Jordan is one of the most misunderstood nations in the region; an observation that is bothering me. While it is true that that the Middle East as a whole, Arab States, Islamic States, and Islam are all misunderstood entities, the problem with the outside-looking-in view on Jordan is that it is sheerly misunderstood even by fellow Middle Eastern and Arab states. It seems like topics such as Jordanian Foreign Policy, our approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and democracy and society in this country are all misunderstood, or sometimes marginalized, subjects.

As such, I’ll be writing a series of articles under the category of “Jordan – Know More!“, of which this is the first part.

Jordan and Democracy: Know More

Recently, on November 23rd, King Abdullah issued a Royal Decree calling for the dissolution of the 15th Jordanian Parliament, and carrying out early elections, previously slated for 2011. Following news of the Royal Decree, 85% of Jordanians rejoiced from across the political spectrum,while almost every non-Jordanian I have encountered used this as ‘tangible evidence’ of oppression of democracy and exploitation of power. Why? Why the discrepancy? Alas, they just don’t know any better.

Throughout this post, I’ll go through several misconceptions about this recent event, perhaps such discussion will make a difference.

Who wilt it?

Granted, the direct translation of Royal Decree (إرادة ملكية) gives ‘Royal Will’ or ‘Royal Wish’, a rather straightforward indication that it is the King’s wish that is being executed here. But ‘Why’ is a much more interesting and qualitative question; why is it that the king would wish for a parliament to be dissolved? I’ll quote a couple of sources.

Jordanian newspaper Alghad writes (translated):

“Furthermore, politicians confirm that the poor performance of the Council of Representatives, both legislative and regulatory framework, was the most important reason for issuing the Royal Decree to dissolve it, expecting carrying out the coming elections under a new law.”

Jordanian blogger Naseem Tarawnah quotes the same poll I linked to above, saying:

“The poll [...] revealed that 78% of respondents believe the reason for the decision to be due to incompetency of the MPs. Interestingly enough, 90% strongly support early elections, 69% strongly support a new election law, and 88% strongly support establishing an independent body to administer the elections.”

Poor performance. Incompetence.

Sure, the king is dissolving a parliament elected by the people, but here’s an undeniable fact: the people are very keen on seeing the parliament they elected dissolved. Very.

For those of you wondering about the reliability of the poll, it was conducted by Ammonnews, an independent, non-governmental, alternative media website and seld-described news agency based in Jordan. The poll addressed 200 individuals, amongst them (translated) “leaders, polititians, party members, media activists, academics, tribal leaders, and members of civil institutions in an effort to reflect public opinion trends”. Check out the details yourself if you can read Arabic.

An ‘Incompetent Parliament’ Says a lot about Your Democracy

No, it doesn’t. An incompetent parliament only says a lot about the social and socio-political structure and atomsphere within Jordan. It just so happens that we have a fragmented majority supporting the government (with countless political parties), and a unified, centralized, minority forming the opposition (with a single dominant political party: the Islamic Action Front, IAF). Such societal structure, combined with our flawed electoral law, leads to poor and biased representation within the government, and promotes tribal leaders and non-intellectuals, giving them the upper hand in voting. Indeed, the Jordanian Parliament often stood in the face of progress, barring numerous proposed bills, including Women’s Rights bills.

Aha! So your flawed electoral law has been forged by your autocratic leaders to hijack your liberties!

Again, not really. Assuming people who make such arguments refer to the King as the ultimate autocratic figure (who, indeed, is the single most powerful  individual in Jordan), such argument fails for one basic reason: the overrepresented groups in the parliament are those who are the most responsible for hindering the King’s effort in this country.

Indeed, the previous partliament (also elected under the same Electoral Law), were responsible for failing a bill suggested by the Queen herself, pertaining to the status of women in Jordan.

So how was the 15th Parliament ‘incompetent’ to the people?

Those unfamiliar with internal Jordanian politics would be quick to assert that words such “incompetent”, “dysfunctional”, and “poor performance” are in reference to the King’s Agenda. In other words, many might assume that anything that opposes the King’s agenda, whatever it may be, is deemed incompetent by our biased media.

In fact, that cannot be further from the truth. Incompetence of the 15th Parliament is a result of the outcry of the people, not a biased decision by the king.

