Oula Farawati looks at the recent protests in Amman and links them to political and economic developments Fuelled by Israel's aggression on the Gaza Strip and demanding an apology for their Egyptian brethren, Jordanians headed last week to the heavy guarded Israeli Embassy in Amman. Ten metres away is all they got. As they tried to penetrate a human shield of anti-riot police, they chanted anti-Israeli slogans, praised the Arab Spring and demanded that the Israeli ambassador be sent home. "Message received" is the only response the mostly young protesters got as police exhibited exceptional calm. Interior Minister Mazen Saket gave the usual government message to the protesters. Amman is walking a finer line than usual, not only it is surrounded by wars in Iraq and Palestine, but is faced with its own Arab Spring. Jordanians are now more vocal about corruption, they can see that the language of protesting pays off, and their demands are now louder. But the Jordanian response to acts of civil expression have been very contradictory. Some protests have been faced by violent restraint, with protesters beaten and made to go home by force. In other protests, the protesters were treated to water and no violence. A clear indication that Amman was in limbo as other nearby capitals erupt in political flames. Political analyst Mohamed Abu Rumman sees the contradicting response to protests as a sign of "political confusion". He, like other analysts as well as mainstream Jordanians are baffled by the lack of a unified official stand. "Officialdom is confused because it cannot read the street. They are not sure if the country is facing hundreds of politicised Jordanians or is standing on a volcano that might erupt any moment." Abu Rumman believes the response of the state should move from quelling protests to understanding them. "It is time that authorities realise that the means used for "street calming" (read: terrorising the demonstrators) were always counterproductive and destructive. What else needs to happen for the authorities to understand this simple lesson?" he asked. While protests in Arab capitals called for the end of regimes from Bashar Al-Assad's to Abdullah Saleh's, political demands in Jordan are calling for reform. The regime seems bulletproof to calls of "down with the regime". But corruption is actually the chronic disease that is plaguing Jordan for so long, and Jordanians view it as the main source of the country's economic woes. The government of the military-oriented Prime Minister Maarouf Al-Bakhit has been trying to send messages that reform was underway: constitutional amendments to enhance civil liberties and increase the authority of parliament have been devised, several officials were referred to courts on corruption charges and recently a business tycoon who was serving a jail time and was sent abroad to receive treatment was brought home. But political analyst Fahed Khitan believes reform and anti corruption efforts should go beyond these government steps. "Restoring confidence in our institutions requires the boldest steps through a deeper approach to governance in the country. There is no doubt that the amendments of the constitution might patch up some holes. However, corruption should be combated in the political not the legal and procedural sense and this is the key to the hearts of citizens," he wrote. The protesters might have been 10 metres away from the Israeli Embassy. But Jordan is still light-years away from genuine reform, as the will to reform is yet to mature and become genuine enough to drive the change needed to spare the country the ills of deeper corruption and prying international threats.
