On The Jordanian Identity

In his novel; Great Expectations, Charles Dickens gives his readers a great piece of advice: "Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule."

Since the birth of the modern independent Jordanian state in 1921, there has been a continuous quest for a clear-cut definition of the noun "Jordanian" in more ways than the dictionary would normally give, that is, being from or related to Jordan. But beyond that generic definition, what does being Jordanian exactly mean? beyond the historical descent of people belonging to the land East of the river Jordan. but 91 years after the establishment of this nation, the question -and quarrel- remains as to who is truly Jordanian.

It is probably wise to shed a light on the Israeli point of view of the nation east of the river Jordan, as a gauge to measure the meaning through the true antagonists to the Jordanian identity, rather than quarreling among ourselves like school children trying to pointlessly inch our belonging to Jordan as per our descent or geographic roots. in that sense, it is important to revisit the role Revisionsit Zionism is playing in Israel today, as it is more alive today, than it's ever been, and the current Israeli leadership, is ideologically influenced by Jabotinsky's doctrine of the inevitability of the creation of a Jewish state on both banks of the Jordan. Netanyahu's Father, Benzion Netanyahu, was Jabotinsky's secretary, he's still his son's top "unofficial" adviser, and the source of his right wing ideology, while the ideology of the Likud -of which the prime minister of Israel is the leader- is an extension of the ideology of Herut, leading to their eventual merger in 1988.

Israel's political map is constantly evolving, and is constantly taking a right turn with its political ideology while looking East for its next move; Right wing Israeli political parties are having a field day with the average Israeli electorate, despite the traditionally leftest domination of the Israeli political scene for decades, fiercely marketing among them the zionist patriotic package of the existential necessity for the realization of the dreams and plans of the founding fathers who brought the ancient dream of a Jewish homeland into reality, by telling them that if the Israel of the future is to survive, Jabotinsky has to be revived beyond his grave, and his "vision" has to find believers, and executors.

This power hungry marketing is particularly successful amongst the community of former Soviet Union immigrants, who are seeking assertion of their Jewish identity through right wing zionist ideology. What's important for us though, is to be mindful of the fact that like any cancer cell in the body, it becomes more aggressive if it found little or no resistance from the body's immune system. Common sense tells us that if the immune system is weak and oblivious to the planned and immanent spread, while the body is feeding its narcissism in exterior by posing in a Hercules-like posture in front of a mirror, it will find itself fighting a losing battle within its corners; one which would end sooner than one could imagine, or indeed expects.

Coming back to the inter-Jordanian debate over identity, it is essential to stress the fact that identity in the Jordanian case isn't bound by the normal gauges of the definition, first and foremost, due to the nonexistence of a Jordanian nation, in the anthropological meaning of the term, Jordan isn't a nation-state, like Egypt or Russia for example, as those are nations in the ethno-social meaning of the term, but rather, we are a nation; and dare I say that the best plausible example to the national identity of Jordan, is in fact, -brace yourselves- Israel. It is true that Israel's national identity is based on the premise of the oneness of the Jewish people and its right of return to its ancestral homeland -as per the Zionist ideology- but the fact remains, that the Israeli society is a multi-ethnic, multi-ideological one, despite the original common denominator amongst all Israelis -besides their Jewish heritage in the loosest meaning possible to the majority of the citizens of Israel- excluding the Palestinian Arabs, is their belonging to Israel, the nation-state born on May 15th 1948, as an embodiment of the long lost collective identity of all Jews, and their unwavering will to fight for its survival, regardless of their inter-familiar differences.

In that sense, and objectively speaking, Jordan's existence is much similar to Israel's; not as the conspiracy theorists would argue in it being a buffer-zone between Israel and the rest of the Arab World, or as an eventual substitute homeland for the Palestinians, but rather, as per the aims of the Great Arab Revolt of 1916, which called for the liberation and eventual establishment of an independent -united- Arab state between the Turkish border to the north and the southern tip of The Hijaz, that was later revised to be the Fertile Crescent, in turn, later revised to be Greater Syria, and in the aftermath of Sykes-Picot, Jordan was the only surviving part of that great scheme, where the idea of a modern Arab nation being the homeland of All Freedom seeking citizens of the former Ottoman governorates in Arabia, under the umbrella of the Arab Hashemite Renaissance movement born in 1916 could be implemented, creating a single national identity that unites all those under its domain, from any background into the melting pot of the Jordanian identity, where difference isn't a means of conflict, but rather a means of compliment, not coincidentally for the very reason of facing the developing Israeli identity since 1948, two years after the re-birth of the Jordanian national identity.

