It seems that my posts have been reduced to tweets, but I felt like I needed to elaborate more on this topic as much as it infuriated me.

A friend mentioned the other day how he was with a group of friends going to Petra, and one of them did not have a Jordanian nationality and as a result had to pay 90 JDs (130$)  in comparison with the 1 JD fee for Jordanians. I was shocked. 90 JDs? No way. But I checked it, and lo and behold, the entrance fee for Petra is 90 JDs which apparently now includes a horse ride from the Visitor Center to the entrance of the Siq, informational brochures and maps and a guiding service. Great. Camel and donkey rides however are available at extra cost.

But then I thought, wait this is one of the new world wonders. Maybe I am overreacting. Perhaps all sites of such historic importance have such a steep entrance fee. So here are the entrance fees for foreigners in the following world wonders:

• Machu Picchu in Peru: 40$ with 50% off for students.
• Taj Mahal in India: 15$
• Chichen Itza in Mexico: 12$
• The Colosseum in Italy: 12$
• Great Wall of China: 14$
• Christ the Redeemer in Rio: Free

So what possible justification does the Ministry of Tourism have for such an obscene sum? I for one will not be encouraging anyone I know to visit Petra. It would be rather humiliating to have someone I know have to pay such a fee. So there you have it, the proof that our government can take the most spectacular of things and make it as they say, sammet badan…

Marwan Mu’asher, a previous foreign minister and press adviser with an admirable reformist mentality has posted a paper in which he examines the last decade of the actions (or lack thereof) of the successive governments under the King. The paper provides a narrative of the events that took place as government after government came into power with political, economic and social reform being their main task, and then failed to deliver. He asks the same question that has been plaguing me for a long time. The same question that a lot of people are surprisingly not asking (or maybe not so surprisingly). With the King´s ideal vision of reform that we so pride ourselves with, how come is it that for the past 12 years, none of his demands that we keep hearing over and over again, are being met?

The following is a not-at-all concise summary of the paper, but I think the following sections are definitely worth a read (particularly the part about the National Agenda) and are a helpful summary of political events of the past decade, regardless of how you choose to interpret them. That being said, the entire paper is a must-read as well, as a summary might not clearly explain the circumstances. The bold parts are the ones that I found rather interesting, and the red parts are my personal commentary. My personal opinion is after the summary.

The Early Years

In his first letter of designation to Prime Minister Abdul Rauf Al-Rawabdeh, the king emphasized the need to enhance national unity, promote democracy, strengthen the judiciary, boost efficiency in the public sector, and strengthen the role of the media in promoting freedom of expression… The focus was largely economic and resulted in some notable achievements…but on the political reform front, few positive developments took place.

Rawabdeh, an experienced but conservative East Bank politician, was widely perceived as biased against Jordanians of Palestinian origin and generally averse to the private sector and media. His feud with a local paper, as well as his inaction on changing a highly controversial and restrictive press and publications law, did not endear him to the press… His resistance to political and economic change, as well as the resignation of three liberal ministers in his government, finally did him in. The king’s call to reform the electoral law was never even touched.

When Rawabdeh was dismissed in June 2000, his government could not point to any significant advancement on political reform. He had reportedly managed to temporarily convince the king that political reform carried major risks for stability if combined with accelerated economic reform.

The Governments of Ali Abu Ragheb, 2000–2003

Ragheb was supposed to be everything that Rawabdeh was not. Although also an East Bank politician, Abu Ragheb was younger and more liberal, both politically and economically. The king not only reiterated his wishes to preserve national unity in his letter of designation, but also entrusted the new government to enact a constitutional provision calling for equality and equal opportunity for citizens, regardless of their origin.

His directives on political reform were even stronger and more than compensated for the previous letter’s lack of specificity… Unfortunately, the directives were not implemented. The government may have embarked on an accelerated path of economic reform, but it continued to waver on the political reforms necessary to ensure the development of a system that could monitor economic activities and curb abuses. In fact, it moved in the exact opposite direction.

