Saturday, November 11, 2006
Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the horrific terrorist acts that rocked Amman and its traditional tranquility, leaving behind 60 martyrs and changing a wide array of our feelings, laws, convictions and daily practices.
The three crimes committed by suicide bombers from Al Qaeda have changed a lot of the previous state of consciosness about terrorism and how to recognize it and face it. Although a lot of people talk about negative consequences, including tightened security measures and an alleged reduction in freedom of speech, I think all the changes were for the better and this is what I am trying to explain now.
High Cost to be "informed":
To begin with, this positive change had a great cost represented by the killing of 60 innocent people and the injury of more than 100 and some of them even have permanent injuries including paralysis. The associated psychological and emotional pain was and is still a momentous burden on the lives of relatives and friends. It is really a shame that the positive change in recognizing and dealing with terrorism had to include this tragic cost.
Before that we Jordanians, witnessed by sight, sound, screams, blood and devastation what terrorism is. A lot of us were hijacked by the ignorance and false conviction that "suicide bombings" were a ligetimate tool for resistance, and that terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda were "fighting for the sake of Islam and God" whether tehy were targeting civilians in New York, Iraq, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Madrid or Bali. The mainstream public opinion was favoring Al Qaeda and the level of support it jad in Jordan was terrifying. I recall a survey done by Pew Center on Global Public Opinions in 2004 in which 60% of Jordanians viewed Osama Bin Laden as a hero.
The emergence of Zarqawi was another cause for the increasing popularity of Qaeda in Jordan were some people were taking pride that a Jordanian was leading the holy war against the infidels composed of the American Army in Iraq, and the Shi'ites, let alone all the seculars and athiests who were labeled as enemies of God.
Jordanians were watching the mass killings and bombings in Iraq conducted by Al Qaeda and feeling satisfied with that resistance. I used to meet a lot of not-so-religious Jordanians who would keep in their PCs downloaded videos of suicide attacks and beheadings withn the same euphoria that a teenager male wil feel for Nancy Ajram. For them killing in Iraq was a spectacle and was never seen as a cause of sorrow, devastation and emotional distress of the victims' relatives. The support provided to such acts by Arabic satellites like Al Jazeera contributed to this phenomenon since Al Jazeera never ever showed the emotional and human sufferings of the relatives of the victims and always tried to justify the suicide bombings by political slogans.
In a nutshell, the public opinion was not able to distinbuish between a credible resistance organization targeting occupation armies and a group of killers targeting civilians taht differ with them in opinion.
The truth emerging
The 9-11 bombings in Jordan changed all that and the majority of people realized that terrorism is not a spectacle but a force of destruction, and that Qaeda is not a resistance movement but a gang of fundamentalists who were targeting civilians. For the first time Jordanians managed to defy the Jazeera propaganda that tried to promote a lie of having a secret Mosad-CIA meeting in the hotels and that the bombings were targeting that meeting. People came to the hotels and saw that the RAS room that was bombed is used only for weddings and there is no adjacent rooms for any meetings. The lies were starting to decay, and the truth was to emerge finally.
The aftermath of the bombings saw a tense national atmosphere that included both an unprecedented case of national unity in anger and defiance of terrorism, and a sense of nervousness that was reflceted in tightened security measures.
Most of the Jordanians welcomed the security measures and even asked for more, since they knew know that the targets of terrorism are not "agents of Mosad" but the very same Jordanian people who we meet and know on daily basis. Each one of us is threatned and we must act.
Changed legislation:
The security measures were followed by the national anti-terrorism law that was controversial and some opposition parties and political commentators were skeptical of its objectives claiming that it was designed to crack down on Islamic political activism more than on fighting terrorism.
I have my own criticism of the law especially that it allows the general prosecutor to put any person under surveillance if being suspect as a terrorism. Now how can a person be suspect of being a terrorist?
The main starting point in the "terrorism checklist" is a tendency towards carrying and promoting fundamentalist ideas and doctorine, and engaging with fellows in small cells and travelling to suspicious places. The Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID) has always been successful in penetrating the nascent fundamentalist cells by virtue of exploiting strong tribal and social networks in Jordan. In almost any social community, village, tribe and family a member of the GID maybe lives in the same house or community with fundamentalists and the GID is thus able to control the movement of such groups and interfere in cases of the "change from theory to action".
This is the acid test of the anti terrorism law. If the GID will intervene it should be only after evidence has been carried and documented that a certain person or a group is ready for committing actual violence against the society. If certain people find a joy in watching beheading of westerners, or listening to Takfiri ideology they have the right for this practice as long as it does not turn into violence and threatening the lives of other people. In this case, an emerging terrorist may not expect the security to shake only his hands.
The fiasco of the Islamist MPs:
One of the most important case studies was the arrest and trial of the 4 Islamist MPs who have "visited" the Zarqawi condolences gathering. The government made a big mess in its media and PR campaign against the four MPs. In the begenning it said that it has arrested them because they visited Al Zarqawi' family house. However, three other MPs did visit the house and one of them., Abdul Karim Al Doghmi is a former minsiter, a strong MP with a strong tribal base that is the same as Zarqawi's and a pro-regime politician. So, why did the governemnt arrest the Islamists and not the other three? this argument blew the government case away. It could have been very easily managed by focusing on the fact that only Mohammad Abu faris and Ali Abu Sukkar did present a typical Islamist preach that included praise for zarqawi and considered him a martyr. Aby Faris went further to annoy and provoke the feelings of the victims of the bombing by claiming that their lost loved ones are not martyrs.
Abu Faris and Abu Sukar were indeed charged and convicted and consequently lost their seats in the Parliament. Although the Islamic Action Front (IAF) tried to present it as a case "against freedom of speech" it is obvious that the Islamists-themselves not advocates of free speech- did justify terrorism by claiming that Zarqawi is a hero. It is a clear message to all the youth that you can walk the Zarqawi path and become a hero as well. This is simply not acceptable and should not be tolerated in Jordan.
Is Jordan a safer place now?
The increased security measures helped in preventing any repetition of that black day, but I think it was the new consciousness of the majority of Jordanians that had the biggest impact on the ability of the society to emerge strong. Of course Al Qaeda and fundamentalists still enjoy some support in Jordan, expressed by the surveys of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan ranging between 10-15% but the reality of the Amman bombings opened the eyes of the majority of Jordanians. The feeling is that if such an attrocity happens again there is every possibility that it can be in your neighborhood, cafe you are setting in, a hotel were a party is held and even a random drive or walk in the street. It is just a matter of being in the wrong place in the wrong time. This is why citizens and not the GID should be the first line of defence.
I recommed reading the great feature by Oula Farawati on the aftermath of the Amman bombings with special focus on security issues here
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