Dispatches from the Arab Spring: Understanding the New Middle East

Jordan

243 Jordan jillian schwedler on march 24, 2011, hundreds of Jordanians calling themselves the March 24Youth began what they intended as an indefinite sit-in outside the Ministry of the Interior in the capital city ofAmman.As one member stated prior to the event: We are a mixture of free Jordanian young men and women, who are tired of delays and the promise of reform, who see the spread of corruption, the deterioration of the economic situation, the regression of political life, the erasure of freedoms, and the dissolution of the social fabric. ( Jadaliyya 2011) The police were mostly peaceful on the first day, blocking off the Dakhili traffic circle, watching and wandering among the demonstrators , and trying to defuse tensions. The Youth waved Jordanian flags and donned the red-and-white kaffiyehs that signify Jordanian national identity, hoping their expressed patriotism might deflate a repressive response from the regime.1 Aside from the original protesters, the only group to gain access to the circle was a Loyalty March, the participants in which were allowed (with some cars) to enter the circle and position themselves facing the March 24 Youth.2 This group chanted in praise of King Abdullah and launched insults at the March 24 Youth, but the 244 Jillian Schwedler first day of the sit-in was mostly calm, and the evening passed with little incident (Jadaliyya 2011). The police seemed to be primarily neutral, trying to prevent an escalation of tensions as the two sides seemed to compete for the title of “most patriotic” in their songs and slogans.3 As one eyewitness described the scene: Underneath the bridge was a fairly well-organized group of young 20-something year olds. They had their posters in Arabic and English. They had a truck with a sound system. They had low-level organizers with bullhorns who would walk around making sure their group kept to the sidewalk.They had brooms and garbage bags, and people designated the task of keeping the area clean.They had tents, food, laptops, Internet connections, digital cameras , camcorders, a live feed going, as well as a fire roaring in near-freezing weather. At the tip of the sidewalk, their members were lined up facing the circle, where across from them was another group, and in between them both were about two dozen policemen. (Tarawnah 2011) In the morning, as the Youth began their morning prayers, the Loyalty March began blaring music, a practice that is understood as unacceptable . The confrontation escalated as Loyalty Marchers, swelling in number, began throwing rocks at the March 24 Youth. Most Jordanians viewed the general police with less animosity than they did the Darak riot police. As Darak troops began entering the square that second afternoon, the March 24 Youth realized that the situation was about to turn toward violence, that the Darak were not there to protect them from the stone-throwing counterprotesters.The Darak began charging toward theYouth to break up their camp. Dozens were arrested and more than a hundred were injured; videos documenting the aggressiveness with which the security and unarmed thugs (the by then infamous baltajiyya) chased demonstrators, beating them with clubs and other objects, were soon posted on YouTube.4 Many protesters struggled to escape around barricades and over fences that had been rapidly assembled to constrain them. In the melee, one Jordanian was killed (Bouziane and Lenner 2011; Tobin 2012). As millions of protesters throughout the Arab world took to the streets in 2011, and as tens of thousands lost their lives, what made this one death—and this one event—remarkable? It was the only protest- jordan 245 related death in Jordan the whole year, despite weekly gatherings throughout the country that sometimes reached into the thousands. By the end of the year, major roadblocks, bonfires fueled by tires, and increasingly bold expressions of dissent against the regime were commonplace , but injuries remained remarkably low. For an authoritarian state, Jordan has had a surprisingly long and vibrant history of political protests with only limited incidents of violence . In contrast to the kingdom’s northern neighbor, Syria—where before long the government had killed upward of ten thousand of the nation’s own people in an attempt to put down the uprising that began in 2011—Jordan had a relationship with protesters that was largely civil and respectful. On many occasions, police distributed cases of water to protesters and...