who went through boot camp and had "KILL HADJIS !" and "KILL RAGHEADS !" screamed at him.
Incidentally, there's a longer version of this here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/zaidi09152009.html
Also, would it be inappropriate to have one's member of Congress read this into the Congressional Record?
I guess I disagree with most of the previous posters. All of them actually. I don't think al-Zaidi is a hero. What is a hero, Heracles? Spiderman? Someone who jumps into a river to save a child from drowning? Does thowing a shoe make you a hero?
I can understand how he felt. Lots of people obviously would like the chance to throw shoes at Bush. But I don't see how that makes one a hero.
Its a little more then just throwing a shoe.
One might as well claim the members of "the White Rose" were not heroes because all they did was pass out leaflets.
Does passing out leaflets make one a hero?
"Does passing out leaflets make one a hero?"
I really don't know. I guess in my mind, there should be some "good" outcome of the act. writing leaflets calling for the end of the war, that should not be a crime, period.
(unless you say of course it is treason...but you could also say that Hitler was guilty of treason having ended the democracy that brought him to power).
It took courage and was non-violent, so, yeah, I'll accept that as heroism.
But what good comes of hitting people with shoes? Some good might unexpectedly come out of it, something good might come from being run over by a car, but that is not a very direct way to go about it. I would of preferred that he write such good articles as this one but, leave out the foot-wear flinging from now on.
Are you kidding? That one simple act will be remembered through the ages. It wasn't violent, it wouldn't have killed a war criminal, but it would send a signal -- a simple signal of disapproval, of rejection of untruth that masks hideous genocidal crimes.
"That one simple act will be remembered through the ages"
Ah yes, the press-conference that launched a thousand shoes!
ceti, now tell me what are your REAL feelings about this ;)
Am I kidding, errrr...no. I'm disagreeing. A "signal of disapproval"? Did I write that it didn't send a signal?
It takes a lot of chutzpah for an American to criticize al-Zaidi for his actions. Yes, he should have emulated Good Americans and politely held up a placard in a Free Speech zone. Being a civilized people, we know better than to venture out of our playpen and get in the way of the adults' important business. Why risk a disorderly conduct ticket, let alone getting shot, imprisoned, or tortured, when we all know it's about feeding our vanity and congratulating each other for our humanitarianism? I look forward to reading more good articles so I can get fired up and contemplate sending my congressman an email. Democracy in action--that'll get it done!
Bush has been sheltered from criticism throughout his sorry, privileged life. American journalists are a bunch of line-towing cowards. Throughout his presidency, pundits and citizens excoriated Bush's subordinates for his administration's incompetence and criminality, all the while believing that Bush was blameless. The only accountability he faced was symbolic: bad poll numbers at the end of his presidency. Arab leaders are a bunch of U.S. puppets who periodically spout inflammatory rhetoric about Israel to distract from their own failings. They know what side their bread is buttered on and could care less about Iraqis, Palestinians, etc.
At the end of the day, somebody had to be a voice for the Arab world's anger. Americans who moralize about al-Zaidi should reconsider their condescension and be thankful that people rally around his actions rather than those of bin Laden.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."--(?).
-"It takes a lot of chutzpah for an American to criticize al-Zaidi for his actions."
Which American are you referring to, BenFromEugene?
He's talking about you, Bubba!
Which American are you referring to, BenFromEugene?
Too many people have spent words to reply to your cowardice remarks. I am sure you know nothing about real life being pampered from day one of your miserable life on this planet. I have not seen so despicable automation with capability to write. But be happy - you have brought attention to your ego.
v.purto:
"Too many people have spent words to reply to your cowardice remarks. I am sure you know nothing about real life being pampered from day one of your miserable life on this planet. I have not seen so despicable automation with capability to write. But be happy - you have brought attention to your ego."
Uh...what are you talking about? Assuming you weren't intending to respond to jlocke123, I'll rehash my argument and you tell me where I have "brought attention to (my) ego".
