Do Arabs who throw their shoes ever get them back?

 Model 127 brogues

I’m sure most of us only became aware of people throwing shoes at politicians when some dorky Iraqi journalist lobbed one at Dubya in 2008. After that, it became quite the done thing around the globe – even reaching the Cambridge Union, where a German chucked his footware (jackboot?) at the Chinese Premier (he didn’t reach his target).  But, essentially it’s an Arab/Muslim thing.

According to the BBC, Egyptians voting in their country’s first democratic elections (whose outcome, one assumes, will merely prove that democracy isn’t always and everywhere a Good Thing), have been “shoeing” some of the candidates (and I really hope the word doesn’t also stand for some unpleasant and probably extremely painful sexual activity):

“…protesters in Cairo threw shoes and stones at a convoy of candidate Ahmed Shafiq, who was Mr Mubarak's last prime minister…”

I know that in several cultures simply exposing the sole of one’s shoe is considered insulting (even if you have no idea that you’re giving offence – but, hey, Westerners are supposed to know this stuff, right?: we are such bastards!). Even bringing up the subject of shoes while having an Arabic argument is considered inflammatory (You have a face like a shoe! Your shoes are unpolished! Your mother was a camel and your father was a cobbler! Shoe off!). So, obviously, throwing your shoe at someone is a token of deep contempt. 

I can also see that shoes serve as handy symbolic weapons. A flung shoe won’t kill anyone, so you’re unlikely to spend the rest of your life living off cockroaches in some grossly insanitary Third World dungeon, or end up having your foot lopped off with a scimitar by some hirsute brute in a string vest. They also obviate the need for smuggling potential missiles into public meetings. And, of course, eggs and tomatoes are probably a bit thin on the ground in some non-oil rich Arab countries. 

But, as the title of this post hints, my real concern is whether unarrested shoe-bungers ever get their shoes back. Otherwise, the walk home must be extremely uncomfortable – and possibly dangerous, especially if they’re in the middle of an angry mob. Having been called a clumsy fool on more than one occasion for stepping on people’s feet (my standard response is “Sorry – didn’t see you down there”) I know how easy it is to manglesomeone’s toes – I hate to think what state they’d have been in if they hadn't been wearing shoes.

This has been worrying me ever since George Bush dodged that shoe back in 2008. Here, fortunately, it's too wet and cold and shoes are too expensive for it ever to catch on. 

Two interesting facts: the Turkish shoe company which manufactured the journalist’s shoes immediately quadrupled sales. And the journo in question was himself shoed by an exiled Iraqi journalist the following year in Paris. As it were.