Mr. Hakel Makes Some Observations

Blog 18 July 22, 2010
Two days in one
We are in the middle of our visits to various locations in Amman listening to various presentations on aspects of Jordanian life. About half of these visits are quite memorable, which isn’t that bad a rate at all actually. It does mean that half of them aren’t memorable, but I won’t burden you, the reader, with anything more than the knowledge that they exist.
Yesterday’s highpoint was a visit to the National Center for Human Rights. This center is one of 110 around the world and is currently the chair of the Asian-Pacific region. They hope to be named world-wide chair this coming spring. The center is funded by the Jordanian government, but there is no oversight of the personnel, the budget, or even government auditing of the center. It is independent. The center receives and investigates reports of human rights violations in Jordan. We met with an exceptionally dignified older man who turned out to be the Director General of the organization. His degree is from Purdue. He taught at University of Wisconsin. He became a dean and then a university president. He served as Jordanian ambassador to several European countries and served as a minister in his Majesty King Abdullah II’s government. I did say “exceptionally dignified”. I’ll go as far as saying he has gravitas, actually… he reminds me of my dad. He discussed the activities of the center and answered questions for an hour and a half. (The Commisioner General, not my dad.)
We’ve discussed the subject of honor crimes with several different people both before and after our arrival in Jordan. He presented to us a wrinkle that had not been mentioned on the subject. Honor killings in Arabic countries are killings made by a father, son, brother of a female family member who is believed to have besmirched the family’s honor by having sexual relations outside of wedlock. In order to restore the family’s honor, the parents may encourage one of the sons to murder his sister. Up until about one year ago in Jordan this crime carried a six-month prison sentence. (You read that right. Six months.) The law has been changed, with the urging of a number of different organizations including the center and our embassy, to a minimum of seven years. It also set up a separate court to deal with these cases so that the law is administered by the same judges in all cases. The wrinkle that the commissioner general added to our knowledge was that many of the dead girls had been proven afterwards, during an autopsy, to be virgins and that the real motivation was to solve what some men saw as inheritance problems. The killer’s sister was going to inherit more than her brother thought she should. Horrifying. This happens in Jordan, but at a lesser rate than any other Arabic country. There had been no claims of honor killings in Jordan in 2010 until three weeks ago. There are now three.
At the conclusion of our session, I talked with the second in command in the office for awhile. I asked him what he attributed Jordan’s relative stability in “a sea of troublemakers”. He replied that the credit belongs to the king and that “he is a wise man.” This is not the first time I’ve heard this sort of comment, but hearing it from this man, in this office and in this position carries a considerable amount of weight for me.
Today’s most highlight was a visit to the Ministry of Political Development. The discussion was in a rather swank conference room on the top floor of the ministry’s headquarters. We learned about Jordan’s efforts to build a functioning democracy within the monarchy in the style of any number of European countries. I honestly believe that these efforts are genuine on the King’s part and are proceeding at a reasonable pace. A major hurdle for Jordan is the relative lack of civic support. The most active, best funded and therefore strongest political party is the Islamic Action Front and just the name tells you all you need to know about this group. The speakers did not pass judgment on any of the parties they discussed, but did say that beyond this one party, the other 17 are far behind in terms of funding/organization. The discussion was interesting, but the fact that the minister himself was giving it. If we had been in the U.S., it would have been the equivalent of having a briefing from the head of the Federal Elections Commission. Way cool.
I’ll update this blog with the names of these people, but my brain is not yet conditioned enough to retain Arabic names for more than an hour or so. To compensate, I’ve been taking notes, but I don’t have my notes with me. Sigh. It’s always something with me. ;)
Just a few side notes…
• David found out the hard way that taking pictures of an ambassador’s residence is frowned upon. After explaining to the seven police officers with machine guns and the Chilean ambassador himself, that he didn’t know he was taking a picture of an ambassador’s house they seemed to feel better. Especially after he deleted the pictures.
• Jordanian Food. The food is almost always very good. There are many, many things I very much like. The problem for me is repetition. The chicken fest continues, the lamb that interrupts from time to time is quite welcome, but is beginning to lose its novelty as well. That being said there are a few things that must, at all costs be avoided. Number one on this list is the yoghurt sauce that is poured over the top of the Jordanian national dish, mansaf. The yoghurt that wasn’t poured over the top was offered to us by the glass one night. Not wishing to be rude, I sampled the yellow-white slightly thick liquid. It was the worst thing I’ve ever voluntarily had in my mouth. Zach coined the term that we all call it to this day. If any Jordanian offers you a glass of meat yoghurt the polite reply is, “La’a Shukraan.”
• Also, at least in Amman, it turns out that an internet café is probably the last place you should try to access the internet. Dave, apparently the most adventurous amongst us, was seeking a place to upload some pictures. After five stops and no internet, but still costing him a few dinar, he visited a café where the internet worked fine, but the price of his milkshake went up as his time on the internet continued. He was eventually able to leave paying around 8 bucks for the milkshake which included an apparently traditional, but heretofore unknown milkshake tableside delivery surcharge.
• Also try to avoid confusing a suspected miniature golf course with a mosque. Sara mistook the bright green carpet on a mosque floor for the first hole of an indoor miniature golf course. Fortunately, she realized her error just before she took her second shot. I mean before she walked in.
• If you forgot something in your hotel room, that you want to retrieve withing say thirty seconds or so of having checked out, it might just be best to forget about it. Josh, my roommate, decided he did in fact want the yoghurt he had just left behind in our room. When he returned to the room the young man from housekeeping had just finished smacking his lips.
• When doing laundry in a hotel room, do not, repeat do not hang it to dry above any electronic devices like say, an Ipod Touch. Don’t ask.
• The most popular spectator/participant sport in Jordan is driving. Accidents are not as common as you’d think though. You drive with the expectation that the truck on your right is about to turn left. That being said I was in a “traffic” accident in Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum you might recall is a huge desert. It turns out the accident was as inevitable as the sun setting at night. If you only have three motor vehicles in say, one hundred square miles, two of the three will collide. It is inevitable.

Salaam,

Dad/Lane/Mr. Hakel