Argument: It is sanctimonious for an American to condemn a man who risked torture, imprisonment, and death in order to protest the occupation of his country. It doesn't matter whether the symbolic act could be construed as violent; it isn't as though he shot somebody or committed an act of terrorism.
Premise 1: Opponents of the war in America are ineffectual because they rely on empty symbolic acts out of fear of legal consequences. As an American, I include myself in this. They write letters to congressmen who don't listen and wave signs that people either ridicule or don't see. They do not interfere with the function of the economy. There are no general strikes. Business as usual continues.
Premise 2: George Bush carefully shielded himself from dissenters and American journalists and Arab leaders were compliant. Therefore, it was important for a man such as al-Zaiti to do what he did because he had to give a voice to dissenters in the Arab world as well as in the West. Al-Zaiti took a serious risk when he threw his shoes at Bush, which make his actions all the more commendable when compared to the tepid opposition in America.
Yes, as an American, I have been pampered, as have many of us. How does that assessment of US political reality constitute "cowardice remarks", make me "despicable automation with capability to write", or "bring attention to my ego"?
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."--(?).
jlocke123
Chill already. A cursory glance at a dictionary could have saved you a lot of grief.
The simplest definition of hero is this: someone who commits an act of remarkable bravery or who has shown an admirable quality such as great courage or strength of character, and who is admired.
Zaidi's gesture was brave, showed character and is admired by all (but you). That's heroism.
There's nothing in the definition that requires a good outcome. In fact, firemen, universally recognized as heroes, sometimes fail (through no lack of trying). Sometimes a rescuer dies. Or a soldier fails in his attempt to save a comrade. Still a hero.
The good outcome is that by releasing him early, his government showed some compassion, and his act gives his people hope. (maybe even some real hope, not the ersatz version O peddled)
I think what makes him a hero is what he did with those shoes while he was wearing them. As he says in this piece. And risked his life to get the true stories out there.
Throwing the shoe? It was a statement. Obviously. Performance art? But very real and true. Soul art.
If it would have been, the easy enemy, Hitler, and a Jewish (which i am , by the way), journalist, would have thrown something symbolic in his direction. The U.S. and Israel would be building monuments to him.
In my opinion, anyway.
His act was that of a hero because he knew he risked being shot dead on the spot, but did it anyway. Most of us wouldn't do it if the only thing we risked was a thumping.
Isn't there a difference between "courage" and "heroism"?
Many things that take courage, don't make you a hero. They might just make you, an idiot, or maybe suicidal.
Or have I tapped into an "American blindspot"? I forgot, all US soldiers are "heroes" aren't they? Especially dead ones. Tortured ones, like McCain, almost as heroic. Then comes the tens of thousands of them missing limbs, and finally the ones merely suffering brain damage from multiple concussions or from watching their colleagues be blown to pieces, or from reliving the time they accidentally shot a eight year old at a Baghdad check-point.
jlocke123
There is a terrific difference between courage and heroism. I have no doubt of my courage under fire or anywhere else and can tell you I have seem so many guys with real courage you can't count them. No hero's in the lot. Not a one. Well actually there were 3 real hero's I saw in Viet Nam, but one was NVA so he doesn't count considering you are speaking of American soldiers. There were definately some idiots among us including me.
"I forgot, all US soldiers are "heroes" aren't they?"
You know thats rot. But I know what you are saying.
I do not associate the terms "courage" or "heroism" with any US folks.
"I do not associate the terms "courage" or "heroism" with any US folks"
What, you've met them all, luckyyou?
I have found that heroes tend to appear when and where they are needed. Then they say "I just did what anyone would have done."
I have met enough of them in my 65 years as a Native American to have made the statement I made, and your flippancy is just one more piece of evidence that my statement was right on target.
-"your flippancy is just one more piece of evidence that my statement was right on target"
Errrr...uh, Anybody want to help me with this one? What evidence...of...what?
So you are native American, good for you...and?
Enough...please erace your slime trail as you leave. Your discourtesy and your incivility is irritating. You add nothing to an intelligent discussion.
