The Annapolis Conference. Everyone here is talking about it, and I imagine that everyone in the States is talking about it too - though I bet the conversations are very different!
For anyone who has not been following closely, the conference at Annapolis is America's latest attempt to galvanize some progress in the Arab-Israeli peace process. It is occurring as we speak, with participants from both sides, including Syria and the Saudis, though discluding Hamas. More than fifty "invitations" were extended.
Everybody wants to know: What is this going to accomplish? In America, I get the sense that Bush, Condy, and the rest of the State Department have mustered some optimism. Here, I hear a great deal of scepticism and very little hope. Another day, another round of negotiations. At the end of the day, nothing will change. One difference, though, is that I am having this conversation with Palestinians themselves, as more than 60% of Jordan is made up of Palestinians. I know they are wondering if their children will grow up here or in their parents' homes in Palestine. One Palestinian girl started crying, scared that they would allow Israelis to build a house on her family's land. This is very real to people here.
People in Jordan also seem to think that this is Bush's last attempt to redeem himself in Middle Eastern eyes before he leaves office. No one seems to be buying that, though - the Iraq war will not be forgotten so easily around here by the average citizen.
On the other hand, while anti-American Government sentiment runs rampant here (Bush? You might as well say Satan!) there also seems to be a cemented conception that no "real" progress is possible in the Arab-Israeli peace process without the participation and guidance of America. This, I would say, is pretty obviously due to past guidance (and some success) on the part of America, and also the undeniable fact that the U.S.'s hegemonic position in the international order gives it a powerful place to influence such negotiations.
Happily, I can say in this case that I am able to apply something that I have learned from my Conflict Resolution classes directly to real life (to the Annapolis negotiations), and I'll share for those who are interested:
The United States, in this case, is acting as a third-party mediator. Mediation, which is one type of international negotiation, is often used in protracted conflicts (such as this one) where levels of trust and communication are low between the disputing parties. A mediator can be another country, an international organization (such as the UN) or an NGO. Or any combination thereof.
There are three "archetypes" of mediators:
1) The Facilitator: Someone who simply provides a venue and communication support to two disputing parties. Also includes shuttle diplomacy. In this case, the mediator does not interfere with the content of the negotiations.
2) The Formulator: This type of mediator helps to develop agreements, peace accords, or treaties. They can interfere with communication in order to improve it, and they make suggestions or drive initiatives in one direction or another.
3) Manipulator: This is the strongest type of involvement on the part of a mediator and often involves using incentives (such as foreign aid) in order to push negotiations in a certain direction. This direction will often benefit the mediating party and not just the two (or more) disputing parties. Think carrot vs. stick type metaphors. One reason that Israel responds to American pressure is that we give them an extremely large amount of monetary and military aid; they would be loathe to lose it by disregarding American wishes.
Although this hierarchy is admittedly extremely simplified, I still found it helpful when conceptualizing America's role in the Arab-Israeli peace process and why we are both necessary and despised. (If you haven't guessed, we are the third one.)
Yet, why is America willing to take on this role? My guess is that it has to do with maintaining our dominant position in world affairs (not to mention keeping a hand in an oil-rich region!) but maybe Bush does wish to turn around the Middle Eastern perception of the US so that perhaps he will be remembered for something else besides tragedy in Iraq.
Our professor told us that we would be discussing "motives" next class...so I guess I will have to wait to find out!
While watching the conference today, I heard Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, say that this negotiation is not going to take place in Annapolis in the end - it will take place among individuals and in the homes and workplaces of everyone in the region. I agree with him. I believe that whatever politicians decide, this conflict has become a mentality, and this narrative is going to take generations to change, person by person by person.
27 November 2007
23 November 2007
People are People, Too
As you may remember, this year's foundational purpose is part of a long-term exploration of how I can be useful in the grand scheme of things. (Ok, you can roll your eyes in a cynical fashion at this point if you would like - many people do.) There's a great deal of sadness, tragedy, and injustice in the world, and I would like to reduce this, in some way. What that will be exactly, I'm not sure - thus my search.
This week, however, I have finally met what I think will be one of my ultimate adversaries in doing this type of work: the commodification of knowledge which leads to shameful dehumanization of the people you are trying to help.
I'll explain with a story. Two nights ago, I was sitting in our common room with several other scholars, watching the Parliamentary election results on TV. Of the group, one person was an assistant professor at Cornell who does research on the campaign strategies of the Islamic Action Front, (the political party of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and the only political party in Jordan - and therefore a magnet for study by political scientists and Middle East scholars.)
Several people asked the professor questions about the elections, and it soon became apparent that he was extremely knowledgeable about the political terrain in Jordan. Was the IAF a legitimate party? one person wanted to know. Is there truly political freedom in Jordan? someone else asked. He answered all of our questions with detailed, clever responses - the kind of language and intellectualization of a subject that I had learned to respect at Brown. He knew the names of all the political families in Jordan and which tribes they represented; he knew that our neighbor just over the hill was elected as a deputy for the IAF; he knew that his cousin was a major landowner in our area. In a city where it is common to have an official address written as "the building next to the Maysoon Hotel and across from the University of Jordan," it is very impressive to hear someone that is familiar with both the physical and ideological landscape of the country.
Our discussion spiraled in a flurry of questions, each of us anxious for a piece of this professor's detached and matter-of-fact certainty about this confusing nation. Something in the back of my head nagged me to be careful, but we all kept talking. The topics rolled all over the region: Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Annapolis conference next week on the Arab-Israeli confict, and of course, Iraq. The assistant professor began to spit out analysis of the situation in Iraq as if the people there were so many pawns on a chessboard whose moves he was watching.
The woman I was sitting next to, who had arrived a few days ago, had asked a few questions during the course of the evening, and she began to ask them with more emotion as we discussed Iraq. Eventually, the assistant professor asked her if she was Iraqi herself. "I was," she answered him, her mouth set in a thin line and her mind recalling who-knows-how-many terribly sad stories. I watched her face and could see a deep love for a country in ruins, destruction gone beyond her control as a mother watches a child waste away from drug addiction.
Her emotion was so obvious to me! But everyone else kept talking about the "Iraqi issue" as if she weren't there. As if Iraqis weren't people who live and love and get in their cars every day to take their children to school, even as their country is racked by turmoil. I couldn't pay full attention to the conversation anymore, as I could almost physically feel how much sadness the crisp, business-like discussion on the future of her country was bringing up for her. Finally she interrupted. "Isn't anyone going to do anything with all of this analysis? People keep learning things, and nothing is changing." She seemed to want to say more, but remained quiet.
For some reason, at this point I decided to open my big (and idealist and naive) mouth. "But there are other people who aren't just doing studies." I told her about my personal experiences with humanitarian work. There was a sort of silence after I spoke, and then the conversation continued as before. I couldn't tell whether I had helped or hurt the situation. I didn't know if she saw me as just one more person who wanted to stick her finger in the "helping pie" or if she agreed with me that it really was possible to do something worthwhile and helpful. Soon, she sighed and said to everyone but no one in particular, "Well, when I think about the country, it makes me want to cry. Goodnight, everyone." She stood up and left the room.
I looked around, waiting for the assistant professor and the others left in the room after her exit to say something, to acknowledge that they had been wrong. No such comment. After a few minutes, I excused myself and went to bed. To be honest, I cried that night. I could feel that woman's sorrow in my own heart. And I felt so ashamed for having felt respect at first for the assistant professor and his "knowledge." He didn't care about Iraqis or anyone else - this was his career, and the information that he had was a ticket to making a living, to publishing a book, to gaining prestige.
Over the next day or so, I thought about that night, trying to understand. I realized that I am going to face a great difficulty in my quest to be "useful": there will always be the temptation to use what I learn for my own benefit, to begin to see political events as puzzles to solve so that I can receive the credit. In fact, in order to rise in the ranks of many development and aid organizations (not to mention, of course, academia) this temptation is very strong, and this behavior is encouraged. I fear that if I enter this professional field, I will someday examine myself and find that I have succumbed to the pressure to commodify people's suffering for my material gain, even as I am helping them.
I imagine that the pursuit of personal success gets in the way of the spirit of many professions, not just development or conflict resolution. But I see that I am beginning a struggle between these two opposing forces that will last for many years.
Fast forward to today: After our unfortunate discussion, I wanted to talk to the Iraqi woman and apologize for the conversation, or at least acknowledge the way she had been feeling. I never saw her when there weren't other people around. Finally, this evening she spotted me as I was heating up some leftovers for dinner.
I was finally able to tell her how I felt about the first conversation. To my relief, she agreed with my thoughts on the travesty of being so far removed from a situation, and then she told me that she'd liked what I had said in response. (I wonder if she knows that she may have singlehandedly restored my faith in my future profession, which I had seriously considered abandoning after feeling so disgusted and despairing after the other night.)
