Jordan Journals

Jordan Journals: abuse in Irbid

2011-06-28T10:37:00.000+03:00

abuse in Irbid

2011-06-26T20:37:00.002+03:00

It seems that Qualified Industrial Zones are law unto themselves. There have been many stories over the years about abuse in the factories set up there to take advantage of the Free Trade Agreement between Jordan and the USA. There are thousands of Sri Lankan, Bangldeshi and Chinese women who are slave labour in these factories owned by foreigners. Hardly any Jordanians work in these places as the wages are so low.

Recently a USA human rights organisation wrote a report on the sexual abuse in one particular factory. http://www.globallabourrights.org/ They have just visited Jordan and liaised with the Family Protection Department (the police department which specialises in sexual offences) and one brave Bangladeshi woman made a statement and identified the alleged offender and he was arrested but, unfortunately, the prosecutor set him free two days later. I am hoping that he will face the charge. Of course he is innocent until proven guilty and the charge of rape is a very difficult to prosecute especially where there is no forensic evidence.

Whatever comes of this case I hope the Jordanian authorities will take a closer interest in the rights of these foreign workers in Jordan who are used and abused seemingly at will. Of course the revenue that is brought in to Jordan is large so there may be hesitation in pushing forward an inquiry. Pressure should be put on the Ministry of Labour and the companies that use these goods like Walmart, Land's End and Gap.

A Piece of Poetry

2010-05-06T09:51:00.002+03:00

... what more needs to be said?

A Poem by Fadwa Tuqan

I sit down to write...

But, what it is that I can write?

That it is worth to say 'my homeland'

'My people'

'My people'

Will it be that I can protect my people with words?

Will it be that with words I will save my people?

By chance perhaps is it not absolutely ridicule, for me to sit, today, to write?

That the bullet cries out, and silences the penalty.

Not hardly that it should, the penalty does not have to keep silent,

It must simply say that Palestine during the last thousand and six hundred years was not waiting as an empty and vacated property.

"A piece of poetry inspired by fact. These words, written in another form, had been found in the agenda of a Palestinian guerrilla who died in 1967."

Goodbye Jordan Journals

2010-04-28T08:34:00.002+03:00

Having moved to the UK five months ago I stopped contributing to Jordan Journals as I felt I would not be up on what is going on in Jordan. Thanks to the internet I follow Jordanian news in the Jordan Times, blogs and emails from friends but the personal connection has gone. The blog seems to have run its course and it has been fun. T

Dear Blog goodbye

2010-04-20T17:49:00.003+03:00

Hmmmmm ... havn't blogged since February! Something must be amiss. What with changes here and changes there, diversions, illusions, collusions and calamitous conundrums ... yet unanswered.

And it all boils down to a little five letter word that puts fear into the hearts of men in the holy land: peace!

Thus ends this blog ... until further notice ... which may take a little while longer of rest upon the wind ...

Peace be with you all

J

In reply to an Editorial in the Jordan Times

2010-02-19T10:36:00.002+02:00

Not wishing to take the name of the Lord in vain, I couldn’t help but exclaim a huge 'Oh my lord, what are you thinking Mr Editorial' – when I read your thoughts on developing and pushing tourism at the Baptism site.

Whoever wrote that piece of misinformation, should take a few steps back and reflect on the course of action that has been taken and is being pushed in the name of tourism development. First of all, we need to remember that this is a religious site, special to so many people of many beliefs, not to mention historians, archaeologists and the Jordanian public at large - this is not Vegas!

As such, the existing visitor’s centre and accompanying shops/restaurants/facilities are more than adequate for the needs of tourists. If they would like to spend the night, a simple ten minute drive up the road will give a superb choice of hotels to use. Another beautiful drive through pristine landscape will give a choice of some charming hotels at much lower rates in Madaba, thus supporting the local community. And within thirty minutes they are back in Amman … so why the need for more hotels - those notorious water wasters?

The point being because of the natural beauty and spiritual significance of this very special place, it should not be developed. People come here to get away from modern development. As it is, the huge number of churches being built is questionable – couldn’t we just have had one international church for all the faithful?

The thought of walking in the footprints of prophets, of bonding with the surrounding landscape of earth, sand, water, stone and vegetation untouched by consumerist demands is what I look for at this site and I know this is what ‘the tourist’ wants too – a unique experience. Touristic buildings will take away the one treasure and special feature of this site ----its natural landscape and the fact that it is not developed. I don’t see how a church can place “tremendous strain on the present infrastructure” as claimed in the editorial, after all 25,000 people do not descend on the place all in one day! The work that is needed is simple and already in place – good site management – ie people focused!

And I don’t like predictions …. so all those hundred of thousands of people making their way to Jordan will only come if they are encouraged … so why encourage them? People know their own religion, this place will speak for itself, if only we can maintain its sanctity.

Real estate developers and proponents of infrastructural development have an unfair say in forcing change on a society trying to keep up. And while we are at it, it is not the infrastructure at tourism sites that needs to be considered, rather the way they are administered, maintained and managed, again people focused. It is a simple question of understanding that buildings need people to run them properly. How many times have I gone to tourism sites, found a lovely piece of ‘infrastructure’ with no information inside them, and a bored and embarrassed guard who cannot even hand out a leaflet about the site being visited, due to inter-departmental squabbles about who does what and when.

And finally, “with few other resources”, concludes the editorial, the writer proceeds to put the horse before the cart by focusing on the tourist. I would have thought that all that money assigned to infrastructural development, would be better spent on developing training and opportunities for Jordanians in the tourism industry. That would be a much wiser decision indeed.

The Citadel

2010-01-17T17:08:00.001+02:00

My fellow blogger, J, has alerted us again to the development of the citadel for tourists. I find it a dilemma which isn’t new to tourism or to Jordan.

My husband had been involved in the International Hotel Association for the past 20 years and we faithfully went to their annual meetings. One debate that was ongoing among this group was the development of national sites, be they natural or man-made, as opposed to protecting them. Jordan is loaded in both natural wonders and historical places which are a part of its rich history. We could opt to close Petra to visitors in order to protect it. Then what? We could do the same for Jerash, Wadi Rum, and the ruins in Karak and Madaba. Then we lose a thriving tourism industry that gives jobs to people and hard currency to the country. Obviously protecting sites is not the absolute answer. Careless exploitation is not the answer either. Responsible development should take place and in most cases it is responsible or at least we hope so.

To be honest I haven’t followed the proposed plans for the Citadel, which by the way is one of my favorite places. I am not a museum enthusiast but I find the little museum there excellent. I have always found the openness and emptiness there soothing. At sunset the call to prayer reverberating up to the mountaintop from mosques all over Amman is a memorable experience. I do hope that whatever the plans are for the Citadel they are respectful of the site and its history both in architecture and function. Places that are too dangerous, unstable, or precious to develop should be cordoned off and forbidden to tourists. There should be no investment at a national site that reflect personal vested interest like the small Starbucks Coffee shop we saw inside the walls of the Forbidden City in China! Thanks J for the reminder. Maybe we can trigger some valuable discussion about the Citadel.

ASH

definition of cauldron - a situation of tension and stress

2010-01-17T11:34:00.002+02:00

All hail the law that place thought and freedom of expression - one of the five pillars of democracy – inside a witch’s cauldron. Shudder the thought!

As Robert Burns said in his poem, "Here's a Health to them that's Awa'":

Here's a health to them that's awa;
Here's a health to Tammie, the Norlan' laddie,
That lives at the lug o' the law!

Here's freedom to them that would read,
Here's freedom to them that would write,

There's none ever fear'd that the truth should be heard,
But they whom the truth would indict.

J

Note: interesting debate on the above issue over at http://www.7iber.com/

Earthquake in Haiti

2010-01-13T20:16:00.002+02:00

The pictures coming out of Haiti show what a disaster has befallen that poor country.

I am sure many Jordanian families are now extremely worried about the fate of their loved ones who are serving in the UN peacekeeping forces in Haiti. We all hope that they are safe and are managing to help all the victims of the earthquake. T

The story of the scroll and the cobbler in Palestine

2010-01-07T10:47:00.002+02:00

I am posting the following article to give insight into the subtext of life in Palestine, before it was so callously wiped off the map by Zionism and European subterfuge. We cling on to hope that one day soon we may all aspire to peace and security ... if we are allowed!

Growing up in Bethlehem with the Dead Sea Scrolls story
printed in the Jordan Times 7 January 2010

By Daoud Kuttab

The latest news about Jordan’s demands that Canada seize the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were on display in Toronto, brings back many childhood memories for me.

For perspective this is what has happened. Jordan has requested Canada to take custody of the scrolls, citing the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which both Jordan and Canada are signatories.

On display at the exhibition were artefacts taken from the Palestine Museum (also called the Rockefeller Museum) in East Jerusalem.

Last April, the Palestinian Authority tried to convince Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to refuse the exhibition. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad made the request during Harper’s visit to Ramallah.

Israel has rejected Jordan’s claims using some unusual language.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, made the preposterous claim that Jordan’s rule over fellow Arabs before 1967 was an “occupation” and stated that the “Kingdom relinquished all claims on the territories in the 1980s”,

Ironically the Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty clearly states the Kingdom’s role in as far as Jerusalem is concerned.

What really irked me was the lame excuse that the capture of antiques from a museum in an occupied area is legitimate, because “the scrolls have no connection to Jordan or the Jordanian people”.

Palmor argues for Israel’s right to these stolen artefacts on the basis that the “Dead Sea Scrolls are an intrinsic part of Jewish heritage and religion”.

I literally grew up with the details of the discovery and story of these scrolls that Israel is trying to claim Jordan and Palestine have no connection to. The house where I spent much of my childhood in Bethlehem in the 1960s was owned by the Kando family whose home was next door to ours. My dad would often tell us the story of the Dead Sea scrolls, beginning with how a shepherd named Mohammad Al Deeb’s herd of goats had run into one of the Jordan Valley caves in an area called Qumran. Deeb is said to have thrown a stone after the goat only to hear the sound of a ceramic pot breaking. When he entered he saw the leather scrolls and decided to take them to Bethlehem. Visiting a Christian Palestinian cobbler, Khalil Kando, Deeb asked to make him a sandal out of the leather parchments. But Kando saw the writing and knew that it was important so he offered the shepherd two leather sandals if he would tell him where he found the scrolls. Kando, who was a member of the Syrian Orthodox Church, sought the advice of his local bishop, who quickly realised the uniqueness and importance of the find, and is said to have sold it to the British Museum for half a million pounds.

In 1952, Kando, who had given up working as a cobbler and turned into an antique dealer, discovered numerous fragments and sold them to the Palestine Archaeological Museum and the École Biblique. It is these that were the focus of the Jordanian and Palestinian officials.

Fragments of every book of the Old Testament were found in several caves, not all of which are limited to the Jewish faith but are an integral part of Christianity. Islam also considers the Old Testament sacred.

Growing up in a home owned by the cobbler turned antique dealer Kando brought back memories of many of the details of this extraordinary discovery. Living near the Church of the Nativity for part of my childhood meant that we were close to the location and the circumstances of the birth of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, which was prophesied by Prophet Isaiah in words that were etched in 10 BC.

Since I was a child, and until now, churches in Bethlehem and elsewhere often repeat the words written in Isaiah 7:14:

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

No doubt these and other verses will be repeated these days as Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas today in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem.

The holy land is sacred to the three monotheistic religions. Claims of religious exclusivity and the use of this arrogance to justify the theft of land and the occupation of people have brought disastrous results. The sooner that we honour and recognise each other and our faith, the sooner we will be able to understand the soothing words of angels calling for Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all mankind.

7 January 2010

Moab musings

2009-12-22T12:04:00.002+02:00

The art of spin is getting on my nerves …. particularly when it appears in our JT editorial on the subject of Iran …. who wrote this piece … someone at the American embassy??

Can we please concentrate our energies on solving the real problem in our midst … the Palestinian one … why should we play Israel’s spinning games? Arabs always lose anyway. Remember that other oil well fiasco between Iraq and Kuwait a decade ago and the consequent wars of dominion by America et al. ... say no more!

So now we have to put up with more of the same spin in our own newspapers. And by the way I thought the Fakkah oil field was abandoned years ago …. “If it was one of the richest” as the editorial claims … wouldn’t it be operational at full blast by some foreign oil company sapping the country dry? And as for the JT suggesting that sending in 11 soldiers … repeat 11 … into a border region that has been disputed for a while “can send one signal only, and that is that Tehran has aggressive designs on more than one front” … made me LOL all over my coffee spilling it all over the mince pies … damn! Perhaps I should seek compensation … for psychological distress and loss of a valuable commodity!

So here’s what we do … for every mention of the word Iran in this piece of verbiology, substitute USA (or anyone else, your choice) and you get a very clear picture!

I’ve ranted enough, after all it is Christmas … good will to all men etc. unless of course you are born Palestinian. It is a sad day indeed that Egypt has also fallen under the spell of dominion by denying international peace activists the right to march into Gaza at the end of December in solidarity with the people of the ghetto that is Gaza. So much for good will that deems a march for peace unworthy and a war of attrition the desired thing to do – how absurd.

Where has our humanity gone …. disappeared with all the flowers no doubt!

Bees in our bedrooms

2009-12-06T09:42:00.003+02:00

One does not doubt the honesty of Stephen Beecroft gentleman, when he writes in today’s Jordan Times against gender based violence and that “it is time that ending violence against women becomes a priority for us all”. He is not saying anything new, we all know it’s a priority. Jordanian women and a few courageous men have been shouting about this issue for the last 60 years …. but with so many different sized fingers in the pie we have created quite a stew.

I am bothered a bit however. Isn’t it strange for our esteemed American Ambassador to Jordan to be writing this at a time when on the one hand they claim to be committed to end violence against women, and with the other rain bombs and weapons of mass destruction down on the homes and heads of thousands of innocent women and children throughout Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and Pakistan - with no end in sight – women who pay the ultimate, unwilling sacrifice with their precious lives for American foreign policy? Isn’t that also a crime? Isn't it also a crime to deny women of America the right to access to affordable health care?

