(Your Voice in a World where Zionism, Steel, and Fire have
turned Justice Mute)

by Ibrahim Alloush
translated from the original Arabic text by Muhammad Abu Nasr

This past November could perhaps be called Jordan's month of qualitative escalation of the government offensive against Jordanian institutions of civil society that are independent of the West.

Although this offensive began a long time before Ramadan, a qualitative change in the way that the government dealt with these groups became apparent just on the eve of the Muslim holy month as military and legal forces were brought to bear on the organizations themselves. The attack struck at the causes, rather than limiting itself to the previous practice of banning specific outcomes that the government regarded as being contrary to its policies - such as when it prohibited marches or canceled lectures. Yet the objective result of this offensive is to weaken and tear up the fabric of a specific type of civil power that lies outside the direct control of the state (such as trade unions, Bedouin tribes, and peaceful, public opposition associations and individuals).

The state would like this destruction to be complete, yet it is precisely this which must inevitably lead to a transformation of the political and social terrain in the country in a way that will ultimately help to weaken the Jordanian state in the long run. The measures that the state is taking today, regardless of the intentions that might lie behind them, serve to undermine the Jordanian state itself as will be shown below.

The qualitatively new offensive on the part of the government against the institutions of civil society were initiated by the government without any immediate provocation or cause from the other side that the authorities might have interpreted as a sweeping threat to itself. No major demonstrations, marches, or protests took place to provoke such a crackdown. The first blow in the offensive came on 28 October 2002 when the government decreed that the Jordanian Association for the Rights of the Citizen, headed by Dr. Fawzi al-Samhouri, was dissolved. The underlying reason for this decree was the fact that the Jordanian Association for the Rights of the Citizen had championed the cause of Jordanians, living inside and outside the country, who have been illegally deprived of their Jordanian citizenship. Such people number a thousand and several hundred and no one is concerned with their plight according to the lists presented by the Association to the competent authorities.

Indeed, the government presented legal justification for the dissolution of the Jordanian Association for the Rights of the Citizen, and the Association replied with detailed legal rebuttals. It would have been possible for the government to resolve any pending legal difficulties, if there were any, with the Association without resorting to a final decree of dissolution. But the decree was issued none the less, demonstrating that it was basically political and not legal in nature, and that there was no room for amicable settlement of any problems.

What is important here is to note that subsequent events have demonstrated that the decree on dissolving the Jordanian Association for the Rights of the Citizen was in fact a practical test of strength. After taking that step, the government determined that any reaction to the further measures that it was planning to take would be weak. Those subsequent measures - such as the attacks on the City of Maan and on the Union of Professional Associations - had been necessarily well thought out in advance, as is evidenced by the fact that they did not take place as a response to any specific actions which the government might have regarded as provocative. Those measures were taken, rather, as part of a project to rearrange the domestic political landscape.

The subsequent government actions in November were aimed at weakening the civil social forces opposed to the government's policies, specifically on the matter of normalization of relations with "Israel" and improved ties with the United States - whatever legal justifications might have been given for those actions.

Readers of the field report from Maan in the local edition of the Jordanian weekly, "as-Sabeel", (pp. 6 and 7, 26 November 2002) know that the confrontation there took the form of a battle with the Bedouin tribes of Maan, and that the Maanites "roused tribal spirit and took advantage of it when they found oppression and injustice being inflicted upon their members for no reason". The journal reported that "three tribal meeting halls belonging to the Al Khattab clan were raided", that the "nearby houses that had been evacuated by their residents after the events were also damaged", and that hundreds of tribal youths were arrested or are still in custody". All of this indicates that the aim of the operations in Maan was to shatter an indigenous socio-political power center in Jordan, one that is opposed to the regime's improved relations with "Israel" and America, on the eve of the expected American attack on Iraq.

The aim of the crackdown on Maan was not, as was officially stated, the pursuit of a gang of drug smugglers - a claim that nobody believes, apart from a few hack writers in the media (the "Rapid deployment writers") and a few leaders of "opposition" parties. Rumors in the streets, in fact, held that the weapons that the government confiscated in Maan were some of those that the Maanites had been providing to the Palestinian Intifada fighters, and that Maan had been a weigh station on a route for smuggling arms into Palestine - something that the people of Maan quite possibly might have been involved in, given their sense of honor and duty and deeply rooted Arab and Islamic loyalties.

