Talk to the shoe

Desperate times call for desperate measures. So what do people resort to doing when they have been rendered politically impotent? They opt for symbolic, emotionally charged protests like name-calling, flag-burning, and most recently, shoe-throwing. Shoe-throwing has been the way to get your voice heard since 2008, when Muntader al Zaidi tossed two shoes at George W Bush in Iraq. In a slightly less famous incident, Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao was the victim of a shoe-attack in the UK in 2009. In the instances mentioned above, both shoe-tossers chose to accessorise their flying footwear with a string of invective. Zaidi ...