Writing words that express a keenness to see an end to violence against women is not enough unless, Mr America, you can truly “work on promoting men’s engagement in ending the violence” - by ending the wars; reigning in the dogs of war from Tel Aviv to Washington via London and a few others besides, so that we can indeed laud American foreign policy, or any other foreign policy because of its new change of direction away from creative destruction and regime change. This is a priority I would have thought. Maybe then we will have the mental space to get on with our lives the way we see it and deal with our social ills the way we see them, which should ultimately lead to taking responsibility – the way we see it. Indeed the PSD’s Family Protection Unit was a home-grown initiative.

We are so tired of the politics of deception, of non-enforcement and double standard; the indifference to ‘collateral damage’ and injustice under occupation; and the mess created in our midst because politicians will not take responsibility for creating it in the first place. Vested interest is the devil within.

Mr Beecroft, with all due respect, please go sing it on your own mountain, God knows the American women of today need it more than ever, and give us some peace, please, that's all we ask for ... peace and quiet!

J

selling an apartment

2009-11-18T15:12:00.002+02:00

I am not sure whether to moan or be happy! Have just spent five and a half hours at the Land Department and the Municipality doing the paperwork related to the sale of my apartment. I must have gone in to a million offices (only a slight exaggeration) for filling up forms, signing, countersigning, stamping and waiting. This was mostly because I did not realise my original title deeds to the apartment were now void.

All buildings had no smoking signs but, of course, these were ignored by some and especially by the employees. Most of the offices were chaotic and some were really filthy. BUT the first part of the process was done in a morning so I suppose there is some cheer in that. I am now wondering how much effort the next stage is going to take. T

Footnotes of history .. as if that will change anything ...

2009-11-17T10:22:00.002+02:00

People don't matter in politics:

Almost everyone outside the US, including in Israel, understands that the occupation has always been about settlement, not security, since Israel could have militarily occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 indefinitely without establishing a single settlement, and could withdraw from all its settlements tomorrow and maintain a military occupation until it felt secure enough to turn the territory over to Palestinians.

As famed general Moshe Dayan once put it, the settlements in the Occupied Territories are essential "not because they can ensure security better than the army, but because without them we cannot keep the army in those territories. Without them the IDF would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population".

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/11/2009111174626931966.html

A pissed off "almost anyone"

J

The Minister and speeding

2009-11-14T20:20:00.003+02:00

A minister and his son were recently stopped for speeding (son was driving) and as the police officer was writing out the ticket he recognised the minister and backed down but the minister did not allow this. He said he was subject to the law like everyone else. Fantastic, a minister with a moral code. T

Would you choose these colours?

2009-10-29T19:17:00.001+03:00

This is a house being built near Sweileh and I just wondered who could possibly be brave enough to paint their home in red and yellow. To me it looks absolutely hideous but I suppose to the owners it looks beautiful. T

traffic tickets

2009-10-28T13:05:00.002+03:00

I have just been down to the Traffic Department to give in another two books of traffic tickets! Yesterday and today I have written over 60 traffic violation tickets. Lots of traffic jams so can use my tape recorder to take down the numbers and details. Why people do not put on their seat belts and stop using their mobiles whilst driving is beyond me.

A close friend was recently in a bad accident that wrote off her car at just 60 kph. She did not have on a seat belt but luckily the air bag saved her life. And she was in a Mercedes which is a strong and safe car. Seat belts are so important. Also using mobiles whilst driving is a deadly habit.

The head of the department told me that an average of 7,000 tickets are written up EACH DAY in the whole country. T

The Citadel

2009-10-24T08:39:00.002+03:00

So this is what the Citadel (Jabel Al Qala) now looks like. A rich archaeological site covered with concrete and a visitor centre.

Always the battle between those who want to save their heritage and those who want to earn money from their heritage. T

Please BAN CIGARETTES IN RESTAURANTS

2009-10-22T23:08:00.002+03:00

I went out to dinner tonight. Restaurant lovely, food excellent but atmosphere revolting. Everyone around us smoking cigarettes. My throat hurts and my clothes absolutely stink of cigarettes. It is about time that cigarette smoking is banned in restaurants. T

Brief Comment About Honor Crimes

2009-10-20T19:30:00.000+03:00

The last posting by T highlighted progress in an otherwise depressing situation. Hopefully the judge who sentenced the man to 15 years hard labor for murder will set a precedent. In the meantime, the laws must change. It is easy for an outsider to criticize the legal system in Jordan because is too lenient on the perpetrators of honor crimes. I know it is for me. My brain cannot wrap itself around the emotional, psychological, or traditional duty-bound mindset that would tolerate such murders. However, I have heard from a number of people that foreigners’ involvement, particularly on this issue, can actually get in the way and slow the legal and educational changes needed to eradicate the practice. This is unfortunate but understandable because no one likes to admit things that reflect badly on one’s country especially to an outsider. So I was pleased to read the letter in Sunday’s (October 18th) Jordan Times written by an Arab man, possibly a Jordanian, condemning honor killings. As more Jordanians speak out against honor crimes they will put pressure on lawmakers and Parliament to make the necessary changes so that these murderers will be severely punished.

ASH

At last, a proper sentencing for dis'honour' killing

2009-10-13T16:02:00.002+03:00

Judges in Jordan have finally got serious about sentencing offenders in so called 'honour' crimes. It was good to read in the Jordan Times and on the BBC web site that the brother who murdered his 18 year old sister was found guilty of murder. He claimed reasons of 'honour' for what he did but the judges did not agree and sentenced him to 15 years with hard labour.

I think it should have been headlines on the front page instead of at the bottom of page 2 in the Jordan Times. But never mind, it is the verdict and sentence that counts. Also the pleas of his family to drop the charges was denied. This is another first. I hope that the appeal court endorses the sentence.

Let us hope that this will send a powerful message. T

Exploiting People

2009-10-10T17:03:00.001+03:00

I wonder how many families employ live-in domestic workers and how the figures compare to other countries. I think Jordan would surpass much of the world, which is amazing when you think that one third of the population lives below the poverty line and there is high unemployment. Yet Jordanians are able to ‘import’ workers from poorer nations. I shuddered when I looked at the photo in the Jordan Times the other day of the large number of Indonesian women crowded dismally in their embassy because of ‘irregularities’ and the probability that they entered the country with falsified health certificates. They looked pathetic and lost. Unfortunately most of us don’t think about this aspect of life in Jordan unless the newspapers expose a case of abuse or a worker commits suicide. I believe that their own countrymen and Jordan’s unique regulations affecting foreign laborers have exploited these women. Above all they are victims of unscrupulous people who are able to make money from women who are less valued members of their own societies. What a sad state of affairs.

ASH

Rainbow Street - Thursday night

2009-10-08T23:40:00.002+03:00

I went to a friend's home at the bottom of Rainbow Street this evening.

We sat on the balcony and listened to the cars driving by or in a total traffic jam hooting their horns at great length and with their radios booming out loud music and girls shrieking out of the windows. This was still going on when I left at 11. The poor residents have to put up with absolute mayhem. Nowhere to park, cafes making a loud noise and people in cars behaving with total disregard to those who live in the area.

Mathlouma

2009-10-05T15:06:00.002+03:00

Following on from the previous post, I would like to draw your attention to this new and important site:

http://www.mathlouma.com/the-study

The stated mission is: "Removing “Honor” from Crimes of Honor: A project to change the Mindset of Jordanians"

It is a partnership between the Information and Research Center of the King Hussein Foundation under the directorship of Nermeen Murad, the Mafraq Center for Development, Economic Research and Analysis (MACDERA) / Dr. Yusuf Mansur, and the Jordan Centre for Social Research (JCSE) / Dr. Moussa Shteiwi, along with individuals and institutions supporting this nationally driven effort.

It is refreshing to see society take responsibility for social ills that affect us all. As they state:

"We have a collective responsibility. We are all here to share in this responsibility
Women are victims
Men are also the victims of this same environment
This is an issue that is Jordanian, an internal issue
We should study it based on our thorough understanding of society and not shy away from confronting our problems."

Hope lives!

J

Forbidden Truth

2009-10-05T10:59:00.003+03:00

I left the outdoor theatre at 10.30 one beautiful summer evening in Amman … but my stomach was in knots and I felt a simmering feeling of anger swell up inside me. What was it about that documentary film I had just watched along with about three hundred people of different nationalities … Jordanians, French, Indian, British, American, Australian, German, Spanish and a few Italians? Maybe it was the ‘in your face’ obsession of the Director in the character of Norma Khoury, a Jordanian Christian expat of no fixed abode who wrote a story in 2002 about the so-called honour killing of her childhood friend Dalia who nobody can find. Or was it the fact that this film had been shown by my favourite film promoter? Or the fact that the Director had a nice little sum of 2 million dollars to make said film?

Regardless of the reasons, I had to contend with the fact that along comes a novice Australian director, Anna Broinowski, (who incidentally did not show up) and turns a discredited book into a documentary film and calls it “Forbidden Lies”. It is claimed in the film that the director attempted to give the audience a choice to decide for 'ourselves' and to “disentangle all the controversies” surrounding a woman whose claim to fame was to write a book of fiction about her birthplace – Jordan – and sell it to the publishing world as fact; something someone described as “one of the greatest literary cons of the 21^st century”.

But instead of tackling the international social ills of ‘honour’ crimes, the director focused on the seriously delusional and discredited author herself, someone deemed persona non grata around the world. This is not just a story of one woman’s temerity and pathological lies; it is also about political expediency and the west’s most outrageous duplicity when it comes to women’s human rights in the Arab world. Dick Cheney’s daughter became involved in the publication of the said book at a time when Cheney was spinning his own web of lies; she probably ghost wrote it too – it must have been music to the neocons ears, wonderful words in the so-called ‘war on terror’ used as weapons of mass deception in the lead up to one of the most horrific wars of the 21^st century, the invasion and destruction of Iraq by America and its allies.

In time all this deception would unravel … and by July 2004 this is exactly what happened to Khoury’s much touted book, when Sydney Morning Herald journalist Malcolm Knox – with the help of Jordanian journalist Rana Husseini and esteemed Jordanian activist Dr. Amal al-Sabbagh - exposed her book as a work of fiction. Perhaps that is why I was so flustered … I could not understand why this documentary needed to be shown and why we needed to see it in Jordan of all places. I could have given the Australian/jewish filmmaker a number of other topics more deserving of attention than the downfall of a con artiste par excellence, who also turned out to be a negligent absentee mother, and yet no-one seems to be bothered by that. It was obvious that Broinowski was taken in by Khoury’s persuasiveness and her soap box rhetoric of speaking on behalf of oppressed Muslim Jordanian women, all three million of them! If Norma Khoury was so concerned about the issue why did she never consult with the Jordanian experts in the field, or even get together with a bunch of women and chat over coffee?

I have no idea what Broinowski thought she was going to achieve by making this film as there was no controversy to ‘disentangle’. The only redeeming feature about this film was the creativity of the editor, who obviously had fun dealing with a load of fantasy. What the film failed to point out was that this book discredited decades of work by prominent Jordanian individuals, activists, journalists and writers who work diligently to raise awareness and combat a true scourge of society and to challenge a cultural mindset that believes it is right to rid the family of a twisted notion of shame by cleansing the family honour … in other words by murder … the victim is always a young woman, and of the 150 -200 homicides every year in Jordan, about 20% percent of these are so-called ‘honour’ crimes.

It’s ironic really to think that Khoury – a Christian Arab - pulled one over an Australian Jew, as the victim in this case must be Broinowski. This is clearly shown in their trip to Jordan that turned into a mini circus of the absurd traveling from one end of the city to the other in search of an elusive truth – a fantasy, a make believe spun in the web of a black widow, waiting to pounce on her victim. And pounce she did. Broinowski’s own face has been rubbed into the deception and pathological lies of a very unstable woman; something we in Jordan have known about for a long time. But nobody seems to listen to truth when spoken out of Arabia … why is that so hard to accept by a foreigner? Political expediency? Racism? You chose!

Just a thought ...

2009-10-01T07:44:00.001+03:00

"When shall it be said in any country of the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes not oppressive; the rational world is my friend because I am a friend of its happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and government ."

Thomas Paine

A poem by Mazen

2009-09-24T11:24:00.002+03:00

We are angry

By Mazin Qumsiyeh

We are angry at rhetoric of oppression
Hafrada-Segregation-Apartheid and Security
Two-states, one state, cantons and autonomy
The chosen state’s right to exist

While colonialism can persist
Addictws now to talk about talking
And hold meetings about more meetings

Maybe to revive the “peace process” charades

to ensure no peace for a few more decades

giving the monster created by Western powers

time to gobble more of the holy pieces

and belch its pleasure in more negotiations

devoid of human rights or UN resolutions

We are angry at statistics of oppression
11,000 political prisoners
534 Destroyed villages and towns
35% seeking stolen jobs
450 km of apartheid walls
7 million displaced or refugees

1.5 million uprooted fruiting trees

1.5 million in Gaza besieged
62 years of justice denied

We are angry at manufactured misery
Epidemics and pandemics
Genocides hidden with polemics

Swelling ranks of the disempowered

Phosphorous bombs on Gaza showered

An apartheid wall that snakes around

Running sewage in the streets abound

Children barefoot in a refugee camp in 2009!
While the unelected leaders repeat the same line

We are angry at spies
Some come take pictures and pretend to care

Others just watch and hope to avoid the glare
Some punished by law or by a guilty conscience

Others abandoned by their racist masters
Some feed stomachs but starve their souls

Others fall for carnal desires as fleeting as the empty goals
Some serving the colonial racist regime

Others think it safer with the quisling theme
Some commit suicide or die forgotten
Others repent and are soon forgiven

We are angry at hypocrisy
Those who claim then need their human right

While not sparing children from their plight

Those who champion International laws

While leaving heavy trails of bloody claws
Those who smile plunging knives in your back
While screaming loudly that they are under attack

Those who use a religious heritage to support overt racism

While defaming anyone who dares to speak out: “anti-semitism”!

We are angry at collaborators
Those with nice suits and those with guns
Those who sell their people for shekels
Those who do it out of ignorance

And those who with malice and malfeasance

Presidents, Pundits, and peasants

Large or small petty criminals

We are angry at being angry
While it may help us break the chains
Yet our love through anger diminishes

And our faith in humanity shrinks

And even what we want for ourselves

So maybe this final anger motivates ….

