Radiolab - The Shoe Thrower

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

When no one seems to be listening, how far do you go to be heard? In December 2008, George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Baghdad for a press conference. And at the very end of his remarks, a shoe came flying past his head.  It was “the shoe heard around the world,” and countless jokes and memes ensued.  But in the pandemonium, many missed the story of the man at the center: Muntadhar Al-Zaidi, a weary journalist trying to get the world to see the Iraq War in a different light. Even fewer people know what happened to him after.  Nearly two decades later, Radiolab reporter Sarah Qari tracked Al-Zaidi down to learn the story of his life. What she found was a story about grief, anger, and the line where journalism ends and protest begins. Special thanks to Azmat Khan and Mustafa Salim. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Sarah Qari, with help from Mariam Dwedar Translation by - Mais Al-Bayaa and Mariam Dwedar Produced by - Sarah Qari Sound design contributed by - Sarah Qari  Mixed by - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger and Heba ElorbanyLATERAL CUTS: If you liked this episode and want to hear more fascinating deep dives we’ve done on The War on Terror, check out our episode: 60 Words (https://radiolab.org/podcast/60-words), or our series The Other Latif (https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/other-latif) EPISODE CITATIONS:Collaborator’s Work -  Mariam Dwedar  Made in Palestine (https://zpr.io/JBAuqi5zyZMT) - a documentary short @mariamdwedar - Instagram handle Mais Al-Bayaa Iraq Uncovered (https://zpr.io/ebuUcjSFcUJp) - documentary Iraq’s Secret Sex Trade (https://zpr.io/u9HnCWmnQggG) - documentary Go Back to Where You Came From (https://zpr.io/J8rxafGCCgUA) - documentary @maisalbayaa - Instagram Journal Articles _ The Art of Shoe-Throwing: Shoes as a Symbol of Protest and Popular Imagination (https://zpr.io/6gmuuavLWuHu),  by Yasmin Ibrahim Films -  The President’s Cake (https://zpr.io/bjFeNa2qFYvD) - The story of life in Iraq under sanctions during the 1990s. Inspired by the shoe throw -  Photos of shoe protests around the world (https://zpr.io/QsMGyWeK8MRR) This music video (https://zpr.io/Xi5XhHYmWFHv) This Halloween costume (https://zpr.io/fH97iB4fjL9U) This play (https://zpr.io/Naj7vWaYfzpv) If you want more fun facts that didn’t make it into the story, follow Sarah at @bysarahqari on Instagram, where she’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks. Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [e-mail] support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Just before we start, this episode discusses war, casualties of war, and torture. It may not be suitable for young or sensitive listeners. Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab.

Radio Lab. From W-N-Y. C. See? Yeah. This is Radio Lab. Matif Daser, and today we have a story from our reporter, Sara Khari. Okay, so a couple months ago, I got in the studio to do this interview that I'd been trying to make happen for close to a year.

Hello. Hi, Sarah. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. I'd been trying to connect with this Iraqi guy in Baghdad. But things were not really going to plan. So we are waiting.

Hmm. It turns out my interviewee was taking his time having a little tea. after his lunch, and then after about 45 minutes, he shows up. Yeah, ahl'u'n. Ahlana, and I'mtadur. How halle. And Sarah, did you speak Arabic? No, no.

You don't speak Arabic? Only a little bit. We fumbled through, mostly me, doing the fumbling. Shai, shahy, shrieh, with the help of... Sarah and Mays. Iraqi journalist, Mace Al-Beya. Mais. Mays, thank you, welcome, God.

Aheem big. But then... We have one hour one, right? We have one hour. Right, Sarah? So I was hoping to talk to you for longer because I want to get lots of details about your life and tell your story. And I don't want to miss any details. Okay, I hope you have another question or new questions.

You have new questions. It was pretty clear that he was sick of talking about the one thing that I really wanted to ask him about. And if you're feeling frustrated, just tell me. Don't worry, I will tell you. Which is what? Well, okay, so maybe let's just start with interesting. Introduce yourself and tell me why you're famous. I'm my name is Monteverazadee.

My name is Monteverazadee. And I'm ramied Zouge Aheppi and I threw my shoes at George W. Bush. Oh, yeah. Do you remember him? Yeah, I remember that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, just in case, for anyone who doesn't remember,

let me just do a quick refresher. Okay, yeah. It's December 14, 2008, more than five years into the war in Iraq, and George W. Bush makes a surprise visit to Baghdad, where he's giving a press conference. Thank you for your kind invitation. Next to him is Noreal Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq. And I'm looking forward to some food. Now, officially, Bush is there to sign an agreement, shake some hands.

You're leaving the next president with a stable foundation for the future. As he's on his way out. at the end of his second term. But he's also clearly trying to make this point that in his eyes... But with the conclusion of these agreements, it is decisively on its way to being won. The war has been a success.

At the end, he says, thank you in Arabic. Shukhina is era. And then... Whoa. Holy. So you see this guy just sort of pops out of the crowd out of nowhere and throws a shoe and George Bush dodges it. And then he throws a second one and Maliki tries to swap that one out of the way.

Yeah. And then it's just chaos. He's tackled to the ground. They're dragging him out and then the cliff ends. Yeah. It's so quick. I know. It's so quick.

And it blows up. I mean. Extraordinary things took place. You know, it's basically top of the news across the globe. George W. Bush, but. And the clip is all over the internet. Paul, the shoe heard around the world. It's really as viral as something can be in 2008.

Yeah. But even today, I feel like with most people, if you're like, hey, that shoe-throw guy, they're like, oh, yeah. I remember it feeling silly. Right. I mean, and definitely there were some, like, how dare he kind of reactions, but generally. Nope. Oh!

here in the U.S. It's slightly painful. It was as much late night show fodder as it was news. Shoe me once. Shoes on you. And for so many people, their main reaction was like... Pretty quick, moving pretty quick. George W. Bush was weirdly agile there, like props to him.

