When an Iraqi journalist, Muntazir al-Zaidi, threw his shoe at the US president during the latter's last press conference with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, he created a large scale reactions in the Arab World. Most people said his action had been heroic and clearly expressed Iraq's tragedy since the American invasion in 2003 and the successive violations committed by the occupation forces. Moreover, streets in the Arab World were flooded with joy for the insult made to President Bush and the farewell he deserved. Many media pundits in the Arab World have adopted the same approach, as they have portrayed al-Zaidi as an Iraqi hero that our part of the world had been waiting for. By throwing his shoe, this hero became a great fighter who undermined the Bush' and the United States' dignity in the Middle East and the world as a whole. Let me leave these empty verbal exaggerations aside and let me propose the issue which I think is fundamental when dealing with the shoe incident. I am fully aware of the tragedy of the Iraqi people and, if I can say so, I have been suffering with them as any Arab who feels pain for what is happening in a brotherly Arab country or as a human being who rejects and revolts against injustice. I also condemn the great sin committed by the Bush administration by invading Iraq and the chain of grave errors in which this administration has been involved since after the occupation. Yet, I do not feel any sympathy with this journalist and I have three reasons for this. Firstly, attacking or attempting to jeopardize the personal safety of any human being, whoever he or she is, is an action to be condemned and cannot be justified. Yes, George Bush has led one of the worst American administrations in contemporary history, an administration that reduced this great power's foreign policy to the mere use of its military machine and has violated human rights in Iraq and in several other places, like Guantanamo, for example. Yet all this horror does not give any ethical or political right to those (and they are many) harmed by the Bush's policies to attack him or his dignity as a human being. This act is to be condemned because it clearly contradicts human rights and the need to respect them, even when it comes to an American president who is responsible for many atrocities. Secondly, the fact that it was a journalist who threw the shoe is another reason why this action should be rejected. Journalists' tools when they meet official government representatives, whether at a press conference or in public meetings, are questions, answers and verbal opposition. The fact that this journalist resorted to violence, even through a symbolic act, is condemned by all charters of the press, which also demand that the governments and their representatives abide by peaceful actions when dealing with the press. Through this action, al Zaidi has the press's peaceful nature and has, thus, harmed himself and, indirectly, harmed his profession. Thirdly, such acts of violence, whether symbolic or physical, do not help very much our real causes. Its only effect is to temporarily express the condition of popular rejection and denunciation dominating the Arab World. Indeed, being overjoyed at this act and surrounding it with a false halo of heroism shows a lack of reason and a need to consider how to cope with the US presence in Iraq and the bad nature of the world superpower's policies.
