Harry's Place

Many people were recently amused by the shoe throwing antics of journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi. According to his brother, al-Zaidi’s actions were ’spontaneous’ and meant to ‘humiliate the tyrant’ George Bush. The New York Times reports that al-Zaidi has become a ‘hero’ in the Arab world.

In Saudi Arabia, a newspaper reported that a man had offered $10 million to buy just one of what has almost certainly become the world’s most famous pair of black dress shoes.

A daughter of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, reportedly awarded the shoe thrower, Muntader al-Zaidi, a 29-year-old journalist, a medal of courage.

[...]

In Syria, Mr. Zaidi’s picture was shown all day on state television, with Syrians calling in to share their admiration for his gesture and his bravery. In central Damascus, a huge banner hung over a street, reading, “Oh, heroic journalist, thank you so much for what you have done.”

Likewise, in some areas of Iraq, al-Zaidi is finding support:

Protestors in Sadr City, the bastion of radical anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr … threw shoes at passing US military vehicles, while in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, the crowds chanted “Down with America”.

And there’s more:

Saddam Hussein’s former lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said he was forming a team to defend Zaidi and that around 200 lawyers, including Americans, had offered their services for free.

And more:

Venezuela’s anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez said on Monday that an Iraqi reporter who flung his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush was courageous.

So, al-Zaidi has found fans among anti-democratic regimes, followers of an Islamist demagogue, the lunatic Chavez, and the lawyer of Iraq’s former dictator. But, still, al-Zaidi is a progressive, right? An Iraqi David against an American Goliath, a selfless supporter of the oppressed, a man whose feelings welled up so strongly he felt he had to do something.

Maybe not.

Al-Zeidi may have also been motivated by what a colleague described as a boastful, showoff personality.

“He was very boastful, arrogant and always showing off,” said Zanko Ahmed, a Kurdish journalist who attended a journalism training course with al-Zeidi in Lebanon. “He tried to raise topics to show that nobody is as smart as he is.”

Ahmed recalled that al-Zeidi spoke glowingly of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose followers organized protests Monday to demand his release.

“Regrettably, he didn’t learn anything from the course in Lebanon, where we were taught ethics of journalism and how to be detached and neutral,” Ahmed said.

Then there’s this:

Zaidi’s colleagues in Baghdad, where he had worked for three years, said he had long been planning to throw shoes at Bush if ever he got the chance.

“Muntazer detested America. He detested the US soldiers, he detested Bush,” said one on condition of anonymity.

So, it seems that al-Zaidi may in fact be a showoff who had long been planning this supposedly ’spontaneous’ protest. Al-Zaidi’s apparent support for Muqtada al-Sadr also challenges the claim that he is just representing ‘ordinary Iraqis’, and it turns out that he has another anti-American hero:

A day after the incident, al-Zeidi’s three brothers and one sister gathered in al-Zeidi’s simple, one-bedroom apartment in west Baghdad. The home was decorated with a poster of Latin American revolutionary leader Che Guevara, who is widely lionized in the Middle East.

Let’s take these one at a time. Al-Zaidi is remembered as someone who spoke ‘glowingly’ of Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr is an Islamist extremist. Of course, this isn’t something that bothers everyone on the ‘progressive Left’. Indeed, in 2006 the Socialist Workers Party and the Stop The War Coalition invited his representative to speak at the anti-war rally in London.

Al-Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army, is a disgusting clerical fascist outfit with a particular love for killing gay people, as Peter Tatchell reported in 2007:

The Madhi Army has been involved in the torture and execution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Iraqis – and many other Iraqis, especially women, who do not conform to its harsh, perverse interpretation of Islam … Muqtada al-Sadr’s men have adopted a new tactic, borrowed from the Iranian secret police. They are posing as gays in online chatrooms, in order to lure gay men, arrange dates and kill them.

