Dallying with Reform in a Divided Jordan

[Image from ICG.org] [Image from ICG.org]

Dallying with Reform in a Divided Jordan

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following is the latest from the International Crisis Group (ICG) on Jordan.]

Popular Protest in North Africa and the Middle East (IX): Dallying with Reform in a Divided Jordan

Middle East Report No. 118
12 March 2012

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Something is brewing in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It is not so much that protests have been spreading since 2011; the country has experienced these before and so far they remain relatively small. It is, rather, who is behind them and from where dissatisfaction stems. East Bankers – Jordanians who inhabited the area before the arrival of the first Palestinian refugees in 1948 – have long formed the pillar of support for a regime that played on their fears concerning the Palestinian-origin majority. That pillar is showing cracks. The authorities retain several assets: popular anxiety about instability; U.S. and Gulf Arab political and material support; and persistent intercommunal divisions within the opposition. But in a fast-changing region, they would be reckless to assume they can avoid both far-reaching change and turmoil. Ultimately, they must either undertake the former one or experience the latter.

The season of Arab uprisings neither engulfed Jordan nor entirely passed it by. Frustration had begun to bubble up in 2010; the following year, a series of protests of modest size but not modest significance brought together a wide popular spectrum: East Bankers, but also citizens of Palestinian origin, Islamists as well as unaffiliated youth. Those who took to the streets had various grievances, but at their core they were expressing anger with the state of the economy, ostentatious corruption, unaccountability and the concentration of power in the hands of the few.

In the past, it was relatively easy for the monarchy to play on a fault line that has come to define the Jordanian polity, that separating East Bankers from Palestinian Jordanians. The former believe they are the country’s genuine inhabitants and fear usurpation of their traditional dominance by the more numerous citizens of Palestinian origin. Their support for the monarchy has stemmed in part from their over-representation in the public sector, the security services and – by dint of gerrymandered electoral districting – parliament. Conversely, Palestinian Jordanians have felt marginalised, shut out from key state positions and at times treated as disloyal; the memory of the bloody 1970 civil war in which Palestinian groups were defeated by regime forces also informs their perception of central authorities and contributes to a lingering sense of exclusion.

Divisions between the two communities have economic, social and political overtones: East Bankers generally are rural, while Palestinian-Jordanians typically hail from urban centres; the former dominate the public sector, the latter are present in private businesses; and the powerful Islamist movement tends to be more Palestinian-Jordanian than East Banker. This time, too, as protests developed, underlying communal tensions did not go unnoticed. East Bankers at times portrayed Palestinian-Jordanians as greedy capitalists, unpatriotic citizens or worrying Islamists. In turn, Palestinian-Jordanians have been skittish about taking the lead in demonstrations, fearful of a nationalist backlash.

Today, however, it has become much trickier for the regime to contain the protests by dividing the protesters. East Bankers increasingly are fed up too. Their rural strongholds have suffered from the near collapse of the agricultural sector and sharply curtailed public spending that began in the 1990s. Their habitual source of strength – their ties to the state – has been severely damaged by the wave of privatisations that began in the mid-1990s as well as by sky-rocketing (and largely unpunished) high-level corruption. The net result of both dynamics has been to shift resources away from them and toward a new, narrow private sector elite with privileged access to the palace. As a result, many East Bankers have reached the conclusion that addressing their economic grievances will require political change, including deep constitutional and electoral reform. At the same time, the powerful Islamist movement has shown itself to be pragmatic in its demands.

This has not erased communal divisions; to an extent, it reinforces them, as East Bankers can blame their hardships on corruption and privatisation, which they associate with the largely Palestinian urban economic elites. But it has undermined the regime and led to unprecedented attacks by its East Banker, rural and tribal constituency. Some cross-communal coalitions have emerged around specific demands for political reform, challenging the hegemony of identity politics. Most East Bankers and Palestinian-Jordanians are still not united in their anger, but they are simultaneously angry. That is a start.

The regime has responded in time-honoured fashion. The king has shuffled cabinets and then shuffled them again, using prime ministers as buffers to absorb popular discontent. He has charged committees to explore possible reforms, but these remain largely unimplemented. Too, the authorities appear to have sought to exacerbate communal antagonisms. Several demonstrations have been attacked by individuals resorting to explicitly divisive slogans and seeking to stir up anti-Palestinian feelings or, in some cases, inter-tribal rivalry. The regime has resisted creating independent investigations, making it hard to establish authorship. But the level of organisation and the fact that thugs were neither arrested nor held to account raises suspicions.

So far, this mix of tactics arguably has worked. Protesters have failed to reach critical mass, and images from Syria almost certainly dampen the appeal of a protest movement, lest it trigger chaos. But these are poor substitutes for tackling the causes of anger. A far wiser course would be to deal seriously with the issues that unite all those – East Bankers and Palestinian-Jordanians alike – whose impatience is fast growing. A credible electoral reform that provides fairer representation of urban centres would be a huge start. While some East Bankers are reluctant to see urban areas acquire greater political weight, increased government attention to rural socio-economic needs would go a long way in allaying those fears. Other steps would resonate widely: narrowing the State Security Court’s jurisdiction (before ultimately abolishing the institution altogether); ensuring tangible accountability for corruption and human rights violations; granting genuine powers to parliament by giving it a lead role in choosing the prime minister; establishing an elected Senate; and ending – or at least dramatically reducing – the political role of unelected bodies, the security services prime among them.

There is always the temptation for the regime to wait and to postpone. But the gradual disaffection of the monarchy’s core constituency coupled with efforts to unify opposition ranks by transcending debilitating divisions could portend a new chapter in the Arab uprisings’ unfolding drama. And by then, it would be too late.

Amman/Brussels, 12 March 2012

[Click here to download the full ICG report.]

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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