Instead of promoting pluralism, democracy, and the formation of political parties, the king—acting on the recommendation of the government and the powerful intelligence services—dismissed the parliament in June 2001. Elections were postponed indefinitely under the pretense of “regional tensions” in the Palestinian territories and later in Iraq. Indeed, elections would not be held again until a full two years later, in June 2003.

Approximately 211 provisional laws were passed during the parliament’s absence, making use of a clause in the constitution that allows laws to be passed by the government in the absence of parliament under pressing circumstances… Contrary to the designation letter’s directives, the government passed laws that further limited press freedom and public demonstrations… Amendments were made to the election law… but on the core amendments necessary to address the king’s directives— formation of political parties and ensuring the equality and representation of Jordanians regardless of their ethnic origin—nothing was done. The new law did not amend the voting system to allow political party representation, and it kept the controversial districting system largely intact—a system designed to keep the number of parliament members of Palestinian origin to a minimum.

The Shift Toward Political Reform: The 2003 Government of Faisal Al-Faiz

The king decided to hold parliamentary elections in June and accelerate the reform process in the hopes of addressing rising political tensions. In October 2003, he replaced the incumbent government with a new one led by Prime Minister Faisal Al Faiz, mandated with both accelerating the pace of political reform and institutionalizing it. Traditional and tribal, Faiz was widely perceived as a “king’s man” who the king hoped would not derail or undermine reform.

In his letter of designation, the king was very specific about the areas of political reform that needed attention.

…Intending to modernize the political process from above, the king’s revitalized efforts and calls for reform fell on deaf ears yet again. The rentier system, firmly entrenched by that time, ensured that no serious political process could succeed without considerable difficulty. On the one hand, the structural flaw in the election law—which the system had no intention of changing—ensured that parliament remained a service-oriented body, subservient to the government and reliant on it for services rendered to member constituencies. It was not a body collectively concerned with major issues, and certainly not political reform.

Government, on the other hand, had an interest in appeasing members of parliament, through the steady provision of services, in order to remain in power. Thus, although the government had a few vocal reformers, the prime minister quickly discovered that advancing political reform would entail difficult confrontations with the country’s political elite, including its intelligence services. Instead, he opted to gradually lower expectations on what could be achieved, rather than engage in any systematic process aimed at developing political life in the country.

Instead of pushing the government’s political reform agenda, Faiz, under pressure from the intelligence services, shifted gears and started talking about “administrative reform” as the top priority during the latter part of the year. Even then, the government found it hard to match its rhetoric with deeds. One particular move that raised a lot of questions was the prime minister’s decision in December to appoint over 30 people—many of whom were relatives or friends of parliament members—to senior government positions and also to replace many university presidents without a vetting process… A cabinet reshuffle in October of that year did little to remedy the situation. In March 2005, the interior minister introduced a government-approved bill to parliament that further reduced political space by regulating the activities of all professional associations. The bill required associations to keep discussions apolitical and called for the creation of a disciplinary structure to penalize those who broke the law. A series of sit-ins and protests by civil society followed and was met with government crackdowns and arrests. This directly contradicted the king’s letter of designation to the government, in which he called for a “democracy based on dialogue and respect of others’ viewpoints.”

When 59 members of parliament signed a petition asking the government to withdraw the law, the government exercised so much pressure that nearly a third of them withdrew their signatures. Several journalists stated that the government had directed newspapers to refrain from publishing news about the upheaval.

The National Agenda, 2005

The political reform process, largely instigated from above, was going nowhere…When the king introduced elements of political reform—such as equality before the law for all Jordanians, more press freedoms, and a modernized election law—such measures were presented without a clear guiding framework, strategy, or timeline. The directives were thus taken by government institutions as being open to their own personal interpretations, and often resulted in either a watered-down version of reform or no reform at all.

