.Roger Cohen: Two shoes for democracy
NEW YORK: Of all the questions Barack Obama needs to ask right now, the most important should be addressed to the Secret Service: How the heck did Muntader al-Zaidi get his second shoe off?
Al-Zaidi, of course, is the Iraqi television journalist who expressed his rage at the U.S. occupation of his country by hurling first one shoe, then the other, at President George W. Bush in Baghdad. He's now in detention.
As for his shoes, they're not going to end up on some gilded stand in a dusty museum somewhere in the Arab world. They've apparently been destroyed at a laboratory during a search for explosives. Yes, you read that right.
The shadow of Richard Reid, the would-be shoe-bomber of 2001 whom most regular air travelers would happily submit to protracted torture, extends even to Iraq. One thing's for sure: Al-Zaidi, now a hero in much of the Arab world, won't be short of replacement footwear once he emerges from captivity.
When that will be is anyone's guess. He's apologized to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Bush has urged the Iraqis "not to overreact."
One theory is that time enough is needed for the journalist's bruises to fade. One certainty is that the pummeling he got was as intense as the reaction to what he did was slow. A second shoe is one too many. Change the last letter in shoe and you have shot.
These, however, were mere shoes. The throwing of them was offensive - and harmless. Journalists should not throw shoes, even at inept American presidents. Still, with apologies to the late E.M. Forster, I'm tempted to call this incident: "Two Shoes for Democracy."
Bush, when the shoes came his way, was in the Green Zone, the walled four-square-mile home to Western officialdom and the Iraqi government that has about as much in common with the rest of Iraq as Zurich has with Falluja.
For all it reflects of Iraqi life beyond its walls in what is sometimes called the Red Zone, the Green Zone might as well be in Baton Rouge.
This sprawling urban garrison, where U.S. forces moved into Saddam Hussein's Mesopotamian Fascist Republican Palace right after the 2003 invasion, is a monument to failure. As long it exists in the center of Baghdad, Iraqi democracy will be hollow.
It is openness, accessibility and accountability that distinguish democracies from dictatorships. Or it should be. A country governed from a fortress inaccessible to 99 percent of its citizens may be many things, but is not yet a democracy.
Al-Zaidi's gesture broke those barriers, penetrated the hermetic sealing, and brought Red-Zone anger to Green-Zone placidity. In this sense, his was a democratic act.
What it said was: "Tear down these walls." What it summoned was the deaths, exile and arbitrary arrests that U.S. incompetence has inflicted on countless Iraqis - a toll on which al-Zaidi has reported. What it did was thrust Bush, for a moment, out of the comfort zone of his extravagant illusion. Perhaps, for a second, the other shoe dropped.
After the incident, I heard from a U.S. friend now serving in the joint security station in Sadr City, the teeming Shiite district of Baghdad from which al-Zaidi hailed. He wrote: "We did not get a fusillade of shoes thrown over the concrete barriers and razor wire. One college engineering student in Sadr basically said re: the press conference incident: 'Well that's the democracy you brought us, right?"'
Or rather, it was a glimmering of such a democracy. Anyone throwing a shoe at Saddam Hussein would have been executed, along with numerous other members of his family, within hours of such an incident. Iraq is slowly learning the give-and-take of a system where differences are accommodated rather than quashed.
But the process is slow. Recovering from murderous despotism takes a minimum of a generation.
Al-Zaidi's anger was that of a Shiite - at the U.S. occupation and at all the loss. There is fury and fear, too, among Sunnis, whose "awakening" dealt a devastating blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq but whose mistrust of the now-dominant Shiite is visceral. Another of Obama's pressing questions should be: Does my 16-month withdrawal timetable risk reigniting sectarian war?
One thing is certain: Before the United States pulls out its combat troops, the Green Zone must cease to exist. While it's there, it's a sign that Iraqis - all Iraqis - have not yet learned to live together. The district chairman in Sadr City said this to my U.S. friend last week: "The Green Zone needs to be deleted."
That was the message in al-Zaidi's gesture. He's being held for insulting a foreign leader and could face long imprisonment. But the Green Zone is an insult to all Iraqis. Al-Zaidi should be released and an Iraqi-American commission on terminating the Green Zone established at once.
