Jordan's March 24 Youth Sit-in Violently Dispersed (Videos)

[\"Sit-in until achieving the demands, March 24 Youth.\" Image from unknown archive.] [\"Sit-in until achieving the demands, March 24 Youth.\" Image from unknown archive.]

Jordan's March 24 Youth Sit-in Violently Dispersed (Videos)

By : Jadaliyya Reports

Though unclear as to the exact date of their formation, a group of young Jordanian men and women  came together some time ago calling for a sit-in at Amman`s Dakhilliyyeh Circle (also known as Gamal Abdul-Nasser Circle) to be held on Thursday March 24, 2011. Dubbed "The March 24 Youth," organizers and participants advocated a reformist agenda (see below) while affirming their loyalty to both the Jordanian nation-state and the Hashemites as its royal family. Initially organized through various social network media as well as the Jordanian blogosphere, the sit-in was planned to be open-ended until their demands were met. In the days leading to the sit-in, a Loyalty March was organized to take place on the same day by alleged supporters of King Abudullah II. As the sit-in began to take effect on Thursday, Jordanian police and gendarmerie were deployed, sealing off the traffic to the circle except for cars belonging to the Loyalty March, which was allowed to enter the circle and take up a position facing the March 24 Youth sit-in. While the counter-demonstrators immediately began chanting insults at the sit-in participants, on Friday morning they eventually took to throwing stones and attacking the March 24 Youth. As chaos ensued (or was created), both the police and gendarmerie attacked the protesters, breaking-up the sit-in, dispersing the crowd, beating some participants, while arresting others. There are at least one hundred confirmed injuries in addition to one confirmed death. Following the "clearing" of the Circle, participants in the Loyalty March celebrated with both the police and the gendarmerie the end of the March 24 Youth sit-in. Reports have also surfaced that fifteen members of the Jordanian National Dialogue Committee resigned in response to the treatment of protesters.

Below are English translations [by Ziad Abu-Rish] of two statements issued by the March 24 Youth in the weeks prior to the sit-in. Following the statements are some videos showing different aspect of the sit-in and the attack on it. For more analysis of contemporary politics in Jordan, see Jadaliyya`s "Five Questions on Jordan" and "The Alternative Opposition in Jordan and the Failure to Understand the Lessons of the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions."

Statement from the "March 24 Youth" Facebook page:

Because he who is silent about justice is a mute devil . . .

And because achieving justice is a central demand . . .

And because human dignity is the origin of human life . . .


We are a mixture of free Jordanian young men and women, who are tired of delays and the promise of reform, who see the spread of corruption, the deterioration of the economic situation, the regression of political life, the erasure of freedoms, and the dissolution of the social fabric . . .


We thus declare:


That the people want the reform of the regime


And based on this, we demand:


1- a parliament that represents the people

 

2- an elected national government

 

3- real constitutional reforms

 

4- prosecuting those who are corrupt

 

5- reforming the tax system

 

6- lifting the security grip

 

7- realizing national unity


And we invite you oh young men and women of Jordan to participate in an open sit-in to demand our rights on Thursday April 24 / 12 o`clock in the afternoon / at the Dakhillliyyeh Circle in the capital Amman


We will be there, so be with us.



Statement from "March 24 Youth" after rumors circulated that the sit-in would be canceled:


With all the passion for freedom, that human value that is invaluable, with out which souls and riches are cheapened, our eyes yearn for twelve o`clock in the afternoon on Thursday to begin, from the Dakhilliyyeh Circle, making the change that the youth of Jordan dream of: "a civilian state, not a security state."


Campaigns of skepticism, incitement, and intimidation will not deter us. Our engagement and commitment cannot be dispersed by iron. Our will is as solid as the just truth that  that we call for. We are not amateurs to be distracted from our esteemed goals by the attempts of the enemies of freedom and their minions, nor by the hearsay of those that shiver.


Oh free Jordanians, our sit-in is peaceful and civilized and holds an esteemed value (dignity, freedom, and democracy). Our demands are legitimate and do not bare postponement. We will confront violence, thuggery, persecution, and threats with the strength of freedom. We will repel procrastination, delay, and attempts to fool Jordanians through sacrificing our time, efforts, and self-interests for the sake of the Jordanians, who deserve a system of good governance.

 

Various Videos

Early stages of the March 24 sit-in as people gathered, some to participate and others to observe:

 

Counter-protesters from the Loyalty March (left side) chanting insults at members of the March 24 Youth (right side):

 

Police and gendarmerie "dispersing" participants of the sit-in as well as observers. Man behind the camera is cheering on the beating of different participants/observers:

 

Members of the Loyalty March, balatagiyyeh, and members of both the police and gendarmerie celebrating the end of the sit-in:

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412