….In February 2005, the king offered a new initiative. He entrusted Faiz’s government with drafting “a national agenda that embodies the vision of all of us and specifies

strategic programs and national policies whose realization should be binding to all successive governments.”

In the political field, the agenda proposed a new election law that would gradually build greater parliamentary strength and address structural flaws by adopting a mixed electoral system. It suggested removing all clauses that discriminated against women from Jordanian laws by 2015. It also called for laws that would grant political parties, civil society organizations, and the media the right to operate free from government interference. It also suggested laws that would guarantee judicial independence and competence.

In the economic and social fields, the committee suggested plans that would almost double real per-capita income, reduce unemployment by half, and convert the budget deficit from about 11 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) into a surplus of 1.8 percent by 2017—in essence, moving from a rentier state to a productive and self-sufficient economy. It also included a plan to have all Jordanians medically insured by 2012. (I’m seriously curious as to what this evidently great plan entailed exactly.)

The committee was loosely divided among three groups: traditional elites, who saw themselves as guardians of the state and thus wanted to ensure that the basic pillars of the rentier system were untouched (particularly the election law); economic neo-liberals, who were mostly concerned with liberalizing the economy and whose attitudes toward political reform were lukewarm at best; and political liberals, who desired real changes to the political system. The first and third groups were often at loggerheads, with the second group taking a backseat on political issues.

The determination of the traditional political elite to sabotage this process stemmed from their fear that a merit-based system—emerging from the discussions on political and economic reform—would come at their expense… Faced with immense resistance to change from his traditional constituency, the king continued to voice his frustration.

…The political liberals, on the other hand, were lobbying to introduce a mixed electoral system, whereby each voter would be given two votes: one for a district-based candidate, and the other to a national list that would encourage the emergence of political parties with representation in parliament. The percentage of seats given to party lists versus districts would gradually increase in each election cycle to allow Jordanians to acclimate to such a system, by gradually moving away from tribal-based politics and transitioning to a stronger, party-based parliament.

This new system proposed by political liberals was clearly a major departure from the rentier state discourse that had shrouded domestic politics for decades. The king’s directives aside, the elite were unprepared to relinquish power, however gradually, even if it would mean a better quality of life for all Jordanians. The group thus proceeded to mount a fierce campaign in the press against political liberals, pegging them as economic neoliberals unconcerned with the devastating social effects of economic liberalization.

They also accused liberals of participating in a conspiracy to weaken the Jordanian state, as well as any other charges they felt would resonate with a public already sceptical of state-initiated reform efforts. Armed with support from most of the state’s political and military institutions, the elite once again invoked the argument of stability versus reform and painted the entire plan as premature and dangerous.

The government of Badran, a liberal who strongly voiced his support for the initiative, was replaced the day after the National Agenda document was presented to the king, on November 23, 2005. Finally convinced of the political elite’s argument that the proposed election law was “dangerous and premature”— and not wanting to alienate his traditional constituency—the monarch did not mention the National Agenda effort in his letter of designation to the new prime minister until deep down in the document.

And while the king entrusted the latest government with… reform, the new prime minister, Marouf Bakhit, had no intention of doing so, having been one of the most vocal opponents of this very initiative. Throughout his tenure as prime minister, he merely paid lip service to the effort, while dropping all references to its political aspects from his government’s program. (A rather interesting description of the current prime minister whose main task is political reform. Never mind.)

The completion of the National Agenda draft program coincided with three events that took place within a few short months: the 2005 parliamentary election in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood secured 20 percent of seats; the bombing of three hotels in Jordan on November 9, 2005, by an arm of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which left 60 Jordanians dead; and the 2006 elections in the West Bank and Gaza, in which Hamas won a majority of parliamentary seats.

…And the old guard in Jordan continued to employ these concerns in arguing that the time was not yet ripe for reform—which they framed as a tool that could potentially serve to empower radicals. On the other side, liberals argued that in a pluralistic society, Islamists would have to compete for votes instead of winning street-level support from those who were disenfranchised and disenchanted with the regime but had nowhere else to go in a closed political system. Brought to a standstill by such widely divergent perspectives, the reform engine had lost all of its steam. (the Islamists “bo3bo3” was used then, and will continue to be used if people continue to buy this excuse).