Jordan has always been targeted in its national unity through doomsday scenarios of transfer and a substitute homeland, we all know it has, and we're contributing in that direction by facilitating the dismantlement of the backbone of Jordan -its society- by allowing quarrels about background to go on and grow to become more hostile and lethal. We're all Jordanians, it makes no difference who was where when, we're all Jordanians now, no Jordanian is a number or a statistic, no Jordanian has more -or less- rights than another, and no Jordanian is Temporary. It is true we have numerous shortcomings in the processes of both assimilation and acceptance, where family backgrounds play a role in many citizens' view of "the other" compatriot, but this malaise of character should never be allowed to become an instrument of division, there are underlying currents within our society that label people of other backgrounds with negative stereo-types like opportunism, lack of loyalty and conspiracy to "swallow" Jordan and the Jordanian identity, while in fact, those with the loudest voices against the oneness of the Jordanian identity -of all backgrounds- is in fact that of people trying to ride the tribal wave, in the name of national interest, an oxymoron of sorts, to say the least.

Any reform has to begin with addressing national identity first, once and for all, those who oppose the diversity of the Jordanian national identity, have to accept it; or choose another one that feeds their chauvinistic ambitions, and those who don't accept the Jordanian national identity to be their primary, also have to accept it; or choose another one. We're a people that has become one family, in the literal meaning of the word, even if some among us try to exercise their "ethnic purity" in the Nazi fashion, we're not "ethnically pure", none of us is, and our purity lies in our diversity, that's how Jordan was created, and that's how it should stay, for the sake of our children; All of them.

Being Jordanian isn't subject to hesitance or denial, it's not the hollow skeleton of modernity or pragmatism, it's one that knows the value of belonging: to its past, to its present, and to its future. And those -contrary to the modern interpretations of old theories- aren't subject to special prices or two for one offers.

Nature teaches us that the highest of all trees, is that with the deepest roots, and roots; go in every direction, without looking in a compass.

Why Palestine's UNESCO Membership is Historic

Today, UNESCO addmitted Palestine as a full member in the International organization, and while it's not a full UN member yet, Palestine's addmitance to this particular club, or as I'd like to call it, The civilized part of the UN, where your history is your card in, not how big your army is, is one of historic proportions.

Israel's claims of being a Jewish state is based on territorial claims in The Holy Land, mainly in Jerusalem, Hebron as well as other sites in the West Bank, and while the seizure of land post the 1967 war changed the scene on the ground in terms of mushrooming settlements across the West Bank and Gaza, the core of the claim had always been the area known to Arabs and Muslims as "Haram Shareef", or The Noble Sanctuary, where The Al-Aqsa Mosque, The Dome of the Rock are located. The historic conflict between Arabs and Jews has always been based on religious and historic claims in that particular area, known to Jews and the Western Media as The Temple Mount, refering to the Temple of Solomon, destroyed in 70 A.D and thought to have once stood where the Al-Aqsa currently stands; the only reminisce of that claimed temple is the wall known as The Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, the western wall of the Haram Sharif, which, is legally part of the 1967 occupied territories.

Israel's historic moral defeat today is manifested with the following train of thought: Since UNESCO's role is to protect historic human history through declaring different sites across the world as World Heritage Sites, this status will be granted to Palestinian World Heritage Sites in Jerusalem: the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the rest of the Noble Sanctuary, including the Western Wall, The Abraham Sanctuary in Hebron, devided into 2 by the Israeli occupation, and the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, right to the Western bank of the river Jordan, giving them the recognition denied by the UN thanks to the US, and relabelling the "Disputed sites", into "Palestinian sites", bearing in mind the Jordanian guardianship of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, as per the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty of 1994, reaffirming the historic, cultural and legal identity of the occupied territories, including the holy sites, as Arab, once and for all.

This would virtually suck the life out of the "Jewishness" of the Jewish State, morally as well as legally, by decree from the World organization responsible for the preservation of human heritage.

UNESCO membership also means that Palestine can become a member of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), as these bodies allow UNESCO members to become full members. It also places the Palestinians in a good position to become members of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), where admission is similarly contingent on a majority or two-thirds majority vote.

