At the lab today, grad students logged in on the video showing outgoing US President George W Bush being the target of a journalist’s shoes. Bush was fast and agile enough to dodge the footwear missiles! However I noticed that Iraqi PM Al Maliki was at first nonplussed. Was this a sort of “you deserve it” moment?
Years ago, an Egyptian colleague told me that among Arabs, throwing shoes is the worst possible insults. Among Indigenous Australians, being shown the back is the worst insult. When then PM John Howard spoke about race relations reconciliation, Aboriginals and Torres Strait islanders turned their backs while Howard continued his speech.
What about Pinoys? What is the worst kind of insult we can dish out?
Dubya did what was expected of politicians in liberal democracies. He tried to explain that incidents like these are occupational hazards.
“Let me talk about the guy throwing his shoe. It’s one way to gain attention.”
Bush didn’t get the proverbial rotten egg, which is traditional in the West. Now what diffrentiates Bush from an academic I know is that he never made a fuss about it!
Bush obviously knows that however uncivil the shoe throwing was, it can be protected as free speech.
BTW the closest Pinoy analogue is “babakyain”. Many years ago, irate women have been known do these to their philandering husbands in public.
BTW CNN reports that the journalist faces assault charges. However many Iraqis consider the journalist as a hero. Bush’s war in Iraq has been reduced to a pair of flying shoes.
Now I thought that we are required only to take off shoes when passing through airport security. Now the Secret Service may require everyone meeting the US president to take off their shoes!
Rizal Day to be moved to June 19?
Diehard Rizal fans may consider this the ultimate insult to their hero but the National Historical Institute headed by Ambeth Ocampo supports the bill in Congress moving the Rizal Day celebrations from December 30 to June 19, the national hero’s birthday. The Manila Bulletin reports that the House of Representatives approved the bill.
DJB explains why we should move the celebrations. DJB’s reasons are almost the same reasons why the NHI is supporting the move.
However DJB, Ocampo and the NHI have conveniently forgotten that Rizal is first and foremost a martyr. December 30 is celebrated as Rizal Day as decreed by President Emilio Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo declared it to recognize Rizal’s martyrdom. Please note the word “recognize”. This is used in the Catholic sense. The Roman Catholic Church doesn’t make saints. It recognizes saints by canonizing them which is literally making them part of the calendar. In the case of Rizal, pueblo Filipino “canonized” him on December 30. The interloping Americans just rode on popular sentiment and slyly used this as a part of their colonial policy.
Now Aguinaldo was just true to the Western Tradition. The Martyrs of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church are almost always commemorated on their day of their martyrdom. The Church calls this dies natalis, which doesn’t refer to their physical birth but to their birth into Heaven.
While I believe that there is much merit to DJB, Ocampo and the NHI proposal, Rizal is no ordinary hero. Rizal is a saint (to the Iglesia Filipina Independiente) a messiah (to Rizalistas) and the perfect hero to the rest of us mortals. If we use the Roman Catholic analogue, Rizal did not live a life of heroic virtue. He is the idol of “palikeros”. And he was definitely not celibate. He was our very own cultural rebel. But like any conscious hero, he planned how to go in a dramatic way, as a martyr.
Thus I believe that Ambeth Ocampo and the NHI have fallen into historical amnesia like what Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is criticized for having movable independence days. Perhaps Ocampo should put down historical trivia and “chismis” for a while, dig up his years of Atenean theology training and put on a certain gravitas and rethink his proposal.
Popularity: 1% [?]
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“Bush obviously knows that however uncivil the shoe throwing was, it can be protected as free speech.”
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Wow, you have been talking about incivilities as throwing an object at someone as a protected free speech, and egg throwing and shoe throwing as a tradition.
Egg throwing and shoe throwing are forms of expressing displeasure, but these are not traditions and they are not protected free speech, specially in the U.S. You have been talking of this misbehavior of protected free speech but you have not cited any country which protected this kind of incivilities.
US has considered the “Fuck the Draft” during the Vietnam era as protected free speech and Flag Burning as symbolic free speech, but not throwing an object at someone. This is battey if the object hits the target and “assault” if the target ducked and was placed under apprehension of unlawful contact.
When I say that non-lawyers should refrain from discussing legal issues it is precisely along the line that they can entirely misrepresent the law, and not that they do not law the law at all.
