smack Saddam with your shoe

Like virtually everyone else I've been watching the fall of the statue of Saddam in the centre of Baghdad, one of the things I've liked is the Arabic custom of disrespecting people by kicking or hitting with shoes. The video of Iraqis hitting pictures of Saddam with their shoes is delightful, people even stop mid-stride and take one shoe off and smack him in the face and start walking again.
Hopefully this will be the end of it and the possible battle in Tikrit will dissolve and calm will be restored with an Iraqi led government by the summer.