|
Fortune awaits famed Iraq shoe-thrower
A Gulf emir has promised him a horse of solid gold, businessmen have offered a sports car, but colleagues of the famed shoe-thrower of Baghdad are convinced that when he comes out of jail next week he will simply go back to work.A little-known reporter for a small, privately-owned Iraqi television channel, Muntazer Al-Zaidi leapt to fame on Dec. 14 last year when he hurled his footwear at then US president George W. Bush on his farewell visit to the country he ordered invaded and occupied six years ago. That momentary act of defiance earned Zaidi a year's imprisonment for assaulting a foreign head of state. It also won him admiration across the Arab world with offers of plum jobs, marriage, or even a career in politics flooding in. But Al-Baghdadia television colleague Mohammed Wadeh is convinced that Zaidi will resist the temptation to exploit his celebrity status to leave his homeland and seek his fortune in Beirut or Cairo. Some of the Arab world's best known satellite television stations have offered him jobs as an anchorman but "he refused them all," Wadeh said. "Al-Baghdadia has supported him and helped him a lot and I don't think he will quit the channel." One thing that may change however is Zaidi's living conditions. When he was detained last year, his home was a humble two-room flat off a stairwell littered with graffiti and rubbish. But when he leaves prison next week, his boss at Al-Baghdadia has promised to buy him a penthouse apartment to repay him for the publicity he has won for the formerly little-known Cairo-based channel. His brother Durgham lives in the same rundown block just across the landing from Zaidi's flat. A huge photograph of the more renowned sibling adorns the living room wall. Durgham says the attention lavished on his brother has been amazing. "We have had pledges of money, the emir of Qatar promised a golden horse, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi said he would award him Libya's highest honor, other people said they would buy him a sports car." Zaidi's defiance of the man whose orders for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted regime plunged Iraq into a spiral of insurgency and sectarian bloodshed has inevitably made him a particular hero for opponents of the US-led occupation. Zaidi is himself drawn from Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority and he is lionized by those within it who have opposed the policy of cooperation with Washington adopted by the mainstream Shiite parties that now lead the Baghdad government. The 30-year-old journalist has become a particular hero for the Shiite radical movment of anti-US cleric Moqtada Sadr which led two uprisings against the US-led occupation in 2004. "Muntazer is a courageous man," said Sadr movement spokesman Salah Al-Obeidi. "His release will be a great victory for everyone opposed to the occupation." But Zaidi has also become a potent symbol for Saddam loyalists from among Iraq's ousted Sunni Arab elite. "Some former military officers from the Saddam era contacted us to say that if he stood as a candidate in the next parliamentary elections, lots of people would for vote for him," Durgham said. "But Muntazer doesn't want to be a politician, he wants to stay liked. "He has told us, though, that he will give no quarter to anyone who tries to deprive Iraqis of their rights." Durgham says that his brother's future plans remain fluid but that he is keen to do good with the money he has been promised. Building an orphanage or a help center for the many widows of the dark years of conflict figure high among his plans. Posted by: Fred 2009-09-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=278752 |