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The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 4, January 30-February 12, 2009

One Size Did Not Fit All

One day after it was unveiled, a sculpture of a shoe erected in the Iraqi city of Tikrit honoring Muntadhir al-Zaidi was taken down on the orders of the local Salaheddin Provincial Joint Coordination Centre. Muntadhir al-Zaidi famously threw his show at President George W. Bush last year at a press conference.

According to the New York Times, "the artwork arrived and was removed during a period of political anxiety, with elections in Iraq set for [that] Saturday."

Hundreds of people had gathered to see the monument unveiled just a day earlier in the gardens of the Tikrit Orphanage, an Iraqi foundation that cares for children whose parents died following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The statue was a brown shoe on a white pedestal, 10 ft high, with a poem praising Al-Zaidi at its base, said the BBC. At the base of the shoe was a bush.

The sofa-sized sculpture, insists artist Laith al-Amari, was not a political work, but a "source of pride for all Iraqis," according to the BBC.

Orphanage Director Faten Abdulqader al-Naseri told CNN, "The orphans helped Al-Amiri build the $5,000 structure in 15 days. Those orphans who helped the sculptor in building this monument were the victims of Bush's war. The shoe monument is a gift to the next generation to remember the heroic action by the journalist."

Al-Zaidi became famous after calling out to Mr. Bush, who was on his final visit to Iraq as president, "This is from the widows, the orphans, and those who were killed in Iraq." Upon throwing the shoe he shouted, "This is a farewell kiss, you dog." While Mr. Bush dodged the shoe and responded amicably following the incident, Al-Zaidi was arrested and awaits trial.

After removing the sculpture, Shahah Daham, head of the charity that runs the orphanage, told Deutche Presse-Agentur (DPA), "I did take the shoe down immediately and destroyed it; and I did not ask why."

Salaheddin's deputy governor, Abdullah Jabara, told DPA that "children should be put away from any political-related issues. Since this is an orphanage, this monument can instill in children's hearts things for which the time is not now."

According to Alissa Rubin, the New York Times' Baghdad bureau chief, "Hitting someone with a shoe is considered the supreme insult in Iraq. It means that the target is even lower than the shoe, which is always on the ground and dirty."

Gary Sick, senior research scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, told the New York Times, "I think it is symbolic of something very real. Whatever one thinks about the results of the Bush administration policies, they've been profoundly unpopular in the region." He referred to the show-throwing as "a gesture by one disgruntled individual. He was taking advantage of his being within range and using the weapons he had in hand. A lot of people in the Arab world felt this was appropriate. They found it amusing."