Saturday, January 31, 2009

Gigantic Shoe in Tikrit, Iraq

(Or, how you just can't keep a good idea down.)


Source
BAGHDAD,
January 29.

A sculpture of a gigantic shoe has been installed in Tikrit (180 kilometers north of Baghdad) as a tribute to Iraqi journalist Muntazer al Zaidi, who hurled his shoes at former US President George W. Bush.

The work by Baghdad artist Laith al-Ameri measures three meters high by two-and-a-half wide and represents a shoe in which a tree has been planted.

The sculpture was inaugurated Tuesday in the garden of the Children’s Foundation, an Iraqi organization that cares for children whose parents died as victims of the violence unleashed in the country since the US invasion of March 2003.

The sculpture "is a gift to the family of Muntazer al Zaida, a hero whose act of protest permitted all Iraqis to stand tall," said Faten Massiri, an official at the Foundation, during a ceremony attended by the institution’s director Chaha al Juburi.

On December 14, 2008, the journalist stood up in the middle of a press conference being held by Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki and shouted "this is the farewell kiss, you dog," and threw his two shoes at the US president, reported AFP.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

if the Iraqis use their democracy similarly to Americans, then they will re-construct shoe sculpture after U.S. forces leave -- twice as big

Sheilanagig said...

or maybe redo it with two shoes and bush's head sculpted into the base?

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