Then she told me her story: she was an Iraqi from the North (this often means that someone is Kurdish, but she didn't say, and I didn't think it proper to ask) and she had moved to Canada thirty years ago, where she has been working as a conservation architect. Two years ago, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) called her back to work for the Ministry of Tourism and Conservation. "I gave 30 years to another country," she said, "so I can give three years to mine."
She told me that she had just come from a training in Turkey, where she had been teaching conservation techniques to people who will work on some important sites in Kurdistan and elsewhere in Iraq. In Kurdistan, there is a citadel which has 30 meters of ruins of different civilizations, one built atop of the other. Imagine.
The preservation of all this heritage is a daunting task for archaeologists. As is the restoration of the al-Askari Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, whose bombing is now infamous because it set off the majority of sectarian killing in the country. (I thought this was at least a small bit of positive symbolism - the destruction which represented such deterioration of Iraq's situation is going to be built over, renewed.)
Sometimes we forget that Iraq is home to the cradle of civilization and that it has one of the richest cultural heritages of any country. She told me of her childhood in Iraq, recounting how until the 60's and 70's, Iraq was the regional mecca of education and culture. Education was well-respected and rigorous - and free to everyone. She told me that she had three nationwide exams in 5th, 9th and 12th grade. By the time she and other students of her generation entered college, they were already knowledgeable and well-trained, ready to take on advanced studies. Every Iraqi who wanted a space in a university could have one, and if he (or she!) failed, the administrators would find him or her another discipline, perhaps more suitable, to try. Books and school supplies were all free. "Iraq had everything," she said, shaking her head. "We had a beautiful landscape (she had already told me that some people compare the North to Switzerland), high-quality education, a cultured and diverse population, and the money to pay for it all from our own natural resources (oil!). But now look at it." She shook her head again, with despair.
Most people of her age that I know are thinking about their retirement or slowing down their lives. She is traveling across the world to restore a devastated country, living away from her family and security. I'm so thankful she paused long enough to teach me a lesson as well. And I hope that however I learn to be "useful" in my life, I will remember her example along the way.
This week, however, I have finally met what I think will be one of my ultimate adversaries in doing this type of work: the commodification of knowledge which leads to shameful dehumanization of the people you are trying to help.
I'll explain with a story. Two nights ago, I was sitting in our common room with several other scholars, watching the Parliamentary election results on TV. Of the group, one person was an assistant professor at Cornell who does research on the campaign strategies of the Islamic Action Front, (the political party of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and the only political party in Jordan - and therefore a magnet for study by political scientists and Middle East scholars.)
Several people asked the professor questions about the elections, and it soon became apparent that he was extremely knowledgeable about the political terrain in Jordan. Was the IAF a legitimate party? one person wanted to know. Is there truly political freedom in Jordan? someone else asked. He answered all of our questions with detailed, clever responses - the kind of language and intellectualization of a subject that I had learned to respect at Brown. He knew the names of all the political families in Jordan and which tribes they represented; he knew that our neighbor just over the hill was elected as a deputy for the IAF; he knew that his cousin was a major landowner in our area. In a city where it is common to have an official address written as "the building next to the Maysoon Hotel and across from the University of Jordan," it is very impressive to hear someone that is familiar with both the physical and ideological landscape of the country.
Our discussion spiraled in a flurry of questions, each of us anxious for a piece of this professor's detached and matter-of-fact certainty about this confusing nation. Something in the back of my head nagged me to be careful, but we all kept talking. The topics rolled all over the region: Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Annapolis conference next week on the Arab-Israeli confict, and of course, Iraq. The assistant professor began to spit out analysis of the situation in Iraq as if the people there were so many pawns on a chessboard whose moves he was watching.
The woman I was sitting next to, who had arrived a few days ago, had asked a few questions during the course of the evening, and she began to ask them with more emotion as we discussed Iraq. Eventually, the assistant professor asked her if she was Iraqi herself. "I was," she answered him, her mouth set in a thin line and her mind recalling who-knows-how-many terribly sad stories. I watched her face and could see a deep love for a country in ruins, destruction gone beyond her control as a mother watches a child waste away from drug addiction.
Her emotion was so obvious to me! But everyone else kept talking about the "Iraqi issue" as if she weren't there. As if Iraqis weren't people who live and love and get in their cars every day to take their children to school, even as their country is racked by turmoil. I couldn't pay full attention to the conversation anymore, as I could almost physically feel how much sadness the crisp, business-like discussion on the future of her country was bringing up for her. Finally she interrupted. "Isn't anyone going to do anything with all of this analysis? People keep learning things, and nothing is changing." She seemed to want to say more, but remained quiet.
For some reason, at this point I decided to open my big (and idealist and naive) mouth. "But there are other people who aren't just doing studies." I told her about my personal experiences with humanitarian work. There was a sort of silence after I spoke, and then the conversation continued as before. I couldn't tell whether I had helped or hurt the situation. I didn't know if she saw me as just one more person who wanted to stick her finger in the "helping pie" or if she agreed with me that it really was possible to do something worthwhile and helpful. Soon, she sighed and said to everyone but no one in particular, "Well, when I think about the country, it makes me want to cry. Goodnight, everyone." She stood up and left the room.
I looked around, waiting for the assistant professor and the others left in the room after her exit to say something, to acknowledge that they had been wrong. No such comment. After a few minutes, I excused myself and went to bed. To be honest, I cried that night. I could feel that woman's sorrow in my own heart. And I felt so ashamed for having felt respect at first for the assistant professor and his "knowledge." He didn't care about Iraqis or anyone else - this was his career, and the information that he had was a ticket to making a living, to publishing a book, to gaining prestige.
Over the next day or so, I thought about that night, trying to understand. I realized that I am going to face a great difficulty in my quest to be "useful": there will always be the temptation to use what I learn for my own benefit, to begin to see political events as puzzles to solve so that I can receive the credit. In fact, in order to rise in the ranks of many development and aid organizations (not to mention, of course, academia) this temptation is very strong, and this behavior is encouraged. I fear that if I enter this professional field, I will someday examine myself and find that I have succumbed to the pressure to commodify people's suffering for my material gain, even as I am helping them.
I imagine that the pursuit of personal success gets in the way of the spirit of many professions, not just development or conflict resolution. But I see that I am beginning a struggle between these two opposing forces that will last for many years.
Fast forward to today: After our unfortunate discussion, I wanted to talk to the Iraqi woman and apologize for the conversation, or at least acknowledge the way she had been feeling. I never saw her when there weren't other people around. Finally, this evening she spotted me as I was heating up some leftovers for dinner.
I was finally able to tell her how I felt about the first conversation. To my relief, she agreed with my thoughts on the travesty of being so far removed from a situation, and then she told me that she'd liked what I had said in response. (I wonder if she knows that she may have singlehandedly restored my faith in my future profession, which I had seriously considered abandoning after feeling so disgusted and despairing after the other night.)
Then she told me her story: she was an Iraqi from the North (this often means that someone is Kurdish, but she didn't say, and I didn't think it proper to ask) and she had moved to Canada thirty years ago, where she has been working as a conservation architect. Two years ago, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) called her back to work for the Ministry of Tourism and Conservation. "I gave 30 years to another country," she said, "so I can give three years to mine."
She told me that she had just come from a training in Turkey, where she had been teaching conservation techniques to people who will work on some important sites in Kurdistan and elsewhere in Iraq. In Kurdistan, there is a citadel which has 30 meters of ruins of different civilizations, one built atop of the other. Imagine.
The preservation of all this heritage is a daunting task for archaeologists. As is the restoration of the al-Askari Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, whose bombing is now infamous because it set off the majority of sectarian killing in the country. (I thought this was at least a small bit of positive symbolism - the destruction which represented such deterioration of Iraq's situation is going to be built over, renewed.)
Sometimes we forget that Iraq is home to the cradle of civilization and that it has one of the richest cultural heritages of any country. She told me of her childhood in Iraq, recounting how until the 60's and 70's, Iraq was the regional mecca of education and culture. Education was well-respected and rigorous - and free to everyone. She told me that she had three nationwide exams in 5th, 9th and 12th grade. By the time she and other students of her generation entered college, they were already knowledgeable and well-trained, ready to take on advanced studies. Every Iraqi who wanted a space in a university could have one, and if he (or she!) failed, the administrators would find him or her another discipline, perhaps more suitable, to try. Books and school supplies were all free. "Iraq had everything," she said, shaking her head. "We had a beautiful landscape (she had already told me that some people compare the North to Switzerland), high-quality education, a cultured and diverse population, and the money to pay for it all from our own natural resources (oil!). But now look at it." She shook her head again, with despair.
