Ka-Blog!

Muntadar al-Zeidi will be, from hereon, a household name for years to come.  While many will think of him as notorious, millions, if not billions, around the globe applaud his most memorable act to date: throw shoes at Bush and call him a dog.

I watched the deed over CNN this morning—a man throwing a pair of shoes at Bush who appeared to be having a press conference.  I learned later that Bush was in a hush-hush last visit to a country he ravaged with unjust war.  Al-Zeidi also called him a dog before throwing his footwear against the US President.

Succeeding reports educated me that throwing/hitting someone with a shoe and calling him a dog are the worst insults an Iraqi may hurl against another person.  An Iraqi at the receiving end of those insults is driven to great shame.  Bush’s response?  “So what if he threw shoes at me?”

But even with Bush’s apparently nonchalant response, I think it was false bravado on his part.  Even to a non-Iraqi, Al-Zeidi’s act is hugely embarrassing.  That Bush is (still) the President of the lone superpower and is the holder of the most powerful office in the world should magnify the insults a million-fold.  That billions around the world must be viewing it again and again should multiply it even more.

This incident will be one of the things Bush will be most remembered about even when he is no longer President.

Now, was Al-Zeidi justified in doing it?  Let me put it this way—if your country were ravaged by a war justified on totally baseless claims (WMD); if millions of your countrymen were dead because of it; if foreign aggressors are still occupying your country; and if the brains (now, this is a misnomer) behind all these comes to your country still saying he was right, won’t you feel the same degree of rage that this journalist felt?

Don’t get me wrong—I was shocked by what I saw on TV and I was still shocked when I reviewed it on YouTube.  I asked myself how a United States President could be treated in such a manner.

But when I put myself in Al-Zeidi’s shoes (pun intended), I can’t bring myself to denounce him.  I believe he was feeling the same towering rage Senator Mar Roxas felt when he called gloria’s cha-cha “Putang-ina!” And if I can bring myself to understand Roxas, why can’t I understand Al-Zeidi?

In fact, my only problem with the Iraqi journalist was his aim.