Jordan Watch
An update and analysis of development and reform challenges in Jordan from a social democratic perspective.

In Criticising Qatar: Size does not matter!
Thursday, October 05, 2006

As a Jordanian who claims to love his country and wish all success for its citizens in their hopes and aspirations, I felt angry by Qatar's refusal to vote for prince Zeid as a potential successor for Mr Kofi Annan as Secretary General of the UN. I thought this attitude was both unhonorable and a stab in the back. However, I think the Jordanian propaganda that followed the event was pathetic and shameful.
To begin with, Qatar does have the right to chose any candidate it wants. I know that the "ethics and honor" of Arabs standing together should prevail but where does it happen now? If Qatar thought that the Korean candidate, represeneting a wealthy country that can establish good economic and trade deals with Qatar is a better choice why should it vote for Jordan who will not be able to pay Qatar any economoc benefit?
Moreover, in the traditional Arab mentality why should the Qataris vote for a Jordanian prince? I mean why it could not be a  Qatari prince? In the end, the Qataris are richer so they think they should be wiser and more powerful than Jordanians.
Well, this is the simple trend plaguing the Arab World when an Arab country will do its best to block the progress of another one to benefit a non-arab country. This happens in sports and all other aspects of like so it is almost natural to happen in the voting.
In reality, the vote of Qatar would not have changed anything and our brothers have played the game better than us in choosing the candidate who has the best chances and who will be helpful in the future.
I think it was not wise at all from Jordan to bring the ambassador back from Doha. Well, more than trillion people of Jordan haters will shout together now: "why they did not do this with the Jordanian ambassador in Israel while Israel was destroying Lebanon"? The problem is that the Jordan hatred association is correct this time!
What was really shameful in some Jordanian commentators article is the reference to the small size of Qatar. Well I know size does matter for some Arab men in social terms but not in politics where leadership is more important. We in Jordan are smaller in size than most Arab countries but have acheived better results in development and political openness than most big size countries. So, the issue here is not the size. Bahrain is a very small country but I totally respect it for their openness and civilized behaviour that is lacking in more sizable countries.
What Jordan can do easily is to:
1- Wait for any Qatari candidate to nominate himslef in any organization or any global position and work against him. The better thing to do is to deliberately lose in a soccer match to an ASian team (even Singapore) who is competing with Qater for a soccer place in the World Cup. This will end the diplomatic relations with them.
2- I know that the Jordanian media is not strong and influential as Al Jazeera but we can search over the net and international press for any articles written against Qatar (believe me they are plentiful) and highlight them like Al Jazeera does in Jordan.
This is how politics is played in the Arab World. Honor, Arab concensus, arab solidarity...give me a break from this crap!

posted by Batir Wardam @ 5:05 PM

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(4) comments


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On October, 05, 2006 5:25 PM , Moey
from Jordan said:

what's the main issue about? what did qatar do. .sorry i'm not much into politics

On October, 05, 2006 6:09 PM , Iman
from United States said:

Despite the fact that their vote would not have made much difference,I was actually disappoineted with Qatar's choice! As Arabs, we should work together and for each other - espeically when given such chances.

Moey, you didn't read Batir's post, did you? :p ...

On October, 05, 2006 7:53 PM , Zaid J said:

People who live in glass houses...

our regime lives in a cracked glass house. So no one in this stupid argument had earned the right to speak of Arab unity and Arab concensus.

Besides, Qatar's vote was not the deciding vote. So why pretend that the issue is about Qatar not voting for a Jordanian candidate. This is all about Al-jazeera.

If Qatar was the tie breaker most Jordanians will understand the anger and I would have even joined the ranks of the totally pissed off jordanians. but Qatar's vote was worthless.

But the real victim of this argument are the Jordanians who work in Qatar whoes livelihoods are threatend by a silly conflict. I think our government should make sacrifices, for a change, for the benefit of its citizens, considering it cannot help them find work in Jordan. fter our jobs overseas.

Considering all of the above, I say we save our energy for a real fight over a real issue.

After all, not one Jordanian was scratched, not one iota of Jordan's soil was compromised.


On October, 05, 2006 8:25 PM , hatem abunimeh
from United States said:

I think that some damage control at the highest level is in order right now, things are culpable of quickly sliding into uncontrolable slippery slope. No one wants to remember the spector of the Jordanians experience in Kuwait after the first Gulf war, as many of them are still suffering from the post traumatic stress syndrome. Jordan must move on and forget about the vote, taking the dovish position at this point in time may prove to be a much better course than taking the hawkish position, but who am I to say.



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