Thanks.
Unfortunately jlocke its obviously a full moon tonight.
Peace my friend.
I think there are too few heros here in this demoralized country of ours. But with that said ...
There have been hundreds, maybe more, young service men and women who are refusing to fight imperial wars. They risk court martial, jail, poverty, illness, and are often alienated from their friends and families. Hero's? Well, maybe not, depends on your definition.
But Rachel Corrie is definitely a hero: Rachel was killed by the driver of a Caterpillar bulldozer when she tried to stop the demolition of her Palestinian friend's home. He ran the thing right over her. Many left organizations in this country refuse to sponsor the play, "My name is Rachel Corrie," because it's "too controversial." (interpretation: Will offend the powerful AIPAC people). Native Americans should have so much power, eh?
Ralph Nader is a hero. He took on the vile corporations that make money off of people's vulnerabilities. He has been one of our country's strongest and purest voices of reason and compassion. It's not his fault that so called Progressives found him to be un-worthy or "un-electable." He does what he can do and he never wavers or allows himself to be scammed, as do so many on the left. One of the great lefty journalists of our time, Hunter Thompson, called Nader a "village idiot," so you see how low we have sunk.
And I suppose you know this much about America, with our too few heros: We don't like losers. We like winners. It matters little how they win, as long as they at least strive to make it appear noble, strong, and patriotic. Witness Obama's candidacy and regime: Pure theater.
Perhaps you underestimate your own courage and strength of character. Perhaps to you, such apparently small acts of courage don't seem worth mentioning. Still, they're immensely valuable and highly prized. They become lights in the darkness.
It does take courage to refuse orders to commit what amounts to crimes. History is jam-packed with the evidence of the absence of such strength of character.
"There have been hundreds, maybe more, young service men and women who are refusing to fight imperial wars. They risk court martial, jail, poverty, illness, and are often alienated from their friends and families. Hero's? Well, maybe not, depends on your definition."
There is just so much wrong with that statement (and, no, it's not just the spelling of the word heroes as "hero's). First of all, what is so heroic about a bunch of idiot or perhaps just unfortunate kids who join the army to get a mediocre education and then refuse to go to war? Where I'm standing from that's dishonesty and cowardice not heroism. Anybody who joins the US Army is on the side of the empire, if they think that they'll get a free education for nothing, they should better take a look at the track record of wars in this country and the fact that there is at least one every ten years. If they refuse when the time comes, then, screw them and let them face the music that they created themselves. There is no longer a draft and there hasn't been one for 40 years, anybody who joins the military is, in my eyes, no better than anybody who joins Blackwater only dumber.
So, no, you may call them a lot of things: callous, smart, poor, dumb but hero isn't one of the definitions I would use for them.
Oh my....I hope you are going to defend us since you think so little of the kids that do. What utter HOGWASH!
"It all begins somewhere, the questioning, the doubting, the feeling that something’s not right; like that day the captain set fire to the Vietnamese woman’s hooch, or the night we shot those women and children by mistake. It’s all got to start somewhere. For them it might have been the innocent civilians killed that day at the checkpoint just north of Baghdad or the dead children lying in the road in Kirkuk, or that night in Nasiriyah when they kicked in the front door of that house, screaming and cursing at the children as they threw their father to the floor, tying his hands behind his back and putting a hood over his head, but you remain silent, you say nothing. You’ve been taught to follow orders, to obey and not question, to go along with the program and do exactly what you’re told. You learned that in boot camp."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601009_ron_kovic_breaking_silence_night/
Flippancy? If anyone is being flippant here its you. What could your ethnicity possibly have to do with his question?
Your statement is obviously absurd.
okay, enough of the one upmanship intellectual semantics.
The shoe throwing was a powerful symbolic act and everyone in the world gets it.
Yes, he could have been shot. That takes courage and he was a hero to his own people and to all the people who agree with his point of view. No words were necessary. No taking anything out of context. No intellectualizing, rationalizing, etc.