Al-Sadr’s backers are worth noting:

According to Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based pan-Arab newspaper, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force established three military training camps in Qasr-i Shirin, ‘Ilam, and Hamid, on the Iranian side of the Iran-Iraq border to train Jaysh al-Mahdi elements. A former Quds Force official cited in Asharq al-Awsat claims the Iranians have trained between 800 and 1,200 Iraqi supporters of Muqtada in espionage and reconnoitering in addition to standard military arts. There are also reports that the Iranian embassy in Baghdad has distributed 400 international cell phones to supporters of Muqtada as well as to clerics in Sadr City and Najaf. In addition to communications and logistical support, Iran provides $80 million a month in direct aid to Muqtada’s movement. The Iranian support is controversial. According to one critic, “Behind al-Sadr’s phenomenon and money are the most extremist and anti-democratic governing bodies in Iran which seek to settle its account with the international community with the blood of the Iraqis.”

The Iranian regime is also providing a route into Iraq for extremists linked to al-Sadr. For example, there is this report, from February of this year:

The Sadrist Shi’ites in Iraq, led by Muqtada Al-Sadr, have declared a three-day mourning period for Imad Mughniya.

An Iraqi security source said that Mughniya had entered Iraq via Iran, and had trained some 500 members of the Mahdi Army, which belongs to the Sadrists.

He added that he had also trained a number of squads in planning and carrying out assassinations within Iraq.

These are the credentials of one of the men al-Zaidi is said to admire. Then there’s Che Guevara. Things don’t get any better here. Che was a man who considered Americans ‘fit only for extermination’, wanted to launch a nuclear attack on New York City, and set up forced labour camps for gay men.

So, what are we to make of all this? The picture of Muntadhar al-Zaidi that emerges is far from one of an average Iraqi man opposed to American ‘tyranny’. Instead, we find an admirer of violent religious and political extremists, and a self-publicist with ‘revolutionary’ pretensions. An ideal candidate for membership of the Socialist Workers Party, no doubt, but not a man worthy of support, no matter what we might think of George Bush.

Once again, Azarmehr of the excellent ‘For a democratic secular Iran’ blog hits the nail on the head:

What would have happened if the Arab so called journalist who threw his shoe at President Bush, as he claimed ‘for all the mothers and orphans of Iraq?’, had thrown his shoe at Saddam Hussein? For Saddam certainly made thousands of mothers mourn for their sons and thousands of Iraqis had become orphans as a result of Saddam’s massacres.

If Muntazer al-Zaidi was critical of Bush’s policies, as he had a legitimate right to, he could have posed them as questions during the press conference in a civilised manner, something he would have never dared under Saddam.

It seems very likely that this wasn’t really about Iraq and it wasn’t about Bush; instead, it was all about al-Zaidi and his desire to be seen as some kind of anti-American hero. It seems he’s got his way, as Azarmehr notes:

it shows how twisted the values of some people are when as a result of throwing his shoe, Muntazer al-Zaidi becomes a hero and a poem on an Islamist website praises him as “a hero with a lion’s heart”.

Indeed.

A big focus online at the moment is on the allegedly harsh treatment meted out on al-Zaidi immediately following the shoe throwing incident. This also needs to be put into perspective. Iraq is still a volatile country and in the current climate throwing any kind of missile at the President of the USA is unlikely to be taken lightly. If this beating happened after al-Zaidi had been taken into custody this is of course totally unacceptable, but if he sustained his injuries while being wrestled away this is not entirely without justification. For all the authorities knew, al-Zaidi could have been a suicide bomber.

We’re talking about a country in which in recent weeks terrorist murderers have killed 15 people, including civilians, in attacks aimed at an Iraqi police academy, a suicide bomber in Mosul has killed 14 and wounded 30, and a women’s rights activist has been beheaded.

Muntadhar al-Zaidi’s ‘protest’ was juvenile and irresponsible and did nothing to further the cause of democracy and stability in Iraq. What is a promising sign of improvements is the fact that a judge is investigating the alleged abuse of al-Zaidi. Under Saddam, such abuse would have been only a prelude to further torments, quite possibly extended to al-Zaidi’s family as well. This is something those who cheer on the Iraqi ‘resistance’ would do well to remember.