The Great Shoe

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

A great Arab shoe that sums up the history of the criminal Bush, who claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of the sons of the Arab and Islamic nation, and who tried to carry on with his arrogance, bluster, contemptibility, and depravity until the very last moment of his time in office. Bush perhaps wanted to end his wicked deeds and his bloody historical era by hearing compliments, words of welcome and gratitude from his agents and lackeys in the Arab-Islamic region, but the shoe of the authentic, zealous Arab Muntadhar al-Zaidi came to sum up Bush’s dark history, and to tell the whole world that Arabs stand tall and will remain standing tall, and that the dark nights the Arab regimes have manufactured are, inevitably, destined to pass.

Tomorrow, some writers will pontificate, saying that what Muntadhar al-Zaidi did was uncivilized, and that it is not in keeping with Islamic and Arab manners and morals to throw one’s shoe at the president of the most powerful state on earth. These pontificators see no crime in the killing of hundreds of thousands of our great Iraqi Arab people, yet see in Muntadhar’s shoe something that disfigures the face of Arabs before Western civilization. The man who killed the people of Iraq, destroyed Iraq, and set Iraq back to before recorded history deserves not the slightest respect nor an ounce of regard, deserving nothing but the curses poured upon him by Iraq’s widows and Iraq’s orphans — and the Arab shoe in his face is far too little compared to what he truly deserves.

Muntadhar al-Zaidi possesses neither missiles nor nuclear bombs, but his shoe surpassed all lethal weapons, reducing Bush, and his American administration along with him, to nothing more than a frail mouse bowing its head toward a burrow to shelter it. Muntadhar delivered to Bush a gigantic insult, sized to match the size of the United States and the size of everyone who backed it in its aggression against Iraq. Muntadhar’s shoe has become history, has become a symbol of Arab revenge, and has turned Bush into a dwarf whose worth does not rise above the worth of the shoe itself. Muntadhar’s shoe will enter history, and tomorrow historians will write, and among them will be one whose book is titled: The Shoe.

There are now two shoes in history: Khrushchev’s shoe, and Muntadhar’s shoe. Khrushchev’s shoe was a hammer, while Muntadhar’s shoe was an Arab shell of vengeance in the face of every tyrant on earth who dares to encroach on the Arab nation. Muntadhar’s shoe turned the magician’s own spell against him, and sent Bush back to his pen, humiliated and defeated, unable to muster a word from the depth of his shock and dismay. Perhaps Bush must now vanish before all the smiles and laughter chasing after him in celebration of the historic curse he has received.

Arab writers, jurists, and intellectuals are called upon to rise in defense of Muntadhar al-Zaidi. The Iraqi government will torment Muntadhar and throw him into the darkness of its prisons, but duty demands that those zealous for this nation defend Muntadhar, and not leave him as prey to an Arab regime that takes its orders from Westerners. Muntadhar will become a historic symbol, and the generations of the nation will speak of him, and it is only right that the men and women of the nation devote their energies to defending this man.

Muntadhar’s shoe said: this is what the war on Iraq truly is. They killed the sons of the nation, but the sons of the nation will drive the occupiers out with their shoes. And if there were a single drop of blood in Bush’s face, or an ounce of feeling in the heads of his advisors, they would pack their bags tomorrow and leave Iraq.

Tomorrow I will ask an artist to make a statue of Muntadhar’s shoe, and it will stand tall in the garden of my house.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الحذاء العظيم” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.