Any person can sue the journalist for attempted battery. Anyone can actually cripple this journalist career for life. Would you do things that can hurt your income?
It is also about professionalism. The journalist can always attack any political figure thru free speech. There’s boundaries between cultural behaviour and professionalism. In this case, both co-exist. It’s good.
Cultural behavior: I once worked with an Iraqi. We get along well but she backstabbed all the other americans co-workers.
One day, i asked her? have you heard of the saying that when you’re in rome be a roman?” she said, yes. Then i told her, if you don’t like the americans, why are you here? You can go back to Irag.
After that event, she has isolated herself from the rest of the team, left the department and she has to start all over again. I’m sure she had learned that lesson. thanks to me but we are still friends. she was just embarrassed. don’t we all that ” you deserve it” moment.
To connect my story to the journalist, it’s about anger.A negative behaviour within that culture. Angry people against the Americans is nothing new.
correction: “In this case, both co-exist. It’s good.”
it’s not good
correction also, not that they do not know the law at all. :)
blackshama, i agree with you about dec. 30th as the appropriate day for celebrating rizal’s martyrdom. until that day in 1896, there was no rizal, the hero. certainly, not on the day he was born on june 19, 1861.
Now, more than ever, it takes a very special type of individual to be a Secret Service agent…
One willing “to take a SHOE for the President”
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December 30 is already tarnished
Put June 19 instead on the holiday list!
*Comment cross references here:
http://www.news.ops.gov.ph/archive.htm (calendar reference)
http://www.news.ops.gov.ph/archives2002/dec30.htm (specific site googled)
December 30 as we live it through
Rizal’s martyrdom several years ago
But ‘twas gloria’s sacrifice* in 2002…
Quite ironic, I may say, for our dear nation
As Rizal’s prophesy of unification
Turned into gloria’s prophesy of disunification
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Click on December 30 on the 2002 archive at newsdotopsdotgovdotph. They’ve already replaced the link with gloria’s speech in 2003.
It’s as if they are trying to make us forget gloria’s sacrifice on that day…and, perhaps, again supplant it with Rizal’s heroic deed.
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December 30 is already tarnished
Put June 19 instead on the holiday list!
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*gloria’s 2002 speech is at the old opsdotgovdotph, excerpt of which:
Now, more than ever, it takes a very special type of individual to be a Secret Service agent…
One willing “to take a SHOE for the President”
Which came first, the martyr or hero?
For many Filipinos, Rizal begins and ends with his death at the hands of the Catholic Taliban. That is why for them he was martyr first and hero next.
For himself, within himself, he had first to be a hero before he could’ve possibly become a martyr. And yes, as you say Ben, we treat him more like a savior, because he had his “Jesus Christ Superstar” moment of uncertainty (“Take this cup from me…”)
Which came first the martyr or the hero?
I think the choice of December or June boils down to this: whether we want him to live in the neat glory and repetitive sentimentality of an aggrandized death-cum-holiday, or in the immortality of one Filipino life, learned, appreciated — emulated! — from its very first day and through the courses of its most interesting and fascinating paths.
And think of the possibilities for EDUCATION by moving it to June!
Remember that school still starts for most Filipinos in that midyear month. If June 19 were a national holiday–standing like a lighthouse in the stormy days of typhoon and monsoon–just weeks after classes start, why it could become the bellwether event that kicks off every academic year. Schools could hold readings, declamations, essay writing, fill their empty curriculums and course with Rizal as language, Rizal as literature, Rizal as essay, drama, Rizal as poetry, Rizal’s marvelous epistles at the dawn of history, his epic religious discussion with Padre Pastells, his novels, books, charts, letters, newspaper and magazine columns, his BLOGS, his thoughts and experiences in diaries, his travels through Europe, Asia, through America, his debates, his speeches, his drawings, his art, his music, his doctoring, his philandering and carousing, his sportsmanship, his exile, his loves and friends and incredible life story.
These are riches far greater than mines full of ore, these are supernatural resources, a treasure trove of ideas and a true, true life lived to its very fullest in that cradle of our nation, in that intense and incandescent mind which INVENTED with power of literature, what it means to be a Filipino.
Let December’s “Fuego” die as a Spanish echo…
Resurrect him
Transplant him
Like a fertile rhizal
of bounty and boon
Give the First to the Nth Filipino
As man alive not dead hero!
Let’s rejoice Rizal in June!