To shed anger and keep high our heads and spirits
In our world there are many who deserve merits
good, honest, brave activists
Philanthropists, protestors, poets…

men and women of all life stages

tailor-made therapists for all ages
Political Prisoners and Martyrs

Intellectuals and small farmers

Working to plant the blood-soaked lands

With cactus, figs, olive trees, and almonds

watering hopes and dreams like a growing grape vine

tendrils reaching out to free beloved immortal Palestine

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home

http://qumsiyeh.org

"Men, it is serious"

2009-09-19T09:48:00.004+03:00

It is a sad realisation that since the year 1945, women like the one who wrote the following article, have been saying the same things over and over again. Just when are the men in our lives going to take the essence of this 1945 article seriously so that progress becomes an integral part of an evolving society, and articles on the importance of educating the youth of today, such as the one in Today's Jordan Times, become a thing of the past. We all know what the problems are, but as Bint al Urdon noted back in 1945 ... do we have the courage to fix them ourselves? Perhaps it's time for a good dose of reflection .....

Al-Ra'ed Magazine, Issue 1, Year 20/6/45

Article by Bint Al-Urdon

"Men, It is Serious" (unofficial translation)

"I am delighted that Al-Ra'ed Magazine has started issuing and I am happy to express my pleasure that it tackles women's issues, especially as what concern women, concern men too. I believe that when men start to consider women's issues and women begin to speak for themselves, the result would be more understanding and collaboration that leads to progress for all."

"There is a reason or a purpose behind any action, and if a man is asked about the drive that stimulates him and the reason that helps him to achieve his goals, he would whisper "the woman." I wish I could make women as courageous as men to enable them to express in Al-Ra'ed Magazine what they think and feel. However, I am aware that I will not succeed in doing so as I know that women are cowards and are afraid of being questioned, due to the fact that women prefer to remain silent since they are brought up to be chained."

"We should be role models for the upcoming generations by following the footsteps of refined nations that treat men and women equally, giving women the right to be educated, to work, to be cultured, as well as to express themselves freely."

"Isn't the man the girl's father and doesn't he bring her up as he likes. Likewise, isn't the woman the boy's mother and doesn't she raise him up as she prefers? Hence, if we wish for our nation to be strong and to have solid grounds, we should arm both men and women with knowledge, even if they are different in their tendencies and interests. So, if there were eighty educated men in every one hundred Jordanian man, it would not be useless or excessive to have eighty educated women in every one hundred Jordanian woman. It is better to have mothers who convince their children to "sleep as to have some rest" than to "sleep or else they will be attacked by a ghoul." This example could be silly, but it, in fact, is a realistic one that many of those who were negatively affected by their uneducated mothers have referred to. And there are many other examples that show the difference between an ignorant woman who raises her children to be cowards and an educated one who makes wise men of them."

"For that reason, if you aim to prepare the youth to be good citizens that can defend the land and the nation, you should start by preparing girls and paving the way for them to be educated in schools." I also want, if the readers allow me, to stress the effect women's knowledge has on men's actions, as I can anticipate that some readers would refuse what I have just mentioned, saying that many great and famous men were raised up by ignorant mothers."

"To this I say that if these great and famous men were raised up by educated women, they would have become greater and more famous than they are now. And if we probe into the hidden sides of these men, we would find some weakness that resulted from the improper upbringing they received from their ignorant mothers."

"I here pose the following question: who is happier; a man who comes home to share his worries with an educated wife who would listen to him and help solve his problems or a man who comes back home to be received by a wife whose only role is to reproduce and cook? I am afraid that what I said might frustrate some of my sisters who did not get educated and had to spend their time juggling household chores. But I have to admit that some of these women are smarter, wiser, and more flexible than some educated women. This article is not aimed to humiliate or underestimate uneducated mothers, as I was raised up by one of them. On the contrary, it is aimed to make the mother, father, and the brother to empathize with the young girl who deserves to be well-raised in order to contribute to the national development we all wish for."

"I now address fathers who are able to educate their daughters but refuse that, thinking that knowledge and education poison women's minds and believing that their wealth arms them, a belief that endangers the nation and its future. Fathers should remember that knowledge is enlightenment for all, be they men or women, and rich or poor, and that knowledge is not limited to one social level in civilized nations."

"Who of you would prefer ignorance to knowledge?

Who of you would prefer wrongfulness to rightness?

Who of you would like one of his eyes to see while the other is left blind?

Who of you would like to use one of his hands while the other is paralyzed?

Who of you would accept his daughter's mind to rust while his son's shine?

Who of you would like his daughter to be neglected while his son is being taken care of?

Who of you would bear his son to be given the right to live while his daughter is a victim of infanticide?"

"I do not suppose that any father would prefer the worst of what I have just mentioned to the better, for fatherly kindness is just but is more directed to those of the children who are weak. And since your daughters are considered weaker by nature than your sons, you should arm them with education and knowledge to strengthen themselves, to take their own rights, and to find their place among men."

"Teach us fathers

Encourage us brothers

And inspire us colleagues, as to make wise men of you."

Unreasonable Customs

2009-09-17T20:21:00.001+03:00

For the past few years I have shopped over the Internet for items that are unavailable here. The Jordan government’s efforts to create and support the IT sector have made this possible. Shopping online is not usually cheaper than buying from the local market, but it is efficient, fast, and an option that I appreciative having. The Jordanian companies, who provide the services I need for payment by credit card and shipping, charge me, but I am able to estimate the costs before I place my order. Last week the Customs Department suddenly imposed an uncalculated expense when they charged me 60% on my package. There was no prior announcement about this, no reason given, and no data available about which particular items might be subject to customs. Where is the ‘transparency’ that is supposed to take place in Jordan? I will not be able to shop online anymore if 60% duty is added to the cost. I know that the loss of my business will hardly be noted, but if 60 % duty is added to all packages purchased online, I am sure it will make a difference to the Jordanian companies involved. I would like customs to inform the public what to expect when they shop over the Internet. I find a 60% duty on purchases arbitrary, punitive, and definitely excessive.

ASH

Remember, remember the month of September

2009-09-17T09:35:00.003+03:00

The month of September marks the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982. Here below is a book review by Dr Mazin Qumsiyeh as we commemorate the 'hundreds of men, women and children killed by death squads armed, trained, financed, and instructed by the Israeli colonial masters. '

"Sabra and Shatila: September 1982" Bayan Nuwayhed Al-Hout, 2004, Pluto Press, London and Ann Arbor, MI, 462 pp., 36 photographs, 5 maps
Book Review published in the Holy Land Studies Journal, Spring 2005 by Mazin Qumsiyeh

"It would be correct but rather reductionist to state that this remarkable book is the most comprehensive and thorough documentation of the events of the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. The mark of a good book is that it leaves the reader changed and this volume does that. Upon first hearing about this book, my first and incorrect inclination was that perhaps I do not need to read it. Many of us Palestinians assume we know the suffering of our people over the past six decades, we have seen it and we have lived it. This thought quickly evaporated after flipping through the first few pages of this book and then it was hard to put it down.

It is appropriate that this edition came out in English after its initial publication in Arabic. Knowingly or unknowingly, many in the Western world lend their name and their tax money to support atrocities like the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Would it help those taxpayers see what is being done with their tax money and US diplomatic support? Would it help bring people to a better understanding of the "situation"? More importantly would it bring us closer to see the victims of this particular massacre as people and not mere numbers? Having lived in the US for many years I wanted to look at this English version from that perspective. I also wanted to compare it to other books that relate personal testimonies of survivors of atrocities.

Those murdered in Sabra and Shatila are not around to tell us their stories so we are left with the survivors, those relatives and friends and acquaintances who witnessed the event and/or came to pick the bodies and the pieces of their shattered lives. Telling their stories is not easy. A writer or editor of such a compilation has the heavy responsibility (and duty) to his or her subjects to let them tell the story with as little interference as possible. It is not easy to craft careful and neutral questions that allow for free and open answers. It is also not easy to select from all your interviews individual accounts to include in a readable book. It is not easy to research names then cross check all references and resources to ensure presenting a picture that is as close as possible to the reality of what happened. All this and more are achieved in this book.

The first part of this book consists of six chapters that relay the statements and testimonies of the families and witnesses. The first two chapters cover the place and time and events leading up to the massacre including the encirclement of the camps by the Israeli army. Chapters 3-5 cover chronologically the events of September 16-18; the horrific 40-hour period in which nearly 2000 men, women, and children were systematically massacred or abducted and "disappeared". Chapter 6 covers testimonies covering the search for victims following the massacre. Forty-six actual testimonies were selected and included in these six chapters out of total direct testimonies gathered on 430 victims (about half Palestinian, 28% Lebanese, and the remainder belonging to other nationalities).

The second part of this book summarizes the research (including field study) conducted by the author into the massacre. Chapter 7 reviews results of the detailed field study conducted in 1984.

Chapter 8 analyzes the issue of the number of victims killed. The chilling method used by Israeli governments to minimize the casualties (in the Kahan report) is analyzed in detail. In one part, the author recounts what the historian Toynbee once said in debate with Yaacov Herzog in 1961. Hetzog lashed out at Toynbee for mentioning the Nazi atrocities in talking about the massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yassin in 1948. Herzog’s contention was that the deaths of a few hundred Palestinians could never be even discussed in relation to the horror on Nazi atrocities. Toynbee’s answer was that "Every increase in numbers produces an increase in suffering but it is impossible to be wicked or criminal more than 100%." She ten explained how the wickedness of trying to obfuscate reality or minimize the numbers of victims (as happened in the Israeli Kahan report). There are lessons to be learned from that. Yet, the most astonishing fact is that no authority (Israeli, Lebanese, or Palestinian) took it upon itself to compile a list of the victims. As such, the list compiled by this author must remain the most complete such list to date.

There are four appendices to the work. Appendix 1 contains 28 tables related to the field study. Appendix 2 provides the most comprehensive listing of names of those known killed (906 names) or abducted and missing (484 names). Given that only a handful of the missing were ever found, over 1300 human beings lost their lives with this tragedy.

The book ends with a series of remarkable photographs. Most are ones I have never seen before and I am sure other readers will find equally transforming. Most books place such photos in the Middle of the book or close to the beginning. A photograph it is said is worth a thousand words. But a photograph can elicit all sorts of emotions that then detract from the importance of reading the text itself. In this case, the placement of the photos at the end was the right decision and I urge readers to read this text in the order it is presented. For me, this was particularly powerful. I, as a reader was able to read the testimonies and review the facts and figures taking time to draw the relevant lessons learned before I saw at the end a series of pictures of what the scene of the crime looked like. To me the most remarkable and damning evidence of Israeli culpability and the accompanying lies about the massacre are found on pages 304-317 and buttressed by pictures and maps of the Israeli command center overseeing the camp. Anyone examining this evidence and International law understands the culpability of the Israeli politicians, commanders and soldiers. They knew the camps were undefended, they knew that massacres would be committed by the 150 Phallange militias they invited in, they knew the bloody outcome would happen, and finally they watched without interfering as this unfolded over three days.

I never met the author, Dr. Bayan Nuwayah Al-Hout, a faculty member at the Lebanese University for the past 25 years. I can only marvel at the amount of efforts over two decades that such a project demanded. It is usually something done by well-financed teams with a cadre of paid staff. For the author to have done this with very limited resources and help is truly admirable.

It was once said that the sign of a good book is that when you close the last page it is like saying goodbye to a dear friend. Well in this case, it is like saying goodbye to hundreds of friends: those who died in that tragic massacre and those who survived to recount the stories and live their lives awaiting justice. If we are to honor them all then we must engage in the quest for peace with justice.

When in a few years, a museum is built for the Nakba (catastrophe) that befell the Palestinian people, it will have a prominent place in it for Sabra and Shatila. This book will be the key resource for this. Those who care for human rights should buy it, read it, and learn the lessons from it.

There is a section at the end of the book, not given a chapter status and seeming as orphaned as the Children of Sabra and Shatila, that is simply titled "Conclusion: who was responsible." For those looking for the simplified answers of assigning blame to just one person or party, they will be disappointed. For those who want to use the lessons learned from this tragedy to prevent future tragedy, the careful analysis here is a must reading. From the Lebanese militia, to the local Israeli commanders guarding the camps, to Ariel Sharon who gave the go ahead, to the Lebanese government, all share some of the guilt. But ultimately, all of us who heard the news and who took no action are responsible for the continuation of a string of atrocities against civilians. On page 324, the author quotes from the song lyrics of the Argentinean singer Alberto Cortez:
"Where was the sun when anger burst at Sabra and Shatila? Where was I? At what party, careless, when I red the news? And where were you – you so eager to defend the oppressed – when the massacre happened? Where is the pride of men? Where were you my friend with the sleeping conscience?.."

The road between the atrocities of Sabra and Shatila runs rather short to those of Jenin, Nablus and Rafah of today and to our suppressed humanity. Such books can be our tour guides."

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD, is author of "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle" http://qumsiyeh.org

J

Thought for the day

2009-09-12T00:59:00.000+03:00

"Ye Hypocrites! Are these your pranks?
To murder men and give God thanks
Desist, for shame - proceed no further
God won't accept your thanks for murder"

Robert Burns 1793
'Thanksgiving for a National Victory', written 215 years ago - as relevant today as the day it was written!
J

My Flickr Wish ......... what is your thoughts?

2009-09-11T17:46:00.001+03:00

My Flickr Wish ......... what is your thoughts?
Originally uploaded by SkeletalMess

hello Jordanian flickrers ...what do you think of this?

J

Poem "If I could fly like my friend him"

2009-09-11T10:01:00.001+03:00

If I could fly like my friend, him and survey man’s dominion
I would feel a oneness, a harmony and empathy with life and mother nature;
Away from man’s demonic reasoning and death deemed just and dehumanizing.
And I could tell my friend him I see the light, and feel the breeze of freedom in thought
And fancy; of trainers with suits and odd socks and caps and tongue of many languages.
And as we scale the clouds on high and view the sea below
I hold the hand of him, my friend and touch the mountain top,
Caress the lay of the land, the desert, a tree, a wheat field and flower;
and as I do I hear a distant yearning whispering on the wind, comforting
yet ushering me on lest I dwell on the struggling below, not from poverty, but greed;
Misconception and hate, a ruthless state and development plans …
And so I fly with him my friend, never stopping, drifting on,
Amongst the clouds with rain, betwixt a tear shed here and there,
For this my friend is fate.