The National Agenda served as the ultimate reform battleground and the old guard had prevailed. The first holistic, inclusive, and measurable reform program in the Arab world was dead on arrival, shelved just as soon as it was completed.

For the next five years, action on reform would be replaced by rhetoric.

I will stop summarizing now, as the image is clear from the past paragraphs. Mu’asher goes on to describe how the National Agenda was bypassed, and the We Are All Jordan initiative was created with “national unity and loyalty” stated as its priorities. He also mentions how Bakhit admitted that the 2007 elections were rigged to exclude the IAF and how after Bakhit, Rifa’i actually made things worse in terms of reform.

Now I am not a political expert, nor will I pretend to be. I’m just a citizen who´s been observing the political happening of the past few years and here´s what I have to say: ENOUGH already. I have had enough. Jordanians have had enough. Being manipulated and lied to so very shamelessly from one government to the next. Of course the vast majority don´t know or have grown completely apathetic and hopeless of the whole reform process, now with a stigma stamped on it after March 24^th.  I wouldn’t even blame the March 24^th opponents with all the disgusting propaganda they were exposed to while the instigators sit on the top savouring the chaos.

I understand that much of the political constituency is resistant to change, but the difference between Jordan and other countries is that everyone here is in favour of the monarchy system, even the opposition. Therefore no political constituency would dare say anything, if the king were to make changes himself rather than delegate them (a strategy which so very clearly failed).

We can’t afford to be apathetic to the reform process any longer. If we’re going to learn anything from the revolts we witnessed from the start of the year it’s this: it can happen anywhere. And if you think it won’t ever happen in Jordan, just take a look at Syria. At some point people will reach the tipping point.

And when they do, it will be too late.

Note: the only positive point in Mu’ashers paper is regarding Jordanian bloggers and independent websites that have established themselves firmly in spite of government efforts to curb them. And to that I say bravo.

The article talks about the recent National Center for Human Rights report which reports violations of the electoral process and how despite promises of the executive branch to guarantee fair elections, the phenomenon of vote buying was evident.  It goes on to say how it resulted in a parliament of ‘government loyalists and lawmakers with tribal affiliations’.  Well, no shock there. It mentions how the report came out recently after the parliament gave the government an overwhelming vote of confidence of 111 vs. 8 votes, giving rise to such political satire. It concludes with the NCHR making a recommendation that the parliament review the new elections law to guarantee equal representation of candidates and votes and so on and so forth.

So that got me thinking. Imagine that the elections were completely fair. Imagine that there was no vote buying and no intervention whatsoever from the executive branch. Do you think the results would’ve varied? During the campaigning process, was there a candidate whom you believed had a good agenda but did not make it to the parliament due to the faulty electoral process? Heck, were you ever even made known of the political agenda of a single candidate?

Let’s continue imagining. Suppose we had a true democracy. Suppose the Muslim Brotherhood, the only functioning political party in my opinion, did not boycott the elections. And suppose they were elected into the parliament by the public who believes in their cause -cuz let’s face it, the only card that could trump tribalism has got to be religion. Do you think that would’ve led to a better Jordan?

In a country that is this socially and culturally divided, do we even know what we want? Actually the question should be, can we agree on what we want? Is it democracy that we really want?

The above are questions to which I have no answers. 3 years ago in the elections of 2007, I would’ve gone and voted if I could. This time, even if I did have the opportunity, I would not have. Is it that I have become cynical to believe that the future of Jordan could be shaped by it’s parliament?

Probably.

I want to watch “Despicable Me”. And “The Social Network”. And while we’re at it, who shut down Ninja Video?

Also why does it give me a red line every time I write “movie”? Movie is still a word, no?