If an increasing number of UN agencies admit Palestine as a member state, it strengthens their claim to statehood, internationalizes the Israel-Palestine conflict, and opens up avenues previously closed to the Palestinians to pursue grievances related to the Israeli military occupation of their lands.

It's time to play their game, you want a Jewish State? go ahead, but the "Jewish" holy sites are Arab and Palestinian, despite the occupation, status quo and US Vetos in the past 60 odd years, The World has spoken through it's moral body responsible for Education, Science, and Culture, not through it's exclusive Power Club called the Security Council.

Mahmoud Darwish is reborn today:

أيُها المارّونَ بين الكلماتِ العابرة

احمِلوا أسماءَكم وانصرفوا

The Philosophical Musings of a Human..being.

It has been a while since I endeavoured into the uncharted world of human behaviour, mostly due to a state called "The Idleness of the Soul"; the unaware slipping into the common state of indifference, launching the autopilot embedded within us all and functioning in a robotic fashion going about our daily errands.

I have no clue why I keep quoting authors and literature, but it probably has something to do with the intricate detail with which they reflect human conciousness and self awareness. In his radio play "Under Milk Wood", Welsh playwright Dylan Thomas captures the essence of solitude, physical and/or intellectual, where one's own mental conversation echoes within, reminding one of their existence, in the purely Descartes-esque fashion of "I think, therefore I am". Doubt in existence needs an assirtion, and that assirtion is thought.

Knowing that doubt exists, we can generalize and assert that conscious acts exist, since doubts are a kind of conscious acts. And so, if we are to reach Descartes’ conclusion, we must somehow show that the self exists, and not just the conscious acts.

The really interesting question, then, is whether or not we can show that the existence of a conscious act guarantees the existence of a first person perspective aka "I", and if some constituted self must exist as a result of this. The structure of consciousness, the fact that we talk of the conscious act as a presentation, certainly implies that the act is structured around a first person perspective. In other words, without a first person perspective nothing can be conscious; and thus, to doubt that the first person perspective exists would itself be a conscious act structured around a first person perspective, confirming its existence.

Why is it structured around a first person perspective? Simply because someone might insist that there is no real first person perspective, only an appearance of one. So all we can really say is that the conscious act, the experience, seems as though it has a first person perspective, the existence of a first person viewpoint is itself a kind of minimal constituted self, since the first person perspective implies that there is someone who is having the current experience, even if it doesn’t necessarily give that self any other attributes, other than being there physically and/or mentally, at that specific time, completing the elements of existance.

Now, back to Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood":

"And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now, Hush..the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cockle-women and the tidy wives.

Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the organ-playing wood, you can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.

Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast and slow..asleep."

194

"He had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth." Márquez; "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

It is odd, that despite the 100 years of rhetoric about the value of freedom and human rights, the right for self determination is a valid argument for all the peoples of the world, from East Timor to Southern Sudan, which took 72 hours to become a full UN member, not to mention the mushrooming self determination calls across the world as we speak, but in the case of Palestine, it becomes a matter of long negotiations about disputed lands rather than occupied lands.

One has to admit that the struggle for Palestinian self determination was never handled rationally, not that rationale was an option to people uprooted from their ancestral lands in a few months to make way for people who claim it to be theirs first; an argument that can easily be made by native Americans in the case of North America, aborigines in the case of Australia, and the list goes on, but having reached the point we're in today, one has to be pragmatic with the hopes and realistic with the expectations.

194 would be the number Palestine would hold in the list of nations at the UN, an interesting coincidence with the UNGA resolution 194 of 1948, which calls for the return of the displaced Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war, but being a General Assembly resolution, it has no legally binding power as those of the UN Security Council resolutions, it remains, though; an ethical bedrock of the United Nations' moral duty of justice and equality, not to mention its idealistic role as the peacekeeper of the world, at least on paper.

The fact of the matter is that the US position towards Israel transcends elections, the Jewish vote and democracy, it goes deep into religious belief; Israel is seen as the prologue to the return of Jesus Christ, and the protection of Israel in every way possible serves that purpose, whereas the Palestinians are Philistines, a pagan barbarian enemy of the chosen people eventually defeated by David, Goliath is their most famous historical character, the David vs Goliath story has become the embodiment of Good vs Evil in the collective psyche of the Judeo-Christian narrative. Evangelism in the US is fascinated by Israel, a tiny peaceful promise by God to the Jewish people to herald the return of Jesus Christ to establish the Kingdom of Heaven, threatened by the descendants of Goliath, the choice as to who to side with is as clear as daylight.

