Martin Jahnke, a German, went on trial last week for chucking his (possibly Asian sweatshop) trainers at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Echoing the impressive footwear attack on George Bush last year (who dodged an Iraqi boot in the face) this was less an emotional protest and more an attention-seeking hissy fit.
The Iraqi journalist, Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who got Bush ducking and diving, was condemned by his prime minister and sentenced in March to three years in jail for assault on a foreign leader. But he has since had his sentence reduced to one year, become a reputable folk hero in the Arab (and Western) world and spawned dozens of internet Flash games where you hurl shoes at a digital Bush.
In contrast Jahnke, a 27-year-old student at Cambridge doesn’t evoke similar sympathy. Because — and here’s the cruel part — his outcry was so brutally self-involved. If convicted he could serve six months in jail but he won’t emerge a hero. He’s like the kids on university campuses in South Africa who protest cleaners’ salaries and then totter off in their Polos for a Peppadew cracker lunch. What makes the Iraqi journalist heroic is sincerity.
Unfortunately for your average student protestor, looking to beef up their CV, sincerity can’t be contrived. You need a true belief that the man set between your laces has unjustly affected your life or those of your family. Not to say — if you have a free Saturday morning when you’re not too hung over — you shouldn’t go and offer your body to a crowd or an hour to painting a placard. Just don’t give yourself too much credit. The aping of using footwear as a statement (a pertinently offensive custom for an Iraqi but not a German) probably means the European confuses himself with a protestor of substance instead of what he is: an unimaginative man causing a scene. Sure, he doesn’t deserve incarceration. This scandal should have stopped at the campus newspaper.
His protest attempt, preceded by whistling and shouting, saw his trainer land limply on stage. As a guest lecturer at Cambridge, the mild-mannered Chinese “dictator” described the action to his audience as “despicable” and proceeded to finish his speech, not flinching from his cue cards. However, I kind of hope that his arrogance is scolded with a brief stint in jail. Just to scare the tyke. Cambridge is allowing him to swan around and continue his studies in pathology while al-Zeidi sits in Iraq using his prison food to fatten cockroaches and then bite off the creatures’ heads. The least China can do is arrange a week in a Beijing factory — put him behind a sewing machine and let him know how his precious sport shoes are produced, so perhaps he’ll be less keen on throwing them away.
Are you simply a mindless apologist for the Chinese regime or is this just an extremely feeble attempt at satire?
I assume the former.
What in, your view, makes protesting against George Bush so lauadtory and protesting against the Chinese regime (one of the worst offenders against human rights and freedom of speech on this planet) something that is “an attention-seeking hissy fit” and “arrogance” which should be “scolded with a brief stint in jail”?
Political apathy is one thing, but arguing that people who protest against obscene regimes should be jailed is another entirely.
You should have no difficulty find a job with the Department of Foreign Affairs, whose main focus appears to be supporting repressive regimes around the world – you should fit right in.
And to think that Ikeys had a proud tradition of protest in the apartheid era….
Test1
I wrote a long reply on this yesterday then the cat needed to go outside and pee so I forgot about it.
So yeah, it went along the lines of: just because you missed the ‘Free Mandela’ days, no need to complain so.
Also, if you want a neat expose of shoe-throwing in immediate Western culture…watch the somewhat amusing video of Fortis’s shareholders applying some sole to the bigwigs there. I think someone also threw an ‘electronic voting machine’, which I thought was completely out of line. But then when it turned out to be some little thing the size of a BlackBerry I changed my mind. Think there’s a link on the BBC somewhere. Finding it would be more effort than your piece requires.
My other advice would be: if you’re bitter and want your own revolution, go and find one. If it’s rather that you don’t want any revolutions, find either a country where they don’t allow such things (perhaps North Korea would let you in?) or just build a bunker.