I’m off. Have a good day y’all!

I arrived first thing in Berlin. The weather was actually good, and seeing as I have friends in Berlin, it was a very convenient and easy stay. We visited the touristy places as well as a couple of other places here and there. The S-Bahn and U-Bahn (metro and underground) plan is extremely confusing, seeing as the network is very complicated and has many circles that interconnect. Definitely would’ve gotten lost if I did not have someone with me. In Munich on the other hand (details in a bit), it was very easy getting around the city even though I was completely alone on the first day. I was the one to lead my friends around the city even though I arrived only a couple of hours before they did, and given my sense of direction, or lack thereof, that is quite an accomplishment.

After 5 days of Berlin (I even extended my trip one more day because I didn’t want to leave), I was off to the city I was going to study in, Jena. A relatively small city, but the scenery is gorgeous. The city is located in a valley and surrounded by green mountains everywhere. The state in which it’s located, Thueringen, is known as the Green Heart of Germany due to its forests . It’s a student city with 25% of the population being students, so it’s really vibrant even though it’s considered a small city. It is most known for its optic industry, and writers Goethe and Schiller have both lived in Jena at some point. The location is also very convenient, it’s around the middle and is a hub of many connections, so it’s very convenient to get into or get out of the city. Students are also entitled to visit the other cities in the state for free, like Weimar and Erfurt.

My stay there has been very enjoyable. The first day I arrived, I started my German language course, so I met a lot of amazing people, and that has been great. Accommodation-wise, I have a single apartment, with my own bathroom and kitchenette, and it’s pretty big. It’s also located on the 6th floors, which provides for beautiful beautiful scenery but is not good when you have to transport a big ass TV and sofa. Downside is that it’s far from the city center and the university. It takes me about 45 minutes to get to the university, and I’m sure that’s going to affect my motivation to leave the house later on, when it’s freezing cold and I have lectures to attend. But all is good so far. The weather has been surprisingly good so far (you just know it’s gonna rain because I said that), but seriously it was really warm today and it’s raining heavily in Amman. Hmmm.

I met up with friends and went to Oktoberfest 2 weeks ago, and that was AMAZING. Imagine a huge field filled with Bavarian food stands, candy stands, amusement rides and of course the beer tents. We went on the weekend, so it was unbelievably crowded.  The only downside was the constant rain, alas, who cares when you’re in Munich. Also we couldn’t get in the tents the day after we arrived. We were supposed to arrive at 8 AM (yes, AM, I kid you not), and then wait till 9 till the tents opened, but we failed to wake up early  and arrived at 10 and all FOURTEEN tents were full. We waited and waited, but 3 hours later, it stopped raining, we were like screw it we’ll sit outside and the fun fun fun began. Oktoberfest is the BEST place to meet people. You just sit down on the benches and start talking to all sorts of people: Italians, Swiss, a German whose father is Jordanian -seriously that was a freaky incident, we just stopped a random person for a lighter, and turns out her father is Jordanian. And she was wearing a Paul Frank shirt, like my bag!- Anyway we only paid for our first beer, then people started inviting us (Mama if you’re reading this, of course I only had one beer). We were only there for 3 days so we didn’t have time to see anything else other than the city center with it’s famous dancing clock, the Glockenspiel, and the Allianz Arena, where Bayern Munich play. But yes, Munich is a beautiful city.

And now about the transportation systems. Needless to say, the German transport system is unbelievably organized. In the big cities you will find the S-Bahn or the high speed metros, the U-bahn or the underground rails and the typical trams and buses you will find in all cities. As for intercity connections, there’s the high speed IC and ICE trains which are very fast and convenient, but VERY expensive. A ticket to Munich and back would’ve cost me 160 Euros, which I find ridiculous. Solution: MITFAHREN! That would be the German word for hitch-hiking. As in getting in cars with strangers? Are you bloody insane, you might ask. But then you find out it’s the cheapest, most convenient way to get around and it’s completely 100% safe. You log on to a famous German website, mitfahrengelegenheit.de, write down where do you want to go and the date, and see how many offers there are. You start making phone calls, to see which ones are available, and to check out the person. How many people are going to be with us? What car do you drive? How much do I have to pay? A person cannot make an offer without having a verified account, so it would be pretty stupid to post your personal information and then go and, I don’t know, murder the people you’re driving. But still, it’s important to travel safely. For example, to Munich I picked one that was “from women, to women”. And it’s a great chance to improve your language. Honestly, bravo Germany, for inventing such an efficient system.