He was quick on his feet. I remember that. And he did a little side to side. Looks like we finally found something President Bush is good at. Dodgeball. And you know, for me... me, when this happened, I was 14 years old. I was growing up in a very Muslim immigrant community, going to Islamic school, you know, in this post-9-11 war on terror era, very aware of like how so many

people had died in Iraq. And like a lot of people, I had a very intuitive understanding of the anger and frustration that this guy was expressing. But at the same time, I'll admit, like, I just sort of thought he was like a random crazy guy. You know, I think there was that much to it. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like a rash move made in anger. But fast forward to today with everything that is happening in the world right now and things that the U.S. is contributing to in Gaza, in Lebanon, and now in Iran, it feels like we're in another never-ending sort of out-of-control war. Very unpopular war.

Very unpopular. Right. I just find myself flashing back to that era and specifically to that guy. Huh. And so a while back, I just looked him up. And the first thing I learned was that he was a journalist, like an Iraqi journalist. Oh, I didn't know that. Same. And suddenly I was like, oh, okay, like this act of throwing a shoe, I mean, it's not what anybody is supposed to do, but it's especially not what journalists are supposed to do. Right. That's right. Yeah. Right? You know, like even for us, like we're not supposed to protest or advocate or even express opinions or emotions that could be seen as political.

It's like literally in our job description here. Right, exactly. And for good reason. Like the reason is we want people to trust what we say, the coverage we do, that we're not spinning it in one way or another. We don't have our thumb on the scale. Right. No, totally. So I guess to see him not just like express his opinion, but to actually throw something at the president.

Yeah. I just kept thinking like what exactly got him to that point, you know? What happened there? And what does he think of that moment now? I can smoking some cigars. I think so, as long as you stay close to the mic. My smoke without a voice, okay? Don't worry. Okay.

Okay. And once we sort of got warmed up, actually this one interview turned into several. Like, we ended up talking for, I think, something like eight hours. Wow. And there was so much about Montother what happened that I had. and I think most people have no clue about. And also this act at the center of it, this act of throwing the shoe,

the more I learned about it, the more it became really layered and fascinating and weirdly kind of perfect. Okay, just to back up a little here, when did you decide to become a journalist and why did you want to become a journalist? He grew up with big imagination. Montalur says that growing up as a kid in Iraq,

his mom would read to him every night before bed. Which was very inspiring to him. And he fell in love with stories and books. He used to visit any neighbors or any family members who have a library, and he would just read. all of the books that he can lay his hands on. And in particular, as he got older, and Saddam Hussein was at the height of his dictatorship,

he started to read the work of journalists and political poets who wrote about the plight of ordinary people under repression. Then in 1990, Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. And in reaction, the U.S. and its allies, together with many other nations, high-ordered embargo, placed sanctions on Iraq. The stakes are high. Iraq is already a rich and powerful country.

And of course, the impact of that, it's mostly felt by the people of Iraq. It was like a cancer. Eating your bones, eating your soul. By some estimates. Over half a million children died. Oh. Mom Tother was just 14 years old at the time.

He had three brothers and three sisters and his mother. So he started lining up at construction sites just looking for any job that he could get. He would work from the morning till the evening and all of the income he would get out of it is literally to buy two bags of bread. And then... My fellow citizens. 9-11 happens. At this hour, George W. Bush. American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations.

Claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which now obviously we know wasn't true, decides to invade Iraq. To disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger. One Thaler, can you tell me about some of your memories of when the invasion started, and how old were you when that happened? He was 24 years old. The first memory of the invasion for him, it was when he was in a bus, and he saw a convoy of the American soldiers in Humveys.

And one of the American soldiers, he got out of his Humvee in the middle of the traffic. And he actually pissed on a car. And his colleagues were laughing. He told me that in that moment, he could feel... As he put it, the disaster that was coming their way. They didn't come to liberate them. they came to piss on people. And this feeling started to come over him.

He's got into the that he has the duty to write about what's happening. Like, I want to become a journalist. Because he felt that journalists actually have this very real power. He said this thing to me very long the lines of that saying that journalists write this. the first draft of history. Yeah.

They are the people that set the record on things. And he began writing in newspapers. Eventually, he ends up at a TV station called Al-Baghdadiya. And he starts reporting on all the ways that the invasion is unleashing, as he put it, suffering, pain, hunger, hunger,

hunger, hunger, agony, agony on ordinary people. Um, Um,

Um, Uh, can you give me some examples of the kinds of stories that you reported? Mm, Yes. The story of that little girl, eight years old girl called Zahra. One day in 2007 in Baghdad, some American soldiers found an explosive device on their convoy. It exploded in front of them, and they started to shoot randomly after that.

And because there was a school nearby, the school guard, he came out from the school, and he's like, Please don't shoot, but they kept shooting. This little girl, Zahara, was shot and killed. At that time, the Americans threatened everybody in the area and said that you must not say she was killed by the Americans. And so Montother says, a lot of journalists were intimidated by the story.

And they didn't want to cover it. But he decided he was going to do it. He interviewed the little girls who were with her outside of the school. They were playing with her and they were talking and laughing. And then suddenly that girl, Zahra, just fell on her face. And her friends, they thought that she was joking. They nudged her and she didn't say anything. and they saw bloodstreaming out of her body.

He was heavily impacted by Zahara's story. I'm curious, did you just report the facts? Or did you add, I don't know, some commentary or, yeah, what was your perspective in that story? The way he was writing the story itself, it was very emotional. The final image was like a group photo of Zahra with her friends. So he said this is the picture of Zahraq, who was killed by the American soldier who actually claims that he was in my country to build democracy. Even when he read the script to his colleagues,

Everyone was a crying. Wow. Now, one note I want to make here is that while I've been able to independently confirm many of the broad strokes of Zahara's story, I actually haven't been able to track down Montother's own report on her. The Baghdadia archives are really hard to track down all these years later, which means that for a few of the specific details that you just heard, we only have Montother's account to go off of. However, from all of my sources familiar with this time period in Iraq, stories like Zahraz were far from the exceptional case because what we know today, what is now well documented about the Iraq war, is that the United States military caused widespread harm to civilians. There were rampant abuses of power like U.S. forces doing arbitrary raids, stealing,

arresting civilians en masse, committing torture and sexual violence, and, in terms of indiscriminate killing. The estimates of senseless civilian deaths go into the hundreds of thousands. But to this day, we don't actually know the full extent of the civilian loss of life. Yeah. But to go back to Montother, what we do know is that a couple of days after the Zahara story came out. He was in the street and the car stopped by him and said, get in our car or it's going to get nasty. So he actually got kidnapped. They put him in a small room. They wanted Montaherald.