Most people of her age that I know are thinking about their retirement or slowing down their lives. She is traveling across the world to restore a devastated country, living away from her family and security. I'm so thankful she paused long enough to teach me a lesson as well. And I hope that however I learn to be "useful" in my life, I will remember her example along the way.
21 November 2007
One Man, One Vote, One Favor
The election results are in, and they are pretty much as expected. In fact, most people knew what would happen before they even voted.
After further discussion, I've learned that from one point of view, it is necessary to reconceptualize my idea of elections in order to understand the Jordanian system: Tribal voting, as I described yesterday, is actually very effective if you look at elected officials as service providers rather than legislators. When a member of your tribe is in Parliament, you can approach him (or her) to help you and your family. For example, your daughter needs a good job, or your brother has a traffic ticket, or your uncle needs a visa to travel abroad. In any of these cases, you can essentially go to your tribal Parliamentarian and ask him to sign a paper - problem solved.
In the majority, there seems to be no hope for impacting or changing the wider political system. Rather, a successful election result comes when your family has more "wasta" in the Parliament.
...Flash to the United States, where the major question is not "if" we will be able to impact politics, but rather "if" enough complacent Americans will come to the polls to make the next presidential administration more accurately representative of the country.
In contrast to Jordan, where there is such a struggle to simply create a working, authentic democratic process, I am amazed at how few Americans consider either local or national politics as an important part of their lives. Have you treasured the luxury of your vote today? We are all so lucky!
I also don't think most Americans realize that the entire world is watching us as we elect a new leader in less than one year from now. This election will affect people in every corner of the globe, and yet a sadly small number of Americans will turn out to vote.
I don't intend to fill this blog with imperatives, but I will make an exception today. Vote! Be an informed voter! If there is one impression I will take away from my year here, it is certainly that I should treasure the (admittedly far from perfect) democracy we have.
After further discussion, I've learned that from one point of view, it is necessary to reconceptualize my idea of elections in order to understand the Jordanian system: Tribal voting, as I described yesterday, is actually very effective if you look at elected officials as service providers rather than legislators. When a member of your tribe is in Parliament, you can approach him (or her) to help you and your family. For example, your daughter needs a good job, or your brother has a traffic ticket, or your uncle needs a visa to travel abroad. In any of these cases, you can essentially go to your tribal Parliamentarian and ask him to sign a paper - problem solved.
In the majority, there seems to be no hope for impacting or changing the wider political system. Rather, a successful election result comes when your family has more "wasta" in the Parliament.
...Flash to the United States, where the major question is not "if" we will be able to impact politics, but rather "if" enough complacent Americans will come to the polls to make the next presidential administration more accurately representative of the country.
In contrast to Jordan, where there is such a struggle to simply create a working, authentic democratic process, I am amazed at how few Americans consider either local or national politics as an important part of their lives. Have you treasured the luxury of your vote today? We are all so lucky!
I also don't think most Americans realize that the entire world is watching us as we elect a new leader in less than one year from now. This election will affect people in every corner of the globe, and yet a sadly small number of Americans will turn out to vote.
I don't intend to fill this blog with imperatives, but I will make an exception today. Vote! Be an informed voter! If there is one impression I will take away from my year here, it is certainly that I should treasure the (admittedly far from perfect) democracy we have.
20 November 2007
The Rule of Law
Tonight I saw another of the uglier sides of the University of Jordan (or perhaps Jordan in general). In my Introduction to Conflict Resolution class, the professor handed back our mid-term exams. During the break, after some score comparison among my fellow classmates, it was clear that the professor was grading some students more easily than others. One girl, whom I remember clearly because several classes ago she raised her hand and asked the professor to stop using examples, please, or at least to *please* use some well-known ones (he was talking about Darfur and Pakistan at the time) had received a higher grade than some of the stronger students in the class.
Now, I won't speculate about whether this had anything to do with the fact that this girl is quite pretty and knows it, or that she often compliments the professor profusely on his lectures. Maybe the professor just knows someone in her family. Or maybe she even deserved the score. Maybe.
But the important point here is that some of my fellow students, who were depending on good grades in this class to graduate, felt that they had no recourse to resolve this problem. There was no higher authority that would actually listen to them or do anything about this. And they felt, from long experience, that it was useless to talk to the professor himself.
Again, I am thankful that in my college education, I knew that if I had a problem with a professor, whether I was right or wrong, there was a dean or someone similar who would be willing to help me solve the problem.
Again and again, both in the university and outside of it, people in Jordan complain that there are no consequences for people who commit wrongs or crimes of any sort. For example, I have asked several people why drivers continue to drive like maniacs here. (And oh, do they.) The response each time was simply that there are no consequences for driving badly. Even a driver who kills another man in an accident can feel assured that someone from his tribe will help his family to get him released after a much shorter time than his actual jail sentence. Without confidence in the rule of law, many basic elements of society seem to crumble.
So next time you hesitate before shunning the speed limit, be happy you have confidence that if you do, a policeman will likely find you, give you a ticket, and make you pay it.
Now, I won't speculate about whether this had anything to do with the fact that this girl is quite pretty and knows it, or that she often compliments the professor profusely on his lectures. Maybe the professor just knows someone in her family. Or maybe she even deserved the score. Maybe.
But the important point here is that some of my fellow students, who were depending on good grades in this class to graduate, felt that they had no recourse to resolve this problem. There was no higher authority that would actually listen to them or do anything about this. And they felt, from long experience, that it was useless to talk to the professor himself.
Again, I am thankful that in my college education, I knew that if I had a problem with a professor, whether I was right or wrong, there was a dean or someone similar who would be willing to help me solve the problem.
Again and again, both in the university and outside of it, people in Jordan complain that there are no consequences for people who commit wrongs or crimes of any sort. For example, I have asked several people why drivers continue to drive like maniacs here. (And oh, do they.) The response each time was simply that there are no consequences for driving badly. Even a driver who kills another man in an accident can feel assured that someone from his tribe will help his family to get him released after a much shorter time than his actual jail sentence. Without confidence in the rule of law, many basic elements of society seem to crumble.
So next time you hesitate before shunning the speed limit, be happy you have confidence that if you do, a policeman will likely find you, give you a ticket, and make you pay it.
19 November 2007
Election Eve
Tomorrow is a national holiday here in Jordan - election day! For the Parliamentary elections - a contentious and much-discussed topic here in this budding democracy.
The election is everywhere, yet in all of the election discussions I've had thus far, every single Jordanian (and even some other foreigners) have expressed negative opinions. These elections are a highly anticipated event by citizens and researchers alike - there are several of the latter staying where I live, here expressly for the elections. The traffic circles, streetposts, building walls and even cars themselves have been plastered with posters. There have been various candidate speeches and rallies all month. Mohammad, who is organizing the Global Youth Leaders Conference with me, wrote a great blog post about this, which is worth a look.
Every time I mention the elections here, people roll their eyes. The most common criticism of the elections has to do with tribal voting. Arab societies depend strongly on tribal links almost as much as they did before the tribes were located in nation-states. Family and tribal ties are strong, and when someone from your tribe is running for election, there is a great deal of pressure from the rest of your family and neighbors (outside of Amman they are likely to be from your tribe) to vote for that person. The pressure is especially strong if the candidate is your uncle or cousin.
Now, when someone told me this, my first question was, but in the end, how does anyone know whom you've voted for? Can't you agree to whatever will make your family happy and then vote privately for whomever you deem worthy? Someone explained to me that while this is technically true, the pressure is intense, and there are other ways of making it difficult to break ranks. In her case, her family is from a city about an hour outside of Amman, and they all wanted her to support a relative. In one simple conversation, someone asks if everyone wants to support this particular candidate and in the case that they do, offers to take their documents and register them to vote in that city. Now, my friend is allowed to register in this city because her family still owns property there, but she hasn't lived there for a good twenty years and it's unlikely that she'd know any of the other candidates well enough to vote for them. So essentially, her family's candidate is guaranteed her vote.
Tribal voting is especially problematic in my personal opinion because people don't feel they have the autonomy to vote for candidates based on platforms. And the candidates must realize this because the platforms they present are pretty minimal.
This hooks into the second major problem, which is that people here don't see parliamentarians as having any real benefit to them. They're seen as a privileged, wealthy bunch of people who were able to buy enough support to win a cushy job. Representatives pay lower taxes, for example, and they get free gas. Plus, in this country, connections, or "wasta," are extremely important, and being a parliament member only gets you more (and means that you probably had a lot to begin with).
Also, there are no political parties here. All the candidates are running as independents, and voters who pay attention to the parliament are frustrated by the inability to accomplish anything, which is due in part to the lack of block voting in parliament.