For the Taliban would rather keep him DEAD and safely excommunicated still, and I am eager to call them yet to account his foul, foul murder.
“Fuego!”
why would a change of mind to run for president “tarnish” a date? are you joking?
Rizal is used by saints and scoundrels alike, to give the impression that like him, they are telling the truth, when in fact, they are lying through their teeth.
BTW, “A woman has a right to change her mind.” was the palusot that one, George W. Bush, Target of Footwear, said of her “decision” (made on December 29, 2002) to run for President.
No, Bencard, the date is not tarnished. She’s just a bit of bird shit on the great man’s monument.
jcc
The point is that I know no politician in a liberal democracy that has filed charges that prospered for any shoe or egg throwing incident. This would be nice to know what the limits of constitutional liberties are. BTW as Saint Thomas More said, lawyers can debate (so called “lawyer’s chatter”) whether those actions are according to law or not or are free speech or not but it remains that any restriction to that would be struck down as contrary to the liberal democratic traditions.
I think its better to see what the Iraqis would do. Bush of course is unlikely to file charges.
BTW, I belong to a special class. Many years ago the University of the Philippines College of Law did a radical experiment of teaching the law to non-lawyers so that 1) they would be conscious of their rights and 2) know what their legal obligations are as citizens. I had Justice Flerida Ruth Romero as a professor. If I misrepresent the law, you can correct me by argument (assuming that you are a member of the bar) but not bar me from discussing about it. The progressive law professors wanted to ensure that citizens know the basic aspects of law so that they will be good citizens. But the legal profession wasn’t thrilled about it just as it seems you are! At least Edgardo Angara was. He funded the whole program! I’m I am mad enough I can be still be a lawyer LOL! :-)
DJB
Whatever the Catholic Taliban did (disparage, tarnish, slander etc) to Rizal is now moot since Pueblo Filipino canonized him! I believe that while it is opportune to celebrate his birth and have some didactic purpose or philosophy in doing so, it still reflects historical amnesia. There is something redeeming in Rizal’s death.
Example: we celebrate Bonifacio Day on the day of his birth since 1) we we don’t really know the date of Bonifacio’s death and 2) his execution is a shameful event in the revolution. Celebrating
Also it isn’t the Catholic Taliban that matters here but their nemesis, the Freemasons. Aguinaldo the Freemason for all practical purposes, gave the up yours to the Catholic Taliban by decreeing Rizal Day.
Thus again historical amnesia reigns if we move Rizal Day to June 19. We forget what Freemasons have done in the whole story of Pinoy nationhood.
DJB
Celebrating Bonifacio day on Bonifacio’s death anniversary is inappropriate.
Jcc
Maybe I am mad enough. Scientists who turn into lawyers are a parody. Lawyers who turn into scientists with PhDs become highly paid IP consultants! :-)
Jcc
I know of a politician who filed charges (not for being thrown an egg or shoe in her direction but for getting an unkind remark in the press). Mrs Corazon Aquino if I recall correctly filed a libel suit against Louie Beltran for his metaphorical “hiding under the bed” column.
Now history has decreed who has the metaphorical “pie in the face” here!
blackshama,
sorry for my remark. not intended at all to prevent you from discussing legal chatter or your right to free speech. just a cautionary reminder that the tendency to appreciate fine legal nuances could escape non-lawyers. it has nothing to do at all to my preference that only special animals like lawyers should be the spokesman of the law nor was i jealous about non-lawyers speaking about the law as long as they see the law in the same context as lawyers do.
Cheers. :)
My English I prof was here on campus for the centennial parties. She was extremely saddened about the show throwing incident.
She told me that while people may love or hate the US President, he deserves some respect. Unlike some world leaders who believe they represent the people, the US President is for all intents and purposes elected by the American people. In contrast, the British PM is really elected by his peers in Parliament rather than by the British people.Much worse are the Communist general secretaries that the US president had to to deal with. They aren’t remotely elected by the people at all.
The American president personifies what the American people really stand for.
She also remarked that American presidents despite the political compromises they have to make, always in the end, break through all of these and occupy the moral high ground. We admire the American political and justice system precisely for that.
I agree with her. The shoe throwing incident shows how much the US presidency has been degraded. Barack Obama’s first major priority is perhaps to restore what is admirable in the American presidency.
BTW the anti Gloria wags here have listed the kinds of shoes to possibly launch against her!
