by M. Shahid Alam
Shoe Jihad: A Satire

  The time has come, the Walrus said,
  To talk of many things:
  Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—
  Of cabbages—and kings…

  - Lewis Carroll

  These kleptocrats throw themselves at the feet
  of Western plutocracies: they spurn
  the real source of power – their own people –
  seeking clientage under Western boots.
  Lesser rogues gravitate to bigger ones:
  this is the law of global hegemony.
  This tendency emerges again and again
  as long as its victims stay hidebound.
  These lesser rogues – Zardari, Karzai,
  Abdullah, Mubarak, Abbas –
  
  will get their marching orders from DC,
  hold down their own people for a fee,
  unless the people, every one of them,
  pick up their shoes, sandals, chappals
  (any old footwear will do),
  and point them at these scoundrels, 
  a shot across the bow of their kleptocracies.
  If this does not work (and it might not),
  ask the shoe-throwing Iraqi.
  He knew better what to do with a shoe. 

M. Shahid Alam teaches economics at Northeastern University. He is author of Israeli Exceptionalism: The Detabilizing Logic of Zionism (Palgrave Macmillan, November 2009). He may be reached at alqalam02760@yahoo.com. His book, Challenging the New Orientalism: Dissenting Essays on the "War Against Islam"  is available at Amazon.com

 

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