To be quiet and not speak again. Like no more publishing stories like the one about Zahara. He believes it probably was someone from the Iraqi government who was connected at that time with the Americans. And I should point out that now it's also well documented that the U.S. forces were like actively shutting down news reports and reporters who were trying to get these kinds

of stories out into the world. And in fact, a couple of months later... American soldiers actually took him into custody. Huh. They raided his home and they detained him. Why? I don't know. The muczy is that they took him in be bejam of the norm.

The shameful part of it was they took him in his pyjama. It was a baby blue pajamas as well. In your mind, was the arrest also connected to your reporting? I don't know. I don't know why. But as this was happening to him, the way he was seeing the Iraq war covered in the news around the world, felt so upside down. Like even before the invasion started, George W. Bush,

The Iraqis are going to welcome the American soldiers with roses and everybody will be happy. Full disclosure, I haven't been able to find evidence of this exact moment. It's actually possible that it wasn't Bush, but it was some other administration official. I mean, Dick Cheney said something like, they're going to welcome us as liberators, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that rhetoric was definitely really prevalent at the time. And weirdly enough, this specific image of Iraqis greeting Americans with flowers or roses, is the thing that a lot of people I've talked to

actually do remember hearing. Yeah. It was heavily marketed by the American media, but also the Western media. What does that make you feel? When Montaubar heard it, he said he really wanted to kind of say, this is not happening.

People are not welcoming the American soldiers with roses. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine how galling that would be. Like, it's your job to tell the story of your country of what's actually happening. And not only is no one listening, like insult to injury, the story that is being told is dead wrong. Exactly, exactly. And with all of these things piling up, it wasn't long before he hit a breaking point. It happened one day when he was reporting on the bombing of a house. And Apache were playing strike the house.

And as he was looking into the rubble, he saw... An elderly man... ...wearing the Iraqi djcdasha, the white robe. In the middle of the wires and the concrete, all of his intestines were out. He could see hands and arms of children trapped under the collapsed roof. And after he submitted the footage to the TV station,

he had a breakdown. He couldn't stop crying. He was so broken at that time. The thing that hit him was that despite the fact that he was reporting all of these stories, he could feel that no one was listening. No one cared. Maybe people would read about it within Iraq. Maybe maximum would go.

in the Arab world? But the outside world, like Europe and America, these stories were not reaching. People's pain is not being heard. I really wanted all of this world to hear and understand the pain that people are going through. So, finally, one day... I was in the take shower.

Nice. And I took to myself. Like, what do I do? I need to do something. Yes. And that is when the idea pops into his head. I should throw a shoe at George Lby Bush. Yes.

Yeah, he's a hazy. Okay, that's a great idea. And I kept thinking about it every single day. Every day when I was going to work, I see him on TV. I say, I swear, as soon as I see you, I'm going to throw my shoe at you. I don't think I fully understand, like, how did you even get the idea to throw a shoe? Like, I understand you were angry and you were, you know, all this was building up over a long period of time,

but where does the idea to throw a shoe come from? In my mind, my evil. That loosely translates to mischief, by the way. No, but there's so many ways to do Shailtini, right? Like, you could have screamed at him. You could have waved a flag. You could have asked him a really pointed question. You could have demanded that he apologized.

Well, why shoo? Exactly. That's good point. Let me have to speak in Arabic to explain my idea. Exactly. Sure. A key reason was the ultimate gift that you can give in the Arab culture. is roses.

So it's a huge thing. And that is why, Montaar, he said, I wanted to do something completely the opposite of roses. The complete opposite of that is actually what people wear in their feet, which is the shoe. You know, this is a thing in Muslim cultures,

but probably a lot of cultures around the world. You know, shoes are unclean. You don't bring them into the house, especially in Arab cultures, it's an insult to show some on the bottom of your shoe. It's like, here's what I think of you. You're beneath me. Yeah, exactly.

You know? For our culture, it's by far the most degrading thing to do to somebody. For example, our mothers, they use the slippers on our children. In our culture, and maybe in your culture as well. Definitely.

So that is where it came from. And Montalar also told me, you know, look, during the occupation, there were two types of resistance in Iraq, one which was the armed resistance, like militias that had cropped up, fighting the American troops. And then on the other hand, you had the intellectual resistance. And I felt that I want to be part of the intellectual resistance. and hence why I decided to throw the shoe. I mean, throwing a shoe is not intellectual resistance.

Like, did you realize you were crossing a line beyond just intellectual resistance into something else? You cannot put yourself in my shoe to know what happened in my mind in this moment. I'm actually stunned by your reaction. Really? Because I just told you that half a million children have been killed. Many people have suffered for years and years.

And you were just listening and you just acted like... It's okay. It's kind of like... No, no, no, no. It's understandable. Let me just translate for you so you can... Sorry, let me... I just want to say, Mantadar, it's not that. It's not that I don't think. Let me finish.

I'm not obliged to kind of get a reaction according to your Western standard. And he's saying, let me just, please, let me finish because actually he said a lot. He said, yes, I am a journalist. I'm going to do, every day, I've been documenting. a lot, whether it's video, audio, written pieces. No one has listened.

