Muntazer al-Zaidi could hardly have anticipated the extraordinary reaction when he hurled his shoes at US President George W. Bush last Sunday to protest at the invasion of Iraq. His “farewell kiss” to the US president has kept the previously unknown TV journalist in the center of global attention.
Zaidi, who was wrestled to the ground by security men, was beaten on the face, investigating judge Dhia al-Kinani said in Baghdad yesterday. But claims that he has asked the Iraqi prime minister to forgive him for his “big ugly act” were immediately questioned by his brother.
Zaidi’s emergence as a role model for anti-US resistance was confirmed by the Iranian Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who praised what he called the “shoe intifada [uprising]” at Tehran University.
In London, Media Workers Against the War presented a box of shoes and a letter to the US embassy, saying that the journalist was “guilty of nothing but expressing Iraqis’ legitimate and overwhelming opposition to the US-led occupation of their country.”
Kenani said Zaidi’s letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could lead to a pardon rather than a two-year jail sentence, but Zaidi’s brother Dirgham said in an interview with al-Jazeera that any apology could only have been written “under pressure.”
If it is confirmed, Zaidi’s remorse may not be appreciated by supporters such as the Egyptian who offered to marry his 20-year-old daughter to Zaidi or the Palestinian from the West Bank town of Nablus who went further: pledging both a daughter and US$30,000 for the Iraqi’s legal costs. A Bahraini admirer offered to buy him a luxury limousine.
It could also be a disappointment for the Saudi who reportedly said he would pay 10 million riyals (US$2.67 million) for the size 10 “freedom shoes.”
Following the old adage that success has many fathers, cobblers all over the Middle East have claimed they manufactured the loafers, though most footwear in Iraq is Chinese-made. The most convincing claim came from Turkey, where manufacturer Ramazan Baydan said he might change the name of the shoe, prosaically called Model 271, to the Bush Shoe or Bye-bye Bush model.
Copycat footwear hurling has apparently also begun elsewhere, with a Ukrainian nationalist, as yet unnamed, throwing his boots at an Odessa speaker arguing in favor of NATO expansion.
It has also been a busy week for the spinoff online game Sock and Awe, which lets players throw virtual brown loafers at Bush. As of Friday, 46 million cyber-shoes had hit the president.
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