Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Raheem

Question and Answers

Corruption and fraud are a daily occurrence in Jordan where people are enduring austere living standards. This evoked their resentment and led them to seek other ways to make ends meet; thus, smuggling, drug trafficking, bribery, theft and burglary increased. People stood up to the authorities in several areas and the more the government attempted to prevent them from resorting to illicit practices and from breaking the law, the greater their resentment and daring grew. The grandeur of the state dwindled despite frantic attempts to maintain it. This was aggravated by the king’s decision to cancel many handouts that his father used to give to tribal chieftains and some influential figures. The king talked at length about the political saloons and what goes on in terms of scorn and rumours behind which are a handful of the old political milieu that had been intimating the incompetence of the king and his lack of experience. With the king weary of America’s engrossment in finding a rival to him in the country, or to clip his authority, thus turning Jordan into a constitutional monarchy, things just went from bad to worse - people are getting poorer and more resentful of the regime, while the king is becoming paranoid with fear and obsessed with removing the obstacles facing his rule. Hence, whenever the fears of the king grow, his cronies resort to spreading the saga of the “alternative homeland” to divert people’s attention from their wretched reality and to engross them in their animosity towards one another, especially as the remnants of the narrow regional viewpoint, which is alien to awareness and to Shari’ah, lingers on.

14/02/2010

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