Jordan's war on ideas

The Saudi arrest (previous post) seems to be another instance of the Arab trend of arresting people for publicly expressing sympathy with jihadism, regardless of whether they have actually offered material support for or participated in terrorism.  As with the Jordanian arrest of the Islamist MPs praising Zarqawi, those eager for signs of Arab liberalism should not find this encouraging just because it is directed against supporters of jihadism.  It is nothing more than a return to form for the Arab security state, a return to decades of the practice of using state power to police the bounds of "acceptable" discourse in the name of national security. 

You can see the seductions of the national security discourse in today's column in al-Sharq al-Awsat by Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed, general director of al-Arabiya: he brushes aside civil liberties concerns because the Jordanian state is at war with Zarqawi's organization, and what state could tolerate expressions of support for a terrorist enemy?   A seductive argument perhaps, but a deeply dangerous one.  Because for the Arab security state, it is always "at war" with someone - whether with Israel or with Iran or with Islamist terrorists -  and that "war" always justifies the curtailing of political liberties.  Rashed's excuse is the tired excuse of the Arab despots, and sells out liberalism cheaply. 

Jordan's approach to pro-Zarqawi sentiment in the Kingdom marks is an extremely important point in the "war of ideas" in the Arab world, and it could go either way.   Its approach right now is fundamentally illiberal. Human Rights Watch is right, and it's painful to watch the Jordanian regime's response to its criticism.  It's the hard cases which define a commitment to liberal values, not the easy ones. Confronting jihadist ideas is the right thing to do, but this is the wrong way to do it.  The appropriate response to Jordanians or Saudis who publicly praise Zarqawi is to argue against them, to denounce them, to shun them, to confront them with the gory pictures of dead Muslims in Iraq or Amman. Even Abdullah's uncompromising rhetoric, demanding a clear rejection of terrorism, is fine as long as it remains rhetoric.  But arresting these members of Parliament despite their Parliamentary immunity - with the implicit threat that the same sanction could apply to anyone - betrays a lack of confidence in one's own public, a failure not only of liberal conviction but of faith in one's own side. The Jordanian regime's choice to police the public sphere through these arrests to me speaks volumes about its own reading of Jordanian public opinion, and about how it intends to fight its own "war of ideas".

Some very smart, and liberal-minded, Jordanians dismiss this argument as an overly abstract idealism, divorced from the hard realities of the situation today.  I disagree.  The treatment of public discourse is, to me, a crucial leading indicator of political stability and of commitment to a whole range of political reform projects.   In a trenchant column today, the prominent Egyptian columnist Fahmy Howeidy writes that today's Amman is not the Amman he has long known.  Howeidy sees the crisis over the 4 MPs as not just deeply worrying, but as emblematic of deeper problems.   He openly wonders about the authenticity of the anti-Zarqawi protests, and about the regime's role in manufacturing outrage against the four Islamist MPs.   A leading Jordanian expert told Howeidy that of course the anti-Zarqawi protests were cooked up by the regime, but the expert refused to be quoted by name because he felt that it was becoming unsafe to have the wrong opinions in Amman these days.  Since the Amman hotel bombings and the Hamas electoral victory, Howeidy writes, the security services have taken an ever more prominent role in Jordanian political life.   Storm clouds are gathering over Amman, warns Howeidy's Jordanian friend, and he can only hope that they pass peacefully and quickly.  That may be a forlorn hope.   With political reform long dead, anti-royal graffiti reportedly appearing on the walls of Amman, the role of the security services increasing, and the regime seemingly intent on confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood, things look worse in Jordan than they have in a long time.

Comments

[Amal A]

The outrage Jordanians felt at the the statements by the MPs is genuine, regardless of how the government is using the incident. The gossip al Heweydi is peddling as journalism is truly pathetic.

[Abu Sinan]

It would be fine if it was just directed at the "jihadists" but it isnt. All governments in the Middle East have used 9/11 and American actions to crack down on dissent of all kinds.

Moderate, extremist, jihadi, none of them fair any better under these governments. Look at Egypt who lock up and torture moderate and jihadist alike. No one is safe from these people.

But as long as they are on the "right side" in the war on terror, the USA and the West will do nothing.