To be thorough, there is one "legitimate" political party in Jordan - the Islamic Action Front. Briefly, this is the political arm of the Jordanian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. Although they are relatively more mainstreamed politically than their counterparts in other Muslim countries, they still complain often of government corruption and suppression. For example, this summer they withdrew their candidates from elections for regional representatives (on the day of the election - some candidates went on to win even after they were withdrawn), citing fraud and corruption.
Many people here have anecdotally told me about the government bussing soldiers to particular poll places to vote during the elections this summer (thus outweighing opposition candidates). Whether or not this really happened (and there's reason to think it did because the government's human rights commission reported it, ostensibly to avoid any public outcry) the point is that people here do not trust the elections to be free, fair, or transparent.
In general (though this is hardly unique to Jordan) people simply see politicians as corrupt - they are no place to put one's hopes for the country.
A quick story to illustrate the general gist: today I was talking with my language partner (he and I meet once per week and talk 45 minutes in Arabic, 45 minutes in English - he is studying for a good TOEFL score so that he can be a pharmacist in the States). Mohammed is originally from Wadi Mousa, the town where Petra is located. It's a town of about 40,000, (though with a much smaller electorate). Today during our meeting, he got a call from one of his brothers, asking him to come home and vote for a candidate that their father (and their tribe) is supporting. "I don't really know the guy or care that much about the elections," he told me, "but my father likes him. And it's a good excuse to see my family and have fun with my brothers." They will have fun because there is a great deal of driving and honking (and even shooting) in the streets on the day of the election. What they're celebrating is a little beyond me, frankly. But there you have it - one by one, each person here assumes that his vote won't matter until collectively, this becomes the reality.
What is the root of all of these problems? Perhaps they come from the fact that Jordan has been democratized top-down, rather than bottom-up. In other words, it's not that people have been rioting in the streets demanding democracy. Or maybe they're founded in the fact that at the end of the day, Jordan is a monarchy, and there is a certain sense that parliament only rubber-stamps the will of the King anyway. I'm not a political scientist, and I can't answer these questions. But I do know that there is a delicate dance here between the will of the Jordanian people (and their pressure on the government to meet their basic needs) and the will of the government to maintain power and remain revered and untouchable.
Happy Election Day!
The election is everywhere, yet in all of the election discussions I've had thus far, every single Jordanian (and even some other foreigners) have expressed negative opinions. These elections are a highly anticipated event by citizens and researchers alike - there are several of the latter staying where I live, here expressly for the elections. The traffic circles, streetposts, building walls and even cars themselves have been plastered with posters. There have been various candidate speeches and rallies all month. Mohammad, who is organizing the Global Youth Leaders Conference with me, wrote a great blog post about this, which is worth a look.
Every time I mention the elections here, people roll their eyes. The most common criticism of the elections has to do with tribal voting. Arab societies depend strongly on tribal links almost as much as they did before the tribes were located in nation-states. Family and tribal ties are strong, and when someone from your tribe is running for election, there is a great deal of pressure from the rest of your family and neighbors (outside of Amman they are likely to be from your tribe) to vote for that person. The pressure is especially strong if the candidate is your uncle or cousin.
Now, when someone told me this, my first question was, but in the end, how does anyone know whom you've voted for? Can't you agree to whatever will make your family happy and then vote privately for whomever you deem worthy? Someone explained to me that while this is technically true, the pressure is intense, and there are other ways of making it difficult to break ranks. In her case, her family is from a city about an hour outside of Amman, and they all wanted her to support a relative. In one simple conversation, someone asks if everyone wants to support this particular candidate and in the case that they do, offers to take their documents and register them to vote in that city. Now, my friend is allowed to register in this city because her family still owns property there, but she hasn't lived there for a good twenty years and it's unlikely that she'd know any of the other candidates well enough to vote for them. So essentially, her family's candidate is guaranteed her vote.
Tribal voting is especially problematic in my personal opinion because people don't feel they have the autonomy to vote for candidates based on platforms. And the candidates must realize this because the platforms they present are pretty minimal.
This hooks into the second major problem, which is that people here don't see parliamentarians as having any real benefit to them. They're seen as a privileged, wealthy bunch of people who were able to buy enough support to win a cushy job. Representatives pay lower taxes, for example, and they get free gas. Plus, in this country, connections, or "wasta," are extremely important, and being a parliament member only gets you more (and means that you probably had a lot to begin with).
Also, there are no political parties here. All the candidates are running as independents, and voters who pay attention to the parliament are frustrated by the inability to accomplish anything, which is due in part to the lack of block voting in parliament.
To be thorough, there is one "legitimate" political party in Jordan - the Islamic Action Front. Briefly, this is the political arm of the Jordanian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. Although they are relatively more mainstreamed politically than their counterparts in other Muslim countries, they still complain often of government corruption and suppression. For example, this summer they withdrew their candidates from elections for regional representatives (on the day of the election - some candidates went on to win even after they were withdrawn), citing fraud and corruption.
Many people here have anecdotally told me about the government bussing soldiers to particular poll places to vote during the elections this summer (thus outweighing opposition candidates). Whether or not this really happened (and there's reason to think it did because the government's human rights commission reported it, ostensibly to avoid any public outcry) the point is that people here do not trust the elections to be free, fair, or transparent.
In general (though this is hardly unique to Jordan) people simply see politicians as corrupt - they are no place to put one's hopes for the country.
A quick story to illustrate the general gist: today I was talking with my language partner (he and I meet once per week and talk 45 minutes in Arabic, 45 minutes in English - he is studying for a good TOEFL score so that he can be a pharmacist in the States). Mohammed is originally from Wadi Mousa, the town where Petra is located. It's a town of about 40,000, (though with a much smaller electorate). Today during our meeting, he got a call from one of his brothers, asking him to come home and vote for a candidate that their father (and their tribe) is supporting. "I don't really know the guy or care that much about the elections," he told me, "but my father likes him. And it's a good excuse to see my family and have fun with my brothers." They will have fun because there is a great deal of driving and honking (and even shooting) in the streets on the day of the election. What they're celebrating is a little beyond me, frankly. But there you have it - one by one, each person here assumes that his vote won't matter until collectively, this becomes the reality.
What is the root of all of these problems? Perhaps they come from the fact that Jordan has been democratized top-down, rather than bottom-up. In other words, it's not that people have been rioting in the streets demanding democracy. Or maybe they're founded in the fact that at the end of the day, Jordan is a monarchy, and there is a certain sense that parliament only rubber-stamps the will of the King anyway. I'm not a political scientist, and I can't answer these questions. But I do know that there is a delicate dance here between the will of the Jordanian people (and their pressure on the government to meet their basic needs) and the will of the government to maintain power and remain revered and untouchable.
Happy Election Day!
17 November 2007
The "Other" Foreign Women in Jordan
I'm sorry to confirm, probably only for anyone who is more naive than me, that there is prejudice and discrimination everywhere. For example, here in Jordan, as in other countries in the region, there is a large problem with the abuse of Southeast Asian women who come (or are brought) here as live-in maids. Many of them come with promises of much better conditions than they actually find. Some families take their travel documents and force them to do abusive amounts of work, or even demand sexual favors for male members of the household. In a country where sex before marriage is extremely socially inappropriate (and in rare but extremely tragic cases, a death sentence for the girl) the maid has often been the "acceptable" outlet for male hormones.
Then there are the Russian women who come (or are brought) as prostitutes here...mostly to cater to men from the Gulf who come here to get away from their more conservative homelands. More than once, a cabdriver has bragged to my male co-passengers that he was heading to a Russian brothel later that night. And did my co-passenger want to come?, he would ask. He would have to leave his wife (me) at home, of course. My various "husbands" have all politely declined during these moments.
Then there is the discrimination against Egyptian guest-workers here. I heard a joke once that goes: the Egyptian President Mubarak made a state visit to King Abdullah II of Jordan and marveled at the cleanliness of the streets here in comparison to the dreadful dirtiness of his own country. (Everything is relative, I guess.) President Mubarak remarked upon this, and the King responded by saying, yes, it's because we have the Egyptians here to clean them for us.
And then we must not forget the Iraqis here, who are labeled either as economic nuisances - "they drive the housing prices up!" "food is more expensive now because of them!" to simply being common thieves.
All in all, this just serves as a healthy reminder that a homogeneous culture is a rare find indeed, and people find ways to discriminate or "other" no matter where they are or how they live.
Then there are the Russian women who come (or are brought) as prostitutes here...mostly to cater to men from the Gulf who come here to get away from their more conservative homelands. More than once, a cabdriver has bragged to my male co-passengers that he was heading to a Russian brothel later that night. And did my co-passenger want to come?, he would ask. He would have to leave his wife (me) at home, of course. My various "husbands" have all politely declined during these moments.