I don’t agree with throwing shoes at our Glorious Queen! Anyone who has met her would know that she would make for a difficult target! :-)
If we oppose Her Majesty, at least let’s be Her Loyal Opposition and confine our broadsides in words. That is the spirit of democracy!
Here is one thing you can say about free speech in America.
Hugo Chavez of Venezeula visited US and delivered his tirade against President Bush before the United Nation headquarters in New York. The same goes with Ahmanidejab of Iran who delivered his own vitriolic against President Bush. They were escorted by Security/FBI agents in going to and leaving the UN headquarters to ensure their safety.
President Bush cannot go in either country and call their presidents “an evil”. Bush would not came out of whatever hall he is allowed to speak in these countries alive and no security details will be provided him after his speech in these countries.
The shoe thrown at GeorgeW were size 10. If a copycat were to attempt the stunt against the little lady what size would be ‘useful’ to make the point?
But seriously now, what if that Iraqi journalist was an infiltrator and had thrown a grenade?
Me thinks the US Secret Service considers the show-throwing incident no laughing matter at all.
But thinking about it, have second-stringer G-men now been detailed to the outgoing POTUS with the incoming POTUS now getting tighter bodyguard cover?
I agree with her. The shoe throwing incident shows how much the US presidency has been degraded.
One way of saying that Bush is responsible for the shoe throwing incident happening, and all the uncivil and at times irrational behavior exhibited against him during most of his two-term incumbency.
I could warp the analogy a bit and claim that the last Pope should have exercised good judgment like staying indoors, away from the uncivil act of one man firing a gun toward him. But then many would disagree.
Does BDS have any part in this current Bush incident, as well as those in the past?
Amadeo,
I’m more concerned about the reaction of the US citizenry with regards to the incident. It appears that Americans are all “meh” and “deadma” to the incident, which indicates just how much they think of Bush, NOT of the office of the POTUS. Those are two different beasts, especially now that there’s a popular president elect waiting in line for the lame-duck president to step down.
If this were done to Obama, considering his popularity, there would be more outrage.
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On a related note, a few months ago Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was, himself, pelted with eggs by a disgruntled Turkish student at a university in Istanbul. If infamy has its price, maybe this is it.
the shoe-throwing incident is more of a reflection or one’s inability to control his displeasure by resorting to “battery and assault”, and nothing to do at all at the U.S Presidency being degraded. Obama would have received the same treatment considering the U.S. overall policy towards nations considered terrorists haven.
it further confirms what one has said (was it the author of the book the Prince?) that force is the extension of failed verbal reason.
amadeo @ 2:26pm. only the extreme liberal media and leftist loonies are snickering and high-fiving with each other over what was done to the u.s. president. but there are still real americans in the u.s. who felt violated by the insulting attack, you know. the u.s. presidency, like the u.s. flag, is a symbol. desecrate one or the other and you disrespect the country and its people.
i don’t think filipinos understand that, generally speaking.
Bencard
You are dead wrong. You may have been out of the Philippines for so long. Filipinos are courteous to any visiting head of state, the POTUS included. Don’t confuse the professional protesters on Roxas Boulevard for the rest of us.
However Filipinos can get even more ballistic than their American counterparts over flag burning. A majority of Pinoys found the S’pore flag bonfire offensive even at the height of the Flor Contemplacion issue. The thought of burning the Philippine Flag as protest is even worse. No Pinoy can contemplate that or even a bit disrespect for the Philippine National Anthem.
So in the past we had non-Filipinos being hauled out of cinemas by security if they refuse to stand up for the anthem.
But cinemas no longer play the national anthem. In Makati, they substitute the Jojo Binay march! :-)
i stand corrected, blackshama. i should have limited my comment to the philippine presidency. it seems pinoys, generally, don’t have the sophistication to separate the person from the office. as to the red headband-wearing, red flag-waving, clenched fisted commies, that could be taken for granted. but for the likes of mar roxas, jinggoy & jamby, and even lowly newsreaders of abs-cbn and some in this very blog, disrespect for the president and the presidency is regarded as a “badge of honor”.
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But cinemas no longer play the national anthem. In Makati, they substitute the Jojo Binay march! Bkackshama
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Have we gone so low that we would prefer Binay march to the National Anthem March? No concept of one nation one flag? How do we expect other nations to treat us with respect?