J

The Bedouins of Amra

2009-08-27T10:05:00.002+03:00

Israel never ceases in its contempt for non-Jewish life. We have Jonathan Cook to thank for the following. But by reporting this outrage, will it change anything? Will the world find the courage to sanction Israeli ethnic cleansing, its racism and blatant fascism that we thought went out with the Second World War? What are we afraid of?

By Jonathan Cook in Amra

August 26, 2009 - The inhabitants of the Bedouin village of Amra have good reason to fear that the harsh tactics used by the Israeli army against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been imported to their small corner of Israel’s Negev desert.

Over the summer, the Tarabin tribe, all of them Israeli citizens, have had the sole access road to their homes sealed off, while the dirt track they must use instead is regularly blocked by temporary checkpoints at which their papers and vehicles are inspected at length.

Coils of razor wire encircle much of the village, and children as young as eight have been arrested in a series of night-time raids.

“Four-fifths of our youngsters now have files with the police and our drivers are being repeatedly fined for supposed traffic violations,” said Tulab Tarabin, one of Amra’s 400 Bedouin inhabitants. “Every time we are stopped, the police ask us: ‘Why don’t you leave?’”

Lawyers and human rights activists say a campaign of pressure is being organised against the Tarabin at the behest of a nearby Jewish community, Omer, which is determined to build a neighbourhood for Israeli army officers on the tribe’s land.

“The policy in Israel is that when Jews need land, the Bedouin must move – no matter how long they have been living in their homes or whether their communities predate Israel’s creation,” said Morad al Sana, a lawyer with the Adalah legal centre for Israel’s Arab minority. “The Tarabin’s crime is that they refuse to budge.”

The 180,000 Bedouin in the Negev have never been welcome, says Oren Yiftachel, a geographer at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva. They are descendants of a few thousand who managed to avoid expulsion from the southern semi-desert region during the 1948 war that founded Israel.

Many of the surviving Bedouin, including the Tarabin, were forcibly relocated from their extensive ancestral lands in the 1950s to an area close to the Negev’s main city, Beersheva, Prof Yiftachel said. Israel declared the Bedouin lands as “state land” and established a series of overcrowded “townships” to house the tribes instead.

“The stated goal is one of ‘Judaisation’,” Prof Yiftachel added, referring to a long-standing policy of concentrating the rural Bedouin into urban reservations to free up land for Jewish settlement. About half of the Negev’s Bedouin, some 90,000, have refused to move.

According to a recent report from the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the townships have “continuously ranked as the poorest, least developed and most crime-ridden towns in Israel”.

The refuseniks, such as the Tarabin, have faced unrelenting pressure to leave their 45 rural communities, none of which is recognised by the state. The villagers endure “third world conditions”, according to ACRI.

“The unrecognised villages are denied basic services to their homes, including water and electricity, and the villages themselves have no master plans,” Mr al Sana said.

As a result, he added, the villagers are forced to live in tin shacks and tents because concrete homes are invariably destroyed by the authorities. In the past two years, several shacks as well as the local kindergarten in Amra have been demolished.

The stark contrast between the dusty encampment of Amra and the green lawns and smart villas of Omer, only a stone’s throw away and the country’s third wealthiest community, is unsettling even for some of Omer’s 7,000 residents.

One, Yitzhak Nevo, a philosophy professor at Ben Gurion University and a leading activist with Dukium, a Negev coexistence group, said that, although the lands on which the Tarabin live fall under Omer’s jurisdiction, the Bedouin have been entirely excluded. “Even though they live within Omer’s municipal limits, their children get no education from us; our health clinic does not treat them; they are not hooked up to our water or electricity supplies and their refuse is not collected.”

He said Amra had been treated as nothing more than an eyesore until the mid-1990s when the powerful mayor, Pinhas Badash, decided that the Tarabin were both harming property values and obstructing the town’s expansion plans.

As Omer’s new neighbourhoods reached the limits of Amra, Mr Badash stepped up the pressure on the villagers to leave. A few years ago he pushed through the building of a new community for the Tarabin away from Omer. Two-thirds of the tribe relocated, while the remainder fought the attempted eviction through the courts.

“It was a very dirty business in which those in the tribe who left first were offered cheap land on which to build while the rest were threatened that they would be offered nothing,” Mr al Sana said.

Amra’s remaining Bedouin have found themselves surrounded by a tall wire fence to separate them from Omer. Two gates, ordered by the courts to ensure the Bedouin continued to have road access through the town, were sealed this year.

Since the beginning of the summer police patrol Amra’s side of the fence around the clock and the Tarabin report that a private security firm chases off any of them found inside Omer.

Nissim Nir, a spokesman for Mr Badash, denied that the Tarabin were being hounded. Omer made a generous offer to relocate them from their “illegal” site, he said.

Recently Mr Badash announced that thousands of acres around Omer would be forested with the intention of stopping the Bedouin from returning to the area once they had been evicted.

Mr Tarabin, 33, accused the police of being little more than hired hands carrying out Mr Badash’s plan.

“We are being suffocated. There are night-time searches of our homes using bogus pretexts, and arrests of young children. We are photographed and questioned as we go about our business. At the roadblocks they endlessly check cars entering and leaving, and fines are issued. No one visits us unless they have to, and we stay home unless we have to leave.”

He added: “Why is it so impossible for Omer to imagine allowing us to be a neighbourhood of the town?”

A report by Human Rights Watch last year severely criticised Israel’s treatment of the Bedouin.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net .

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

tree art

2009-08-17T11:24:00.001+03:00

Is this the latest fashion in tree art on the streets of Amman and will it catch on? T

Amusing advert in Jordan Times

2009-08-16T13:11:00.002+03:00

A furnished apartment to let. Then read on -

'In Al-Kursi - 2 km from Mecca Mall'. Is being 2 kms from Mecca Mall a recommendation? T

Down the Drain - Update!

2009-08-14T18:00:00.002+03:00

After posting my original note, below, I went out for lunch and upon my return -- glory be-- a couple of rigs and gang of men working on the water pipe situation (on a Friday afternoon, no less). We'll see if it is solved by this evening...

So, I take some lessons: 1) never give up 2) go public earlier (seems to create some kind of positive energy) and 3) must find out which office sent them (for next time). Um Dunya

Down the Drain

2009-08-14T13:02:00.003+03:00

Since last Friday (7 Aug 09), a broken water main under the street outside my house has been leaking clear, fresh water directly into a street drain. Neighbors phoned and the harriss says that last Saturday someone came by to look at it, promising to "fix it later." Since then, my husband and his office staff have been calling every possible phone number at Maaytuna ("our water" company) trying to find someone to take a report and follow up on it. From the emergency number to another office number to another - for one hour they were bounced from one person to another. Someone gave them the number of the director of the "office of complaints." At 10 am on a weekday, his phone rang and rang; no one answered, no voicemail, nothing.
In the meantime, the water has been bubbling freely for one week, sending many cubic meters of good water down the drain. (I should mention that new water lines were laid under the street within the last year.)

With the millions of donor dollars thrown at water conservation and awareness projects, many of which try to convince rural Jordanian women to use less water than they already do (they get so little to start with), this lack of interest and negligence towards water loss in a well-off Amman neighborhood is infuriating. What needless waste!

I will write to the Jordan Times and ask them to find and post the phone number for reporting water leaks next to their little cartoons that say: "Save Water - Every Drop Counts!" The number listed in their Emergency Numbers table got us nowhere.

In the meantime, if anyone has a suggestion of how to report this to a "live body" and get action, I would be very grateful! Um Dunya

Challenging the Law

2009-08-10T13:27:00.002+03:00

I had an interesting conversation with a police officer friend this morning. He made the point that people are really 'challenging the law', for instance at the celebrations of Tawjihi results and at weddings. The Government, police, schools etc make a huge effort to tell people not to indiscriminately fire their guns, drive around hanging out of car windows etc, not only is it illegal but it is dangerous.

Do people listen? Seemingly not. Why don't they listen? Why isn't the law respected and obeyed? Especially when it is in the interests of the whole community?

I am a friend of the Traffic Police and can write out tickets and, believe me, I could fill many books a day. No seat belts, using mobiles, jumping red lights, children on front seats, driving down one way streets the wrong way, double parking and so on and so on. T

Well well I do declare!

2009-08-03T11:47:00.003+03:00

“There is no such thing as inevitable war. If war comes it will be from failure of human wisdom”.
— Bonar Law (British Prime Minister 1923-24)

Came across some interesting Declarations and Promises in relation to Jordan even though the British went back on their main promises to the Hashemites at the time of imperial hegemony, the following seem to have held. So to counter Zionist propaganda, that has gone on for the last ninety years in their fantastical claims that “Jordan is Palestine” nonsense, and their use of selective historical documents, I post the following. For while the Zionists have their Balfours, and Sykes/Picot, the Jordanians, it would seem have Bonar Law, Churchill and the League of Nations who were also operating at about the same time.

(1) British PM (1922-23) Andrew Bonar Law statement of 28 July 1920 to the House of Commons.

“The authority of the Palestine Government did not extend East of the Jordan”

(2) Winston Churchill Declaration and Promise to Amir Abdullah ibn al Hussein on behalf of the British Government 28 March 1921:

“Trans-Jordan would not be included in the present administrative system of Palestine and the Zionist clauses of the Mandate would not apply to Trans-Jordan”.

(3) 16 September 1922: The Council of the League of Nations confirmed the international personality and separate entity of Trans-Jordan, when it passed a resolution declaring that all the zionist clauses in the Mandate for Palestine did not apply to Trans-Jordan and that the British Government accepted full responsibility as Mandatory for a separate Trans-Jordan.

(4) 27 April 1923: British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs declared:

“Subject to the approval of the League of Nations, His Britannic Majesty’s Government will recognize the existence of an independent Government in Trans-Jordan under the rule of his Highness Amir Abdullah Ibn al Hussein, provided such Government is constitutional and places HBK government in a position to fulfil their international obligations in respect of the territory by means of an agreement to be concluded between the two Governments”.

By 1929 the three conditions in that declaration were fulfilled with the ratification by Britain and Trans-Jordan of the 1928 Agreement (The Declaration of Trans-Jordan’s Independence) and with the approval of the League of Nations.

This is just a tiny observation of a very complex period in Jordan’s modern history. Indeed over the course of millennia this piece of land east of the River Jordan was always separate from Palestine. “The River Jordan – or Jordan line – which extended from the Yarmouk to the Dead Sea and south along the Ghour to Aqaba, gradually came to be known as a political or administrative boundary during the periods of the Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, as well as the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Nabataeans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines and the Muslim Arabs. In AD 640 the Arabs named Palestine ‘Jund Filistin’, and Trans-Jordan ‘Jund al Urdon’. In fact Jund al Urdon included some parts of Palestine. And as Dr Ma’an Abu Nowar concludes “Thus all through history, although Palestine and Jordan were under the same successive foreign occupiers, they were always separate, and Jordan was never part of Palestine.”

All the above taken from a 1993 publication by Dr Ma’an Abu Nowar (copyrighted), entitled “From Our Hashemite Arab History – The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan 1920-1929 Years”

J

Treasures of the faith

2009-07-29T08:57:00.001+03:00

Multimedia - The National Newspaper

Shared via AddThis

When not to wear shorts …. when you have a car crash!

2009-07-25T13:05:00.003+03:00

It was a case of son having a guardian angel this morning as he crashed his father’s car into an electric pylon and tree on that infamous road from Tala Bay to Aqaba at 4 in the morning; a road that has claimed the lives of many bright and beautiful people. But he is fine apart from a bruised ego. His seatbelt and the airbag saved his life. The car on the other hand is a wreck – as are my nerves.

So it was a bit of light relief to learn that Son is still going around Aqaba this morning, paying fines and filling out forms, having been taken to the hospital for a medical check up. This is part of the hard lesson to learn about cars. But when he arrives at the ASEZA municipality to have a form signed at 10 that morning, he is refused entry because he is wearing knee length shorts. He is also nearly refused entry to the hospital at 11am for a medical checkup because of 'the shorts' ... the fact that he was the patient seemed to have a reluctant but effective response; he was allowed in. Never mind the fact that son cannot get back home because the house key was in the car and he can’t find the car. Nope! Not allowed in wearing shorts!

What kind of illogical reasoning came into play that allows civil servants to abuse their authority and take it to extremes of stupidity in certain circumstances such as this one? And in Aqaba of all places, where the drive to modernize and develop and attract tourists is in full swing! Have Jordanians completely lost a part of their cultural makeup once so renowned … that of hospitality to a visitor? Afterall, my son is a visitor to Aqaba …. a city that likes to think of itself as a separate entity to the rest of the country.

One would expect tax paying members of the Jordanian public to be shown more consideration regardless of what they are wearing. It is high time to have some clarity in the political discourse over issues such as this and in particular over the recent debacle of passports/green or yellow cards issued to Jordanians of Palestinian descent that seems to affect everyone going back sixty years! Clear and simplified instructions needed to be handed down to the civil servants who have to deal with the public at large. This will ensure that they leave no room for personal interpretation that leads to authoritarian extremes. Alleviating misunderstandings and confusion has to be a win-win situation.

Is that too much to ask for?

The Precious Book on Noteworthy Dates

2009-07-24T13:40:00.003+03:00

Just came across the World Digital Library ... and thought you would like something a bit different to feast your eyes on ... at least the Arab readers out there.

This is a link to a document entitled the "The Precious Book on Noteworthy Dates" ... described as thus:

"Description

This short work, entitled Kitāb al-yawāqīt fī ma‘rifat al-mawāqīt, and copied by an anonymous scribe in Shawwāl in June-July 1775 (AH 1168), is attributed to Ḥusayn (or Ḥasan) b. Zayd b. ‘Alī al-Jaḥḥāf, who is said to have dedicated it to Abū ‘Alī Manṣūr al-Ḥākim bi Amr-Allāh, the sixth Fāṭimid ruler (died 996). The manuscript lists the 12 months of the year, each on one sheet, in the form of an almanac. The last page is a one-page guide to the interpretation of dreams, reportedly prepared at the behest of Muḥammad b. Ḥawwā, a ruler in Asia Minor (malik al-rūm). A much longer work with a similar title, Kitāb al-yawāqīt fī al-mawāqīt, by Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl al-Ṣan‘ānī (1688-1768), who lived at the same time this manuscript was copied, is known to exist."

Have a nice weekend!

Water wanderings ...