And now about the education part. Well up till a week ago, it was really siya7a o safar (travel and tourism) for me, as we didn’t have classes or anything, apart from the German course, but it’s so much fun, I don’t think it counts. We’d just travel around and go out all the time. But then you enter your first lecture and leave thinking “just what the $%^# where you talking about for the past hour?” Sure, my language skills are fine, but not sufficient to attend scientific lectures in fast German, possibly low-voiced and with a dialect as well. So yes, that hasn’t been fun. As exchange students, they know it’s tough, so they don’t expect you to garner what the German students are supposed to, but they do expect you to study your ass off and pass the same exam the Germans take. I sincerely hope it will get easier in time. In comparison with the Jordanian system (at least the one I was exposed to at the GJU), I wouldn’t say the teachers are better, but rather the atmosphere is so stimulating here. The students want to learn. They don’t take attendance, but the lectures are always full. The professor simply mentors, he/she does not dictate. Students are taught to think, not memorize. And that I love.

I realize this was supposed to be a summary, but I seem to be in a blogging mood and don’t want to stop. Are you still reading? Hehe. Ok random points:

• The Germans are not always punctual. Most of them are, but not always. I have arrived earlier than Germans on several occasions.
• The German definition of a pillow is umm, weird? A mushy square peace of stuffed cloth is NOT a pillow. And I haven’t been able to find a non-mushy pillow till now. My back and neck are suffering as a result. Also, my bed is very small – I fell off it the first night. Not funny. Ok a little. So I bought a sofa-bed, and I have been sleeping on it since. But still not very comfortable. I would kill for my bed right now. Yes, murder, I kid you not.
• The food is good. I haven’t technically cooked yet (all the meals I prepared lacked a protein animal form), but for a hot meal you can eat at the student cafeteria for about 2 Euros. But they add sauce to everything. And potatoes. I’m getting sick of the potatoes. Also, after a week of eating random meals, I, believe it or not, missed vegetables. I actually shop for vegetables now. There’s only so much pork and potatoes your body can survive on.
• What else, what else? My spoken English has been significantly deteriorating. All I’ve been exposed to lately is foreign English with an accent. The Germans don’t pronounce “th”, seriously we tried it, cannot be done! The French don’t pronounce the “h” and many, may other seemingly funny, but eventually disastrous alterations to what is considered correct English. I hope my writing skills have not deteriorated . If they have, don’t tell me, and leave me in denial.
• The German bureaucracy. It’s bullshit. It’s ridiculous. It’s bloody impossible. If you thought bureaucracy was bad in Jordan, I invite you here. The forms, the emails, the phone-calls, the visits. AAAAH. And Deutsche Bank should die. I’ve been here for a month, and they still haven’t sent me my online PIN. Die, I tell you.

But apart from the expected nostalgia, I’m really happy and this is going to be an amazing year with great learning opportunities.

Bye bye for now. Seriously if you read all this, I must be really interesting or you’re very bored. Whichever it is, thanks for reading! Bye!

Twain describes it best with much sarcasm in the following paragraphs:

An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech — not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary — six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam — that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it — after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb — merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out — the writer shovels in “haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein,” or words to that effect, and the monument is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of the flourish to a man’s signature — not necessary, but pretty. German books are easy enough to read when you hold them before the looking-glass or stand on your head — so as to reverse the construction — but I think that to learn to read and understand a German newspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossibility to a foreigner.