Bush dodged a shoe; he cannot dodge shame.
IHT
Al-Zaidi, of course, is the Iraqi television journalist who expressed his rage at the U.S. occupation of his country by hurling first one shoe, then the other, at President George W. Bush in Baghdad. He's now in detention.
As for his shoes, they're not going to end up on some gilded stand in a dusty museum somewhere in the Arab world. They've apparently been destroyed at a laboratory during a search for explosives. Yes, you read that right.
The shadow of Richard Reid, the would-be shoe-bomber of 2001 whom most regular air travelers would happily submit to protracted torture, extends even to Iraq. One thing's for sure: Al-Zaidi, now a hero in much of the Arab world, won't be short of replacement footwear once he emerges from captivity.
When that will be is anyone's guess. He's apologized to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Bush has urged the Iraqis "not to overreact."
One theory is that time enough is needed for the journalist's bruises to fade. One certainty is that the pummeling he got was as intense as the reaction to what he did was slow. A second shoe is one too many. Change the last letter in shoe and you have shot.
These, however, were mere shoes. The throwing of them was offensive - and harmless. Journalists should not throw shoes, even at inept American presidents. Still, with apologies to the late E.M. Forster, I'm tempted to call this incident: "Two Shoes for Democracy."
Bush, when the shoes came his way, was in the Green Zone, the walled four-square-mile home to Western officialdom and the Iraqi government that has about as much in common with the rest of Iraq as Zurich has with Falluja.
For all it reflects of Iraqi life beyond its walls in what is sometimes called the Red Zone, the Green Zone might as well be in Baton Rouge.
This sprawling urban garrison, where U.S. forces moved into Saddam Hussein's Mesopotamian Fascist Republican Palace right after the 2003 invasion, is a monument to failure. As long it exists in the center of Baghdad, Iraqi democracy will be hollow.
It is openness, accessibility and accountability that distinguish democracies from dictatorships. Or it should be. A country governed from a fortress inaccessible to 99 percent of its citizens may be many things, but is not yet a democracy.
Al-Zaidi's gesture broke those barriers, penetrated the hermetic sealing, and brought Red-Zone anger to Green-Zone placidity. In this sense, his was a democratic act.
What it said was: "Tear down these walls." What it summoned was the deaths, exile and arbitrary arrests that U.S. incompetence has inflicted on countless Iraqis - a toll on which al-Zaidi has reported. What it did was thrust Bush, for a moment, out of the comfort zone of his extravagant illusion. Perhaps, for a second, the other shoe dropped.
After the incident, I heard from a U.S. friend now serving in the joint security station in Sadr City, the teeming Shiite district of Baghdad from which al-Zaidi hailed. He wrote: "We did not get a fusillade of shoes thrown over the concrete barriers and razor wire. One college engineering student in Sadr basically said re: the press conference incident: 'Well that's the democracy you brought us, right?"'
Or rather, it was a glimmering of such a democracy. Anyone throwing a shoe at Saddam Hussein would have been executed, along with numerous other members of his family, within hours of such an incident. Iraq is slowly learning the give-and-take of a system where differences are accommodated rather than quashed.
But the process is slow. Recovering from murderous despotism takes a minimum of a generation.
Al-Zaidi's anger was that of a Shiite - at the U.S. occupation and at all the loss. There is fury and fear, too, among Sunnis, whose "awakening" dealt a devastating blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq but whose mistrust of the now-dominant Shiite is visceral. Another of Obama's pressing questions should be: Does my 16-month withdrawal timetable risk reigniting sectarian war?
One thing is certain: Before the United States pulls out its combat troops, the Green Zone must cease to exist. While it's there, it's a sign that Iraqis - all Iraqis - have not yet learned to live together. The district chairman in Sadr City said this to my U.S. friend last week: "The Green Zone needs to be deleted."
That was the message in al-Zaidi's gesture. He's being held for insulting a foreign leader and could face long imprisonment. But the Green Zone is an insult to all Iraqis. Al-Zaidi should be released and an Iraqi-American commission on terminating the Green Zone established at once.
Bush dodged a shoe; he cannot dodge shame.
IHT
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