Then there is the discrimination against Egyptian guest-workers here. I heard a joke once that goes: the Egyptian President Mubarak made a state visit to King Abdullah II of Jordan and marveled at the cleanliness of the streets here in comparison to the dreadful dirtiness of his own country. (Everything is relative, I guess.) President Mubarak remarked upon this, and the King responded by saying, yes, it's because we have the Egyptians here to clean them for us.
And then we must not forget the Iraqis here, who are labeled either as economic nuisances - "they drive the housing prices up!" "food is more expensive now because of them!" to simply being common thieves.
All in all, this just serves as a healthy reminder that a homogeneous culture is a rare find indeed, and people find ways to discriminate or "other" no matter where they are or how they live.
13 November 2007
Damascus: the post
Just as leaving America to come to Jordan has taught me about America, so leaving Jordan for Syria taught me about Jordan.
As the first country in the Middle East that I have really gotten to know, I have a special space in my heart for Jordan - much as a baby chickadee might after she opens her eyes in the nest and sees "Mama!" right away - I will always think of Jordan as close family in comparison to other countries in this region. This is enhanced by the fact that, culturally, Jordan is straddled between the Middle East and the West (as I've already been describing to you.)
This was not the case in Syria. No one persisted in English when talking to us, and the clothes styles, while certainly modern (and relatively more scandalous, in comparison to Amman - for example, while walking around the University of Damascus, we saw a muhajiba girl (wearing the hijab) with knee-length army capri pants and tall, stiletto boots (the ones my friends and I used to call "ho boots" in high school) going the rest of the way down her legs.)
Overall, I came away with a stronger impression of how serious the identity crisis in Jordan really has become in the course of modernization. While Syria is modernizing as well (much more slowly), it has thousands of years of history to stand on, a solid platform from which to confront globalization. When discussing this theory with a Jordanian friend, he pointed out that Syria also has the disadvantage of not being able to import many American products. "In Jordan," he said, "you can see the strongest effects of globalization." And I do agree with him - the level of materialism in Jordanian society appears to be increasing at a swift rate. For my part, I'm sorry that America is exporting this part of our society. But back to Syria!
We traveled to Damascus by "servees," an Arabization of the word "service," which is a taxi in which you hire one seat. We bought two seats, for 9 JD each (about $13.50) which would have gotten us all the way to Damascus if we hadn't had to wait at the border for a visa (I'll explain in a sec.) In Amman you catch a servees by going down to Abdali where there is a line of serveeses and their drivers parked on the side of the road, calling out various destinations. "Dimashq (Damascus)! Beirut!" In Syria there is an actual bus station where this happens, and when our taxi driver drove us up to the station, I knew immediately that we were in for few minutes of touristic hell when we saw about 75 men standing in a cordoned off area, calling out different prices. Imagine the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, only all of the traders are yelling at you only. We eventually managed to negotiate a fair price, but not before being chased by a one-legged man who had perfected his American accent to the point that I actually thought he was from New York City for the first ten minutes. "Hey Charlie!" he kept calling. "Lemme buy ya a drink!" We learned that until recently, the drivers had not been restricted to a cordoned off area - I can only imagine what that must have been like for the sorry tourists who dared try to hire a servees before the new rules.
We had to wait at the border for two hours for Ben's visa. And we were the lucky ones. There are two ways for an American in Amman to get a visa to Syria. You can either do this at the Syrian embassy in the US (which I did before I left, with no hassle) or you can go to the border and hope for the best. Ben, my travel buddy, didn't have a visa, so we knew we'd have to wait. What we didn't know was how long. The process for accepting Americans is vague and unpredictable. Before we left, we heard stories from people who'd had to wait three, five, seven and even 16 hours. The average seemed to be about seven. We armed ourselves with good novels and piles of Arabic vocabulary flashcards, ready to spend the day at the border. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the actual crossing has a nice hotel, a big duty free shop, and even a cute little cafe. By the time we'd had lunch and made one round of Arabic flashcards, Ben's visa was ready!
When we arrived in Damascus, the first thing that I noticed was that every car was about 20 years older than the average car in Amman. Everything is less expensive, too. While a cross-town cab ride in Amman costs about $3, in Damascus it would cost about $1. Our hotel, the Cham Palace, was a first, too. It was a well-known, well-to-do hotel, but with few Westerners. The big-wig men who we watched nurse their drinks at the lobby piano bar and flirt with the tempting young musicians were Arab, not foreigners, as is often the case in Jordan. The hotel was hosting the 15th annual Syrian International Film festival, and it made me wish I knew my Arab film stars better - people kept stopping for photo ops with other glamorous looking characters who passed by.
We spent a full day wandering around the Old City in Damascus, a maze of narrow streets and colorfully decorated buildings. I could look around me and imagine how life was 1,000 years ago or more in homes with big courtyards and rooms all along the edges. It was breathtaking.
We walked in the Souk Hamadiya, a covered market (similar to what we once called an "arcade" around the turn of the century) which goes for more than a half-mile in one direction, with tens of little side-aisles all along. It has the most interesting shafts of light pouring in through tiny holes in the ceiling - almost like an accidental planetarium. I found out later that these were bullet holes from French soldiers fighting off a local rebellion in the 1920's.
In the market, you can walk along and listen as people bargain for everything from textiles and jewelry to musical instruments and shampoo. Ben bought a tailored suit, made the same day for him, for a fraction of what the cost would be in the U.S. We made a fun charade out of him trying on the different fabrics and styles, me being the critical, hard-bargaining, young wife, who was making sure he was getting a good deal.
Here, I have to interject that if I ever compile all of my blogging experiences into a book, it will surely be called "Married in Jordan." From my first experience with Dalil (an unwanted admirer, finally driven away by a friend pretending to be my husband) to people's constant assumptions that Ben and I are married simply because we are going somewhere together, I have noticed the drastic differences of being a woman with and without a man by her side in this country.
For instance, it would have been much harder to negotiate the desperate crowd at the Damascus bus station without my "husband." And I never, 100%, get cat-calls or leers in the street when I am walking with him. I can talk to taxi drivers, which is a great opportunity for language practice, when he is there (assuming I don't mind them asking us if we're married). A couple of times we've even said yes, as a sort of social experiment, but then the taxi drivers get very confused when we tell them we don't have any children. "In the future, inshah'allah," we tell them. They're usually satisfied by this.
Back in Syria, we also walked all around the Abu Roumana, where the streets are lined with embassies and cute cafes. I felt intimidated by all of the guards, sometimes standing waywardly in front of unmarked buildings, with no uniforms and big machine guns swinging at their sides. I learned the term "weapon awareness" in order to describe what these men don't have - they swing the guns carelessly, not noticing where they're pointing. I couldn't relax until we left the area.
There was one particularly tense moment when we walked up to the American embassy. We don't have an ambassador in Syria, but we do have a charge d'affaires, which performs similar functions. The embassy was hard to miss, tall walls and barbed wire all around, an American flag flapping quietly at the top. Directly across the street was the Iraqi embassy, with men lining the street all along it. All displaced from the War in Iraq, we can assume. (There are approximately 1.2 million Iraqis in Syria currently.) I suddenly felt a strong urge to turn back - standing between these men and the American embassy seemed to me a very frightening prospect. It's unlikely that they would have known my nationality, and more unlikely still that this would have provoked them to any sort of action, but I suddenly felt, standing close the embassy, that I could have been construed as a political symbol. We turned around; not without much reflection, though. It was a puzzling moment for me.
-----
We spent Thursday night (the equivalent of American Friday night) seeing the modern, avant-garde part of Damascus. Nestled among the ancient houses of the Old City are quite a few modern restaurants, galleries, and even bars. Under instructions from a fellow expat who has been living in Damascus for a while, we wound our way around the Old City until we found a neon sign drilled into the stone wall: Marmar. I almost didn't believe that there could be any type of business down the old stone corridor because I heard no sign of music or bustle. We went through a set of mammoth wooden doors and then two smaller ones, where we finally walked into a cafe/bar whose ancient wooden tables and stone walls stood in strong contrast to the DJ booth spinning loud techno and the wall of booze behind the bar. Marmar was filled with about half Syrians and half foreigners (though the Syrians were dressed more scandalously by far) and much fun and dancing was had by all. Men and women danced on the same dance floor without event, although there was no "switching," in the sense that you danced only with the people you came with.
Lastly, I must mention the Umayyad mosque, which is the most famous landmark in Syria, and the most holy Muslim site, I am told, only after Mecca and Jerusalem. It has been a place of worship throughout much human history, for Romans, Christians, and Muslims. It supposedly contained the head of John the Baptist and does hold the tomb of Saladdin. I found it to be a vast and spiritual building, high walls coated in gold and open spaces echoing prayers.
