Shoes: An Arab Form of Protest???

More than 20,000 demonstrators marched against the Israeli air campaign in Paris and more than 10,000 in London, where some threw shoes at the prime minister’s residence, a particularly Arab form of protest that has gained worldwide currency since an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at President Bush last month in Baghdad.

Source: New York Times, January 3rd 2009

I was disturbed when I read this, and when I shared it with my Lebanese friend Z, she reminded me of this article she came across, about a young Lebanese boy who got upset when his teacher punished him for not doing his homework, so he took his shoe off and threw it at her. (I wonder if he thought of himself as some oppressed hero after he got expelled from school!)

Then, today, I received an email about a series of events taking place in New York in solidarity with Gaza, and the first event on the list said:

Stand with Gaza: Shoes to Bloomberg (Rally and Shoe In Against Bloomberg)
Presented by the Break the Siege Coalition

When: Wednesday January 7th, 4:30 PM
Where: City Hall

** Bring Old Shoes, the Smellier the better!

Seriously now, I find it very disturbing that people have been inspired by Muntazer Zubaidi to turn shoe tossing into some common form of protest. Generally, the issue of how people express themselves at demonstrations has been on my mind for a while, but I was withholding my thoughts because I felt perhaps it's not the time to be critical. Then a combination of the shoe email, a series of online discussions with a wise friend in Amman, and Naseem's brilliant post today inspired me to just hit the keyboard.

To be fair, I didn't go to that Shoes to Bloomberg protest but my friend who was there told me that people ended up not throwing shoes, and that the spirit of it was just protesting the Mayor's recent stand on the issue.

I only went to one of the protests that took place in New York. It was in front of the Israeli UN mission; with a pro-Palestinian crowd on one side of the street (perhaps around 1000 people), and a smaller pro-Israeli crowd on the other. It was interesting to see how much media coverage there was; so many SLRs, television cameras and audio recorders. I saw CNN there, as well as some other local stations. But then, I found it very disappointing that most of the messages held and shouted by the crowd were overly emotional and totally lacking in substance. Not only that, at some point they started shouting in Arabic. And all those New Yorkers passing by or standing and looking at the protest out of curiosity had no clue what was being said. I felt it was a shame; to have media coverage and a chance to get a meaningful message across and then not use it well.

I have to admit I'm a bit conflicted about the notion of "sending a message" and what kind of difference it makes. Part of me likes to think it does - I would like to believe that when people collectively express a strong opinion, this impacts policy decisions or steps taken by governments and leaders - at least in some parts of the world. And while protests are emotional by nature, I really wish we could start seeing protests in the Arab world that are more rational and that have well-thought out messages, where people know what they want and how they propose to get it rather than blind reactions.

And while we're at it, I hope our Parliament would observe moments of silence over something other than support for a shoe-tossing journalist.

Sigh.

American Media’s Coverage of Gaza

The New York Times can often argue that no matter how they cover the Arab-Israeli conflict, people on both sides will accuse them of bias. But no matter how rational, unemotional, and detached I try to be, it’s just been impossible not to get infuriated by their coverage of what’s happening in Gaza.

Take the photo slide-shows on their website. In the multimedia section, there are three or four slideshows, and each has about 10 photos. Now I understand that they want to show both sides of the conflict and that includes photos from the rocket attacks on south Israel and the victims of those rockets. But when they show two photos of distraught Palestinian civilians versus two photos of distraught Israeli civilians, this is not balanced coverage given the proportions of what is happening on the ground. The rest of the photos are often showing smoke over Gaza from a far distance, where you don’t really see the impact of what is happening.

The Washington Post has been significantly different. Their photo gallery of the situation has around 52 photos, with a note from the editor at the beginning warning of the violent nature of some of the images. It shows the tragic situation is in Gaza’s hospitals, where the wounded are being treated on the floors. It shows numbers of dead Palestinian children, and destroyed homes and mosques. There are images from both sides, but it just seems more comprehensive and reflective of the massive humanitarian crisis and “disproportionate” violence and bloodshed.

The LA Times has a photo gallery of 36 photos, 12 of which show grieving Israelis in south Israel where Hamas rockets are being fired, versus two or three photos of grieving or wounded Palestinians.

NPR has a slideshow of ten photos, but mostly showing smoke from a distance, or demonstrations. This could be attributed to the fact that journalists have not been allowed to enter Gaza, but then again, I think there are different ways to get closer images. NPR talk to their reporter on the border and he gives an idea of the situation as he sees it.

The New York Post has a story about Mayor Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, who paid a one-day visit to Israel to express support and solidarity with the Israelis. Some of the comments on this news story were interesting, where New Yorkers expressed anger over Bloomberg sticking his nose where it does not belong and wasting tax payers money on trips he has no business making.

Editor and Publisher, the American Journal which covers the newspaper industry, had a piece about the American media’s one-sided coverage of the conflict, particularly critical of the New York Times.

The Indypendent, which defines itself as the newspaper of the independent nyc center, published a first-person account from Cynthia McKinney, the former Georgia congresswoman who had been on the SS Dignity, a ship she and 15 other activists were traveling in from Cyprus to Gaza to deliver humanitarian supplies before they were intercepted and rammed by Israeli patrol boats.

The Indypendent also covered pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the city, as did the New York Times. Here’s an excerpt from the Times’ article:

Anger over the Israeli assault on Gaza spilled into Times Square on Saturday, as hundreds of protesters condemned the attacks in a demonstration that stretched four blocks and clogged much of the city’s central tourist district for several hours.

Note: When four blocks around Times Square are covered by protestors, that does not mean “hundreds”, that is more like thousands. Of course, it can be argued that there’s no factual error, because hundreds can mean five thousand, but it’s obviously an editorial choice that downplays the numbers.



Independent media in the US has been relatively more critical of Israel’s “all-out war” in Gaza than mainstream media – with lots of analysis and commentary arguing against it. A couple more links if you’re interested:

- The Huffington Post linked to a commentary in the Haaretz – Israel’s left-wing paper – by Gideon Levy, titled: And there lie the bodies.

- Chris Hedges, who covered the Mideast for The New York Times for seven years, writes a column on Truthdig.com titled “Party to Murder”.

- CNN’s citizen journalism website iReport has been publishing videos and images from Gaza, and from protests in the US and other countries. Many of the slideshows are preceded by a “discretion advised” note.



So now after I spent two hours putting this post together, I can’t help but wonder how media coverage and public opinion affect the course of a war like this.
Do they?

It’s all very depressing.