Foreign Policy Blogs

Good King Abdullah

Good King Abdullah

Amman is a vast, sprawling metropolis, but not very exciting. A map of the city looks like the cross section of an enormous anthill, with curving roads criss-crossing each other and leading nowhere in particular. It was an epic hassle to get to our hotel – do no Jordanian taxi drivers know how to read a map? Granted the map we were showing them was a picture from Google Maps saved on a dying laptop, but it clearly pointed to the street where the hotel was. Our driver stopped another taxi and they discussed the situation, which mostly entailed studying the map with confused expressions and asking us if we had some other information that would help. As if a map clearly marking the hotel’s location wasn’t enough? I didn’t understand – they were taxi drivers, this is their city, the map was in Arabic…why don’t you know how to get from here to there! Such is life in Amman.

Downtown is monotonous. Shawarma and falafel shops are sprinkled throughout the sleepy streets, and almost every other store sells the same goods – clothes, mostly knockoffs from China, electronics from years ago in faded boxes, soccer memorabilia, various knick-knacks. The one redeeming part of the downtown area was closed (it was nighttime) – the old city, which contains a huge Roman coliseum and other ruins. We peered through a chain link fence at the giant stadium, dimly lit by the surrounding city. The long shadows and our outsider’s perspective emphasized the chasm between we travelers and this strange city, where history is hidden behind fences, taxi drivers can’t find their way around, and the city center seems stuck in the 90s.

We met four American students at a shawarma stand one night. They’d been there for two months, teaching English. What do you do at night, we asked. “Chill out, experience the nightlife.” What nightlife? We looked around. They smiled. There is none.

Or taxi driver later that night was talkative. “You hear this! Libya.” He pointed to the radio. “BBC Arabic. I listen all day. Libya bad. Gaddafi very bad.” He looked over at me in the passenger seat, and frowned. I agreed, not knowing what I could say that he would understand. It was silent for a moment. What about here? I pointed down at the floor of the car, and the highway underneath. Protests here, like in Egypt or Libya? “No.” He shook his head firmly. “Jordan okay. King Abdullah, good king!”

Good King Abdullah

King Abdullah II began his reign of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in February 1999 after the death of his father, King Hussein. Robert Fisk calls the Hashemites “a family of loss,” and he is not wrong. Abdullah’s great-great-grandfather Hussein was the emir of the province of Hejaz, in present day Saudi Arabia, but was driven out by an Islamic fundamentalist movement – the Wahhabis, loyal to the al-Saud family. Abdullah’s great-grandfather, also Abdullah, was appointed emir of Transjordan by Winston Churchill after WWI. Abdullah the elder had wanted to rule in Palestine but the European powers had other ideas. His brother Faisal, expelled from Damascus by the French in 1920, became king of Iraq.

After the creation of Israel in 1948 Abdullah I annexed the West Bank of the Jordan River while the rest of Palestine became part of Israel. In Baghdad in 1958 Faisal II (grandson of Abdullah I’s brother) was murdered in a coup d’état that brought the Ba’ath party to power. In 1967 the Hashemites of Jordan joined with Syria and Egypt in the disastrous war with Israel, and were driven out of East Jerusalem and the West Bank by the victorious Israelis. Thus, in less than fifty years, the Hashemites lost the Hejaz, all of Palestine, and Iraq.

The territory of Hashemite Jordan that remains today stretches from the Jordan River in the northwest to Aqaba on the Red Sea in the south, and borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the east. It is mostly desert: only 4% of the land is arable, and only 1% forest. I can personally attest to seeing nothing but desert, rock, and scattered shepherds with their flocks between Amman and Petra – a three-hour drive. Jordan has been called “as artificial a country as the British ever invented,” and in 1957, John Foster Dulles said it had “no justification as a state.” But King Hussein, who ruled as absolute monarch from age seventeen to his death in 1999, managed to hold on to what he had through an often bewildering combination of allegiance, intelligence, shrewd strategy, and a propensity to shock.

The ascension of Abdullah the younger to the throne in 1999 was a complicated affair. Hussein’s brother Hassan, crown prince of Jordan for thirty-four years, was relieved of that role after rumors spread of him planning a coup – he was accused of trying to fire the chief of staff of the army and allowing his wife to change the carpets of the royal palace in anticipation of becoming queen. Both stories seem to be untrue. He presented himself to King Hussein saying, “How have I offended you? Here is my gun. If I have been disloyal to you, please shoot me – but do not disgrace me.” Hussein reassured him but then presented him with a letter of dismissal at the end of January 1999. Hussein’s son Abdullah was now crown prince.

Since assuming the throne Abdullah has proven a more adept economic manager than his father. Hussein often used the treasury, which was filled almost entirely by foreign countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the U.S., as a personal bank account and source for patronage. Abdullah pursued a more balanced economic strategy. He set up a free trade zone in Aqaba and five other special economic zones across the country. According to the Financial Times, Amman is the sixth most cost-effective city in the Middle East, and it only sits behind cities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the capital of Bahrain as the most attractive destination for direct foreign investment. Since Abdullah took the throne, real GDP growth has averaged 7% and per capita GDP more than doubled.

Unfortunately, these rosy indicators hide an uncertain and unbalanced economic future. The service industry accounts for over 70% of GDP and more than 75% of jobs. Meanwhile, 35% of the population is under fourteen years old, and the unemployment rate is probably near 30%. The global recession didn’t make things any better — GDP growth slowed to 2.3% in 2009.

Worse still, political corruption did not die with King Hussein. In 1998, Transparency International rated Jordan thirty-eighth out of eighty-five in the Corruption Perceptions Index. Today, they are fiftieth. The few anti-government protesters that have turned out on the streets of Amman cited government corruption as one of their main complaints. In response, Abdullah dismissed his cabinet on February 1, instructing the new ministers to “correct the mistakes of the past.”

However, Jordan has largely escaped the turmoil sweeping the rest of the Middle East and North Africa. One of the most important differences between protests in Jordan and those in Cairo, Sanaa, or Damascus is no one in Jordan is calling for King Abdullah to step down. Jordanians like their monarch. They want him to reform, not depart. As long as his promises of economic and political reform are serious, it looks like a Hashemite king will continue to rule over part of the Middle East for some time to come.

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Good King Abdullah

Near the old Roman coliseum is a small workshop where a generation of knife-makers have quietly churned out beautiful silver daggers. We were treated to a demonstration. “This is the same kind as we made for King Abdullah,” said the middle-aged artisan who was showing us how to decorate the hilt of a steel knife. “The photo is just over there. But that one is a little different – made of silver.” He was proud that his family’s workshop had produced a knife for the king of Jordan. I asked if he was a good king. “Yes.” He gave a thumbs up. “King Abdullah, good king.” Turning back to the photo, I couldn’t help thinking he doesn’t look very king-like. Once again it seems looks aren’t a good judge of policy.