No one has done anything. No one was prosecuted. The Americans did not even get my stories. I wanted people to once stop and pause and ask, who is Zahra? What happened to Iraqis? Who are the people who were suffering? By this act,

which was very intentional action, I made the word ask the question why this shoe was thrown, hence why, it's been almost 18 years and he's still doing all of these interviews to tell the world why he threw a shoe. If he was doing just a question that could embarrass the American president,

this is not going to be enough. Because that question could be washed away. No, I totally understand. And the reason I'm asking so many questions about this is because this is why I wanted to talk to you, honestly. Like the reason I thought of you, one night, almost two years ago, I was reading the news about Gaza and I was feeling so angry. And I was like in bed. I was trying to go to sleep, okay? and I was just so, so, so angry.

And I, you know, I'm a journalist. I was like, and I don't know if you had this, but here in the U.S., like, there's a lot of pressure on journalists, like, oh, stay neutral. Just say the facts. Don't say how you actually feel. Don't say anything political because then people will think that you're biased. Like, I was feeling like, I was feeling like being a journalist was like having handcuffs on. Like, I can't say that. this is something horrible that's happening.

And I swear to God, I don't know why, but in this moment, I thought of you. I thought of what you did. And that's why I want to understand where that idea came from. There's so many different options you had, and you picked one specific option, right? Which is, I'm going to throw a shoe. In some moments, I actually thought maybe I should be like an armed, For example, one time I was called by someone who told me that American soldiers raided the house and then they raped his wife and his sisters.

So I went there and I talked to the women who were weeping and they covered their faces because of the shame. The tears were wetting their veil. I was very angry. And actually, as soon as I walked out from the house, I saw a Humvee, and Americans were standing just outside that Humvee smoking and laughing and joking. That's true story. And I thought, honestly, if I could have a weapon, I probably would have killed them.

Why did you decide not to do that? Because for me, these crimes that I've seen and I've covered, it's not enough to prosecute one soldier or, like, kill one soldier or a couple of them. At the end of the day, those are just people who are following the command. The most important thing is to go to the head of the snake, the person who is giving the orders and who actually allowed and enabled this, disaster to happen. When you were thinking about what to do to George W. Bush, did you think of any other options?

Did you think of throwing anything worse than a shoe? No, I never thought of throwing anything but a shoe. And I tell you why. If I have killed the president of the United States, he will become a hero. He will be celebrated as a victim. And as a mater. It's so interesting because it's like you had to find the perfect sweet spot between the two options, right? One is the completely nonviolent option, which is like keep reporting or something, ask a really tough question or something.

And then the other side is like do something that's actually violent. And this is like somewhere in the middle. And I find that very interesting. It's not quite violent, although maybe, I don't know, maybe it's more on the violent side. but it's like, it's somewhere in between the two options. It's actually, it's interesting, as you say, about that fine line between violence and non-violent. So, for example, Balsconi,

the Italian Prime Minister in 2009, someone is through a vase at him. It was actually a small statue, but anyway. Oh, this is after you. 2009, December maybe. Yeah, okay. And he ended up bleeding. Oh.

Do you see this picture? I can't see it too clearly. Can you describe it? Okay, one minute. Le Berlusconi, who he's of the Italian prime minister, and his face is full of blood. Burlesconi, is just sad.

Despite him being a corrupt prime minister, people were sympathizing by him because he bled. I'm not over the ma'amara. Even I was sympathizing with the fact that as an old man, he was bleeding. To me, it's hard to, it's kind of hard to swallow. Okay, so tell me, Mandathar, what happens next in the story? It sounds like you have this idea in, like, 2005. I think.

Which is like three years before you actually do it, right? Yes. What happens in the meantime? No. I kept chasing Bush in multiple occasions. Oh, really? And I tried to attend his press conferences multiple times, and I did not succeed.

I even one time I wanted to go to Sharm Shik in order to attend the press conference. In Egypt. In Egypt, yes, and it didn't have it. And so I kept pursuing him. And pursuing George W. Bush, like, how did you do that? How did you figure out where he was going to be? and try to track him down.

You know, I am a journalist. So every single time, I know there's a press conference, I tried to follow it. And interesting, you know... The moment the last last year that I've evered to be, that when I threw the shoe at him, I didn't even know he was going to be there. No way. Wait, okay, so...

That's an interesting story. Montaulah told me that in December of 2008, one day he's at work in the Baghdadia newsroom. It's the end of the day, time for him to get up to go home. But... But... By 6 o'clock... One of his colleagues turns to him and says, We need someone like one correspondent and two cameramen to go to cover a press conference.

Like, can you go cover this? Because George W. Bush... George W. Bush is going to be there. Hmm, what do you think? What's your reaction? I'm shocked. I'm freeze. He asked his colleague to repeat himself.

Like, are you sure? And then he turns to this other reporter and I said, you need to go with the two cameraman. Like, you didn't want to go initially, Montever? No, no, no. Really?

Yeah, in fact, Montother told me the next thing that he did was He got in his car, and he went home. Huh. Now, of course, we all know how the day is going to end, but the dramatic story of how it all actually goes down is coming after the break.

Hey, I'm Latif. This is Radio Lab, and we are back with Sarakari. Yeah, so when we left off, Montother had just found out that George Bush was going to be at a press conference in Baghdad. And instead of volunteering to go cover it, He hightailed it back home. And I ran home because I was wearing a brand-new shoes that I bought from Beavreut, Lebanon. But you didn't want to throw it.

I wanted to get the dirtiest and the ugliest one. And I was that actually Shehade was many massacres by the Americans before. So he's really thought this through. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Like every last detail. What did the shoes look like, the ones you picked out? It was a very comfortable one and it was quite heavy.

Nice. It was kind of like medical shoe, you know. Like an orthopedic type of shoe? Yes. I bought it from Egypt. Okay. Like color? Black.

Okay. But size, you want to know the size? What size? My shoes, same number of George W. Bush president, same size. How did you know that? He's 43 president of United States. Forty-thirt. So your size is 43 and he's the 43rd president?

Is that you're trying to say? Okay. It was completely a coincidence. Anyway, as he was driving over to the press conference, Montother said he just stopped for a second. Right on the banks of the Tigris River. It was sunset. So I still didn't.

by the river and I was just staring at the river at the sunset and I thought to myself this could be the last sunset I would ever see like I might

there's going to be secret service there like there's a good chance I get shot and don't make it out alive so he's willing to die to do this. Yeah were you thinking through a game plan in your mind? No, just I shmer on me

just as I'll just as it. It was very simple. I just wanted to throw my shoe at him and that's it. Can you just walk me through what happened step by step? Are you curious? I'm very curious. I think you know the answer to that question. Yes.