2009-07-24T11:28:00.002+03:00

It shouldn’t need an editor of the Jordan Times to draw attention to our ‘shared responsibility’ in the question of water conservation. What is the Minister of Water doing about the chronic state of affairs regarding our right to life and water?

But this goes deeper into the role of government and begs the question “do the ministries that serve us the people actually coordinate their strategies concerning this vital resource that impacts every aspect of our daily lives”. The answer has to be an emphatic ‘no’ in view of the poor performance of public media agencies such as JTV in public service broadcasting. Producing awareness programmes using eligible public and popular personalities to get the message across would seem a simple concept. Some small attempts have been made in the print media and on tv; but small attempts within a limited timeframe is hardly going to tackle this colossal task. With all the talent in this country from actors, announcers, musicians, artists, directors and filmmakers who operate outside the mind numbing uselessness of the artists unions, you would think that JTV would seize on the opportunity to do something right for once; but alas, JTV is just too slow on the uptake, overburdened with unqualified staff, lack of vision, red tape and a mountain of wasta … they wouldn’t know a good thing unless ‘it/they/them’ came up to greet them with a tray of mint tea and chocolates stuffed in large envelopes!

On a recent trip to Aqaba which admittedly seems to have a better source of water than the capital of Amman – although its once sweet taste has given way to chlorine - I was quite appalled to learn that the authorities spend on average about JD 40,000 per annum on water for a relatively new ‘grass’ football field it has just built within the impressive sports stadium. All sports facilities are a good thing…. but with advances in modern technology and Jordan’s ranking as the fourth water poorest country in the world … repeat in the world … and the expected population explosion over the course of the next decade, it begs another question, 'why don't they use Astro turf instead of grass? '

With popular and successful personalities in the arts in Jordan, one would think that a powerful network of individuals could be brought together by the Ministry of Water, Ministry of the Environment and JTV to produce such an important programme of public service announcements for the purpose of water conservation. Social habits can be improved with regular, consistent, long term (ie continuous) messages. Many an artist has had a creative idea for the public good consigned to the bin of indifference. But alas again, that would imply cooperation and using the best of the best!

The humble television can be found in every village and rural area of the country, even in the remote areas of the desert. Is this not a sign that this is a far more effective means of communication than the print media for getting a message across?

We seem to have lost a sense of moral courage buried under the burdens of bureaucratic corruption and red tape, that has struck a death blow to creative vision. JTV is no longer an institution for the public good, but rather has become a personal fiefdom of self-serving interests and as a means to outsource employment to further embedded wasta. An individually successful artist - part and parcel of the soul of a nation - is deemed a threat to this status quo; unless this attitude changes, we will all be forced to sing in unison "water water nowhere, do you have a drop to spare?".

Australians for Palestine

2009-07-22T16:13:00.004+03:00

With entrenched notions of what it is to be a Jordanian today, and the recent misconceptions and manipulations about the issue of national status of Jordanians of Palestinian descent, the issue needs to be seen in its true political context and it is more complex than we might realise. This is an issue that goes to the heart of the matter that erupted with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and prior political agitations of a 'foreign nature' that unfolded at the beginning of the twentieth century, and resulted in the ultimate and cruel usurpation of the State of Palestine and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. So it is quite heartening to read the following from Australians for Palestine which I post here for your opinion, whatever it happens to be; this is an open forum after all. Isn't that what the wars in the Middle East are ostensibly driven to achieve ... democracy and free speech? Note to self .... 'the Palestinian fight for what is right has gained global recognition .... now if only we can get the powers that be to do what is right, we can all live on cloud number 9!'

“Every now and then one reads something that touches the heart and leaves a lasting impression. This is a plea to people so caught up in their own world view that they have lost sight of humanity – forgotten that by and large people everywhere just want to live their lives in peace, enjoy the fruits of this earth and share them with loved ones and their neighbours.

Tema Okun speaks to the essence of who we are as people and appeals to the very best in us. Her words are directed to her own Jewish community, but they are equally potent and necessary for all of us to contemplate because we are all guilty for what the Palestinians have suffered. And not just the Palestinians - although theirs is the longest running brutal oppression of an entire population – but all peoples who are being cruelly mistreated, violated and condemned for reasons that ought to shame us every waking moment. How much more violence do we need to see, read and hear before we say “enough”, before we really mean “never again”?

Please read Tema’s eloquent plea and then send it to others and encourage them to pass it on further. We have no time to lose as the poisonous brew of racism bubbles over threatening to contaminate everything we hold dear. It is not the war on terror that we ought to be worried about, but the war on humanity. “

http://www.australiansforpalestine.com

Tema Okun has worked with community-based non-profits for over 20 years. Her work as a staffer for the Rural Advancement Fund, the Carolina Community Project, Grassroots Leadership, and the Institute for Southern Studies has formed the core of her organizational experience, where she has served in such varied roles as development director, training director, and interim executive director. Tema has a B.A. from Oberlin College, Ohio (1975) and an M.S. in Adult Education from N.C. State University (1997). She also teaches at Guilford College in Greensboro in their Justice and Policy Studies Department. * See "Tema Okun & Tom Stern presented NC Peace Action’s Peacemaker Award for work with ICAHD-USA," May 18th, 2009

http://icahdusa.org/2009/295

J

Thought for the day

2009-07-21T11:37:00.002+03:00

“Talk is cheap, action is costly; saying that the younger generation is our greatest asset means that we should provide for them, not make them pay for the sins of the fathers.”

Thought for the day by Jordanian economist Yusuf Mansur …. Always telling it the way it is … why do we not listen?

Moab musings of Morocco

2009-07-20T18:23:00.009+03:00

Just returned from Morocco ... that sizzling centre of cultural wonders that warms the heart. Just as well, because the trip over there was borderline harassment of the heart! Our Turkish Airlines plane decided to develop technical problems 37,000 feet above the Mediterranean sea and did an abrupt u-turn back to Istanbul .... "just one hour before we transfer you to another plane that is ready and waiting" .... I should have known better than to trust the TA official who horded us onto hot buses and

dumped us at the the terminal without so much as a "check for announcements" parting gesture! 5 hours later waiting at some administratively forgotten plot at the airport with no a/c and staff who didn't have a clue ... tempers were beginning to flare amongst the 250 passengers who were tired of being security checked time and time again. Someone must have got the message as a tray load of cold water and cola began to arrive. Eventually we were asked to board, but we seemed to be taxing along the runway for a long time .... I managed to watch the setting of the sun as we finally became airborne, arriving in Casablanca five and a half hours later .... and waited and waited for the luggage ... guess what .... no luggage!

Fossilised sharks teeth - Morocco is the place to go for fossils!

So frazzled and fatigued, we slumped into the car, for the two and half hour trip to Marrakech ....needless to say we slept all the way having been awake since 4 that morning; just cannot do these 'all nighters any longer'! The only consolation to all of this was that we were meeting up with our daughter who had been working in Marrakech for the previous three weeks on the production of a children's television series. She, on the other hand was having a marvelous time of things, secure in the knowledge that she had escaped the excruciatingly hot Doha summer, and was enjoying the sights and sounds of the Orient that are so special in Marrakech.

As for hubby, well, it would not be appropriate to put into words his thoughts on the trip ... so I shall just leave it up to your imagination along with a few photos!

The one lingering impression of Morocco was that this was a country that respected its cultural heritage; the old stood proudly side by side with the new; change was an evolving affair that respected Moroccan traditions, and development 'appeared' to be tightly controlled, specifically in the old quarters and souks of Marrakech and Casablanca or 'Deir al Baida' as it is now called. A stroll around the old residential and handicraft centre of El Habous in Deir al Baida was a delightful walk into Morocco's heritage. A place where young and old alike mingled, men and women and the youth integrated, whether muslim, christian, jewish or atheist ... a world at peace, immersed in the business of life and handicrafts, from leather goods to ceramics, brass and copper works to carpets and caftans; the call to prayer and the business of books. A feast for the eyes. Maybe if one were to scratch the surface, a different picture may well emerge, but for the time being I was content to watch my 'moroccan' experience unfold before me with a sense that they were doing something right. That 'something' seemed to be confirmed in the following picture of the airport at Marrakech ... a simple, sophisticated deed that needs no explanation .... why is it that we cannot achieve that 'simple something here'?

And one final thought for the day, why has RJ cancelled its route to Morocco .... ? J

Smoking room outside the Marrakech Airport - simple, effective and respected!

PS ... sorry about the disarray of photos on this post ... blogger just would not behave itself!

PPS .... and why do we have such a small space to 'post' into ... must get blogger to enlarge it!

Can someone explain this?

2009-07-18T19:11:00.002+03:00

'They came from all over the world -- Kuwait, Pakistan, Dubai and even Erie.

There were 50 of them there. They shopped, ate and gathered in the streets of Amman, Jordan, and everywhere they went, men stared at them.

"It was like they've never seen a girl before," said Erin Dakas, 18, of Erie. "I feel like there isn't much respect for women. That's something that needs to change........."'

This was a report I just read from the Erie Times News (USA).

In 1965, when I lived on the RJAF base at Mafraq, we would go into the village (that is what it was then) and the car used to be surrounded with children staring at this strange foreigner, as we were a rare species then. Even in Amman my husband got into a punch up with a man who had looked at me and said 'hello'. I was completely oblivious to this until I was pushed into a shop and told to stay there while he dealt with the man!

But now with television, internet, cinema etc why does this habit of staring (plus, plus) persist? T

Any comments and/or explanations?

Moab Musings on a Wednesday

2009-07-08T12:47:00.004+03:00

North Jordanian sunset - photo by J

“Did you know that frequent air travel increases your risk of a brain seizure?”
says hubby as I began packing for our trip to Morocco! “I didn’t make it up, just read it in the local Arabic press”!

“No more excuses” says me … “the world is not going to stop because you take a week off!”

“What a pity” sighs hubby as he wades through the newspapers thinking out loud “I wish it would”, as he reads:

“Half a woman found in suitcase in Morocco” ….

Hmmm … that got me thinking! It also got me thinking that people will never change …. violent as ever, whether just plain physical or politically motivated ….

“Knives scar the lives of 72 people every day in UK” .. Sunday Telegraph, 5.7.09

“Demolition orders reach Convent homes inside the Old City

“Ethnic cleansing as a state policy of Israel’ doh! Could have told you that!

And meanwhile in Amman, our greatest concern seems to centre around the issue of water availability and the disorganisation of numerous festivals here and there. We did not receive our weekly water rations this week, and our well is empty! Is it any wonder that the average citizen gets mad when they see their cities in a permanent state of flux with towers and 5 star hotels sprouting like mushrooms, those notoriously wasteful institutes of tourism that abuse our precious resources for a few bucks in the bank! The same corporations that pay lip-service to ‘eco-friendly’ water saving policies but forget to train their own housekeeping staff on the virtues of leaving towels on the rack for another day! I have yet to find one hotel regardless of star status, that leaves my towel on the rack ....

Basically, it’s kid’s stuff …. and if the kids are aware of it … when are the adults going to catch on?

On that note I wish you all a pleasant summer vacation, wherever you find it! .... J

Safety at the Roman theater

2009-07-07T15:31:00.001+03:00

The last time I attended a performance at the Roman theater I decided that was it. I would not do that again. Parking was impossible, crowds were uncontrolled, people pushed, and to top it off the show started 45 minutes late! It was chaos verging on dangerous. Two nights ago my granddaughter went with her cousins to the opening of the Annual Children’s Congress in Roman theater. The following is her account of that experience:

“The walk towards the theater was expected to be a rough rocky road, but the entrance however, surprised me to be a fight of the bulls. People were waving their tickets screaming at the guards to let them through the doors, but all the guards pushed the crowd towards one small entrance. Twenty angry heads turned into a countless angry mob all on a small platform, forgetting about small children and steps behind them. Fights broke out and guards carelessly shoved intruders back into the crowd causing a domino effect where husky men fell on women and children and left them screaming in pain on the floor. Instead of having an organized line, the guards simply yelled for only women and children to pass through making the men of the family angry for being left behind. Once through this tornado of fear in the one small entrance, the crowd was led into a small tunnel. Being claustrophobic, I was hoping the riot passed me, but I was deeply mistaken. The scene made people go mad; men no longer cared if they pushed women and hurt them. Everyone became selfish to get him or herself first to the entrance, by elbowing, stepping over youngesters, and screaming their way through. At the front of the tunnel, men surrounded the door and the guards were yelling for only females to enter but where were all the men supposed to go? Were they supposed to just grow wings and fly out of the way? No one was entering the gates and the tunnel was getting hotter and smaller by the seconds. People were sandwhiched onto each other in agony. There was no turning back for those who wanted to escape this horrific scene. I started to panic. I had room for only one arm and had to keep my other one in the air as more men and women shoved their way against me to get through. Elbows were in my chest, hard shoes were on my toes, and I had strangers breathing down my neck. I started to scream. I became an animal, losing all human respect, to reach safety. As I finally reached arms length distance to the door, one of the security guards wanted to pull me through the gate. My cousin was trying to lift me to aid me to my rescue, but the tough army guard yelling at everyone was too busy pushing men that his elbow dug straight into my cheek bone! Tears streamed down my face! Did I actually just get hit in the face and go through a dangerous mob to see my friend dance for ten minutes? If Julia Roberts was handing out gold flowers at the end of the tunnel, I would still not go through the riot again. Holding my cheek in pain, I breathed fresh air. Finally I was out!”

ASH

Jordan Festival

2009-07-07T13:55:00.002+03:00

I cannot see why the Minister of Culture bothers with putting advertisements in English for the Jordan Festival as there are no programme details. If you try to get to their web site it goes through visitjordan.com and a warning comes up saying that the site contains malware a malicious software. T

How embarrassing!

2009-07-05T15:20:00.003+03:00

I wondered why all the Jordan Festival adverts on the roads were solely in Arabic and I got my answer in today's Jordan Times. Unfortunately I cannot link to the page as it is an advert but here is a flavour -

.......We will host the participants and guests of Jordan tourists and falsely Mqmin to share the joy of Jordan on this Earth that are landmarks, culture and spirit of the contributions made by the human civilization and the global cultural Building ..............Proud of the Higher Committee of the festival and all the Jordanian cadres working for the preparation and implementation that the effectiveness of more than 240 free Bukha citizen to enjoy and guest and resident in the elite world of creativity, music and singing, the peoples of the world Vlchor..........Once again we invite you to participate in and enjoy the cultural advancement of the status of which are to foster our development and the pursuit of Jordan seeks to accelerate the pace of rescue.

