|
|
Newsletter Number 39 22 December 2008
|
|||
An Open Letter to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani -- from the ad hoc committee of Grenoble Students for a Democratic Society A shoe?… a pie?… A Statement!
“A last kiss, you dog, from all the widows and orphans you have created!”
Dear Mr. President, Muntathar al-Zaidi, the twenty nine year-old correspondent who threw his shoes at the US president George W. Bush, is facing today a severe sentence of seven to fifteen years in prison for attempted murder. The harshness of this sentence is due to the Iraqi judge’s interpretation of the act as an attempt to ‘kill’ the president. This actually means that if Muntathar al-Zaidi had used a gun instead of his shoes and shot at the president but missed him, he would probably face the same charges. The flagrant contrast between the two situations demonstrates that the official reading of the act completely misses the point, for the guy’s aim was not to assassinate the American president, but simply to make a statement by shaming him. Indeed, the symbolic gesture boldly carried out by the Iraqi journalist is reminiscent of the long cherished tradition of ‘pie-ing’ in Western culture. This practice which consists of splattering an unpopular public figure with a cream pie has been widely accepted as ‘the dispossessed’s last resort to voice his/her opinion’. As Aaron Kay, widely known as ‘the pieman’, explains: ‘pie-ing is an essential tool for deflating the pomposity of these politicians and commentators. I considered myself a defender of justice. But believe me, I still have a list of people who need to be pied." His targets have already included numerous politicians and public personalities, such as Canadian PM Jean Chretien, former Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ex-CIA chief William Colby, conservative Phyllis Schlafly, liberal California Gov. Jerry Brown, economist Milton Friedman, and the list goes on. . . . Gradually this practice gained prominence as a form of defiance to powerful public figures and became deeply imbedded in the Western political culture of dissent.. Its ultimate aim was never to physically harm the target, but, in the words of Rodney Barker, ‘to point out to the general public that the emperor doesn’t have as many clothes as he thinks he does’. Put another way, pie-ing is essentially a humbling experience which aims at the dignity of the person in question in order to knock him down a peg or two. From this standpoint, parallels between al-Zaidi’s shoe throwing and pie throwing become unquestioned. Al-Zaidi’s gesture was interpreted differently by the media. The point of intersection, however, is that this act is a most degrading gesture in Arab culture. While this comes as part of the western media’s continual essentialist representation of the Arab culture by trying to reduce it to a monolithic whole, it’s evident, however, that the ultimate aim of al-Zaidi’s protest was to debase the “Emperor,” or more accurately the messenger of the U.S. corporate oligarchy. Indeed, al-Zaidi did not shout ‘Allah Akbar’ nor ‘death to the president’ when throwing his shoes, one after the other, but he rather screamed at the top of his lungs calling Bush “kelb” (which means “dog”), thereby fueling the message behind his symbolic gesture to demean the American president. As such, al-Zaidi’s act should be seen, not as an attempt to do physical harm to the president, but rather as a spontaneous reaction of a person who witnessed firsthand the destruction of his nation and the mass murder of his fellow citizens “a last kiss from all the widows and orphans you have created!” Seen in this light, Muntathar al-Zaidi’s protest can be interpreted as a long-awaited renaissance of humanism in Iraq, reclaiming humanity’s the freedom of expression. In the case of pie-ing in the United States, the most severe sanction was issued in San Francisco, California by judge Ernest H. Goldsmith against the three pie-throwers who attempted to humiliate Mayor Willie Brown. They each received a sentence of 6 months in the county jail which was interpreted as ‘draconian’ by most citizens of San Francisco. On similar grounds, we think that Muntathar al-Zaidi’s action should be interpreted as an expression of free speech, primitive, a little violent, for sure, but as Asad Abu Khalil, professor of politics at California State University, Stanislaus and editor of the Angry Arab blog, quipped, "The fellow would have preferred rotten eggs and tomatoes if they were as easy to sneak through the tight security checks as ... shoes.”In a nutshell, condemning al-Zaidi to such a heavy sentence is to condemn freedom expression, which is central to a healthy democracy. Hence, we students of Grenoble join the massive mobilization to demand the most urgently needed guarantee of safety and of fair treatment, and the early release of the Iraqi journalist, Muntathar al-Zaidi, who, by credible reports, has already been subject to sever beatings and other abuses by Iraqi security forces. Such a reversal of official policy, on your part, President Talabani, would encourage freedom of expression in your region. We believe that this would ultimately contribute to the development of a flourishing of democracy which has been one of the stated purposes of Bush’s foreign policy in Iraq: namely, “to spread the blessings of democracy, freedom of speech, and human rights to the rest of the world.” We hope that you will not hamper this cause with an excessive use of force.
|
||||