Indeed, for the 15th Parliament,  Jordan Times writes:

“[...] in the last extraordinary session, lawmakers approved only 13 laws out of 29 listed on their agenda, which included laws of interest to the public.

The extraordinary session was adjourned while deputies were still discussing the income tax draft law, having only finished 11 articles of the 70-article law.

The government also withdrew the energy draft law and the income tax draft law to amend them in accordance with developments in these two sectors.”

An extremist propaganda organization called FLAME (meaning Facts and Logic About the Middle East) has been publishing anti-Arab advertisements in the form of articles in numerous newspapers for a while. Newspapers that published its message include the New York Times and MIT’s The Tech.

You can check out an example article on the bottom of page 14 of Issue 46 of this year’s The Tech. The issue in question was published on October 20, 2009.

In response to the false claims and strong language of this article, I collaborated with John Mikhael, an interested friend, to write up an article that responds to all of the false claims in the FLAME article.

You can either download and view the PDF here or view it using the flash object below:

The essay below was written as a mid-term assignment for a class I’m doing at MIT. I thought it was worth sharing, so here it is below:

More often than not, it may seem to many as if the world, historically, evolved under the leadership of Europe. As Europe went ‘dormant’ in the Dark Ages, many believe that, with it, History stood still. Certainly this can be witnessed in science and technology as well, where the history of knowledge, invention, and innovation almost consistently begins in Europe with Newton and his local contemporaries. Moving further into the past, one would mainly come across the Ancient Greeks, who, widely, are alone recognized as the “intellectual precursors” to the more recent European intellectuals.

In fact, however, such approach to world history neglects invaluable contributions of the rest of the world in shaping itself. Far East, African, and Islamicate Civilizations all advanced knowledge, culture, and politics, paving the way for the Renaissance, Industrialization, and Global Development.

Consequently, an approach where non European contributions and achievements are downplayed is known as a Eurocentric approach. Eurocentrism stems from ethnocentrism, a perhaps-widespread belief in past eras, where one possessed the belief of preeminence of one’s own culture and civilization over that of the ‘insignificant other’. Eurocentrism, as a prominent and unified belief, started as a response to Europe’s achievements during the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment (Goody, 1995, p. 2), which began in the fifteenth century, and lasted well into the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Ethnocentrism in Europe in general, however, saw various significant peaks well before the fifteenth century. The prominent form of Eurocentrism referenced above indeed stems from such beliefs, common in Europe centuries ago. The Church’s doctrine constructed a hierarchy of peoples, where those of Europe would “dwell in the tents of” Asians, while Africans were designated as “servant[s] of servants” (Lockman, 2004, p. 18). Such belief was designated by the Church to be the Word of God, a long-lasting attitude used both to espouse and stimulate conquest of other nations (Lockman, 2004, p. 19), but also invigorating a “culture of dominance” in Europe that persisted until modern colonization periods.

The arrival of Islam to Europe was the first major threat to the established doctrine of The Church, and, as such, was eventually portrayed as a blasphemous religion practiced by infidels. Indeed, Pope Urban II said, in his famous speech that fueled the First Crusades in the eleventh century, that Muslims were an “accursed race […] utterly alienated from God”, and designated them “[God’s] enemies” (Munro, 1895). Such descriptions indicate the beginnings of the development of a distorted view of understanding the Middle East and Islam; such misunderstandings are formed as direct implications of a Eurocentric approach. Accordingly, primary European historical accounts often viewed the Middle East as an inferior region with a backwards and stagnating culture and values. It is a common misunderstanding of Middle East history to deem Europe as the savior of the Middle East and Arabia, exporting values, ideals, and systems, such as capitalism and bureaucracy and ‘modernizing’ the region.

Reality, however, is contrary to such views; the Islamic Civilization realized ground-breaking achievements that, not only shaped World History, but also explains the subsequent Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe. Islamic achievements in thought, philosophy, the scientific method, natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering exported to Europe through trade and conquests constitute the direct foundations of the European intellectual movement. Certainly the Islamic Civilization has contributed heavily to the development of the world, and must be taken into account to understand the global propagation of Human Knowledge historically, and the subsequent evolution of civilization and society. Throughout the rest of this paper, the role of Islam in shaping both the history of Europe and the World’s will be discussed.