I bet the minister Sabri Rbeihat is furious, that is if he knows, as he speaks perfect English. I found it funny and sad at the same time. Firstly that the Ministry of Culture allowed this to happen and secondly that the Jordan Times accepted the advert. They even got the website address incorrect as I tried to access it. Hope this is not all a reflection on how the Festival will be run! T

I am not an Arab therefore I am not a Jordanian

2009-07-02T11:49:00.002+03:00

Yesterday I was walking to a doctor's appointment when I passed some men on the sidewalk and they said, in English, 'Welcome to Jordan', so I said, in Arabic, that I had lived here for 45 years and they were shocked. Today I went to a police department and the guard took my Jordanian id and said 'are you from the British Embassy?' So many incidents of the same kind over the years.

So it made me ponder and realise that however long I live here I will always be a foreigner. T

Theatre of the absurd

2009-06-30T10:31:00.006+03:00

"Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity."
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) German Dramatist

Well, you could say that this was providence to have read the above the day hubby received the post … a tiny bit of hope wafting in the ether!

“Here, have a shuftee at this!” he said giggling to himself.

And so I proceeded to read the envelope … and read something no one in their right mind (in Jordan at least) would ever think of writing …. Well, let’s get it into its frivolous perspective; nothing quite as ‘breakfast regurgitating’ as this when it comes to 'selective' human rights and democratic principles that espouse accountability .... can you blame us for being quote "not with them" unquote?

But considering the said envelope emanated from that great temple on the mount in Jebel Abdoun, one would not be wrong in thinking that they know ‘swot’ ‘swat’ ‘dick’ or ‘harry’ about who is who and what is what in our beleaguered part of the world!

So for all of you out there who know us and where we live, here is your daily dose of laughter, for this is the envelope we received which shall be duly framed and hung on the bathroom wall:

PS ... any suggestions for the name of the said Theatre Company???

J

I AM IMPRESSED

2009-06-24T17:27:00.003+03:00

The Prime Minister and several ministers have recently been caught for speeding, according to Ammon News and the GAM website.

Wow, that is good news, not that they were speeding but that they were caught and fined. And I am presuming that they paid their fines, although they were probably being driven by a chauffeur. If our PM and Ministers cannot obey the law how can they expect anyone else to? Hope this has given them a good lesson. Wonder if they were using their seat belts???? T

The Citadel - again

2009-06-22T16:49:00.002+03:00

I went up to the Citadel again and found that the original wall has been changed but this is the view as one drives up the hill, which I think is such a shame as it is so unwelcoming. Part of the wall further along has been lowered so that one can see the view over it. T

Bureacracy gone mad!

2009-06-16T14:11:00.002+03:00

The bureacracy in this country is a COMPLETE NIGHTMARE! What a morning.

My mother-in-law died recently and the bit I am involved in is the transfer of her part of my husband's pension to me. So my sister-in-law's son accompanied me to Abdali to the Ministry of Finance. Of course all the detours make it a nightmare to get there with ensuing gridlock of traffic. We get there and go from one counter to another and finally arrive at a point where a gentleman in front of a computer looked up the number and told us to go to the next desk. They said ok you have to wait for ten minutes so that the file can be brought up. The computer seems to be redundant! We wait for awhile, the file arrives. Then the guy looks at me and says we have to have a paper to prove you are alive!!! What????? I said here is my id and here I am, what more do you want? No, that would not do so we had to traipse over to Jabel Hussein, again facing huge traffic jams. We get there and battle to the front of the queue to find the computers down. That is when I bailed out and left cousin-in-law to do the rest.

Two taxis refused to take me because they did not want to go to where I wanted to go! The third one (after waiting ten minutes in the boiling sun) finally said ok. He was an old man (probably the same age as me!!!) who spent the whole time pressing his horn through the nightmare of the traffic. But at least I arrived safe and sound though so hot I could hardly think straight.

So hopefully my presence will not be needed again though it seemed unfair to leave the cousin to finish it all off. Heaven help all those who have to go through all this in various departments belonging to the Government. T

parking in Amman

2009-06-15T20:22:00.003+03:00

I had an argument the other evening on Jebel Amman about parking my car outside a restaurant. The valets said I could not park there but I just said call the police and left my car. Of course they could not do anything about it. But just to make sure I was in the right I asked the police what is the law on this. Do shops, restaurants, offices etc have the right to put notices on the streets and stop people from parking? He said THEY DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT. T

harsher prison sentences even for 'honour' murders

2009-06-15T13:53:00.002+03:00

We are at last moving in the right direction in the sentencing of those who commit murder for whatever reason. The minimum sentence will be five years even if families etc drop charges. And that includes juveniles.

These new laws and amendments to the Penal Code are going through the Parliament at the moment. And there are certainly some other interesting ones on paper. Seems the age of consent for sexual relations is being highered from 15 to 18 years. So any man having sex with a girl under the age of 18 (even if it is with consent) will be charged with rape and receive a minimum sentence of 15 years. T

1,200 tests a year in Jordan

2009-06-12T17:38:00.002+03:00

I have just finished reading Rana Husseini's new book 'Murder in the name of Honour' which is an excellent read but, of course, profoundly disturbing. The relating of real stories from Jordan and all round the world show how much this terrible crime is a world wide problem. Rana has done a brilliant job with her investigative reporting here in Jordan over the years and this book is the culmination of her work.

Today I read that, here in Jordan, 1,200 women per year have vaginal examinations to see if they are virgins. This is the most horribly embarrassing medical examination and for young women to have to go through this is just appalling.

I am hoping that the new laws will help to address the problems of murder committed in the name of 'honour' and that severe penalties will be handed down by our judges. But they have to get through the Parliament first and as the vast majority of members are men what chance is there? T

Our ambulance services

2009-06-10T13:30:00.002+03:00

By chance I got involved in the aftermath of an accident in Madaba where a young woman was injured by a car. An ambulance was called from the Civil Defence and when it arrived at the scene the paramedics did not follow their protocols. They picked up the victim without a stretcher and neck brace and failed to do what they should have. She was taken to Madaba hospital and then transferred by a Ministry of Health ambulance to a private hospital in Amman. This ambulance was not equipped with the necessary kit nor did a doctor from the hospital accompany her. Thank heavens she survived the ordeal and is now home.

Luckily I know the officer in the Civil Defence in charge of ambulance service and training and I called him. He was totally mortified and told me that the CD ambulances are equipped to a very high standard and the paramedics are all well trained. He has done a marvellous job of follow up and the team has been punished and he has apologised to the family for the shortcomings that evening. As for the MOH ambulances (who transfer patients from hospital to hospital) I understand their equipment is extremely poor and their standards low.

Has anyone else had experiences with the ambulance services that they can relate? The officer in the Civil Defence is ready to listen to any complaints, praise and suggestions. T

A whopping OOOps

2009-06-08T11:11:00.003+03:00

Ever since this accident happened a few weeks ago, in the vicinity of the 6th circle, Amman, I have been wondering about the mental health of the crane driver who was treated in hospital for shock.... I wonder if he will ever work again?

When you study the photos, you realise it was a miracle no-one was killed.

The task of recovering that crane is going to be a huge feat of engineering ....and a dangerous one at that considering it's on the 44th floor, the highest building in Jordan that can even be viewed from Jerusalem on a clear day I have been told ....

I would not like to live under nor around this project; a project that seems to have been doomed with failure ever since the previous Municipal council sold off the land that used to be a public park!

Why oh why do we not see the value of public space, or cultural/urban heritage for that matter when 'investment' rears its ugly head?

... doh don't get me started .... think I need a good dose of yoga to caste out those demonic thoughts!
J

oops in Aqaba

2009-06-07T19:24:00.000+03:00

Aqaba is getting ready for the celebrations on Tuesday. Unfortunately one of the driver's of a float forgot what he (I am assuming it was a he!) had on top and went sailing through a steel arch way and brought the whole lot down. T

Rest in peace Tahseen

2009-06-01T18:33:00.002+03:00

Yesterday another brave Jordanian soldier died.

Over the years Tahseen Shurdom was one of the backbones of the Jordanian Army. He was a big, bluff and hearty soldier and one of the bravest of the brave. You could hear him from a mile away with his loud voice and hearty laugh and his presence would fill a room. He fought in wars and was involved in peace negotiations. His last posting was as Director of the Public Security, though I could never see him as a police officer. He was a soldier through and through and served his country with distinction. My condolences to his family. He will be missed. T

Zahran Palace

2009-05-30T08:23:00.000+03:00

Zaharan Palace sometime in the fifties. Amazing to look at this picture and see how isolated the building was at that time. In the sixties it was brave to build beyond the fourth circle and the King Hussein Medical Centre was in the middle of nowhere! T

The Guest of the Governor

2009-05-29T17:36:00.001+03:00

I found the Jordan Times article, May 27^th, about administrative detention particularly disturbing. The inset about the longest serving guest of a Governor, who has been in administrative detention since 1987 and is still there after 22 years, is absolutely mind-boggling. I know that a woman may be put in protective custody if she is likely to become an ‘honor crime’ victim – but when the governor says that, “Your family knows you are innocent, but the problem is that people talk.” So this woman whose life has already been destroyed continues to stay in prison because people talk! I wonder about the power this governor may be able to exercise. Obviously, he has the power to keep her in Jweida Correctional Centre, but not the power to threaten the family with severe punishment if they harm her should she return home. I would be interested in knowing what laws in Jordan actually allow this gross injustice to take place. It seems that she has no recourse in the law and is a victim of the state instead of her family. And all agree that she is innocent, but people talk.

ASH

Red Bull has its wings clipped!

2009-05-29T09:03:00.004+03:00

This just made my day, finally someone somewhere is saying the simple truth 'mixing Red Bull with alcohol is dangerous'! It doesn't just lead to addiction, but can seriously damage your health with toxic overload. Another issue is the effect it has on young school children when they consume Red Bull as a 'soft' drink .... and spend the next few days unable to sleep or concentrate. And parents are none the wiser! Red Bull as a soft drink should be treated like any other adult drink such as 'alcohol' and not sold to minors. It's about time the company that makes this toxic brew shows some real corporate social responsibility and stops targeting young people in its advertising campaigns.

'Orientalism' in its true context

2009-05-29T08:50:00.001+03:00

In the spirit of artistic collaboration, I would like to bring the work of Naim Farhat of Lebanon to your attention - an historical collection of photography and artwork compiled over many years.

'Orientalist photography', as the website indicates, "was created out of one individual's efforts to preserve valuable historical information about the effects of Imperialism and Colonialism on the Arab world and make it accessible to all peoples... It is a resource for present and future generations to learn from, so as not to welcome nor encourage colonial imperialism.

Orientalist photography (and painting) was borne out of the westerners' desire for amusement and entertainment."

I post it so that the true meaning of 'orientalism' may be understood.

www.orientalistphotography.org

www.lebanesephotobank.org

Red Arrows in Jordan

2009-05-24T14:08:00.001+03:00

The fabulous, fantastic, spectacular Red Arrows!

The Red Arrows of the UK Royal Air Force displayed at the King Hussein Air College, Mafraq on Thursday and they were just unbelievable. What a show. Also fabulous were the Royal Falcons. The Red Arrows did their first show in Jordan in October 1966 and I was there to see them and have been lucky enough to see them many times since then and they always delight and impress. What a privilige it was to be able to meet the pilots and talk to them. T

pictures by my dear friend Jane Taylor

Beating Retreat

2009-05-22T19:33:00.000+03:00

For the first time in many years a Beating Retreat was held at Basman parade ground. What fun and what memories it brings back! Firstly the Desert Police came on and did a silent march, then the band of REME from UK and lastly, bursting on to the parade ground with a loud blast, the Jordanian Armed Forces massed bands. You could just see the Jordanians bursting with pride at being able to parade in front of their king. This was a British - Jordanian tribute to King Abdullah on his tenth anniversary.

The first Beating Retreat I attended was on November 14, 1966 the day after my husband was shot down and killed by the Israelis in air combat. His Majesty King Hussein insisted I attended the parade which was held in honour of President Ayub Khan of Pakistan who was visiting the country.

These parades are just wonderful and I wish we had more of them. T

Soul city

2009-05-20T11:30:00.002+03:00

And so it continues in occupied Palestine, an insidious war of attrition has been going on waged by Israel for the most part of the 20^th century and all of the 21^st century.

The epitome of all this can be seen in a city that effuses Palestinian statehood and a world view on religious tolerance; in a city where its children pay the highest price: “three in four Arab children live in poverty” … the city in question is Jerusalem.

Ironic really, that this city represents the birthplace of the three monotheistic religions. It is visited by Popes, politicians and people from all over, and yet there is no peace. And next month it celebrates 42 years of a mythical “unification” – or shall we call a spade a spade: ‘occupation and annexation’ following Israel’s Six-Day War of 1967, when the city was declared the “eternal, undivided” capital of Israel in a move deemed illegal by the international community. The reality is that it is so divided the stones scream ...

That was then, and this is now … "For Arab East Jerusalem, there is little to celebrate"

Indeed, “Would to God that all the Lord’s people were prophets” Numbers XI –

William Blake, 1804 in the preface to Milton: A Poem -

Forgot my mobile!

2009-05-19T14:52:00.003+03:00

When I went out this morning I forgot to bring my mobile phone which made me think, driving along, what would I do if I had an accident or needed to get in touch with someone. Nowhere in my brain is a telephone index, I would not know a single number to call as they were all in the memory of the mobile. We certainly do depend on our electronic gadgets now but am still going to keep my paper telephone book, just in case. T

Azraq Castle

2009-05-15T10:34:00.000+03:00

I was looking through some old photos and found these two of Azraq Castle and the surrounding area taken in 1964. What a beautiful area it was and what a wasteland it is now compared to those days. I remember it took a compass and a land rover to get to the three desert castles! T

At the Citadel ...

2009-05-13T16:35:00.008+03:00

At the Citadel ...

...and meanwhile away from this wonderful heritage of history, we have:

The "Wall" being built along one side of the bus parking lot, creating a 'main gate' into the site and the new visitor's centre

First phase of the construction - the Bus Terminal and toilet facilities
The visitor's centre is at the foundation stage and is located this side of the bus terminal.