The World is a messed up place, truth and lies are meshed up with interest and gain, hypocracy is a human trait reincarnated through the United Nations, George Orwell's Animal Farm -written one year prior to the establishment of the UN- is probably the best representation of its inner workings: "All Pigs are Equal, but some Pigs are more Equal than Others". And yet, Benjamin Netanyahu comes to the UN in 2011 and says: "In 1984 when I was appointed Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, I visited the great rabbi of Lubavich. He said to me - and ladies and gentlemen, I don't want any of you to be offended because from personal experience of serving here, I know there are many honorable men and women, many capable and decent people, serving their nations here - But here's what the rabbi said to me. He said to me, you'll be serving in a house of many lies." [source]. I'm not entirely sure whether the rabbi was insulting the UN or praising it with that statement.

Alright, so where do we go from here? A US veto is on the menu, Palestine won't become a full UN member, despite the prospected use of the same course that was taken by Israel in 1948, it is -none the less- the beginning of a great annual nuisance to Israel and a cause for a great annual embarrassment to the supposed fair broker to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Tonight, a vote at the UN Security Council is expected to be made to propose sanctions on Syria, it's expected that Russia -which announced its backing of the Palestinian statehood bid- would use the veto to abort it, so in a way, a tit for tat ping pong game between the US and Russia, a US veto for Palestine, a Russian veto for Syria, and they're even. The quartet's envoy, the Right Honorable Tony Blair -on his part- turned out to be having an affair with an Israeli business woman, so that's also in the bag, we're set, we're back to the global city of mirrors -or mirages- Márquez was talking about, it's our 100 Years of Solitude this time around, though.

"Look at situations as contingent, not as inevitable, look at them as the result of a series of historical choices made by men and women, as facts of society made by human beings, and not as natural or god-given, therefore unchangeable, permanent, irreversible." Edward Said.

Eleven

Remember the Birth pangs of the New Middle East? The genius theory prophesied by Ms. Rice, who; on this eve of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, had ignored, underplayed and dismissed intelligence reports warning of an imminent threat to the US mainland, 2 months prior to the attacks, voiding her political wisdom obsolete since the first few months of the Bush Administration.

It seems that the number Eleven has an element of change embedded within it's identical straight lines, as was the case in 9/11's tsunami style change across the world, 2011 has proven to be a year of unimaginable change in the Arab world, Three regime changes in Eight months, Two others in the process. A whole mindset of defiance has risen from beneath the proverbial ashes of the Arab defeated spirit. Tonight, remarking on the attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo last night, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that "The Middle East is now undergoing a political earthquake of historic proportions. Perhaps this can be compared to what happened a century ago at the end of the First World War with the establishment of a new world order."

Two of Israel's most relied on historic allies in the region -using the hip Facebook language- have "unfriended" Israel, even if this status change is temporary, the fact remains that Israel is as clueless as it's never been before in its history, Netanyahu's comparison of the current state of the Middle East to the era at the end of the First World War isn't a haphazard statement, the whole map of the Middle East was redrawn in the aftermath of WWI, Israel hadn't been born yet but it's probably the ultimate prize that came out of that "earthquake". Since its creation in 1948, Israel had always been the re-shaper/re-drawer of borders in the Middle East, through the series of wars from '48 to '73, not to mention the Lebanon invasion of '82 and the Lebanon war of '06 -which saw that first genius statement of the new Mid East- and the Gaza war of '08.

in 2011, Turkey's 61 year old strategic alliance with Israel is frozen, Egypt's 30 year old puppet regime has fallen, Syria's "good bad neighbour" is in the process of falling, and the whole political map is reshaping with Israel's helpless eyes fixated Westwards seeking protection and reassurance from its historic ally and benefactor across the Atlantic ocean, to guarantee its survival and to salvage the broken pieces of diplomatic tantrums in the Arab World.

Bottom line, Welcome to the new Middle East, The birth pangs of the New Middle East have returned; Israel isn't the only constant anymore, but rather the new emerging variable. History never accepts the status quo, even if the status quo conveniently lasts for centuries.

