Reckless Abandon Under Control

Last night I went over to my dear colleague Reem’s house in Amman for the second year in a row for Thanksgiving. About 18 people, family and family friends, gathered for this American-style Thanksgiving. Last year I wrote in a blog entry about my first time for Thanksgiving with Reem’s family:

Reem’s mother and father have lived in Georgia, in the United States, for a long time, and just this fall moved back for awhile to Jordan to be with Reem’s grandmother, her sweet and feisty 90-year old Tateh. So Reem’s mother and father know of Thanksgivings.

Julianne and I come over to Reem’s family’s house, and the mother is putting the finishing touches on a splendid meal. She has a schedule on the refrigerator of when to get everything done—ahhh…a woman after my own heart—and has it all mapped out. Soon the guests arrive—Reem’s aunts and family friends for decades spill into the apartment. The dishes spill out of the kitchen, the two kinds of stuffing, an American-style and an Arab-style stuffing, broccoli salad, beets, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and a beautiful turkey. We gather round and hold hands, and Reem’s father offers a stirring prayer. He thanks God for our blessings and abundance and gratitude for flourishing lives. While I know really well only two other people in the room—Reem and Julianne—I am surrounded by a loving family and devoted friends and a sense of sincere thanks. It may not be my blood family, but in this moment of food and thanks, it fills the void. This is a family that has had to be peripatetic: they had to leave Palestine in 1948 and then they left Lebanon and many have left Jordan to America. But through it all, these ties of family and friends have obviously sustained them.

So last night before we go to dig into the wondrous bounty of Reem’s mother’s food, we stood and sang the “Doxology,” and Reem’s father offered a prayer again. This year he added a new feature of thanksgiving: gratitude that Jordan was safe and managing the volatility around it and coursing through it. It was obvious from the vibe in the room how important this note thanksgiving and stability for their beloved Jordan was.

In the last two weeks I have received a number of emails and calls wondering about my safety and what was happening in Jordan. I decided I needed to discuss what I thought was going on, and I remembered the sermon title from last week’s meditation at the church I attend. The speaker entitled his sermon, “Reckless Abandon Under Control,” and discussed how we needed to discern God’s timeline for the trajectory of our lives. As I listened to the sermon, I kept thinking about that title—is this an accurate statement about the events and situation in Jordan right now???

If you read The Economist or almost any other political journalist, or listen to reports on the news, they all seem to claim that Jordan is in upheaval—maybe even finished. It sounds so strange to read that when each day of the week we go about our business at school of educating adolescents. It seems so normal! Now, granted, I live in a bit of a “bubble,” 30 minutes by car to Amman, and behind walls (in case you have ever wondered, once you are on campus, you never see the walls) protected by security guards. But each day hundreds of students and teachers and workers come on campus, and go about the quotidian tasks of a school. So when I look at the news reports, this upheaval seems about as far away to me as if I were back in Cincinnati.

But I don’t want to sound as if I have just buried my head in the sand—there are problems coursing through the veins of this kingdom on the fault lines of Middle East tension and trauma. Let’s leave Gaza alone in this blog entry—I just want to explore what is happening in Jordan.

Almost two weeks ago the government announced that the price of gasoline and home heating oil would be going up. (It is helpful to put in perspective the hike: as I understand it the cost of the heating oil rose from 6 JDs to 10 JDs. Even if you don’t know a JD from Jasmine plant, you can appreciate the significant rise in price.) There were fairly aggressive protests in various places throughout the kingdom about the price hikes and worries over whether or not this would become another Middle Eastern government toppled. This comes after the violent civil war in neighboring Syria which has sent between 100,000 and 200,000 refugees fleeing into Jordan.

I am not saying it has been an easy year for Jordan, but I do think the reports of the demise of the kingdom of Jordan are greatly exaggerated. (Thank you Mr. Twain for that sardonic comment!)

As an outsider I can’t decide if I have more insight since it is not my homeland, or so much less insight because I just don’t get it. I can’t change my outsider status, so here are my observations about the current situation in Jordan: the King has a substantial legacy of legitimacy in Jordan, both spiritually and politically and diplomatically, with a population dependent on the government for many things. Price hikes are unpopular, yes, but the monarchy has a legitimacy with the people. Many people revere King Hussein (who died in 1999) more than you can imagine. The police in Jordan are not seen as a joke or as torturers. About 20 months ago when I went down to watch a “protest” I noticed how as men marched by, police handed out bottles of water. The police, as I see it, is not the sharp end of the stick of a dictatorial regime. Jordan is not like Syria, Iraq, Libya, Egypt or Yemen. Given the number of protests, there have been few deaths. These determinedly non-violent protests often result in counter-protests of Jordanians driving around waving their flag, shouting support for the King, and praising Jordan.

Moreover, Jordanians treasure their peace and stability. They take enormous pride in being an oasis of calm in a desert of volatility and violence.

Ahhh…but let’s not be naïve. Could all of this crumble? Of course it could, but it seems unlikely to me. For every protest and the burning of tires and yelling, there is also vocal disgust for the vandalism and lack of understanding about economies. But, but, but, my historian’s mind reels with other examples of this, from Paris to St. Petersburg to Tunisia, etc. Let me not try and predict the future, but let’s look at some of the real problems facing Jordan:

Number 1—the situation in Syria and the threat of a violent spill-over that could destabilize Jordan. But one thing I have noted is that it would not surprise me if that kind of external stress would not actually galvanize Jordanians in a powerful way. The typical tension of East Bank Jordanians and Jordanian Palestinians could be transcended by such a threat.

Number 2—I have heard the phrase “fiscal cliff” a thousand times in the American press recently about our economic woes. Talk about your fiscal cliffs—well, Jordan is at that precipice. The budget is far overdrawn, like by billions, and the government needs cash and worries about the future of more loans. Hence the price hikes in fuel. But there is so much economic investment in Jordan from countries from around the world that I wonder if they would just sit idly by. Or do I sound like the surprised college sophomore whose father must finally rein in the reckless spending habits???

Long, long ago when I taught Economics in my first school, the Latin phrase Ceteris paribus came up regularly in the study of economics. The phrase literally translated means “all other things being equal or held constant.” That phrase may be why I didn’t like teaching economics! How silly is it to try and think of things being constant. The study of History, on the other hand, if it is done well, is about the utter lack of constancy, and the mess of history and trying to deal with and understand the stew of simultaneity.

So that’s where I am about Jordan. I think the fatalist tantrums are overstated. But all of these scenarios for the future involve a certain tendency to follow the past. The government has done well in going to various tribes and having tea and coffee and straightening out messes. The king has looked at his neighbors and learned from their mistakes. The protests have fizzled away. The police have managed to keep the protests from getting really out of hand. People have loaned Jordan money. The easy prey that Jordan seems to be in this pivot of the Middle East has not swept away the monarchy and its substantially stable government.

In my judgment the protests have seemed a reckless abandon, but one that is under control.

What will come next? I think that again requires the careful consideration, the prayer, the discernment and the wisdom of what the timeline reveals. The stakes are high. As Reem’s father offered thanks for our health and our bounty, I also join him in his prayers for the stability and future of this Middle Eastern kingdom, my home for the last 65 months.