Jordan: The Muslim Brotherhood Taking The Peaceful Path

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Friday prayers, Al Husseini Mosque

The protests after midday prayers at Al Husseini Mosque, in downtown Amman, show no signs of diminishing some nine weeks after they began.

Unions, political parties like the Jordanian Democratic Popular Unity Party, umbrella organisations such as Zaien (Movement for Change), and the Muslim Brotherhood, are increasingly being joined by individuals and other groups, expressing dissatisfaction with a range of issues in Jordan

As membership of political organisations and parties, and participation in protests is banned for many Palestinians living in Jordan, resulting in the confiscation of identity papers and passports for those who disobey, and as membership of the ‘Muslim Brothers’ frequently results in losing a job, being refused public medical care, and other serious ramifications, many are reluctant to publicly identify themselves as members of the organisation or talk about the problems facing Jordan.

Nevertheless, their leaders take a public position, and last week’s protest was headed by the Muslim Brotherhood. I spoke with someone ‘close’ to the organisation, which has members in some 70 countries around the world, to find out about their issues of concern.

Protesters’ Demands

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Numerous demands, one message - parliament OUT

My interviewee, whom I will call Ahmed, told me that the widespread dissatisfaction in many countries throughout the Arab world is also present in Jordan. He emphasised that it is not just the Muslim Brotherhood that are making complaints, but everyone, every group, is complaining about rising prices, and the conduct of politicians who are more concerned with serving themselves than serving the people. “The uprising throughout the Arab lands have the same causes as here in Jordan. Everyone outside of here, in America, in Europe, in Britain, they all thought Jordan would be the first country to have an uprising, before Libya, before Egypt, because of the conditions here. Eventually the King himself said ‘I myself believe that we are in the wrong state and I myself will do what is necessary to correct the wrongs.’ We believe here in Jordan that the King is number one and when he says ‘I believe that there are wrong deeds here in Jordan’ the most sensible one to be asked to correct everything is His Majesty the King,”

The Muslim Brotherhood recently met with the King, and although Ahmed was not at the meeting he is aware of what transpired during it. He said the Muslim Brotherhood told King Abdullah first off that they do not want to take his place. They presented him with a list of demands about the elections, prices, corruption, and the Treaty of Wadi Araba (the Treaty between Jordan and Israel), among others. “It was a very good meeting, and the King said that he believed that we are right, and said he wants to see us again, and wants to hear us again, and he wants to meet the principle demands that we made,” Ahmed said.

Violence

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Lining the streets…

Two weeks ago, the weekly demonstration was attacked by pro-Government supporters wielding pieces of wood and other weapons, resulting in fractures and other injuries requiring the hospitalisation of at least eight protesters. I asked if he expects the level of violence to increase. “Violence here in Jordan may be expected from some people, not more than that. I think that after these changes in dealing with uprisings [reference to the new law liberalising freedom of assembly] there is no need for violence. The government is now agreeing to listen to the citizens, although they haven’t done anything concrete, just to listen is good, just to see them making, doing their best is good, just for the governors to listen to them is good. Violence is maybe expected but until now, no violence, just an incident, one incident by a Member of Parliament whose name is Zaoud, he has done something, has brought about 10 members of his followers and they struck some people something like what happened in Egypt, the incident of the camels. We have previously in our history, about 1500 years ago, the camel battle, and sometimes now they are saying that this the second camel battle – this Member of Parliament has done the same thing. No other violent things have been done at all.”

Police

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Police out in force

I remarked that the police presence has increased enormously since the first protest I attended six weeks ago. I have noticed that although they have a strong presence, the Jordanian police do not have riot shields and batons. I asked if he expected violence from the police, as has happened in other countries. “I think everything is going right now. I hope that making demonstrations will not go on for a long time. If they do, the aims will be changed, as the aims everywhere have been changed. When they are changed is when the aims haven’t been realised. The demonstrators will increase their demands, I think so, I don’t want to do so, I don’t like to be just like Libya, so I hope that our government will hear the citizens, before these demonstrations become like everywhere else, with no leaders. For the Muslim Brothers to be the leaders of these demonstrations is good because it means there is a leader to be spoken with, but maybe after a lot of time if the aims aren’t met you will have no leader just like Egypt, and you have all the people with no leader and they are moving completely with everybody everywhere and their demands are being raised every day. We hope that our king here has the wisdom not be at the stage of Libya, or the stage of Egypt, or other Arab countries.”

Electoral concerns

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…and any available space.

