The Malaysian Insight - Flares, shoes thrown at Dr Mahathir in forum (extracts):
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Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe; over Philistia will I triumph
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SEVERAL youths lit flares, threw chairs and shoes at Pakatan Harapan chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad as he spoke at the Nothing To Hide 2.0 forum, creating pandemonium and panic in a Shah Alam hall this evening.
That was disgraceful - t'was disgraceful when Malaysians had to resort to such violence.
Mind, it wasn't the first time Mahathir encountered violence - in July 2006 he was attacked with pepper spray in Kelantan during a campaign visit to Kota Baru, the state capital.
Virtually every Pakatan supporter blame UMNO for the shoe-throwing silliness, which could have easily caused a disastrous stampede.
But naturally UMNO denied it has been responsible. UMNO's denial is hardly to be accepted, regardless of its innocence (or otherwise) because, wakakaka, opinions on politics and especially political violence have been based on perception.
Chair throwing has been traditional in Malaysia, Taiwan and a few other countries. In Malayan earlier days, the original proponents were MIC members, wakakaka, but then due to the intriguing mysteries of strange aerodynamics of chair-flying, the practice has been adopted by the Chinese, then PKR (who if I remember correctly, added tables to the repertoire) and I wonder who else, wakakaka again.
Throwing shoes has been an Arab insulting custom but that practice was as early as the Old Testament as Psalm 108:9 says:
I recall that on 14 December 2008 in a press conference with George Bush in Baghdad, Iraq, Muntadhir al Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist stood up and shouted at Bush"This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog" and then threw a shoe at the American president, who I have to admit, was quite athletically dexterous in his avoidance of the Iraqi 'missile', wakakaka.
Muntadhir had wrote about the US in Iraq and the Iraqi victims of the war, but was subsequently and mysteriously kidnapped and tortured before being released. Naturally he held a grudge against the USA.
After Muntadhir's shoe-flying attempt which was televised worldwide, many others around the world took up shoe-flying as a delightful exercise, wakakaka. Yesterday we saw it in practice in Malaysia.
But I wonder, just wonder wakakaka, leaving aside Mahathir's 2002's Declaration of Malaysia as a fundamentalist Islamic nation, whether that was in acknowledgement of Arabic superiority in the culture of insults just as Malaysia acknowledges Arabic superiority in matters Islam, or just an adoption of a worldwide trend of showing anger?
Did anyone hear someone shouting "This is a farewell kiss from the Malaysian people, you dog".
Wakakaka.
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from Kedah? |
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from Petaling Street? |
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from London? jolly good show, old chap |