Disclaimer: This post reflects the sole opinions of the author, who's living in Amman, and can be found in the same house he's been living in since 1976, near Al Rasheed Police Station, in case someone would like him to have a cup of coffee with them.
I'm using the title of Averroes' book, as the title to this post due to the striking resemblance between the dialectic method of thought we've been using for the past 60 0dd years, in which we refer every collective achievement to a supreme entity called the Royal Court, to a point where it seems that some among us have reached a degree of devout faith that would have them swear by their unborn children, that like we are created for the sole purpose of God's worship, we're Jordanian for the sole purpose of service to, and by the grace of, the higher entity called the Royal Court.
I've been observing -not so silently- the circus Jordan has become in the past 10 years, from the sale of the people's collective properties to foreign investors, to the not so covert transformation the Jordanian Army has gone through from an army that fought and captured Jerusalem in 1948, to an army of mercenaries; a gun for hire in the Congo, Haiti and other God forsaken areas where poor members of the Armed Forces compete rabidly to be chosen among the select few who are sent to Cholera and HIV infested regions to guard diamond mines owned by ethnic-cleansing war criminals in the jungles of Africa and/or the Caribbean, to the childishly too enthusiastic calls for youth participation in the parliamentary elections through the X-Factor style campaign called "سمّعنا صوتك", which has gone with the wind after the disillusioned people -young and old- went ahead with their polished voices/votes and well kept ID cards with the electorate district stamped on them, and participated in their constitutional right in the building of the Democratic Jordan, which can be stripped off at will, as it is stated in our constitution; section 3, of Article 34.
I'm a kind of person who calls a spade a spade, I did when I was a representative of the government through posts on this very blog during the past 4 years, and now that I'm relieved -really relieved- from that moral burden, I shall be even more candid, and more straight to the point. We are a bunch of hypocrites, all of us, in varying degrees, including myself, and we would waive our collective rights at the sight, smell or sound of a hint of personal gain, it's the dogma of being Jordanian.
Jordan is not a nation-state, whether we like it or not, our existence is a mere coincidence of history, we're surviving as a proxy nation through foreign aid, much of which is embezzled, and our long-term survival has long been questioned, but we're contributing towards that end with our selfish and foolish policies, the ones that do not look beyond the noses of whomever decides them, as long as they secure instant personal financial or political gain, and where everything is open to negotiating, from public property to sovereignty.
I cannot make the comparison with Egypt or Iraq for example, as both -despite the dire state they're in- both in the political and economic meaning of the word, both are eaten with the rust of financial, political and social corruption, but both are Nations, they've existed for millennia and passed through the hands of all kinds of rulers; fair and folly, and have always risen from their own aches. Jordan isn't a nation -in the anthropological meaning of the term-, it is the southern part of the Levant; and its people is part of the genetic and social mosaic of that region; it was, and will go back to that geopolitical state, sooner or later, the Political entity of Jordan was created under the premise of being the spearhead to the liberation of Syria from the Ottomans in the early 1920s, that project was aborted right there and then, with the implementation of Sykes-Picot.
We're all Syrian; Historically, Ethnically and Culturally, and our Jordanianism is a source of pride. In my case; when my grandparents sought refuge from being massacred in Palestine, this land was their saviour and shelter, but my Jordan has become a one-stop shop, not the Jordan my forefathers, on both sides of my family across both banks of the Jordan lived, fought, and died in and for.
The people is the source of all authorities, it is so stipulated in the constitution's article 24, it's either that, or it's not anything, the people in Jordan is a source for funds, we're the helpless child on a beggar's shoulder with which charity and compassion is appealed, an audience, co-signers and/or garantuers to corruption, a group of extras without which, no overt or covert theft on the grandest scales would be possible, we're all guilty of conspiring against each other, and we're the first to be tried and executed, and the "few good men" always come out unscaved, chubbier, and more sun-kissed by the day.
The elite of the Jordanian society –which theoretically should be made of the middle class and should represent the engine of the social and economic movement of the society- has grown beyond that role both socially and economically- and has endeavoured into a marriage of money and power with the blessing of the powers that be. As this relationship matured through the past few years beyond any stoppable force, it became alien to its original roots of private interest-free public service; and with that unnatural evolution, it re-shaped itself into several interconnecting bubbles, more like the Olympic rings of private interests, each bubble works independently but will protect the existence of all the other bubbles, as any disturbance to one would disturb the rest, while those outside all these bubbles; and make up the backbone of the society, have no control over anything, so they just go about earning their daily bread, literally, because that's where their sole interest lies.
The most recent example of the above "Rapprochement" was the "payback" the government received through the record-setting vote of confidence from the parliament, which in fact was a cross section of the kind of relationship the legislative and executive authorities have, which defies even the imagination of one of the most sarcastic novelists of the 20th century; George Bernard Shaw, when he so eloquently noted that "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul".
Jordan is becoming a failed state, with the emergence of increasingly powerful parallel ruling families, we all think it, few dare say it, and the closing time is soon, unless God -or whomever is looking out for children, trees and animals- graces us with mercy, and we've all found it convenient to act in a Don Quixote style of schizophrenic madness and take it out on each other through wolves in sheep skin pointless perceptions called ethnic or tribal backgrounds, fighting amongst ourselves in vanity, conceit and foolish egotism, while in fact, we all -except the chosen few- are the losers.
God Save us All.
