First of all, before we go into the story at
all, let’s get one thing straight. “King” Abdullah of Jordan is a dictator. The
Western media calls him a king, to somehow make him look better than and not as
cruel as the word “dictator” sounds. They do this because Abdullah is an ally
of the U.S., (a.k.a does whatever the U.S. tells him to do in exchange for political,
economic and military support), and as per U.S. policy, our allies never do
anything wrong, ever.
Let’s
not kid ourselves here. Abdullah has absolute power over Jordan. He can
dissolve anyone in the government at any time for any reason. He is not
elected; he inherited his title. He is not held accountable for anything he
does; neither the parliament nor the constitution can check or balance his
powers at all. He received $1.02 billion dollars from the U.S. in
military aid in 2009, $843 million in 2010, and an estimated $682 million
in 2011, (calculations are not completely done yet for 2011).
Guess
what he does with all that military aid we give him every year? If you follow
my blog at all, you will know the answer to this question, and you will know
that this answer fucking infuriates me
more than anything else related to U.S. policy. He uses that money to pay and
arm his police thugs, who violently beat up peaceful protesters, kidnap
political opposition members, (often torturing them), rape women, and
assassinate anyone who he deems is a “security threat,” (a.k.a. anyone who
disagrees with him).
He
uses that money to buy weapons and military vehicles from many developed
countries, to completely dissuade anyone from taking up arms against the
dictatorship. The military oppresses the Jordanian people, taking away their
most basic human rights, leaving them at the mercy of the government. They
can’t vote for their leader; Abdullah has that title for life, and then when he
dies, the title just goes to his heir. They have no say in how they are
governed. Sure, they “vote” for the parliament, but the parliament is
completely subservient to Abdullah. They have no power, save what he feels like
giving to them at a moment where it is convenient for him.
Now
that we have that established, let’s go to the main part of this post. There
have been recent protests in Amman demanding political reform and that the
dictator has less power.
Abdullah is trying to appease them, dissolving
parliament and calling for new elections. But the protesters are not satisfied
with that, because that does absolutely nothing. Abdullah doesn’t want to face
the fact that Jordanians want him OUT, and to bring in fair and free elections
to elect their own leaders. Some of them want a liberal democracy based on
Western governments, others want a constitutional monarchy, and still some
others want a Sharia-based government. Whatever type of government they choose
in free and fair elections will be a democracy because that is the type of
government the people rightly and legitimately chose. It doesn’t have to be a liberal,
Western-styled democracy to be a democracy.
The
Western media has been largely mute on the Jordanian protests since the start
of the Arab Spring. That is because reporting on the protests would make our
U.S. ally look bad, so they ignore it, as the Western media is not allowed to
make our “allies” look bad. They also point to the fact that there have not
been as many protests in Jordan as say, Egypt or Yemen. Their conclusion is
that most Jordanians are content with the government since they are not coming
out in large numbers.
But
that’s not the case. The reason why there have not been as many protests is
because the Jordanian security forces have a stranglehold on anyone who opposes
them. They kidnap and torture protest organizers before they even get onto the
streets. They snuff out any opposition before it can get anything going. They
buy off people who would oppose them. They brutally crack down on the small
amount of protests that have popped up, to scare other people to not oppose the
government. The government has been quite effective in keeping a tight lid on
dissatisfaction, because they know that if they let things grow too much,
they’re going to end up like Tunisia or Egypt, or maybe even Libya or Syria, if
the opposition decides to take up arms against them.
Other
bigoted, xenophobic Americans are saying that these protests are only a radical
Islamic ploy to overthrow the Jordanian government and start an extremist
jihadi government in its place. That statement is delegitimizing the rightful
and logical complaints that the Jordanian people have with their government.
It’s saying that if you are a Jordanian and you oppose the government, you are
not standing for freedom or democracy. You are not demanding your basic human
rights. Your claims are not legitimate. Instead, you are a radical Islamic
terrorist who just wants to kill Americans.
These
Americans do not believe that Muslims are human enough to deserve human rights;
therefore, they do not deserve to choose their own leader and government, so
they’re perfectly fine with giving millions of dollars to Abdullah so he can
rule Jordan with an iron fist. Then they act all surprised when Jordanians show
hostility to them: “What? Why do you hate us so much? All we did was finance a
dictator that has been oppressing and torturing you guys for decades, so what?
No big deal, stop protesting for democracy and freedom, and start doing
everything we say!”
We,
as principled Americans, should not just stand by and let this happen. We must
support our Jordanian brothers and sisters who just want the same basic human
rights that we enjoy every day. We must help make their voices heard, as they
have many powerful governments and medias working against them. We must counter
the bigoted statements that our fellow countrymen say about them. We must
demand an end to U.S. military aid to Jordan, because that “aid” is being used
in actions that are in direct violations of our principles, morals and beliefs.
The
Jordanian government is not our “ally.” They do not care about us. All they
care about is getting as much as our money as they can so they can further
cement their despotic rule over their own people. They are opposed to democracy
and freedom, which makes them our enemies. We have no right to tell the
Jordanian people what they can or cannot do. All we can do is support them in
their endeavors that agree with our principles, morals and beliefs. And what
they’re working towards is the exact same thing that our founding fathers
worked towards: democracy, freedom, liberty and justice for all.
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