Somewhere at the end of this piece of land is the site for the proposed Funicular ... that will cut deep into the residential area of the community below with plans to demolish some homes in the process, and disturb Amman's urban heritage. I wonder how this project is going to be maintained over the long run in view of maintenance problems of funiculars around the world??

"Don't it always seem to go,
You don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved Paradise …
and put up a parking lot..!"
Joni Mitchell song from the 1970s....

I cannot think of a more apt phrase to describe the work going on at the Citadel … so thanks UmmD for reminding us of this beautiful song …

J

The Pope's Visit

2009-05-12T16:34:00.001+03:00

Whatever one’s religious affiliation may be, the visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Jordan was a remarkable event. This is the third such historic visit to Jordan by a Roman Catholic Pope that I know of. I remember the first visit by Pope Paul VI in January 1964. The weather was freezing and people lined the streets from Marka airport into Amman patiently waiting for a glimpse of one of the most influential men on earth. Then in the year 2000, Pope John Paul II visited, and this year Jordan was privileged to receive the present pontiff.

My eldest grandson went with a bus load of students, Moslem as well as Christian, from his school to attend the Mass on Sunday at the Sports’ City. They arrived at 6AM for the 10AM Mass. The logistics of managing about 16,000 people was an accomplishment in itself. He was thrilled to be able to attend this special outdoor service on that beautiful spring morning. My youngest grandson, who attends a different school, was given Sunday off as a Christian, but no special program was planned for him so his parents took him to the Baptism Site Sunday afternoon. There were fewer people and the atmosphere was less formal but just as dignified. Both boys will treasure the memory of this special day for the rest of their lives.

During the last few days, many journalists have asked members of my husband’s family what it is like to be a Christian living in a Moslem country. Their answer is always the same, “We are Arabs first, Jordanians second, and then Christians - in that order. There may be some who would disagree with their priorities, but I for one am proud to be a part of their family living in this country.

ASH

No Porking!!

2009-05-11T19:41:00.000+03:00

I thought that you would like to see the new sign
that I found outside our garage entrance this morning!

What do you think, should we leave it the way it is
or draw a line on the right side of the "o?" At least
you know that we are safe from swine flu.....and
as you can tell, there is never a dull moment around here!

Karen

Engineers Association pension cuts

2009-05-10T13:56:00.003+03:00

The Engineers Association has suddenly cut the amount of pension payments without notice. A friend, whose husband paid into the fund for his pension all his working life, has had her pension cut from JD116 to JD 86 per month.

When she enquired as to the reason, she was told that they did not have enough money to keep up the payments so they had to cut the amount. Surely it is not beyond the capabilities of those in charge at the Association to make sure that all recipients receive notices explaining why this was happening? T

1984

2009-05-09T09:00:00.003+03:00

Came across this anti-war song by Bruce Cockburn, created in 1983-4. It refers to Guatemala; just substitute this country for Gaza, Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else on planet earth where you feel injustice reigns today .... J

: Read
If I Had A Rocket Launcher Lyrics
here.

Double Parked Cars

2009-05-06T15:45:00.004+03:00

I am very frustrated about the increasing number of cars that double park on our streets. There seems to be a growing mentality of “my needs are more important than yours” and no consideration is given to others on the street. Of course I know that it is the job of the police to stop this but I also know that they are understaffed and overworked, so what can we, as citizens do to help them?

All of this led to a “light bulb” moment this morning as I passed 2 double parked cars on the street behind me. Why not help the police, and how best could this be done?

So, here is my “brain storm” solution, let’s photograph double parked cars, clearly showing their license plate numbers, and send these pictures to a site that the police specify. I then want each photographed, double parked car, to be given (at least) an immediate JD25 fine…..and then, let’s see how quickly this double parking phenomena ends.

I, for one, have my camera in my purse, or better yet, on the seat next to me….all prepared, so please join me in helping me help the police to solve this problem…..and I have an email address for you: trafficdept@psd.gov.jo
Karen

Of highways and khamseens - a poem

2009-05-05T08:38:00.002+03:00

We’re all in a fluster
All dusty and depressed
And it’s all about the weather
And some of the rest …

Overcaste and dreary
A blanket of dust
Will somebody please help us
Clear up this mess …?

Cars don’t work,
hair is a tangle;
The heaven’s above
must be spring cleaning a bundle!

Roads closed down south
And up north too,
Hope hubby’s okay
Along the Desert Highway!

It certainly doesn’t help
With construction and its commotion;
Please keep the trees
For oxygen and protection!

Mother nature in her wisdom
Sent the khamseen along;
A message on the wind
Of an ominous storm?

J

And now for something completely different ...

2009-05-01T14:11:00.003+03:00

The First of every month of May is known as Labour Day. But it is also known as something else ... the first day of spring and the fertility of nature. Amongst a growing bunch of my type of subversives, it is also known as International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day .... something that has even reached the shores of rural Jordan a few years ago, promoted by local women as part of their drive to provide a cleaner, healthier and productive environment for their children and by extension their communities .... (when I find a link I shall post it!) .... so in honour of all people who work whether in the fields, the construction site, the office and most importantly the home .... whether subversive or not .... Happy Labour Day!

J

Gaza on my mind ... again

2009-05-01T12:17:00.005+03:00

After the 100 days of Obama's presidency has passed, the only thing that stuck in my mind was the comment Clinton made on the jailing of the Iranian/American reporter, Roxana Saberi, who was freelancing in Iran without a proper permit.

..." Clinton raised questions over Iran’s legal process and said it was a nation that appeared “impervious” to human rights concerns and “civilised standards”...

'What a yoke', as hubby would say of this crazy world, without belittling the personal plight of Ms Saberi ...

Is this all Clinton can come up with when 'human rights' issues are concerned? And what of the rights of Arabs of Palestine living in Gaza .....? Ooops silly me, I forgot they are branded non- human, therefore does not apply!

... and meanwhile on the distant shores of the Mediterranean, in the middle of the East, Israel's imperviousness to genuine human rights concerns and 'civilised standards' in Gaza and beyond continue unabated for more than fifty years. The fact that this situation does not seem to have any effect whatsoever on Clinton's sense of moral values - a situation that affects the traumatized lives of 1.5 million people, as opposed to '1' as mentioned above - has reached the point of a political farce.

The words of Rami Khouri best sum up the status quo in this article, when he writes of the deceptive calm in Gaza:

"It’s very simple, really. When Jews were dehumanised and brutalised in Christian Europe, they broke out of their siege and created their state of Israel. The Palestinians are now at a similar stage of national traumatisation, resistance and rebirth. Human beings do not take kindly to being miniaturised. "

On racism et al

2009-04-30T12:13:00.004+03:00

Face to face with history ...??

More words that are blindingly obvious ... but where to from here?

I cannot decide, can you?

So in the meantime, ponder on this:

"
One day posterity will remember these strange times, when ordinary common honesty was called courage."
Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933- ) Russian poet 1969

Spring in the UK

2009-04-25T21:56:00.000+03:00

'Oh to be in England now that spring is here'.

The sun is shining on my mother's back garden and this is her view from her sitting room down through to the golf course. The second picture is from the cliffs looking down on Bournemouth beach. A lovely part of the world and a beautiful spring day. T

Moab musings

2009-04-25T13:33:00.003+03:00

Trees destroyed to make way for a larger highway between Amman and the airport,

opposite Yaddudeh, a few kilometres south of Amman ...

‘If Mohammad would not come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammad ...’ So said hubby this morning as he arrived in the computer room carrying a refreshing tray of coffee and treats, for his much frustrated wife who could only access half the internet today!

Probably just as well if you survey the planet these days, all kinds of hobgoblins and hooligans popping up in every corner, what with the Americans just realizing that violence is endemic in their society including violence against women; Clinton recognizing America’s role in the dire state of Pakistani affairs … “we should have filled the vacuum after the Russians left Afghanistan”, (!!!@*& ...??) to Obama flip flopping his way through the maze of American/AIPAC foreign policy and the home truths of torture …. I sure did once have a dream … but it was only a dream!

And so ‘on on’ as the Hash House Harriers would say, as Jordan celebrates Earth day with tree planting here and there, and slates 10,000 trees along the airport road with destruction to, presumably, make way for wider roads and the complexities of a population explosion. And meanwhile in Egypt, a local sheikh issues a fatwa against the Jordanian government because it is thinking about passing a law limiting child birth …

“Look here voice of doom” bellows hubby from the other room, I want to buy a dark mysterious car …

Why?

“Shoo barifnee … New, not a scratch on it … lots of power … to scare people ... LOL … to compensate for all my complexes … got it?!”

Well no …. Hubby with complexes?? And what might they be??

“Complexes of a suppressed man ….”

Me: laugh out even louder ….

“trampled with the clutter of life … and the pain of income tax files.”

It’s that time of year you know … it’s that time of year every day it would seem!

Here we go again ... Dibeen et al

2009-04-17T10:19:00.006+03:00

What is it with this government that it thinks it has the right to stampede all over our landscape with hob nail boots destroying everything in its path ... including the legacy of mother nature when it comes to investment and development?? Very soon we, the citizen, will no longer recognise our own country. If the government does not respect the law or the very land we live on ... what hope is there for our children's future ....?

True the land is still there, but the soul of the country and its culture is fast disappearing down a development hole because change is imposed; an ancient landscape and its trees destroyed - it does not evolve.

I was saddened on a recent visit to Madaba .... as it is being turned upside down and with it the lives of the people who live there all because of tourism and development plans! Can we please have a breather .....?

The new streets are so small you can no longer turn a corner in a truck or 4x4 ... the pavements are so big the shop owners can no longer have easy access to their places of work for deliveries etc .... and Madaba is loosing its quaint identity of old, simply because tourists and the aid masters seem to have more say in how a Jordanian village should be organised! So much for devolvement when USAID is around ....

There is an uneasy disconnect between the people of Madaba and the policies of aid/tourism agencies .... I sense the people are growing weary with all this change in the development game. When will it end? When we have a completely new Middle East I suppose ...

Madaba's new road infrastructure - enormous pavements with tiny 3m wide roads - Where am I again???

Instead of one road at a time, the whole of Madaba looks like this ...

Environment society decries decision to relocate Dibbeen resort site

Jordan Times 17 April 2009

By Mohammad Ghazal

AMMAN - The Jordan Environment Society (JES) on Thursday decried a decision to relocate the proposed site of a multimillion dinar tourist resort in Dibbeen reserve, claiming that the new location is in "a highly dense" forest area.

The relocation, in an area of the Dibbeen forest where tree density is between 85 to 90 per cent, is a violation of several regulations, according to the JES.

The forest is of ecological importance to conservationists in Jordan and globally because it is the southern-most natural pine forest in the world.

The selection of the new location is in violation of 2007 land usage regulations, which prohibit construction in any area where tree density is more than 30 per cent, JES Executive Director Ahmad Kofahi told The Jordan Times in a phone interview on Thursday.

Jordan Dubai Capital (JDC) and the investment unit of the Social Security Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding in 2006 to construct the JD100 million comprehensive tourism complex.

But environmentalists expressed concern over ecological ramifications of the resort's location, noting that the infrastructure for such a complex, including the construction of roads, water pipelines, sewage networks and parking lots, would harm the forests in Dibbeen.

Their arguments prompted the Environment Ministry to propose an alternate site, which already contains infrastructure, so no trees would have to be cut when the project is implemented.

This is the third time the ministry has changed the location of the project, Kofahi noted.

"A team of experts, including some who work for public agencies, visited the new location and reported that tree density is higher there than permitted rates for construction," he said, pointing out that some trees at the new site are more than 200-years-old.

The Higher Regulation Council, which authorises such projects, has also set a JD10,000 fine for each tree the developer cuts.

Kofahi also said the ministry did not complete an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project before giving it the go-ahead, although a bylaw within the Environmental Protection Act requires a positive EIA before construction begins.

Officials from the Environment Ministry and JDC were unavailable for comment.

The planned Munya Woodland Resort and Spa includes convention halls, chalets, entertainment facilities and therapeutic centres, as well as a 40-room lodge.

The 500-dunum complex is expected to create 500-750 job opportunities in Dibbeen, which is among the least-economically developed areas in the country.

17 April 2009

"No Name" Private Hospital Violator

2009-04-14T13:14:00.003+03:00

I don’t get it. On page two of the Jordan Times today (April 14, 2009) there is a 9 paragraph column headed “Private hospital closed down for violating Public Health Law.” The author proceeds to list the reasons that it was closed but refrains from disclosing the name of the hospital. If it is newsworthy to write about this institution, why can’t its name be published? Who are we protecting here and why even write the article about this nameless "place???"
karen

Wazarati

2009-04-14T07:50:00.002+03:00

I noticed in the Jordan Times this morning the creation of Warcati. We already have Madrasati and I was just wondering if one of our royals was going to form a Wazarati to ensure better performance of our ministries!.........z

Vandalism at the Citadel

2009-04-10T16:08:00.004+03:00

Archaelogical vandalism is taking place at the Citadel. This is a tourism centre being built on top of one of our national heritage sites with bulldozers digging ditches and holes. I gather there will also be an area for tourist coaches.

There seems to be a school of thought that all our archaeological sites need tourist centres. I would have thought it was more important to protect and preserve these places and leave them to be excavated in peace without building on our precious history. But all that we seem to be looking at is development at the price of culture. Please read a previous blog on this site on this particular subject by J. T

From Nepal with love

2009-04-09T09:01:00.002+03:00

Here is one very special man who embodies all the good things in life; he is also very courageous in his quest, especially to ride a bike around the world!

Which got me thinking about the benefit of the bike ... funny how we can always find the money to widen roads for more cars …and yet not do anything serious about fixing pavements, or even building a cycling/running/walking route within the existing structures all over town. Doh! Forgot about all the pollution that makes walking impossible! If only we could have a moratorium on massive development and car imports, maybe then we can enjoy and maintain what we already have … with some peace and quiet ….

If this wonderful man, Pushkar Shah, has shown us anything in his drive for peace, it’s that peace is a choice, peace is attainable, because peace comes from the heart, but you need to recognize it first.

J

The lighter side of life ...

2009-04-08T11:33:00.003+03:00

Fed up with politics et al ... started this a while ago and finished it this morning! I must be feeling better! So here's to all those little bits of nonsensical ramblings to start the day off ...