So here goes. He told me he entered this area called the Green Zone. That was an area where most of the Saddam Hussein, same palaces were. It's where the Americans were based, pretty locked down. When I passed all of the checkpoints, I saw my colleagues there from the Baghdadi TV station. And they were kind of like, oh, okay, you came after all?

And he said, no, no, no, I'm coming here as a citizen. I'm just coming here to watch. And he handed them his press credentials, his ID. And when he entered the press conference, Conference room in the building of prime ministry castle. Somehow, he was the first person in there. He looked around.

The hall was quite massive. I saw all of the Iraqi and the American flags. Podium. I saw the red carpet. In the rows of chairs, he was trying to figure out where to sit. In the beginning, he went and sat on the first row. But then he thought, if I'm going to throw my shoe at him, then actually I'd better be a little bit behind.

Why? Because if I was on the front row and I throw the shoe, then I will be shot dead straight away. But if I am on the third row, They would think before shooting at me. As people were filing in, I could feel my heart. He was popping out of my chest.

He could feel his body catching up to the reality of what he was about to do. The Adirnaline. Excitement, fear, what is it? And then right before they all took their seats, some guards came in. And they were. are giving us all of these orders and it was quite degrading. They say, you know what, you're going to have to even be searched. And when he went up to get searched, there were two bodyguards.

There was this one guard who was wearing a pilot suit. Huh. And the pilot one, he was extremely rude. After he was done searching somebody, he would get to get him on a muckert. He will literally smack them on their bottoms. And say, off you go. Wow.

And Muthal there at this point was so amped up, you know, that if he got this guy, he just didn't even know how he was going to react. Thankfully, I ended up getting searched by the other guy, and when he's getting searched. I ended up taking off my shoes. And when he put them back on, I wore them like a... slippers because I wanted to be able to take them off easily.

I was laughing inside because I thought like... If only he knew that this is my actual weapon. Not can't let us move. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Finally, when Montaulhar sat back down, it was time. Dachal George W. Bush was a week. George Bush he said, I'm going to go on. I am quite hungry.

I said, I'm, I'm going to be am, inshally. He was just thinking that the only thing that the president is going to taste is his truth. When George Bush is giving the speech, are you listening to what he's saying? No, no, I don't know what he said. I'm in another word. I'm a Quran, I pray Shabitin, I read Quran. I was reciting Quran. I was trying to do the whole ceremony as if I am leaving this world.

Oh, wow. He told me it felt like... Like a very nasty flu. And in this feverish haze, he heard this voice inside. And this voice in his head was saying, like, look at your life. Your chief correspondent, you have your own program. Your chief correspondent, you have your own program. People love you.

You have a house, you have a car. Your future is wide open. Where do you really have to do this? And I almost backed off and I saw, what am I doing? But suddenly, it was like he woke up. And then I was talking to myself and say, If I back off now, I would call myself, I would call myself. every day for the rest of my life.

If I lose my self-respect, I don't care if the rest of the world would respect me. And so, when George W. Bush neared the end of his speech, clearly, George W. Bush was practicing a lot to say thank you in Arabic. When he finished his word. In an effort to be at least somewhat honorable and not take him by surprise. He shouted. This is my good bye kiss to you, your dog. I never thought actually of saying that,

but I just said it in that moment. Oh, you didn't plan to say that? No, no, no, no. How bad of an insult is it to call someone a dog? Is it a very bad insult? Yes, yes. It's very bad. And George Bush, when he saw I lifted my arm,

I could see his face went completely pale, very pale, and he froze. And then I threw the shoe at him, and he bent forward. And the shoe came above him. And then, of course, He was taking the other shoe. Yeah, was that always the plan to throw both shoes? No, I could not.

My original plan was just one shoe. Because I thought that as soon as I'm going to stand up and I'll throw one shoe, I'm going to be short dead. But then... Okay, what I threw me, I'd drop him. When I threw the first one and there was nothing... So I thought, okay, it's time for me to actually do the second side. So I threw it.

the second one. Were you surprised at how quickly he dodged the shoes? I was mainly focusing on my own actions. Yeah. And I kept releasing all of the anger

from all of the stories I've covered for all of the anger that I was building up inside me for years and years. swearing at him and his father. And I kept saying

that this is for all of the Iraqis. They've killed, they're brave, they affected. So I managed to actually release all of that in one time. The one who stopped me, it was an Iraqi journalist. He tried to strangle my hand, you know, hold my hand.

But then after that, they all gathered on top of me. Then I was taken by the security of the Iraqi prime minister. We'll be back with the rest of the story after this quick break. All right, so we ended with you getting tackled to the. the ground. For most people, obviously, this is the end of the story. But for Montother, it was not. The bodyguards gathered on me, they were beating me really, really bad. They broke my teeth. They punched me in the eyes. And then they were shouting,

oh, he's a terrorist, he's a terrorist. An Iraqi court sentenced him to three years in prison. They stripped me completely and just kept me with my underwear. He claims he was tortured pretty horrifically, doused with cold water, shocked with electricity, beaten with iron bars. Maliki's staff kept telling me that people are resentful about what I did and that people hated me. And then they...

And then they... And then I'm going to say... ...tollasin Ferdie, it booked me in solitude confinement. And they locked me there for three months. Three months? Oh my goodness. Today, was tall too,

a bigger than any day more on me in my life. Every single day was way longer than any days that I've ever spent in my entire life. On one of these days, Montethar was sitting in his... So I just looked at my cell's door, which had two holes only, so there was barely any light coming from it. Then suddenly I just saw Zahra.

T'cary, like, wearing an off-white dress. She came and she sat on the bed. Zahara, you? From the photo of her mom had I knew it was Zahra because her mother gave me some of her pictures when I was reporting on the story.