After three days in Syria, I can't make any sort of conclusion on the city or the country. It's true, there were photos of Bashar Assad, the current dictator, on almost every open surface, but the people's lives go on, and they eat, love, and laugh just like everyone else.
Probably my favorite memory is leaving Marmar and walking out of the Old City limits late Thursday evening to find a cab. One cab driver had brought his dog along with him to work, and we were intrigued by this because very few Arabs have pet dogs, and almost none bring them in their taxis! (In older Muslim traditions, dogs are considered to be extremely dirty, impure animals, and this residue still remains sometimes.) Our driver was delighted that we liked his dog, duly introduced us to his big, white, shaggy friend and then chatted amiably with us all the way home.
As the first country in the Middle East that I have really gotten to know, I have a special space in my heart for Jordan - much as a baby chickadee might after she opens her eyes in the nest and sees "Mama!" right away - I will always think of Jordan as close family in comparison to other countries in this region. This is enhanced by the fact that, culturally, Jordan is straddled between the Middle East and the West (as I've already been describing to you.)
This was not the case in Syria. No one persisted in English when talking to us, and the clothes styles, while certainly modern (and relatively more scandalous, in comparison to Amman - for example, while walking around the University of Damascus, we saw a muhajiba girl (wearing the hijab) with knee-length army capri pants and tall, stiletto boots (the ones my friends and I used to call "ho boots" in high school) going the rest of the way down her legs.)
Overall, I came away with a stronger impression of how serious the identity crisis in Jordan really has become in the course of modernization. While Syria is modernizing as well (much more slowly), it has thousands of years of history to stand on, a solid platform from which to confront globalization. When discussing this theory with a Jordanian friend, he pointed out that Syria also has the disadvantage of not being able to import many American products. "In Jordan," he said, "you can see the strongest effects of globalization." And I do agree with him - the level of materialism in Jordanian society appears to be increasing at a swift rate. For my part, I'm sorry that America is exporting this part of our society. But back to Syria!
We traveled to Damascus by "servees," an Arabization of the word "service," which is a taxi in which you hire one seat. We bought two seats, for 9 JD each (about $13.50) which would have gotten us all the way to Damascus if we hadn't had to wait at the border for a visa (I'll explain in a sec.) In Amman you catch a servees by going down to Abdali where there is a line of serveeses and their drivers parked on the side of the road, calling out various destinations. "Dimashq (Damascus)! Beirut!" In Syria there is an actual bus station where this happens, and when our taxi driver drove us up to the station, I knew immediately that we were in for few minutes of touristic hell when we saw about 75 men standing in a cordoned off area, calling out different prices. Imagine the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, only all of the traders are yelling at you only. We eventually managed to negotiate a fair price, but not before being chased by a one-legged man who had perfected his American accent to the point that I actually thought he was from New York City for the first ten minutes. "Hey Charlie!" he kept calling. "Lemme buy ya a drink!" We learned that until recently, the drivers had not been restricted to a cordoned off area - I can only imagine what that must have been like for the sorry tourists who dared try to hire a servees before the new rules.
We had to wait at the border for two hours for Ben's visa. And we were the lucky ones. There are two ways for an American in Amman to get a visa to Syria. You can either do this at the Syrian embassy in the US (which I did before I left, with no hassle) or you can go to the border and hope for the best. Ben, my travel buddy, didn't have a visa, so we knew we'd have to wait. What we didn't know was how long. The process for accepting Americans is vague and unpredictable. Before we left, we heard stories from people who'd had to wait three, five, seven and even 16 hours. The average seemed to be about seven. We armed ourselves with good novels and piles of Arabic vocabulary flashcards, ready to spend the day at the border. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the actual crossing has a nice hotel, a big duty free shop, and even a cute little cafe. By the time we'd had lunch and made one round of Arabic flashcards, Ben's visa was ready!
When we arrived in Damascus, the first thing that I noticed was that every car was about 20 years older than the average car in Amman. Everything is less expensive, too. While a cross-town cab ride in Amman costs about $3, in Damascus it would cost about $1. Our hotel, the Cham Palace, was a first, too. It was a well-known, well-to-do hotel, but with few Westerners. The big-wig men who we watched nurse their drinks at the lobby piano bar and flirt with the tempting young musicians were Arab, not foreigners, as is often the case in Jordan. The hotel was hosting the 15th annual Syrian International Film festival, and it made me wish I knew my Arab film stars better - people kept stopping for photo ops with other glamorous looking characters who passed by.
We spent a full day wandering around the Old City in Damascus, a maze of narrow streets and colorfully decorated buildings. I could look around me and imagine how life was 1,000 years ago or more in homes with big courtyards and rooms all along the edges. It was breathtaking.
We walked in the Souk Hamadiya, a covered market (similar to what we once called an "arcade" around the turn of the century) which goes for more than a half-mile in one direction, with tens of little side-aisles all along. It has the most interesting shafts of light pouring in through tiny holes in the ceiling - almost like an accidental planetarium. I found out later that these were bullet holes from French soldiers fighting off a local rebellion in the 1920's.
In the market, you can walk along and listen as people bargain for everything from textiles and jewelry to musical instruments and shampoo. Ben bought a tailored suit, made the same day for him, for a fraction of what the cost would be in the U.S. We made a fun charade out of him trying on the different fabrics and styles, me being the critical, hard-bargaining, young wife, who was making sure he was getting a good deal.
Here, I have to interject that if I ever compile all of my blogging experiences into a book, it will surely be called "Married in Jordan." From my first experience with Dalil (an unwanted admirer, finally driven away by a friend pretending to be my husband) to people's constant assumptions that Ben and I are married simply because we are going somewhere together, I have noticed the drastic differences of being a woman with and without a man by her side in this country.
For instance, it would have been much harder to negotiate the desperate crowd at the Damascus bus station without my "husband." And I never, 100%, get cat-calls or leers in the street when I am walking with him. I can talk to taxi drivers, which is a great opportunity for language practice, when he is there (assuming I don't mind them asking us if we're married). A couple of times we've even said yes, as a sort of social experiment, but then the taxi drivers get very confused when we tell them we don't have any children. "In the future, inshah'allah," we tell them. They're usually satisfied by this.
Back in Syria, we also walked all around the Abu Roumana, where the streets are lined with embassies and cute cafes. I felt intimidated by all of the guards, sometimes standing waywardly in front of unmarked buildings, with no uniforms and big machine guns swinging at their sides. I learned the term "weapon awareness" in order to describe what these men don't have - they swing the guns carelessly, not noticing where they're pointing. I couldn't relax until we left the area.
There was one particularly tense moment when we walked up to the American embassy. We don't have an ambassador in Syria, but we do have a charge d'affaires, which performs similar functions. The embassy was hard to miss, tall walls and barbed wire all around, an American flag flapping quietly at the top. Directly across the street was the Iraqi embassy, with men lining the street all along it. All displaced from the War in Iraq, we can assume. (There are approximately 1.2 million Iraqis in Syria currently.) I suddenly felt a strong urge to turn back - standing between these men and the American embassy seemed to me a very frightening prospect. It's unlikely that they would have known my nationality, and more unlikely still that this would have provoked them to any sort of action, but I suddenly felt, standing close the embassy, that I could have been construed as a political symbol. We turned around; not without much reflection, though. It was a puzzling moment for me.
-----
We spent Thursday night (the equivalent of American Friday night) seeing the modern, avant-garde part of Damascus. Nestled among the ancient houses of the Old City are quite a few modern restaurants, galleries, and even bars. Under instructions from a fellow expat who has been living in Damascus for a while, we wound our way around the Old City until we found a neon sign drilled into the stone wall: Marmar. I almost didn't believe that there could be any type of business down the old stone corridor because I heard no sign of music or bustle. We went through a set of mammoth wooden doors and then two smaller ones, where we finally walked into a cafe/bar whose ancient wooden tables and stone walls stood in strong contrast to the DJ booth spinning loud techno and the wall of booze behind the bar. Marmar was filled with about half Syrians and half foreigners (though the Syrians were dressed more scandalously by far) and much fun and dancing was had by all. Men and women danced on the same dance floor without event, although there was no "switching," in the sense that you danced only with the people you came with.
Lastly, I must mention the Umayyad mosque, which is the most famous landmark in Syria, and the most holy Muslim site, I am told, only after Mecca and Jerusalem. It has been a place of worship throughout much human history, for Romans, Christians, and Muslims. It supposedly contained the head of John the Baptist and does hold the tomb of Saladdin. I found it to be a vast and spiritual building, high walls coated in gold and open spaces echoing prayers.
After three days in Syria, I can't make any sort of conclusion on the city or the country. It's true, there were photos of Bashar Assad, the current dictator, on almost every open surface, but the people's lives go on, and they eat, love, and laugh just like everyone else.
