The “Arab Spring” and Political Islam in Jordan. Appraisal and Outlook

78 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXV, No.2, Winter 2012 The “Arab Spring” and Political Islam in Jordan. Appraisal and Outlook Jimena Montaldo Mancilla* Some analysts have announced the decline of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as a new generation emerges in the Arab world. Young people are said to be disappointed by political Islam—the view that all spheres of life should be regulated by Islamic principles. This idea of the comprehensiveness of Islam (Shumuliyyat al-Islam), is expressed in the MB’s slogan “Islam is the Solution.” In particular, the young generation is thought to aspire to fundamental freedoms allegedly opposed to the MB’s values. Indeed, some maintained that America probably has won the war of ideas against political Islam as the Arabs seem to be clamoring for liberal democracy in recent popular uprisings.1 Yet the idea that the Jordanian MB is in decline may be erroneous for at least three reasons. First, the fear of Jordan’s disintegration may be stronger than the desire of change among the population. The MB’s public support might have been weakened by this fear despite common political standpoints. Secondly, the MB is not a monolithic group. It is composed of several tendencies including a pro-democracy current. Thirdly, this reformist wing is usually strengthened during periods of political opening, implying, in present circumstances, some convergence of democratic objectives with civil society. The “Arab spring” raises the question of whether the MB in Jordan is likely to be eclipsed or strengthened by the wave of political protests in the region. *Jimena Montaldo Mancilla is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in International Relations at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL). She has writtent this article as part of her research traineeship program at the Centre d’études et de Recherches sur le Monde Arabe Contemporain (CERMAC) 1 See, for instance, The Economist, “The Kuwait war plus 20; America and the Arabs,” February 12, 2011. 79 “Country’s Unity” Over Democratic Reforms Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, Jordan is a divided country in the sense that half of its population, if not more, is considered by the authorities as not being “genuinely” Jordanian. The unity issue is particularly sensitive in Jordan because of the differentiation between “native Jordanians” and “Jordanian-Palestinians”. The “native Jordanians” or Transjordanians are mostly the descendants of residents who were in Jordan before the arrival of the Palestinian refugees in 1948. The “Jordanian-Palestinians” are Palestinians who were granted Jordanian nationality following the unification of the two banks of the Jordan River in 1950. The cleavage between these two communities is rooted in the co-optation system created by the Hashemite regime. Since its inception in the 1920s, the monarchy was obliged to seek indigenous loyalty as it was imported by Britain from Hijaz in western Arabia. Tribal leaders were appointed to high positions in the army. Later, the co-optation system expanded as the regime benefited from external resources. Jordan’s long involvement in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict as a host country for Palestinian refugees was rewarded by large-scale financial assistance from Britain, and later from the United States and the Gulf countries. This enabled the Hashemite regime to strengthen the Jordanian tribes’ loyalty to the Kingdom through subsidizing basic goods and absorbing the Transjordanian workforce into the public sector. The Jordanian-Palestinians, often excluded from public employment, became involved in the private sector. They came to be perceived as a threat by native Jordanians once the external resources failed to sustain the co-optation system. These cleavages, together with the King’s extensive involvement in the country’s political and economic development meant that the monarchy and the country were widely perceived as synonymous. The King came to be seen as “the only guarantee of the Kingdom’s national unity and its social cohesion.”2 He is the key decision-maker in Jordan’s political system. He appoints the government and may dissolve it as well as the parliament. Any attempt to curtail his powers is perceived by large parts of the population as a threat to the country itself since the King personifies Jordan. The Jordanian-Palestinians have the same...