Politically, however, the attack on Maan is not simply a message to anyone who might decide to take to the streets in Jordan to protest an American attack on Iraq - indeed one official said essentially that "Maan is a message to other regions of Jordan". An examination of all the month's events taken together indicates that Maan was part of a broad effort aimed at striking centers of power in Jordan that uphold national principles and at the same time remain outside the control of the state - which certainly does not mean, of course, that they are in any way illegal.

There were other signs in November that the government's aim is to suppress the independent civil social currents. One such example was a recent emergency law that allows the government to appoint the chairman and half the members of municipal councils. Along similar lines, the government has for some time appointed half the members of student councils in the [public] universities.

Then there was the arrest and detention of Laith Shubeilat, the president of the Association against Zionism and Racism, three times during the second half of November, without his having been engaged in any "provocative" actions or street demonstrations. The government also never charged him with anything, other than that he has openly defended the wounded city of Maan. Such developments indicate that the government is serious not only about curtailing the freedom of expression but that it wants to contain every center of social civil power that refuses to march to the American drum.

As is known, the last of this cluster of events occurred on 28 November 2002 when a series of government decrees dissolved the Council of the Union of Engineers, based on a ruling by the Supreme Court, whereupon the government appointed a new Council for the Union of Engineers in its place. The decrees also declared that the Governing Council and the Committees against Normalization with "Israel" in the Union of Professional Associations were "illegal organizations", in accordance with a decree by the Council of Ministers' Committee on Legal Interpretation - that is the executive authority. Similarly, all subcommittees in the Union of Professional Associations which embraced political causes, such as the Liberties committee, for example, were henceforth deemed illegal.

Once again, legalistic claims cannot obscure the new political orientation of the government aimed at breaking up the social civil forces opposed to the American course. Furthermore, if our reading of the situation is correct, the cases of the Governing Council and the Anti-Normalization Committees are still liable to further negative treatment despite the release of Ali Abu Sukkar, Maysara Miliss, and Badi al-Rufayi'a - all leading members of the Anti-Normalization Committees - after 53 days in prison without legal justification.

The government, hence, with its new orientation on destroying social civil forces opposed to the American line and normalization with the Zionist enemy, is actually undermining the Jordanian state itself on the strategic level, even if the government has made some tactical gains as it silences opposition voices, thus relieving itself of the the "headache" they might have been causing it.

This is because one of the aspects of globalism today relies on the strengthening of non-governmental organizations that are funded from abroad, and making other social civil institutions - such as trade unions and professional associations, for example - dependent politically, through foreign funding. In this way, these bodies can, by virtue of their global ties, replace the third world state in the social and political roles that it has hitherto played. This rise of globalized civil organizations can facilitate the integration of the country into a dependent relationship with the world capitalist system led by the United States.

Consequently, the weakening of social civil institutions that are independent of American projects and which oppose normalization with "Israel" will open the way to foreign-financed organizations to play a greater role. It will prepare the way for the American and European project aimed at linking Jordan's social civil organizations, through their programs and organizationally, to the outside. This in turn can only serve gradually to marginalize the Jordanian state, since it will not be able to deal with the organizations and personalities that enjoy the protection of foreign donors in the same repressive spirit that it has been dealing with the current independent Jordanian social civil forces. Any such attempts would be met with a sharply reduced flow of funds and the threat of a total cut off - as has happened in the case of Saad ed-Din Ibrahim and others in Egypt. We can say, furthermore, that the 42 percent increase in foreign aid to Jordan in the year 2002 over the previous year is part of this trend, the trend of tying Jordan more and more to the American project politically, and to the globalist project economically, the trend of weakening the social civil forces that are independent of the American project in favor of the forces that are dependent upon it.

As to the Bedouin tribes, their power must be broken up and their role must be curtailed since they are a force that has come to stand outside the political trend of this new plan. This, however, poses a threat to the stability of the Jordanian state at its very base as it falls in line behind a project that, ultimately, seeks to destroy it - as the globalist project seeks to destroy all independent states.

This is what must concern the Jordanian state. As to the social civil forces that are independent of the American project, they must realize that what they are dealing with is not just a number of specific government policies, but a strategic plan aimed at their obliteration as a part of the implementation of the American project for the entire Arab region.