BY FREEMAN BRANDYWINE
There is something a bit uncomfortable about how amused many people are by the recent “shoe-throwing” incident, in which Muntadhar al-Zaidi tossed his shoes at President Bush during a press conference in the Green Zone of Iraq in a gesture of condemnation. The event has turned into an internet meme phenom, with parodies abounding and many an inane comment made about Bush’s acrobatic dodging abilities. A great deal of Americans have since, undoubtedly with a certain amount of seriousness, suggested that they, too, would like to throw their shoes at Bush. It would not be surprising if something to this effect did take place, and it seems all but inevitable that poster boards across the country will now regularly invoke remonstrative footwear. But what are Americans actually saying by doing this, by performing or alluding to an action that, outside of the Middle East and India, is largely inoffensive? What is the impact of a form of protest to which its significance is not, so to speak, “organic” to the culture of the protester? Websites have since become overwhelmed with memes jokingly supplementing al-Zaidi’s shoes for items presumably assumed by their creators to be similarly innocuous and bereft of connotative substance: beach balls, baseballs, and so on. To many Americans, there is an implicit joke in al-Zaidi’s method of denunciation, and yet they have adopted it as a potent symbol of indignation and restless dissent.
But what happens to the value of a form of protestation if it is mitigated by such a smiling reference?
Al-Zaidi – who, it must be noted, is a journalist: someone who should ostensibly show greater deference and impartiality in such a situation; but he is also someone undoubtedly affected in profoundly upsetting ways by this war, in ways that few Americans can possibly imagine – made a brave, public gesture in signification of his discontent; indeed, he did it in a manner that bore an unseemly tinge of violence, and its symbolism – though pungent as a blunt visual – may not have been particularly profound or articulate, but its visceral significance is powerful and hard to deny. The fact that many Americans, to whom the act would otherwise be devoid of any meaning, are now considering a similar method of public denouncement is indicative of this. The difference is that where al-Zaidi threw his shoes in contempt, any American who does so would be performing an almost satirical act of imitation: the thrust of the gesture would not be one of scorn – even though a disregard for Bush may very well be present in the action – but of reference; minds would turn to al-Zaidi, not to Bush. Al-Zaidi was furious, as so many of us are; he made a potent and compelling gesture of this. And yet the alien nature of his attack has, for many Americans and Europeans, turned this anger into a joke with an uncomfortably Orientalist bent.
