Letter From Jordan

June 6, 2005 11:11 PM

At a time when several Arab regimes are at least feinting toward political reform, Jordan is goose-stepping backward. Freedom of assembly has been restricted, and the threshold for dissent has been ratcheted down as political prisoners accumulate and oppositionists are rattled out of bed for interrogation. Journalists have been intimidated or bribed into spying on colleagues and sources. Street demonstrations have been all but eliminated by laws that require protesters to carry permits that are prohibitively difficult to obtain... Corruption, defiantly uninhibited compared with the low-key looting that percolated under the late King Hussein, has soared. And although diplomats tend to absolve Abdullah of wrongdoing--he is deceived, they imply, by courtiers scheming behind his back--a growing number of Jordanians believe that the 43-year-old monarch is not only aware of the plundering but may be very much a part of it.

Letter From Jordan
posted by y2karl (5 comments total)

Mahmoud [...]says he wrote "Saray" out of concern that Jordan's vertiginous corruption threatens the integrity, and perhaps the very survival, of the monarchy.

Kinda off topic, but I love the image of someone concerned that their monarchy may be losing its integrity. I actually mean that in earnest - it's a good reminder that people all over the world are concerned about things too often associated with western-style republics, and that not everyone wants those western-style republics.

But I still think it's kinda funny.
posted by freebird at 11:50 PM on June 6, 2005

Possibly a hopeful development. Sounds like somebody padding out his Swiss bank account in anticipation of having to leave in a hurry.
posted by jfuller at 4:05 AM on June 7, 2005

Freedom and democracy is on the march in the Middle East. Even in Lebanon, where Hezbollah won a very large number of seats in elections this week. Now, which radical groups will win in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia? OK, just joking about Saudi Arabia, we all know it is and will continue to be ruled by tyrant diatators.
posted by nofundy at 5:03 AM on June 7, 2005

Damn, that's depressing. Thanks for posting this, y2karl. It's not the kind of news that gets much play.

Minor linguistic quibble:
Charges of corruption have even tainted Jordan's awqaf, the charitable trust that in Islamic countries is an important source of finance for social welfare programs.
Awqaf is a plural form; the singular is waqf.
posted by languagehat at 9:55 AM on June 7, 2005

Any numbers on this?

It's kind of hard to really understand what's going on other then that it's "worse". How much "worse"? How much "harder" is it to protest?
posted by delmoi at 10:47 AM on June 7, 2005