I have to say I’m really excited about going, and well, it’s about time for a change. It’s a great opportunity to become independent, improve my German, work in Europe among many many other wonderful experiences.

But for now, a tribute to all the things I’m going to miss:

1) The weather. Not the 40′s weather from hell we experienced last week, but more like this week’s weather. Over there it basically rains in the summer and snows in the winter.

2) The food. Oh the food. I can write entire posts about the food. Mansaf, Mlookhieh, Msakhan, Tabbooleh, Koosa o Wara2, Shawerma, Falafel. How will I survive without you? You might say “but you can surely cook there”, but you would be sadly mistaken as my culinary skills amount to those of a 10 year-old.

3) My bed. I wish I could ship it with me.

4) Driving. Well, certain parts of driving.

5) Not having to do the cleaning and the laundry and the such. We always had someone to help around the house so I never HAD to do it. My mother on the other hand is totally ecstatic about that. It amuses her.

6) And last but not least, my family and friends. I guess the feeling of going away makes you realize just how much you will miss everyone, regardless of how often you feel you might kill them. Another advantage of going away!

I bid thee farewell, Jordan!

Events in this country have ceased to surprise me. Few are the things that can still infuriate me. A survival mechanism, most probably, as otherwise I would have developed suicidal or homicidal tendencies by now. Now I would just think “well, what else is new” and move on. But I guess some things still have the power to make me angry, the following being one of them.

A week ago, Alghad’s editor in chief Mousa Barhoumeh was forced to resign by CEO Mohammad Alayyan after the former accused him of caving into governmental pressure. Several of his colleagues consequently threatened to resign in attempts to dissuade Alayyan from his decision. That in turn caused Alayyan to threaten closing down the newspaper than to go back in his decision, which he claims to be the result of “administrative affairs”, whatever that means. The fact that the decision was made two weeks after Alayyan met with Prime Minister Samir Rifai is purely coincidental.

Barhoumeh however does not hold Alayyan responsible for his decision, because “he was facing more than he could handle”.  He says “this decision came from those fed up with different opinions, and who want to stifle the truth and turn the media into their podium.”

It’s sad considering that this is supposed to be Jordan’s most liberal newspaper. Notice how The Jordan Times chose to report the story, mentioning nothing of the disputes:

“CEO of Al Ghad Mohammad Elayyan last week accepted the resignation of Musa Barhoumeh, who served as chief editor of the daily since October 2008. Thanking Barhoumeh for his efforts and dedication to place the independent daily on the Kingdom’s media map, Elayyan said Al Ghad will continue to perform its duties as one of the Kingdom’s dailies.”

For what it’s worth, thank you Barhoumeh, for refusing to sell out and as cheesy as it may sound, become a martyr for freedom of press. And as blogger Osama Romoh suggests, maybe Alghad should put the following ad for their new editor in chief:

“مطلوب رئيس تحرير “بِسمع” الكلام و “بحب” الحكومة حُبّاً جمّاً، على ان يكون جباناً فارغ الدماغ، ليس له رأي أو فكر، لا يكترث بارتفاع الأسعار وفرض الضرائب، ولا يتدخل فيما لا يعنيه شخصيا. الخبرة غير مطلوبة”.

I must say, like Ahmad previously mentioned, I don’t get why this issue hasn’t been taken care of already. I understand we don’t exactly harbor a pedestrian culture, but our sidewalks and our streets are a reflection of the city’s image, and they should not be neglected. And it wouldn’t take that much money to fix it. Sometimes I wish some important official would come walking with us, I imagine all the sidewalks would be fixed the next day.

And after sidewalks are properly constructed, serious fines should be imposed on anyone who would place any obstructions: from giant piles of dirt to a car. Sidewalks are not storage areas nor parking spaces.

With all the great work the Municipality has been doing, I hope this becomes one of their priorities.

Roba’s compilation

Naseem’s tweet digest