Ode to Age

For Hubby by J

When you hit a certain age
And your biological clock
considers it a totally new page,
your mind is off, ad hoc
and your body goes into a rage!

While you think that all that changes
Is that you become a little wiser,
A sage …it makes no difference because
Your body flies into yet another rage!

And while it thinks you have gained too many years in age
As your trousers lose their way to your waist
And pause at your knees
wondering how to get up to your …
‘teeze’ …

It’s the mind that’s raging wild and nutty
Ad hoc flutterings and wild imaginings
Waiting and wondering
Bemused …

“But how could this happen to me?”

So next time you pause at the bathroom door,
The mirror of perfidy posed to pounce,
Smile and remember
The simple rule of the game
That life
needs a little madness
to be free!

Tourism and its effects … but what about Culture and the effects of development?

2009-04-05T11:12:00.004+03:00

Commendable that there is yet another ‘conference’ to tackle issues of concern to society. Issues are raised, papers written, conclusions made …. But what is the difference … something akin to the sorry state of Arab summit affairs?

When Princess Sumaya al Hassan says “This conference comes at the right time now when our culture and civilisation faces the danger of irresponsible human actions, pollution and fast demographic growth," we should all be taking her seriously enough to incorporate preservation into all our laws and bylaws to curb irresponsibility for the greater good.

Raising concern over the effects of tourism on the social and cultural fabric of society is nothing new. We just don’t heed the lessons of the past when economics and investment overtake the need for preserving our cultural heritage, whether it’s a tree (airport road as in above picture) or an ancient handicraft, such as shibriya making. A challenging point when one considers the cause and effect of tourism on the local economy …. culture will always loose out to big bucks. Such a pity that this issue is not debated to a logical conclusion, (ie culture must be protected at all costs), at our preeminent house of parliament. Ooops silly me, forgot these are the people driving the development train!

So who do we turn to when culture is forced to give way to development, and we the people object ? Sad to think that in GAM’s 100th anniversary year, their drive for development in the name of investment, sees fit to consign one hundred years of cultural urban heritage into the annals of history; (see below) … and this at a time when Amman is trying to make its case to become the world cultural capital of 2016! If we don’t respect the past, what message are we sending to our children ….I suppose the only consolation is that all this modern, faceless, insensitive building in the name of development will also suffer the same fate twenty years down the line!

When are the tourism masters going to understand that tourists visit Jordan for its archaeological sites and history; its quaint and charming little shops and staircases, handicrafts and sense of the old; the delights of floating on the Dead Sea, and basking and diving on and in the Red Sea; its ancient landscape and pristine environment untouched by human hand, (nothing quite like walking in the footsteps of the prophets around Mount Nebo and beyond). They come to Jordan to escape development and immerse themselves into a Jordanian cultural and social experience, as the people are at the heart of the matter regardless of stature ..... J

http://www.jordantimes.com/index.php?news=15506 Amman to make case for world cultural capital title …2016
http://www.jordantimes.com/index.php?news=15634 Officials explore tourism’s impact on heritage, culture
http://www.jordantimes.com/index.php?news=15498 Dagger makers survive fall of empire, struggle with GAM eviction notice

The Good Old Days

2009-04-02T15:41:00.001+03:00

Most people, particularly the young, dislike hearing how great the good old days were. Most of the time I agree with them. Life is change and change will happen whether we are ready for it or not. One hopes it is for the better.
Now that I’ve said that, I want to make an exception. I do wish for the good old days when I could phone my Internet provider, press 4 for technical support, and hear a human being offer to help me. He listened to my problem and then would walk me through the solution while I sat in front of my computer and followed his instructions. I could tell him to repeat them or to slow down until I got it right and my problem was solved. Now, I phone a number and am told to phone another one. Sometimes it rings and instead of being answered it just disconnects. Sometimes I get a recording that says, “The operator isn’t available, goodbye,” and then the line disconnects. Sometimes I get a recording with instructions that whiz by me, and then when I get it right and press the correct extension, I get another recording or loud music and I wait. I wait and wait until I give up and hope that next time I call, I will get the help I need.
I guess I shouldn’t complain because for the past two decades or more whenever I was visiting my family in the States and needed to call an airline, an airport, a large corporation, a bank – you name it – I would get a recording and then a long wait would follow. In fact, a major complaint from my family in the States is that they dream to talk to a human being when they make a phone call. But I suppose that is the way of progress in this technical age. Jordan obviously isn’t going to be left behind. Our small little companies, locally owned, have been sold to bigger (better?) and certainly more impersonal mega corporations. They offer faster, more up to date products and services supposedly. The customer is forced to manage as best he can with the mediocre service he is given. At least when I call I’m not ‘outsourced’ to India, China, or the Fiji Islands – yet.
ASH

Farewell to Oman

2009-04-01T21:41:00.003+03:00

Since my daughter will be moving here in June, I just made what might be my last trip to Oman. As a real farewell I took 3 of my girlfriends with me and did some things that I had never done before. First, it was wonderful introducing them to a country that I have learned to know and love and it was fun opening their eyes to this multifaceted jewel.

How to describe this Arab country located on the Arabian Gulf? First it is not a UAE “Disney Land” it is a real genuine place working hard to balance growth and development with the environment. In fact we arrived in the middle of a huge campaign against plastic bags and large substitute bags made from jute were being sold for the equivalent of 20 piasters (30 cents)at checkout counters.

The streets are clean and beautifully landscaped, the driving is orderly, people obey the rules at the roundabouts and car honking is considered an offense and one can be fined for breaking it. Houses have to have an “Islamic” ambiance and must be painted in white or pastels, their roofs are finished off with no unsightly steel bars, washing lines, or ugly water tanks visible. And the Omanis are friendly, soft-spoken, refined and polite people.

While there we drove 3 hours south of Muscat to Ras al-Jinz (www.rasaljinz.org), the most eastern point of the Arabian Peninsula, to visit the famous green turtle nesting beach. At 9:00 p.m., in a professional and organized group, we made our way to where over 20,000 females return annually to the same place where they were hatched, in order to their lay eggs. There we watched one monstrous female laying what would be a minimum of 100 eggs the size of ping pong balls. We also saw a group of baby hatchlings who had just dug themselves out of their nest struggling to cross the sand to reach the water. Through all of this we were in pitch dark with only a dim light provided by the guide. The reason for this is that the turtles follow the reflection of the light on the water to orient themselves and if they see light other than that from the sea, they will go the wrong direction and will die. It was impressive how serious the Omanis took their responsibility to protect this endangered species and this unique phenomena that Ras al-Jinz is famous for.

Other visits were to the amazing Muscat fish market, the fascinating old souk, the lovely Bait al Zubair museum, the magnificent Great Mosque and the modern city malls. A lovely week with friends and family ended with the treat of watching granddaughter Zeyna in her school play performance, The Aristrocats”. Her sister Karmah proudly called us the “Grandma brigade” and we enjoyed being that. So farewell lovely Oman, I admire the orderly way that your beautiful country is being developed. It is certainly something that the rest of the Arab world could take lessons from.
karen

To neuter or not to neuter, help is at hand

2009-03-29T10:46:00.002+03:00

Here is an interesting letter to the editor that appeared in the Jordan Times today …. Thank you Jeremy Hulme of SPANA for offering free neutering services for cats and dogs, be they pets or strays, at the Spana Jordan offices, tel 5865451, located south of Amman in Wadi Seer >

If I can just get hold of that beautiful Burmese cat, no doubt someone’s pet, I saw wandering the streets around my house with the telltale sign of flattened fur around its neck where once a collar used to be, I shall have him checked out. Sadly many foreigners at end of contract in Jordan seem to think that the costs involved in taking their beloved pets with them is not worth it, so to ease their conscience, they release them on to the streets of Jordan to fend for themselves if no home is found; aka the little puppy I saw kicked down a wadi at the Dead Sea by a young East European man driving a diplomat's car last summer! But this is but a small part of the stray animal problem in Jordan. At least it is being talked about and institutions such as SPANA Jordan, The Humane Centre for Animal Welfare run by Margaret Ledger and others are doing tremendous work to bring this issue to the attention of the general public and authorities concerned.

The burdens of man’s inhumanity to all living things is simply mind boggling …. So we do what we can, through action or simply words, in the small hope that something somewhere will change for the better ….. even for a cat.

With reference to the comments by Fakhri Kawar regarding stray dogs, in the “Arabic press commentaries” (The Jordan Times March 23, 2009), surely the writer unintentionally produced his own solution when he said: “In Europe the situation is different as people… take care of them.”
As a chief executive of the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA), I can assure him that the problem of stray dogs and cats is the same across Africa, the Middle East and even parts of Europe. Yet, it has been proved time and time again that simply shooting or poisoning the animals is not the answer.
While irresponsible owners allow dogs and cats to bread indiscriminately, the offspring will simply repopulate any area where there is food. The solution is simple: the education of owners to neuter and control their animals.
SPANA Jordan will undertake this procedure free of charge (telephone number 5865451).
If people refuse to neuter and control their animals, there will always be problems of stray and semi-wild dogs attaching children and livestock, and causing road accidents.
Jeremy Hulme,
CEO SPANA-London

29 March 2009

Where is Honour Found?

2009-03-27T14:08:00.002+03:00

This posting is not an attempt to diminish the horror of honor crimes; it is an attempt to understand the framework in which they exist.

Jordanian society as a whole does not condone honor killings. It is a very small minority of people, influenced by some dark traditions in their tribal past, who believe they have the right to kill their female relatives to preserve their ‘honor.’

One would assume then that the majority of enlightened men in our government and parliament would overturn the laws that allow these murders to go virtually unpunished. Instead it seems almost like a taboo for men to debate and denounce honor crimes publically even though they personally deplore them and would never commit one.

It is my understanding that Jordanian men derive their honor from the activities of their female relatives. Therefore what is perceived to be a woman’s disagreeable, objectionable, or disobedient behavior reflects on the honor of her male relatives, usually her father, making him look weak and vulnerable in the eyes of others.

Losing control over a woman in his charge is a serious insult to his manhood.Since the defining symbol of a man’s honor rests on the actions of his female relatives, it follows that part of the core identity of his manliness is in her hands, which in itself is a threat to a man. How confusing for both men and women. He needs control over her since his honor rests with her, and she has control over him by her behavior. Regardless, I doubt if we westerners can appreciate how important the opinion of others is in Jordanian society. Male and female codes of behavior that influence opinion have been taken for granted for so long, they are part of the cultural norm.

I don’t understand how honor, or other’s opinions of a person, rests in the actions of their relatives. Certainly an adult is responsible for his own actions, but that isn’t for me to decide. After reading about the viciousness of the latest honor crime, it is time for Jordanian men and women to define ‘honor’ and decide where it is found. In the meantime, changing laws will not stop honor crimes, but if the perpetrators are prosecuted to the full extent of the law as murderers, it will go a long way to decrease their frequency. ASH

suicide or 'honour' killing?

2009-03-27T09:01:00.002+03:00

Women told: 'You have dishonoured your family, please kill yourself'
As Turkey cracks down on 'honour killings', women are now told to commit suicide. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/women-told-you-have-dishonoured-your-family-please-kill-yourself-1655373.html

"Honour killings aren't always properly investigated because some police and prosecutors share the same views as the honour killers," she said. "For things to change, police, prosecutors and even judges need to be educated on gender equality."

We are not the only country struggling with the murders of women committed in the name of 'honour'. The phenomonen of suicide by a woman forced into taking her own life has reared its ugly head here also though I don't think investigations into these deaths has been taken seriously enough. T

Violence in the family

2009-03-25T14:47:00.002+02:00

The physical abuse by husbands on their wives is something that is increasing here. I wonder why? Is it because actual abuse is increasing or is it because there is now a known way of reporting this type of abuse?

Women who are victims of abuse tend to blame themselves 'oh it was my fault the food was not on the table in time' or 'I didn't wake him up in time for work', 'I deserved it because I did not do what he wanted', and so on. It is NEVER right for a husband to beat his wife NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.

Unfortunately these kinds of cases are so difficult. We do have the Family Protection Department (police) with units round the country plus a shelter if the women need a safe place. If you need help for any family violence (where the offender is from within the family) or any sexual offences (whoever the offender is) please get in touch -

Family Protection Department
Call free on 111
5815738, 5815826, 5815846
email: familypd@accessme.com.jo familyp.dept@psd.gov.jo
website: www.familyprotection.psd.gov.jo
Irbid: 02 7022348
Zerka: 05 3982952
Balqa: 05 3533682
Madaba: 05 3246901
Aqaba: 03 2050317
Kerak: 03 2387069

T

a stain on Jordan's reputation - the murder of women

2009-03-23T12:33:00.003+02:00

How many times do we, as women, have to scream and shout about the way we are treated in this country? http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=15267 is an opinion piece by Nermeen Murad in today's Jordan Times on 'Death in the Family' about the rage she feels at the 'archaic practices that have no relevance to the majority of society'. Yet another so-called 'honour crime' when 'a young girl, a teenager, was relentlessly beaten with water hoses mercilessly and continuously by three men until she died'. This murder was done by her father and two brothers and they have been detained for only 15 days pending further investigation!

I urge everyone who reads this blog to write to the Jordan Times (jotimes@jpf.com.jo) or their newspaper of choice, expressing their disgust at the Government, Parliament and even the Royal Family for not protecting these innocent lives. T

criticising and praising Jordan

2009-03-20T20:31:00.005+02:00

It has been interesting reading the many blogs that are critical of Jordan, some of them have excellent points and others are just rants. I certainly believe that we have the right to constructively criticise all those who serve the country from top to bottom and to make our feelings known on the many subjects that irritate and upset us.

So now I am going to do the opposite! Many people know I have been involved with the PSD and the Family Protection Department for 11 years and it has had its ups and downs but it has been an interesting journey and a great insight into the workings of our justice system. There is so much to praise and a lot to complain about but great strides have been made on behalf of abused women and children. So many people wanting to improve the system, especially in the courts which are creaking under the strain. There are many who are working so hard in difficult circumstances, the proverbial 'unknown soldiers' and we tend to forget them.

So I am saying well done to all those police officers who have to work with these difficult cases and the same to the social workers who are under such strain, the forensic doctors, the prosecutors and the judges. Then come all the NGOs who work with abused children and women. Nothing is perfect in this life but some people try so hard and we should remember them. T