Nodered me? And she just looked at me. And then she disappeared. But nothered to her and a bitfajic. I was just surprised. Of course, this could be

on me jane but he won't happen. He knows that this might be sound like he was crazy. but this is actually what happened. Wow. He told me the next thing he remembered was two officers entering his cell.

Two high-ranking officers from Maliki's office. And they were asking me why I threw the shoe at George Abdi Bush. And I just said, it's because they kill Zahra. Myrother says that some of the guards that are sympathetic to him. Began to leak me some information about what was going on while he was in prison. Because outside, the shoe throw struck a nerve.

In the days after his arrest, people in multiple cities in Iraq poured out into the streets. In the news footage, you can see seas of people waving shoes in the air. And not just in Iraq or in the Middle East, but in Latin America, Europe, in the United States. I was just watching this really striking footage of these American activists throwing shoes at an effigy of Bush in front of. of the White House. But back to another, after nine months in prison, he ended up getting released. And by this point, like, a monument had been put up in his honor.

One country had offered him a medal and another country had offered him a citizenship. I'm pretty sure several people have also offered their daughter's hand in marriage to him. No way. Yeah. Someone in Saudi Arabia reportedly bid $10 million for the shoes. Oh my God. Although those allegedly were destroyed. Wow. And Montother's impact on the culture didn't even end there because jumping ahead a bit.

Premier Wednesday started badly. In the few years following Montother, many people used the shoes. A speech on economics interrupted with the new fashionable protest of the throwing of a shoe. There's a rash of copycat shoe throwings at world leaders. Really? Yeah. The latest target of a shoe thrower is Iran's president, Mahmoud. You have...

The prime minister of India. John Howard. Prime Minister of Australia. Hillary Clinton was one I didn't even know about. What was that a bat? That's somebody throwing something at me? And like truly, I'm not even joking. This is scratching the surface.

There's a great Wikipedia entry of all the different shoe throwings. And I actually didn't realize that there was this much of a response to the shoe at the time until I started reporting on this, which did make me wonder. Like, before Montaulah, there was so much protest against the Iraq war already. Like, what was it about this act that made it take on a life of its own? Yeah. And, you know, there are the obvious reasons, like the high-profileness of it, the fact that it was, like, directly at Dorsalbue Bush, the symbolism of the shoe that we do. talked about earlier, the fact that there were so many cameras in the room and this arrow where things kind of newly could go viral. Yeah. Even just the timing of it all, like coming at this

moment in the war where people were sick of what was going on. Yeah. So it does seem like this perfect storm of things. But I do still find myself thinking back to the conversation that Mathelor and I had earlier about that Goldilocks space between violence and nonviolence. It's really something I don't think I ever thought about or even had the words for before I talked to him. Yeah, I'm just curious how you would describe that or what kind of name you would give that. Yeah. So I went looking for somebody who could help me think through it. Like, what's the label we put on the shoebox? I actually don't even know how to articulate it.

Well, quasi-nonviolence methods that include the use of very low levels of I'm not really sure what the term would be. Fair. But I think there is that niche space. So this is Jamila Rakeb. I am the executive director of the Albert Einstein Institution, which is an organization that studies and promotes the use of nonviolent action in conflict. And she says that niche space actually does have a rich history. There's this long history of people throwing objects at political leaders, at invaders, invaders.

at occupiers. There's things like throwing eggs. Tomatoes, probably. Tomatoes, potatoes. Potatoes somehow feels more violent than eggs and tomatoes. You know what? That's a tricky one. I think turnips, there's historical presidents for turnips. It goes back to ancient Rome, where people disagreed with the policies of a particular governor and actually threw turnips at him. That sounds painful. Yeah, heavy root vegetables? Yeah, that sounds. sounds more painful for sure. Yes, exactly. And lots of modern day examples come to mind, too.

I heard about like pie throwing glitter. Oh, glitter. I mean, it's really hard to get off your skin. Didn't someone throw a milkshake at someone at some point? Yes, yeah, Nigel Farage. Right. The far right leader in the UK. Actually, important to note here also is the case of someone throwing the sandwich. Oh, I feel like I heard of that one. That was in D.C. Is that right? Yes, at Border Patrol. Oh, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. Part of the power of all of these, Jamila says, is... It's a very memorable moment.

The sheer spectacle of it. But also... It shows that you can be anywhere at any time and someone can throw a object at you. No matter how powerful you are. Yeah. Because, like, one thing I think about with the shoe throw is how it ever so briefly

flattens the hierarchy between Montaitha and George Shelby Bush. Huh. You know? Like, it's like it's just they're no longer, a citizen and a president or whatever. It's like it's just like a dude thrown a shoe and dude dodging a shoe. Right, exactly. It's just like all the rolls fall away, which when you consider that one of them has the might of the world's most powerful military behind them and the other is a disenfranchised journalist in a war-torn country, it's kind of an extraordinary thing that

they could even find themselves on the same plane. Yeah. Although I will say it didn't come without a cost because when Muthalur tried to get back to his life as a journalist. I cannot find any TV station to work with them. He couldn't find anyone to hire him. Why not? Because there are more TV station in Middle East, friends with American and friends with the Iraqi government. He claimed that in order to avoid upsetting either the Iraqi government or the American government, all of these Iraqi channels basically blacklisted him,

which is a claim that's very hard to prove. But from multiple journalists that I've talked to who knew the media landscape around this time, it's definitely plausible. But do you think part of it is that they stopped taking you seriously as a journalist, that they didn't trust you to, I don't know, be neutral and not be an activist? No, no, not that's reason. That's not reason.

I mean, it was clear that many journalists were genuinely upset by what he did. Even if you just go back to the first moments after the shoe throw, the other journalists in the room that day, specifically some of the Iraqi journalists, were immediately apologizing directly to Bush. These journalists here were very apologetic. They were, you know, they were said, this doesn't represent the Iraqi people, but that's what happens in free societies where people try to draw attention to themselves. When I saw it, I felt embarrassed that a journalist would have done something like that. So this is Mase Elbeye.