Jordan, along with Vanuatu, is one of only two countries in the world to still have the single non-transferrable vote (SNTV) electoral system, and despite so-called electoral reforms in 2010, the current system is widely criticised both locally and internationally for its lack of real transparency, and for being “...designed to strengthen the interests of those ruling and limit the opposition’s ability to influence government policy.” (1)

As Ahmed said, “Elections are marked by wrong deeds, they are based on big families, and they do not represent the people. The current Prime Minister, Marouf Bakhit, was also Prime Minister 5 years ago and committed wrong deeds then in the elections. He has promised to make good elections now but I do not believe he can. We have a saying in Arabic ‘Everyone who is known, is known’, and actually his name in Arabic (Marouf) means ‘known’.

This is the first demand of the uprising - to make some changes with the King and to have a parliamentary system such as in Britain [a constitutional monarchy]. Now, not all the people in Jordan are in agreement about this demand, but that could change. Our King has lived a lot of years outside, in Britain and America and has experience of their parliaments, their life, their democracy. We haven’t here the same kind of life experience as he has had, but if he can use his clear experience of outside and of inside here in Jordan, it would be better. It’s not right to say that our people, our citizens, are not ready for this democracy, they are ready and they think delaying it any longer will be dangerous, not just for Jordan but for all Arab countries.”

The Wadi-Arabe Treaty with Israel

Nowadays even Israel doesn’t consider the treaty to be still alive, it is now considered a treaty between the strongest country, with a weak country of Arabs. But everything must now be changed. Everyone here in Jordan, every Arab, agrees that as Britain is for Englishmen, Palestine is for Palestinians – including Muslims, Christians, even some Jews – 3000 who previously lived there – we accept those Jews and we accept everyone who lived there one century ago, but we do not accept those who came from Poland, from France, from Britain, from Russia, from everywhere outside - it is not their country. Israelis now believe the end of their state is very near. The Crusades lasted two centuries then they went away, the beginning of change in our land has already started.”

Palestine

“Palestine is now occupied by Israel, and as I said Israelis, themselves believe that they will be dismissed, not this year, maybe not this decade, we don’t know when. Two months ago, 60 days ago could you have expected these events in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya? No. 20 years ago the USSR was the biggest country in the world, and now is divided into 16 or 17 countries. No-one expected it. But now, any reading of history tells us that Israel, especially after declaring that their country is just a Jewish country, cannot last. We have a million and a half Palestinians living there with Israeli citizenship, they are Arabs, they are the original citizens, they are living there, they should have the same rights but actually they do not have the same rights, They have about 6 members in the parliament. Everyone, even the Jewish ones, believe the end of their state is very near.

We have in Jordan 10% Christians – for more than one thousand years. If there was a bad relation between us and the Christians could they still be alive? Could Jews still be alive? No. In Palestine one hundred years, before this zionist project, we had thousands, I am from Palestine, my village the closest village to it was a village of Jewish people and we had good relations with them, before Israel came we had good relations with non-Muslim, with non-religious men and women, of no religion – in the Koran we have a sentence that says there is no obligation to have any religion, that we have to be Muslim or any other thing, there is no obligation for any religion. There is the right to have any creed, any religion, but you don’t have the right to have the country and to make others have your religion. Now Israel says that this is a Jewish country and every Muslim, every Arabic citizen must get out - why? They are the original citizens. Before the Israeli settlers came from Poland, before any one of them came, we were already there and we had relations with the ancient Jewish, no problem.”

Barriers

Given that he feels the meeting with the King was a productive one, and that the King is genuinely committed to introducing the changes necessary for Jordan to move forward with freedom and justice, I asked what barriers he perceives to achieving this. “The new Prime Minister, who has been here for 25 days. In the meeting with the King the Prime Minister promised to do his best, to make real changes everywhere and he told us he wanted 60 days from the beginning of his government to make the real changes, and we are waiting. Half of this time has already passed and we are waiting, our leaders have promised to wait. Although he is ‘known’, we are waiting, to give him the chance to make the changes. Until now I can only see one thing he has done, how to deal with the uprising [the new public assembly laws], you see the police at Al Husseini, this is a new thing. For the rest, we are still waiting...”

This week, I interviewed two more protesters, one from umbrella organisation Zaien, and one a Professor of Economics. Their significantly varying views are will appear in the next few days – stay tuned!

(1) http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_20947-1522-2-30.pdf?101108101423

Julie Webb-Pullman (click to view previous articles) is a New Zealand based freelance writer who has reported for Scoop since 2003. Send Feedback to julie@scoop.co.nz

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