14 Mar 2009 |
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A Tale of Two Protesters Adebayo Kareem The Iraqis generally take pride in the ancientness of their civilisation. When George Bush spuriously asserted that one of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq was to spread the gospel of democratic tradition {nay civilisation} to the Iraqis, it was pointed out to him that Mesopotamia {Iraq} is actually the place where civilisation began; it has the oldest and the longest continuous tradition in the whole world and its civilisation predates the Western and Oriental civilisations. Indeed scholars have asserted that the West could trace their cultural provenance to Iraq. However age aside, there are further and more relevant indices that could determine a country’s position in the league of ‘civilised societies’. One of these crucial criteria relates to the way and manner a society treats its dissidents; the non-conformists in the society who have taken principled stance which runs contrary to the accepted majority view. Using this particular criterion, and given the sentence that was recently passed on the Iraqi journalist, Muntazer al-Zaidi, it is safe to say that Iraq is still decidedly medieval. In case you don’t know him, Muntazer al-Zaidi is the Iraqi journalist who threw a shoe at George Bush, the immediate past president of the USA. The incident took place on the 14 December 2008. George Bush was on a swan song tour of Iraq and a press conference was arranged at the Prime Minister’s Palace where Bush and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Al-Maliki were to address a joint-press conference. Whilst Bush was mouthing his usual platitude about how Iraq had become an eldorado of a place to live; a democratic oasis in a desert of Arabian autocracies, Al-Zaidi, who was one of the journalists covering the event suddenly removed one of his shoes and threw it at George Bush shouting ‘This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog! Al-Zaidi was immediately arrested and subjected to brutal beating by Iraqi security operatives. He could be seen on television being manhandled and bundled away leaving a trail of blood on the carpet. It was also alleged that the brutal beating and tortured continued whilst in police custody culminating in a letter, purportedly written by him, being shown to global audience in which he apologised to George Bush for his action. This is very implausible given that when formally charged with assaulting a foreign head of state, he pleaded not guilty. The trial has now been concluded and he has been found guilty of the offence and sentenced to three years in jail. All for throwing a shoe at George W Bush! Now fast forward to Friday 6 March 2009. On that day, the UK Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson was billed to address an audience at the Royal Society in central London on the UK Government’s Carbon Energy Initiatives. As he made his way to the entrance of the venue, lying in waiting for him was a 29 year old Leila Deen who approached Mandelson and splattered him with the contents of a bowl she had with her, which turned out to be custard! The embarrassed minister hurriedly entered the premises and the woman walked away into the waiting arms of journalists unmolested . It transpired that Ms Deen is an activist with a group known as ‘Plane Stupid’. This group has been actively campaigning against the government’s decision to build additional runway at Heathrow airport and found Mandelson’s invitation to address a Green Forum inconsistent with his clear pro-big business stance on the airport expansion issue. Ms Deen old reporters: ‘The only thing green about Peter Mandelson is the slime coursing through his veins. That he is trying to make political capital out of climate change …is an insult to my generation…He is from this generation of people who don’t care what kind of legacy they are leaving…’ Now, this piece is not about whether Ms Deen and Al-Zaidi were right or wrong in their respective conducts. You could argue either way depending on your perspectives. What is interesting is the approach of the Iraqi and UK governments to the two incidents. The immediate reactions of the two governments reveal the level of tolerance of the UK and Iraqi authorities. Mr Al-Zaidi was immediately arrested at the scene, in full view of television camera and was subjected to brutal beating that left trail of blood on the Palace carpet. On the other hand, Ms Deen left the scene unmolested and in fact addressed journalists and sought to explain the rationale for her action. She was not beaten or forced to write a letter of apology to Peter Mandelson. Police questioned her two days after incident for two hours but she has not been charged with any offence. In fact according to her, the session with the police “…was fine. Some of the officers were saying they saw me on television and making jokes about custard. The impression I got is that even they seem to find the whole thing quite amusing’ Even in the unlikely event that she is charged and convicted of any offence, it is safe to say she will not be spending the next three years in prison. Similarly whilst the Iraqi authorities saw the Al-Zaidi action as a national disgrace and deserving of such brutal response that Saddam Hussein would have approved of, Peter Mandelson to his credit made no fuss about the whole incident, dismissing it as an ‘adolescent protest’ and told journalists that Ms Deen ‘was so busy throwing what seemed like green soup or something in my face that she failed to tell me what the protest was about, but as you can see, thankfully it was not paint and I have come through intact’ Even Gordon Brown laughed off the incident joking that ‘if anybody doubted the greening of Peter Mandelson and his willingness to take the green agenda on his shoulders, we’ve seen it in practice this morning’. Touché. In all these incident lies a veritable lesson on the real essence of electoral democracy. Many countries in the developing world seem to have imported the letters but not the spirit of democratic government. Once individuals have been elected {Or ‘Iwu-lected’} to office, they become totally detached from the people whom they have sworn to serve. They go about with avalanche of ‘gwodo-gwodo’ who ensure they don’t mingle with the ordinary man on the street and live in gated and fenced premises with signs warning of serious consequences for any ‘trespassers’! It is interesting that Lord Mandelson, a very senior government minister was going about his official function without a single security guard. David Cameron, the leader of opposition and probably the Prime Minister-in-waiting still routinely cycles to work. This writer once sat beside Michael Portilo inside the London Jubilee line when Portilo was the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. How many of our Ministers or Governors in Nigeria could walk, unchaperoned on the main streets of their state’s capital? As Al-Zaidi begins a 3-year stint in jail for throwing a shoe at George Bush {which, by the way did not even hit him}, Ms Deen must be reflecting on how lucky she is that her custard throwing-stunt {she did hit her target fully on the face} was executed in London and not Baghdad. Or she might not- after all this is England and English people have been known to do worse things to their rulers! Adebayo Kareem
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