No, all U.S. soldiers are not "heroes", not even the dead ones. Many of them have committed war crimes, criminal murder, rape and other crimes. This includes somee who later are killed and even some who return home without limbs or with brain damage, or reliving the time they "accidentally" or intentionally shot an eight year old boy or a pregnant woman or an old man. The same can be said for U.S. mercenaries. Heroes? No. They are -- each and every one -- imperialists, occupiers, crusaders, and tools. They are not heroes.
A retired U.S. Army sergeant wrote a letter to the Spokesman-Review a few years ago saying that if the U.S. were occupied as Iraq has been by the U.S., we would be attacking and killing the invaders day and night by whatever means necessary for as long as necessary. That is true if one listens to any number of groups in the U.S., including Fox News mouthpieces and others. And those people attacking the invader would be seen as heroes. If the U.S. were to be subdued, someone throwing shoes at the representative of those invaders would be viewed in the moment and in historic lore as a hero. But not by the invader nor by his apologists nor by his agente provocateurs nor by his trolls.
Heroism is in the eye of the beholder. JLocke123 apparently does not see it. Fine. Millions upon millions in the U.S. and around the world do see it. That different eye, that ability to see the world from the perspective of the other and empathize with their struggle is why Muntazer al-Zaidi had to be punished, and would no doubt have been killed had it been possible and not so public an act of heroism. Just as Cuba must be crushed by an embargo and covert action until it breaks and falls on its knees begging for mercy. Just as Timothy DeChristopher must be punished for bidding on properties about to be sold to predatory companies. Just as the boss, the emperor, the dictator, the "world's lone super-power" must crush or punish or humilitate the brave, the heroic, the human being in revolt against the revolting and unjustifiable. In other words, the existence of evil creates the heroic.
Indeed, the statements of praise for the hero Muqthadar Al-Saidi are why solidarity is alive, why the struggle from below is stronger than ever, why the powers-that-be increasingly surround protesters before they can even protest, why the JLocke123's and the JLockes of Fox News attempt to fight the inexplicable and irrepresible spirit of the human soul with their logic. Long live Muqthadar Al-Saidi. U.S. imperialists and occupiers out of Iraq and Afghanistan. It's Obama's bloody war now.
A hero never believes he is one. I believe it was why he did it and who he did it for that makes him a bit of a hero. Perhaps we should say heroic rather than hero.
When Mr. Al-Zaidi threw those now famous shoes, he was making a STATEMENT; he spoke truth to power.
God bless, Al-Zaidi!
He was beaten and tortured for just throwing a shoe. He went to prison in a war zone. He could have been shot on the spot. (This week an Iraqi was murdered by USers for throwing a shoe at convoy). No matter how you try to trivialize it, it took some bit of courage to do what he did. I don't know what your definition of a hero is but I think it is generally synonymous with courageous, daring, etc. What did you ever do troll?
USer
locke123 is no troll as anyone that has beemn here for any length of time knows.
But thats a fair question, let me ask you....what have you ever done? What do you know about the point under discussion?
Henry8
Yes I know locke123 has been here for some time, so? S/He is acting like a troll trying to make some useless point about what constitutes a hero. Am I missing something or is that the super important point under discussion? Is it somehow more complex or nuanced than that? Do enlighten me please.
What have I ever done? As little as possible, constantly. However, I'm not trying to knock down some guy that did do something against Bush that could have gotten him shot instantly, did get him tortured and beaten, did get him put in jail, and did make a symbolic show of resistance that made headlines around the world.
I apologize for getting so annoyed, but when the bigger points about all the mass murder this guy saw on a daily basis gets drowned out by our snarky friend, locke123, weighing in from on high about what constitutes a hero, I do get a little miffed.
I hope this answers your questions. Peace to all, no hard feelings of course. Continue the blathering if necessary.
The only regret that Muntazer al-Zaidi should have is that he missed hitting Dubya squarely in the face.
If his aim was better I would call him a hero!