Even if both shoes had hit Bush on the noggin, it wouldn’t have hurt him very much physically. So I think of the act of throwing the shoe as a mere form of expression, like writing a column or blog. It’s in the great tradition of freedom of expression. That it came from a journalist punctuates this aspect of it.
The Iraqi was just giving it his two shoes worth. Did he tarnish the Office of the Presidency or insult and degrade it? Compared to whom? Bush??
and you call yourself american? shame on you. how did you become one , anyway? if the bastard did it to saddam, the guy would be eating his shoes first, then nailed to a tree upside down till he bleeds to death without anybody like you saying “great tradition of freedom of expression” in verbose pomposity.
Wow, Dean, you sure have stretched the much-interpreted concept of freedom of expression – at least two shoe sizes longer.
I wonder how you would feel if instead of Bush being hit by the two shoes, it were your wife or any loved one that was the subject of the action, because of what she had said or done?
Or worst, had punched her in the nose?
I bet you if that Iraqi journalist had more than his shoes as projectiles, he would have used them without qualms.
Bencard
My opinions of Mar Roxa,Jinggoy, and Jamby are unbloggable. Especially of the latter. I can only say &*%$#%^$@!
It is true that our recent Malacanang tenants have made their office more common. Thus any dummy can throw a P.I. on whoever is president. Was that possible under Manolo Quezon’s lolo? President Quezon would have mouthed a zillion punyetas and had the disrespectful idiot booked. Wansapanataym, visitors to the Palace to meet our Head of State have to dress up. I remember as a boy when I shook hands with President Marcos, my dad ensured that I look my best in a barong.
My mom went ballistic when she read in the PDI that Ms Nora Aunor met Mrs Aquino in jeans. Erap was even worse,he has hosted guests just wearing uncollared shirts.
I’m not being elitist here but the Head of State deserves respect not because of his/her person, but because of the office. The Presidency is a job and deserves professional courtesy.
This is the same reason why Bayani wants jeepney and taxi drivers in collared shirts. It is a matter of courtesy.
Mar Roxas doesn’t deserve the same courtesies as long as he doesn’t apologize.
The presidency is an institution to serve the people…the president is the president to execute the services to the people…service provider-client relationship…
the president has to dress up to meet the people…not the people dressing up to meet the president…
The client can wear anything he/she wants…afterall, the client is the one paying the salary of the service-provider person…
sa kaso natin sa pilipinas…kapag nakakita ng opisyal ng gobyerno…yumuyuko ang mga taong nagbabayad ng buwis…at tumataas naman ang noo ng mga opisyal na binabayaran ng buwis ng mga tao at kinukurakot pa nila ang pera ng bayan…
ISANG MALAKING MALI!!!!!!
lahat sila di karapat dapat respetohin…hindi lang si maria roxas….silang lahat na opisyal ng gobyerno…di sila dapat respetohin…
The phrase “P.I” used to be a form of slander, libel if written, but it has, by sheer passage of time has often been associated with expression of frustration or sometimes of elation. It has lost its original meaning and its pejorative connotation.
If you ask a Prosecutor in Quezon City, the phrase is no longer subject of a complaint for “slander”.
The same way “puŇeta” (roughly translated as “dick” or asshole”) or “leche”, (milk) which are expression of disapprobation, yet I have not known anyone to have filed a complaint because of those words. Though there were some cases filed in the Prosecutor’s Office because someone was called “P.I”, they are routinely dismissed for the reason above-cited.
That “P.I” is no longer subject of a formal complaint as being derogatory the way it was used before, it does not argue for its liberal use. Where someone desires for the highest office in the land, his language must be parsimonious of the use of vulgar and indecent language and there are quite a few quaint and evocative terms that can highlight his frustration short of the gutter-type lyrics that has become so fashionable even to those who are well-heeled, and arguably have respectable upbringing.
As Bencard said, you may not agree with the tenant, but at least show your respect for the Office.
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Even if both shoes had hit Bush on the noggin, it wouldn’t have hurt him very much physically. So I think of the act of throwing the shoe as a mere form of expression, like writing a column or blog. It’s in the great tradition of freedom of expression. That it came from a journalist punctuates this aspect of.. DJB
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Now if a Dean (of school or university of course) can no longer distinguish free expression to that of “battery and assault”, how much more of the unwashed and the uneducated. We are really a lost race. :)
Juwan_D,
welcome back, puso mo…istidi ka lang diyan. :)