You've heard her already translating my conversations with Montather. She is an Iraqi British journalist. Because this is just wasn't professional. I mean, I don't think two journalists can disagree about that. I actually called her up after we were done with all of our interviews with Montother. I think it was just hitting me that you have been through a lot of the same stuff as Montother. Yeah. Like him, she was on the ground.

I've been where Montother was. I've been in the Greensome. Reporting on the invasion as it was happening for multiple international news outlets. And even though she wasn't one of the Iraqi journalists in the room that day, she told me that when she saw it, But I was shocked about it. No one's saying could have done that. I guess, yeah, tell me a little bit more about when I reached out to you and said, oh, I want to interview this guy.

I don't know what 18 years later. What did you think? What was your reaction to that? I was surprised because, like, out of all of the stories on Iraq, he would not come to my mind. You're like, there's so much more to say. What? Why him? I was genuinely surprised by your quest,

but going through the interview, I got why you were interested in him and you know what? It actually put him in a different light. How so? How did it put him in a different light for you? Because I always thought that it was just someone who was absolutely crazy

and that it was spontaneous that this happened. But when I heard the story and heard about it, it's a thought process behind it. It took me back in time. I had a big flashback. Back in 2008, Mace had been reporting on the Iraq War for five years. Like, in a quiet day, it would be probably 50 people killed. Wow. And she was reporting those numbers day in and day out.

But she says she started to notice that as the years wore on, it became less and less sexy because obviously, you know, other things happen in the world. Fair enough. And then instead of taking a headline, it became the second big story, the third big story. And then suddenly it became page three. So she said in some sense she understood how Montelder felt because even though people were seeing her reports, they just didn't have the same power anymore. People got used to it. And I understand it.

I work in the news business. I understand how people are wired. It's like, okay, we know about this. What's the difference between what happened last month and what's happening today? Nothing. People move on. It's a number.

It's a statistics. It's a figure. But to me, they're not numbers. They are people. I probably even know their names or people I might be related one way or another to them. So when I had, the interview with you and him. I got his a frustration. I got when he's like, no one cares,

really no one cares. And he just wanted to grab attention. It changed my mind about him. I respected him more as a person who actually really wanted to make a big statement. Do you have a sense that, like, I mean, obviously he was expressing a lot of his personal anger and frustration. It seems very clear that he inspired other protests. But did him throwing the shoe have a real measurable impact like in Iraq on the war or whatever? Yeah. So yeah, I mean, just deeply obsessed with the effectiveness question. When I called Jamila Rakib, I actually asked her that also. And he was interesting to watch her brain work through it. I think that it's it's more interesting how it fit into the larger puzzle of,

what's happening in the rest of society. She said, what you need to do is look at the shoe throw in the context of the larger struggle. In this case, the anti-occupation struggle. And ask, how did this act affect, not just George Bush and Mathelor, but how did this act affect all the characters involved in this struggle? Yes. So, like, for example, the military. Did it make it more difficult for them to carry out their policies, their military operations? Did it persuade them in any way?

Yeah. Or say, like, the. people of Iraq? What impact did it have on ordinary Iraqis? Did it empower them? For Iraqi journalists? Did it make it harder for journalists to do their job in the future? Or even for people outside of Iraq? Did it bring more people to the cause? I'm curious. I mean, I don't know the answer to any of this. And honestly, I don't know either. I mean, in some cases, it felt hard to know definitively how a certain group was affected. And on balance, I just came out of the conversation feeling like it's just hard to imagine how, you know, this one moment changed all that much. But it did precisely what it set out to do, which is undermine the narrative that Iraqis were welcoming U.S. forces as liberators.

Jamila reminded me that, you know, ending the occupation was never the goal of the shift. shoe throw. It was always about getting people to pay attention. And in that sense, it's hard to deny the legacy of this thing. You know, I have more than 100K followers in Twitter. There's many people from America, okay? Yeah. Yesterday from America, he said, And Montezar, we need you. America need you. We will have an pile of shoes at your disposable. Please come through our government in your shoes. Every time the American people said, please come to throw Biden. Please come to throw Trump. No, I know. And I feel like I see this on the internet.

Remember that dude that threw his shoes at George W. Bush? Like every couple of days someone thinks of you. I'm a big fan of so many comedians but the funniest thing that's ever happened

on television in my life was that guy. Someone thinks of you, someone re-enacts the shoe throw on social media. Oh, that's funny. Someone just sent me a picture of someone on

Instagram that made a ring etched into the ring is like a panorama of both of those are throwing the shin. Whoa. Wow. People are still thinking about and referencing this moment.

Is it on George W. Bush's Wikipedia page? Oh, good question. I wonder if that is enough of a... I mean, I will say, like, it is one of the things that George W. Bush still gets asked about. Mr. President, before Donald Trump, there weren't a lot of funny clips. Like, I just found a clip of George W. Bush going on Jimmy Kimmel just a few years ago. And the first thing that Jimmy Kimmel asks him about... No.

Is this clip. Yeah. You have very good reflexes. My guess is that Laura had done that before. Oh, it's, it is on Georgia W. Bush's Wikipedia page. Is it? Oh, my God. Yeah, here's what it says.

Is it a section? It's not a subheading. It's like a sub subheading. Okay. Yeah, but it's like a little, it's like a little section. It says 2008 Baghdad shoe throwing incident. The word shoe comes up 14 times on this page. It's in multiple places on the Wikipedia page.

So like, you know, one could argue it has become a small part of the legacy of George W. Bush. And even beyond that, honestly, I mean, the most powerful thing to me about the shoe throw is that it's this funny looking Trojan horse where initially you're like, oh, ha ha, ha, that was crazy. Boom, next thing you know, we're talking about messed up stuff that happened in Iraq, you know? to me, that's what journalism is supposed to do. It's supposed to create an opening to talk about these things, especially in a world where I don't think most of us Americans, at least, are eager to revisit all of the dark stuff that our country did during that time. I'm sorry, Sarah, but I think I'm going to have to go by now.