Probably my favorite memory is leaving Marmar and walking out of the Old City limits late Thursday evening to find a cab. One cab driver had brought his dog along with him to work, and we were intrigued by this because very few Arabs have pet dogs, and almost none bring them in their taxis! (In older Muslim traditions, dogs are considered to be extremely dirty, impure animals, and this residue still remains sometimes.) Our driver was delighted that we liked his dog, duly introduced us to his big, white, shaggy friend and then chatted amiably with us all the way home.
06 November 2007
Damascus: the pre-post
This weekend I will visit Damascus, Syria. Yes, the Axis of Evil. This is where my job of dispelling stereotypes about the Middle East gets even harder, because many people are so sure that Syria is a nefarious, anti-American, terrorist etc. place. I can't push anyone to change his or her ideas, but I can only ask you to have an open mind.
If you've only gotten your information from the media, then it's possible that the news you get doesn't show the whole picture. And it's not as if my one weekend in the country will show the whole picture either; but I believe you can't begin to know a place until you set foot there. So at least this is a start, we'll say.
Some background: Damascus is one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world, and it is revered as one of the most beautiful in the region. The houses in the Old City are 1000 years old, and Syria is also home to the last places where the ancient Assyrian and Aramaic languages are still alive and learned as mother tongues. Damascus is the recent locus of the Middle East's cinematic culture, and there is a large international film festival in Damascus this weekend. And in Syria, as in Jordan and in all of the countries in the Middle East, people separate the person from the politics. Meaning, no one is going to hate me because they hate George Bush.
It is true that Syria is an authoritarian dictatorship, but even this is much more complicated than people simply living their daily lives in fear of a ruler's whims. In fact, the margins of freedom in a dictatorship such as that of Syria are much greater than what people commonly imagine. And as we do not wish to be held personally responsible for every decision of the American government, we should give Syrians the courtesy of seeing them as individuals in the same way. Lisa Wedeen, a professor at the University of Chicago, wrote a good book about the regime in Syria called, "Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria".
If anyone feels strongly about this trip or has specific questions, please, please email me or comment at the bottom of this post. I would love to discuss any questions, concerns or ideas that you have! And I'm looking forward to reporting back what I learn!
If you've only gotten your information from the media, then it's possible that the news you get doesn't show the whole picture. And it's not as if my one weekend in the country will show the whole picture either; but I believe you can't begin to know a place until you set foot there. So at least this is a start, we'll say.
Some background: Damascus is one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world, and it is revered as one of the most beautiful in the region. The houses in the Old City are 1000 years old, and Syria is also home to the last places where the ancient Assyrian and Aramaic languages are still alive and learned as mother tongues. Damascus is the recent locus of the Middle East's cinematic culture, and there is a large international film festival in Damascus this weekend. And in Syria, as in Jordan and in all of the countries in the Middle East, people separate the person from the politics. Meaning, no one is going to hate me because they hate George Bush.
It is true that Syria is an authoritarian dictatorship, but even this is much more complicated than people simply living their daily lives in fear of a ruler's whims. In fact, the margins of freedom in a dictatorship such as that of Syria are much greater than what people commonly imagine. And as we do not wish to be held personally responsible for every decision of the American government, we should give Syrians the courtesy of seeing them as individuals in the same way. Lisa Wedeen, a professor at the University of Chicago, wrote a good book about the regime in Syria called, "Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria".
If anyone feels strongly about this trip or has specific questions, please, please email me or comment at the bottom of this post. I would love to discuss any questions, concerns or ideas that you have! And I'm looking forward to reporting back what I learn!
And which gym do you go to?
I'm a runner, and so one of my biggest worries before I arrived in Jordan was how I would exercise. In France, gyms were scarce and pricey, so I ran in the parks. I assumed that wouldn't be an option here (which was wrong, parks are not haram but they are impractical for running), and so I was happy to find many affordable gyms here. Within five days of living here I had already joined one: the gym in Sports City, which is an enormous government-run sports complex including two beautiful olympic-sized pools, a hockey rink, and the national soccer stadium.
(Once a week or so, I come out of the parking lot to find riot police, clubs at the ready, waiting for raucous fans exiting a soccer game. Soccer is serious business here. Fans have apparently taken after the brutish European tradition of being rowdy after a match, although as far as I can see, the streets are filled with more police than anyone else on these nights.)
In any case, after I picked my gym, I found out that which one you belong to is an "important" status symbol for the class of people who care about such things. And while belonging to a gym is as cheap or cheaper than in the States, most of the people who can afford this are of that class that care about such things. It's not unusual to be asked at a party which gym I belong to, for example. One gym here, called Vye, is very expensive (about 1300 dinars per year, or about $2000) and stays that way simply to maintain a high "quality" of clientèle. It's a place to see and be seen. (And exercise??)
To give you an idea of the lengths people go to in order to be at the "right" gym, I'll give an example. At a recent party I met the manager of Le Meridian Hotel, whose gym is also high-ranking and popular with the wealthy here. And when I asked if he went to the Le Meridian's gym, he told me with some disdain that of course he didn't, he went to Vye.
On the other hand, gyms are also a front line in the struggle with shades of modesty here in Amman. For instance, the aerobics room at Sports City is situated with two doors - one opening up to the lobby and the other to the women's locker room. Muhajiba women (those who wear the veil or dress modestly in accordance with Islamic values) who come for the women-only classes can wear normal exercise clothing and access the aerobics room without ever coming into contact with a man. Today however, one of the showers was flooding in the locker room, and a male repairman came in to fix it. The women in the aerobics class were stranded in the locker room for a good fifteen minutes until he finished. Another day in the ambiguity of a diverse and modernizing Muslim country.
There are other gyms who have "women only" hours several times per week, although mine is more liberal-minded than that. They play mostly American pop music (uncensored - I can't believe the language I hear!) and satellite TV channels that show all the immodesties of Western television - vivid sex scenes and horrific violence included.
(Once a week or so, I come out of the parking lot to find riot police, clubs at the ready, waiting for raucous fans exiting a soccer game. Soccer is serious business here. Fans have apparently taken after the brutish European tradition of being rowdy after a match, although as far as I can see, the streets are filled with more police than anyone else on these nights.)
In any case, after I picked my gym, I found out that which one you belong to is an "important" status symbol for the class of people who care about such things. And while belonging to a gym is as cheap or cheaper than in the States, most of the people who can afford this are of that class that care about such things. It's not unusual to be asked at a party which gym I belong to, for example. One gym here, called Vye, is very expensive (about 1300 dinars per year, or about $2000) and stays that way simply to maintain a high "quality" of clientèle. It's a place to see and be seen. (And exercise??)
To give you an idea of the lengths people go to in order to be at the "right" gym, I'll give an example. At a recent party I met the manager of Le Meridian Hotel, whose gym is also high-ranking and popular with the wealthy here. And when I asked if he went to the Le Meridian's gym, he told me with some disdain that of course he didn't, he went to Vye.
On the other hand, gyms are also a front line in the struggle with shades of modesty here in Amman. For instance, the aerobics room at Sports City is situated with two doors - one opening up to the lobby and the other to the women's locker room. Muhajiba women (those who wear the veil or dress modestly in accordance with Islamic values) who come for the women-only classes can wear normal exercise clothing and access the aerobics room without ever coming into contact with a man. Today however, one of the showers was flooding in the locker room, and a male repairman came in to fix it. The women in the aerobics class were stranded in the locker room for a good fifteen minutes until he finished. Another day in the ambiguity of a diverse and modernizing Muslim country.
There are other gyms who have "women only" hours several times per week, although mine is more liberal-minded than that. They play mostly American pop music (uncensored - I can't believe the language I hear!) and satellite TV channels that show all the immodesties of Western television - vivid sex scenes and horrific violence included.
05 November 2007
Home
I have started to be slightly nostalgic for home; it creeps into me for just a moment in the weirdest way.
For instance, tonight in class I caught a whiff of something chocolately-mint on the wind. Suddenly I was transported from the tinny echoes and wooden chairs of the classroom: I could taste Halloween cookies eaten on a cold fall night, in a memory I'd forgotten for years. I could see the orange-gold jack-o-lantern grins glowing in the windows on my block and hear children playing. I could feel the cold air refreshing me from a race down the street with my friends, and I could feel the crispy crunch of the cookies making black crumbs all over my cowgirl vest.
I didn't even know I missed the fall, but a flash like that makes me think that perhaps it is more embedded in me than I realize. Halloween here is occasionally celebrated in private homes - since it, with all things American - has become trendy. But it's not like...home.
I'm still not sure what this word means, but it seems the only appropriate one to finish this sentence. And it makes sense that part of traveling is learning about one's personal concept of home.
