Muntazar Al-Zaidi: ‘It was just a shoe, but it had a mouth’, excerpt Shadow World (2016)

Look, these shoes were a symbol of denunciation. When George Bush invaded Iraq, he justified it with a lie. Many lies. Among these he said that the Iraqis will welcome us with flowers. He said it in a press conference. For the American and the Arab media that supported the Iraqi invasion this statement by George Bush became iconic.

Though you will never see an image of Iraqis greeting Americans with flowers. You just heard about it. So, I was looking for a symbolic act that would be equally iconic to show that the Iraqis didn’t greet George Bush with flowers but bid him farewell with shoes. So the world would wake up to the gravity of the perpetrated crimes.

It was just a shoe, but it had a mouth.