Final act

In departing from the script the truth was finally told, writes Ramzy Baroud

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The plot thickened in Iraq on a Sunday like no other. The two main actors -- US President George W Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki -- took the stage for another well-rehearsed press conference. The scripts were predictable: Bush was there to tout the "progress" achieved in Iraq and Al-Maliki to express gratitude for the freedom bestowed on his country. Both men were to caution against overstated optimism and to forewarn of the great challenges to come. The two partners were to shake hands, smile and walk away. Things, however, did not go according to plan on 14 December.

A surprise appearance by the then little-known Iraqi journalist Muntadhar Al-Zaidi provided a most unpredictable conclusion to the public performance held in Baghdad's Green Zone theatre. Joint press conferences of US and Iraqi officials have for years concluded, more or less, according to plan. Since the toppling of president Saddam Hussein's statue in 2003 few have dared to violate the carefully prepared, monotonous media appearances, which often end with a handshake, unconvincing smiles, and the muttering of disgruntled journalists.

Al-Zaidi changed all that when he hurled his shoes at President Bush just as the two main actors were scheduled to exit the stage, compelling the US president to duck twice, escaping the makeshift and largely symbolic weapon. Truth be told, Bush's timely dodges were as impressive as Al-Zaidi's pitches.

Much has been said of Al-Zaidi's act which will secure a permanent footnote in history books for the footwear of one Iraqi man. Poems, computer games and artwork have already taken Al-Zaidi's shoes as their subject and one rich Arab has reportedly offered millions of dollars for the pair of shoes that were meant as a farewell kiss to Bush. While most Americans are likely to remember Bush's legacy as that of a man who guided his nation into unprecedented economic mayhem, Iraqis will remember him as a brutal, self-righteous zealot who invited bloodshed and humiliation and destroyed a once magnificent civilisation.

According to the US government's logic Iraq is better off than ever before. As for the millions of lives that have been lost and the millions of Iraqis on the run, their plight is the price of freedom and democracy, precious US commodities that must be paid for in blood. Americans, and the Iraqi government Washington sanctions, are never to blame for any wrong doing. Iraq's tragedy is always someone else's fault, the making of elusive terrorists whose identities and sources of funds change according to Washington's political mood. The insurgents, as they were called until recently, were initially Baath Party loyalists and disgruntled Sunnis. They morphed into foreign fighters, Al-Qaeda sympathisers, copy-cats, Al-Qaeda itself, then Iranian agents in cahoots with rogue Shia militants loyal to whatever character doesn't suit the interests of the US and its allies. New actors were occasionally added to the Green Zone's ever predictable play, unwanted characters were swiftly removed and the play repeatedly rewritten.

Then Al-Zaidi showed up and hurled his shoes at a grinning Bush who had just finished shaking Al-Maliki's hand and was ready to conclude his own ominous chapter in Iraq, one filled with too many lies and deceit to count.

As Al-Zaidi was being dragged away by Iraqi security -- who must have tried to impress their American security counterparts by teaching him a lesson in good manners, Abu Ghraib-style -- the script writers, stage directors and actors were likely to have been summoned to discuss what CNN described as a "security breach" but which more accurately could be describes as a departure from the script. Their orders would have been as straightforward as always -- create a parallel reality to the anti-occupation fervour and bloodbath outside by staging a play that depicts the occupier as a friendly, obliging outsider, violence against the Iraqi people as war on terror and government corruption as fostering democracy and good governance. Naturally, the moment Al-Zaidi flung his shoes at a cowering Bush a new, haphazard play was drafted, mixing the painful reality outside the Green Zone with the comforting illusions inside. If the Al-Zaidi episode is to be credited with one thing it should be for tossing up the terminology of the two stages. Bush has been called a "dog" by angry Iraqis for years, though never in a press conference. Iraqis mourned their dead, cried for their orphans and widows, millions of them, outside the Green Zone, but never inside. An Iraqi man, Muntadhar Al-Zaidi, in a seemingly fleeting moment, changed everything.

What also confused the script is that Al-Zaidi was not Al-Qaeda, or an Al-Qaeda sympathiser, not a foreign fighter, not a member of the dissolved Baath Party. Nor was he affiliated with it in any way. Any such affiliation would fit perfectly with the political and media scripts that seek to demonise the man as an enemy of the Iraqi people, stability, democracy, freedom, and the rest of the redundant clichés. Al-Zaidi is simply an Iraqi who has, as a journalist, highlighted the suffering of his people as politely, objectively and professionally as he could and when he could no longer tolerate the lies told in the Green Zone's ever malicious drama, abandoned the script altogether, chucking his shoes at the main actor: "This is a farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." His words, uttered for the first time in the Green Zone, echoed the voices of millions of Iraqis outside who have chanted them for six long, tragic years.

The writer is editor of PalestineChronicle.com.