For instance, tonight in class I caught a whiff of something chocolately-mint on the wind. Suddenly I was transported from the tinny echoes and wooden chairs of the classroom: I could taste Halloween cookies eaten on a cold fall night, in a memory I'd forgotten for years. I could see the orange-gold jack-o-lantern grins glowing in the windows on my block and hear children playing. I could feel the cold air refreshing me from a race down the street with my friends, and I could feel the crispy crunch of the cookies making black crumbs all over my cowgirl vest.
I didn't even know I missed the fall, but a flash like that makes me think that perhaps it is more embedded in me than I realize. Halloween here is occasionally celebrated in private homes - since it, with all things American - has become trendy. But it's not like...home.
I'm still not sure what this word means, but it seems the only appropriate one to finish this sentence. And it makes sense that part of traveling is learning about one's personal concept of home.
01 November 2007
L'Ecole Francaise D'Amman
I recently stepped into my first school here: a K-12 private school based on the French system: L'Ecole Francaise d'Amman. (The most prestigious private schools here are all based on international systems - the Modern American School, the Cambridge School, etc.) The Rotaract club that I work with is running a high school basketball tournament called Hoops for Hope to raise money for the Gift of Life Amman (GOLA), which helps children with congenital heart disease. All the high school teams get sponsors, and the money goes to GOLA. In the meantime, all the team members get presentations about the basics of pediatric congenital heart disease. Mohammed (whom you may remember from another episode in which he overzealously ordered five pizzas for his friends) asked me to do the presentation when his brother-in-law, a doctor who has worked in France for the past fifteen years, became too busy.
I had welcomed the opportunity to "visit" France for a few hours, and so there I was, about to give a presentation to 25 high schoolers - boys and girls - about ventral septal defect and the like. Although Manal, who trained me and Mohammed to do the presentation, had told me to do it in English, the coach told me that the students were much better in French and that I should do it in French. And so I did.
And, boy, do I have a new appreciation for what the English-language lectures that Professor Moumani gives. During my year in France, I spent a great deal of classwork doing oral presentations, but this was before Arabic was so embedded in my brain. Several times I stopped and went through both the Arabic and English words before I could spit out the French one. "...baas, walaakin, but, mais!" I stuttered several times to the bemused students. They were good sports and helped me out when I didn't know the words for ventricle and aorta.
I tried not to laugh when Mohammed stood up to give his part of the lecture and asked the kids if they preferred French or English. "English!" they chimed. That will teach me to think a teacher knows his students better than they know themselves!
In the end, though, it all worked out: the students still learned why they were doing charity work, and I gained a new respect for my graduate studies professor in the process!
I had welcomed the opportunity to "visit" France for a few hours, and so there I was, about to give a presentation to 25 high schoolers - boys and girls - about ventral septal defect and the like. Although Manal, who trained me and Mohammed to do the presentation, had told me to do it in English, the coach told me that the students were much better in French and that I should do it in French. And so I did.
And, boy, do I have a new appreciation for what the English-language lectures that Professor Moumani gives. During my year in France, I spent a great deal of classwork doing oral presentations, but this was before Arabic was so embedded in my brain. Several times I stopped and went through both the Arabic and English words before I could spit out the French one. "...baas, walaakin, but, mais!" I stuttered several times to the bemused students. They were good sports and helped me out when I didn't know the words for ventricle and aorta.
I tried not to laugh when Mohammed stood up to give his part of the lecture and asked the kids if they preferred French or English. "English!" they chimed. That will teach me to think a teacher knows his students better than they know themselves!
In the end, though, it all worked out: the students still learned why they were doing charity work, and I gained a new respect for my graduate studies professor in the process!
Southern Jordan Roadtrip Part I: Shobak Castle
I am going to try to describe last weekend's travel without overuse of the words "very beautiful," "stunning" and "amazing", but it will be difficult. Some friends and I rented a car, and we visited Shobak (an ancient crusader castle), Petra, Wadi Rum, and Aqaba. Most importantly, I had the advantage of traveling with an archaeologist connected to many of the major sites that we saw. Stephanie, who is here finishing her dissertation, was a fantastic guide - it's really the best when your friend has all the information you could ever want to ask about a historical site!
Jordan is built on layers of past civilizations, and just about every piece of land can be an archaeological site. Today before any organization or individual builds, they are required to submit evidence of a soil probe analyzed by an archaeologist. In this way, it's risky to buy land here, because you are supposed to excavate and preserve whatever you find there, paying for this out of your own pocket. When we were at the beach in Aqaba, we could casually pick up centuries-old pottery shirds (not shards, as I learned from Stephanie!) being washed up on the beach.
We were four on our road trip - two students (me and Ben), Stephanie, and Laura, a poetry and Women's Studies professor from Utah. Our first stop was Shobak, which to me was the epitome of what I imagine a crusader castle to be. To get there you take a winding road on the top spine of a hill between two valleys. Finally it slopes downward, and the castle comes into view. When you arrive, it is immediately apparent that the location is eminently strategic - the castle takes up all of the top of small mountain, isolated by huge dips in the landscape. The castle was most recently Ottoman, but it is also layered with crusader and Roman evidence. I gasped when I saw it perched majestically against the falling terrain. So I guess I can say that it was literally breathtaking.
We all know the Italian team of archaeologists carrying out the current Shobak excavations because they stayed briefly at the house of scholars where I live. It was a relief to drive up to a tourist site to find warm greetings, exchanging hugs and the "bise" rather than an unfamiliar guide or just a tourbook blurb. One of the Italians, Michele, took us around the castle, explaining not only the multiple and rich histories to be found there, but also the politics of the excavation. He pushed aside the "do not enter" signs and showed us everything. They had just recently found a major workshop which was used for making dyes, for example.
Below: missiles! From the crusader era (13th century)
The very top of the castle was a church (from crusader times). Standing there, the wind blew across my face and at the same time across walls that had been standing there for millenia. What were people thinking when they stood in this same spot five centuries ago? Ten centuries? Could they take pleasure in the view, or were they simply soldiers on the lookout for movement in the valley below, I wonder? A shepherd and his goats passed by below, bells and bleating echoing against the hills. I'm sure castle lookouts saw this same sight. I felt like I was stepping across time.
Lastly, I couldn't help but notice a trace of modernity on the ancient castle's walls. Someone, Ghaith, I guess, added his own graffiti. I find it particularly funny that this person, who has an obviously Arabic name, wrote in English. I wonder if he was trying to get a wider audience? Or simply associated vandalism with a foreign language? Or...?
Jordan is built on layers of past civilizations, and just about every piece of land can be an archaeological site. Today before any organization or individual builds, they are required to submit evidence of a soil probe analyzed by an archaeologist. In this way, it's risky to buy land here, because you are supposed to excavate and preserve whatever you find there, paying for this out of your own pocket. When we were at the beach in Aqaba, we could casually pick up centuries-old pottery shirds (not shards, as I learned from Stephanie!) being washed up on the beach.
We were four on our road trip - two students (me and Ben), Stephanie, and Laura, a poetry and Women's Studies professor from Utah. Our first stop was Shobak, which to me was the epitome of what I imagine a crusader castle to be. To get there you take a winding road on the top spine of a hill between two valleys. Finally it slopes downward, and the castle comes into view. When you arrive, it is immediately apparent that the location is eminently strategic - the castle takes up all of the top of small mountain, isolated by huge dips in the landscape. The castle was most recently Ottoman, but it is also layered with crusader and Roman evidence. I gasped when I saw it perched majestically against the falling terrain. So I guess I can say that it was literally breathtaking.
We all know the Italian team of archaeologists carrying out the current Shobak excavations because they stayed briefly at the house of scholars where I live. It was a relief to drive up to a tourist site to find warm greetings, exchanging hugs and the "bise" rather than an unfamiliar guide or just a tourbook blurb. One of the Italians, Michele, took us around the castle, explaining not only the multiple and rich histories to be found there, but also the politics of the excavation. He pushed aside the "do not enter" signs and showed us everything. They had just recently found a major workshop which was used for making dyes, for example.
Below: missiles! From the crusader era (13th century)
The very top of the castle was a church (from crusader times). Standing there, the wind blew across my face and at the same time across walls that had been standing there for millenia. What were people thinking when they stood in this same spot five centuries ago? Ten centuries? Could they take pleasure in the view, or were they simply soldiers on the lookout for movement in the valley below, I wonder? A shepherd and his goats passed by below, bells and bleating echoing against the hills. I'm sure castle lookouts saw this same sight. I felt like I was stepping across time.
Lastly, I couldn't help but notice a trace of modernity on the ancient castle's walls. Someone, Ghaith, I guess, added his own graffiti. I find it particularly funny that this person, who has an obviously Arabic name, wrote in English. I wonder if he was trying to get a wider audience? Or simply associated vandalism with a foreign language? Or...?
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