You have to go? Okay. Back in the interview with Mantelah, by this time we were in our third sitting, Mace had to go. Meriam, are you okay taking over? I mean, we can try. You want to give it a try and we'll see how it goes? Yeah, yeah. That'd be great.

And my producer in Baghdad, Meriam Doidhar, took over for translation. You might have to like share earbuds. Now, Mediam, it so happens, in addition to helping me report parts of this story, is a documentary filmmaker who is making a film about one thother. I think at one point he said to me, it's a shame. I wasn't like a caterpillar, like a caterpillar with 40 pairs of shoes. I would have just kept throwing them like one after the other. And when she first met him back in 2018, he'd gone from trying to find a job as a journalist to trying to run for parliament in Iraq.

Can you tell me about him running for office? Yeah. So there was a day when I was in Iraq and I went to a market and I was just pulling people off the street. And I just said like, hey, did you know that Montevore Zedie is running for parliament? What do you think about that? I remember there was one woman that was like, it's like a rough translation of a phrase, but she's like, oh, I would carry him and his shoes. on my head, which is like an honor statement. She said, if I have a son, I'm going to name him Montador.

So Montaulah's reputation did get him a lot of attention in the election. But I think the shoe throw only took him so far. Because come election day, he did get some votes, but not enough to win the seat. On some level, it does feel like for a lot of the world, the image of him did just get paused on him throwing the shoe. How about now? What are you doing these days? What's happening in your day-to-day life?

I'm just to write something in social media about the corruptions and follow the news for the dumbed tram and what happened in our glove. He does a lot of political commentating, cooking at home, playing the piano, which he does a lot, lighting candles. His favorite sons are gardenia and vanilla. And I'm studying now. Oh. Today, I have a news. You specialize it, the interior design.

Interior design? In university. Oh, wow. Yes. What made you want to do that? I have more skills. It seems like he's also left the door open to maybe running for office again. But, yeah, I would say, like, the shoestrow was, it didn't improve his life in the way I think a lot of people expected.

No, the thing I want to know is, like, do you miss being a journalist? Yes. But worse. But worse. What did you say? I don't understand. It's worth it. He's trying to say it's worth it. It's worth it? Yes.

Why was it worth it? The tax he paid was worth it for what he did, even though he lost a lot. For example, like working in the field of media, which he loves even up until this day. Yeah. This makes me think about, so as I was telling you yesterday, one's the other, the reason I wanted to talk to you is because I've been having all of this anger and frustration about things that are happening in the world that I feel like I can't change and I don't know what to do with it, you know? Yes, I get you.

You get me? I get you. If you do like me, maybe you will without a job. Yeah, if you want a career change, you know what to do. I get you. I don't know. If I'm being honest with myself, I do wonder sometimes if I should continue being a journalist. Or maybe I should leave journalism and go do something else. Like be an activist or work in politics or, you know, something different.

No, don't leave journalism. I don't want you to leave your work, but your work should be for a cause and you can help to support in the media. one way or another. Montother told me he still thinks that journalists do actually have real power to cause change, especially in today's world and especially in the U.S. He's talking about you in the third person in this, but he said, yes, because she has more freedom of speech, more freedom of movement, more freedom of influence. And there is a difference because you're in the heart of decision-making in America.

The thing he said to me was like, look, within the constraints of my life, I was trying to figure out what worked for me, how I could make a difference. And eventually I did think of something. Essentially, he was like, you're in very different circumstances. Everybody's case is different. Find something that works for you the way that throwing a shoe worked for me. But I guess the thing I was. wondering as much as anything else was when he found that thing and did it, did it work for him? Like, did it actually help him, like, as a person?

You know, when we were talking before, you were telling me about the anger and the frustration that was building up inside of you, right? Like, that you had about Zahara or, you know, seeing that bombing. I guess I just want to know, did throwing the shoe help with. any of those feelings? Yes, of course. It was an expression of my feelings. He told me he does still, of course, carry around a lot of those memories from the war.

When I think of Zahara, I feel grief. I was thinking the other day when I was talking to you, if she was alive, she could be a student today or married or something. But at the same time, he told me this other story too. When I saw Zahra's mom at the house, she told me that when I threw the shoe, she felt like I got, the literal translation would be like, I got my daughter's rights,

but I think it's like, I guess it would be the equivalent of like. Revenge, revenge for my. Revenge. But it's something along the lines of justice, revenge, etc. Revenge? Yes, revenge. Revenge, yes. Okay, I think that's all the questions that I have for you and the other.

Are you sure? Are you sure? Yeah, I think so. This episode was reported by Sara Kari with help from Merriam Dwaydar. Translation by Mace Albaea and Miriam Dwaydar, it was produced by Sarah Kari. Sound design contributed by Sara Kari with mixing from Jeremy Bloom and fact-checking by Emily Krieger and Hiba El-Orbani. If you want to know more about Mediam's work,

and believe me when I say her documentary about Montother is going to be amazing, keep an eye out for it. Or Mase's incredible journalism about Iraq, I will link to both of those and their social media in the episode description. Special thanks also to Asmat Khan and Mustafa Salim. If you like this episode and want to hear more deep dives into the Bush era War on Terror, check out our episode 60 Words or our series The Other Lettif. To find those, search for 60 Words Radio Lab or the other Latif Radio Lab on your favorite streaming platform. Okay, and just before we go, if you liked what you heard, you want more, you want in on that sweet, sweet radio lab bonus content.

you are in luck. We have a newsletter usually comes out on Saturdays. There's all kinds of things in that newsletter, recommendations from the staff, just random things we like that don't fit in a podcast format. Like one thing we love that we put in there was a rejection letter we received from Verna Herdog that was especially florid and hilarious stuff we have coming up, like the live show that correspondent Dr. Rehormitra and executive. executive editor Soren Wheeler just did together. Yeah, it's just fun stuff. Subscribe at RadioLab.org slash newsletter.

Um, uh, I don't know. Hi, I'm Johnquil and I'm from Brooklyn. And here are the staff credits. Radio Lab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandbach is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director.

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