Jordan Watch : Watching the Jordanian Elections as an "Outsider"

When I was in my early 20s I was fascinated with the writing of the English philosopher and writer Colin Wilson, especially his very first book that made him such a sensation at the age of 24.

Wilson's first book was entitked "The Outsider" and it is a breathtaking wok on the features and symptoms of social alienation. According to Wilson, The Outsider is an individual engaged in an intense self-exploration - a person who lives at the edge, challenges cultural values, and "stands for Truth." Born into a world without perspective, where others simply drift through life, the Outsider creates his own set of rules and lives them in an unsympathetic environment.

I have never felt that I was an outsider in the Jordanian society, until the lest 2-3 years where the social and political strata have changed rapidly and a new crop of wealthy and almost illeterate and ignorant businessmen emerged from the trade of lands, stocks and real estates. In the meantime a horrendous political deterioration was intensifying to the level that issues of politics, culture and development were reduced to the minimal interest of Jordanians and we, as so-called political and cultural animals felt like an endangered species. The maximum negative feeling I am having now is to watch the current parliamentary elections as a complete outsider.

I belong to a generation that developed its political awareness in the late 1980s and begenning of 1990s, in parallel with the apparent democratic openness in Jordan. I participated actively in the 1989 elections and continued our momentum in 1993 regardless of the one man one vote disaster. In 1997 we had our first disappointment and in 2003 our interest decreased apart from the usual monitoring that should be done by a writer and journalist. In this current election I feel like a complete stranger.

I cannot relate to this sea of pictures and slogans from businessmen, tribal leaders. I feel this country has wasted all the momentum generated 18 years ago and we are now being broken into the smallest of entities in the family, local area, tribe, race, and city. The bad economic situation and the one man vote system have pressured people to sell their votes to the richest and most influential candidate in the hope of a job or money in return.

This is the age of businessmen and tribal leaders and some left-overs for the Islamists but no place whatsoever for enlightened and intellect Jordanians who want to make a change. It is great disappointment after a hopeful start for political and social democratization in Jordan. The schizophrenia between the official statements about reform and between the actual empowerment of businessmen and tribal leaders is causing headache to everyone who felt that there is a chance for real democracy in Jordan. I have to believe in what I see and not what I hear, and what I see is a chaos caused by destruction of the political and cultural life and the emergence of the new parasitic crop into the decision making process, and the next parliament will hit maybe the last nail in the coffen of reform in Jordan.

As for me, I am going back to Colin Wilson and his guidelines for survival in the new Jordan.