When Iraqi journalist Muntadhar Al-Zaidi threw his shoes at President Bush during a press conference in the war-torn country Sunday, he was merely expressing the growing frustration of many in Iraq and in the Arab World who see the war there as a failure.

But Al-Zaidi, a cameraman for Al-Baghdadia TV, is not the symbol of growing extremism or increased terrorism.

Al-Zaidi may be better compared to Kanye West, the African American hip-hop artist who criticized President Bush in September 2005 during an NBC sponsored event to raise funds for victims of Hurricane Katrina, when he said the president “doesn’t care about Black People.”

What no one should miss and that we all should recognize is that Al-Zaidi made a choice to express his frustration and his anger against American policies in the militarily occupied country in a non-violent rather than a violent manner.

Instead of being beaten, tortured and brutalized as he was immediately by the Iraqi security and hired armed mercenaries, Al-Zaidi should be hailed not just by Iraq but also by President Bush as proof that violence may actually be losing out to non-violent and legitimate protests.

In Arab culture, the concept of “honor” is held in the highest esteem. The worst thing you can say about an enemy is that they are dishonorable and that they have acted dishonorably.

One way of expressing that disdain for someone’s honor in the Arab World is to throw your shoe, because the shoe symbolizes the point of contact between an “honorable man” and the filth of an Earthly world.

A shoe doesn’t just protect your feet. It protects your soul from dishonor, especially when walking among other men in an unprotected and dirty world.

Muslim Arabs, and Muslims around the world, remove their shoes specifically for that reason when they enter a Mosque to pray. Removing their shoes is a sign of respect more powerful than the Western tradition of removing a hat from your head in the presence of women or individuals of public authority and power.

Many Americans may have forgotten that a similar incident occurred in the ways after the American-led military invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.

As American soldiers were pulling down the statue of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from its perch before one of the tyrant’s former palaces in Baghdad, Iraqi civilians angry with Saddam’s policies removed their shoes and threw them at the statue.

It is the ultimate form of criticism that stops far short of the traditional form of protests that we have seen over the years in the Middle East that have involved violence, assassination and mass killing including suicide bombings.

The response is not to brutalize Al-Zaidi as many suspect is being done to punish him and send the lesson out that throwing your shoes is a bad thing. It is a good thing. It is a good thing whenever someone in the Middle East can protest without turning to violence. It is a good thing when individuals have turned to the purity of their culture to express anger and dissatisfaction without turning to violence.

There is no question in my mind that Al-Zaidi did not intend to physically hurt President Bush, although he certainly hoped to sully the president’s “honor.” That is the kind of conduct we in America should appreciate. We should recognize the nuance of the event for what it really is, not a sign that extremism is on the rise but that moderation may in fact by spreading in Iraq.

Just as Kanye West became a hero to African Americans, Muntadhar Al-Zaidi is a hero to those in the Arab and Islamic World who hope to see moderation and non-violence replace the violence that has made bad foreign policies worse.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Chicago based Palestinian American columnist and radio talks how host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com and by email at [email protected].)