When South Becomes the New North

I, for one; do not care what the official Jordanian position towards what's happening in Syria is, if -that is- there was indeed an official -or an unofficial- Jordanian position to begin with, for all the diplomatic etiquette, and all the elegance and eloquence in political communiqués become void of their meaning when five minutes across the Jordanian northern border, people's human dignity is being abused for the sake of one man's -cosa nostra style- narcissistic ego.

I won't go into the known facts of inter-familial ties between Jordan and Syria, nor will I remind you that the flag of Jordan was -at one point- the flag of the Kingdom of Syria, neither will I stress the unbreakable Jordanian historic sociological and cultural belonging to the Leventine identity more than its economic yearning towards the Gulf. But if I were to practice my talents in crystal-ball gazing and my world renowned supernatural powers in prediction and astrology, I would predict a firm Jordanian position towards Syria in the next few days, one that stresses the "importance of safeguarding the human dignity of the Syrian people, and their inherent human right of free expression void from the threat of physical harm, pointing out the sanctity of human life". A position that boasts with idealism and chivalry, as All our official positions are. We will, of course; add actions to words and seal this noble position by recalling our ambassador from Damascus for consultations.

You might be sly in thinking that this -better late than never- eventual expression of our deep inner feelings of humanity comes to you courtesy of our GCC membership hopes, or the unprecedented Saudi, Kuwaiti, and UAE financial aid to Jordan in the past and coming week or so, not to mention the official Syrian announcement of a drug smuggling bust on the Syrian-Jordanian border today, but you'd be wrong; in fact, it all comes down to our piousness and ever so clear consciousness, you see.

Má Vlast

What is Jordan's most recent assertion of existence? probably a shocking question to some, but I've been thinking about variations of this question for a while. This year, we celebrated the 43rd anniversary of the battle of Karamah of 1968; and despite the unfair historical hijacking of the first Arab victory post the 1967 war, it remains the fundamental proof of Jordan's ability to survive. Some would also include the September 1970 events, and they might be correct, but Karamah endures as the first straight forward Israeli defeat.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Jordan had a Message, one of insistence to succeed as a model of a modern Arab nation built from the ground up, one reflective of the diversity of the Arab nation both ethnically and religiously, a civilized model of Arab renaissance in the 20th century, this was fortified with the constitution of 1952 and the parliamentary elections of 1956, the 1st and last purely democratic exercise in Jordanian history, despite the subsequent regionally inspired political turmoil in 1957. The social and economic development in the 1960s and 1970s was another assertion of existence, so was the life and death of notable Jordanian politicians like Hazza' Al Majali and Wasfi Al Tal, although I would argue that our best example of the will and power to succeed was embodied in King Hussein himself, hence, the example could be extended to his own life, until his passing in 1999.

Jordan's enduring stable political identity's marking of its 90th anniversary this year is one worthy of note, and there's much to say about the virtues of the Jordanian model of government. But the political, economic and social map has changed massively since the passing of King Hussein, the fact remains; that Jordan's one time idealistic -bearer of arm/bearer of olive branch- image has vanished from the collective Jordanian psyche during the past decade or so, and was replaced by the materialistic image of singular capital gain through plural capital loss. Which brings to mind Ibn Khaldun's theory on The Rise and Fall of Nations, when, in the fifth phase of a nation's life, it suffers from the symptoms of old age, including national dementia, where the one-time single unit made of multiple compositions is fragmented into many, replacing collective national pride with factionalism, tribalism, and individualism, diminishing the capacity of diversity as the engine of the political unit. A negative socio-political evolution where decadence and decay hits the nation and sedentary luxuries over-ride the basic duties of government in safeguarding justice and equality among all citizens, regardless of their economic stature.

The mere recurring use of the word Reform, refers to infested deterioration, the only problem is that even if you get a facelift, or a botox injection, or any other cosmetic treatment called "Reform", you'd most likely still suffer from chronic age-related arthritis, increasing loss of hearing, and probably, at one point, Alzheimer's disease, despite the baby -blemish free- skin. Your best bet lies in your regular mental and physical exercise, in other words, the clear and constant engagement of all the proverbial colors of the social and political spectrum in the assessment of the national priorities, void from unquestionable hierarchical patronage, dismissal, or pastoral dictation.