Democratic Palestine : 33 (ص 21)
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- Democratic Palestine : 33 (ص 21)
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incomes are suffering most. According
to official statistics, 17.5% of families
in Jordan have a monthly income of 50
dinars, which is considered under the
poverty line. On the other hand, 20%
of families have access to 48% of the
GNP, while the remaining 80% must
live on the remaining 52%.
In this light, the economic policy of
the regime amounts to little more than
organized plunder of the country’s
resources, impoverishing broad strata
of the population. It is no wonder that
the people turned their wrath on the
government, expressing themselves in
slogans such as those shouted in Kerak:
«Cancel all the latest economic
measures,» «Bring to trial those who
were responsible for the deterioration
of the economic conditions» and
«Form a national government that will
work for free and honest parliamentary
elections.»
THE SOCIAL BASE OF THE
REVOLT
Erupting as a spontaneous economic
protest, the April revolt distinguishes
itself from previous mass movements in
Jordan, which were based on national,
political issues. It occurred in areas
where the national and progressive
movement has not traditionally been
strong. This was, however, no accident,
because the South is generally the
poorer half of the country and the
population there is thus hardest hit by
the economic crisis and related austerity
measures. Thus, for the first time, the
masses Of the South, the masses of the
countryside, all the popular sectors and
almost all of them Jordanian have par-
ticipated in a popular revolt. Few
Palestinians live in these areas and the
regime was consequently deprived of its
favored weapon of scapegoating them.
The breadth of the revolt meant that
it could not be dismissed, and the
character of its social base meant that it
touched the regime’s Achilles heel. The
South is still dominated by tribal rela-
tions and this has allowed the regime to
count the population there among its
staunchest supporters. It was thus
potentially devastating when the leaders
of Bani Shar, one of the largest tribal
federations in the country, publicly
denounced «a class of opportunists (in
Amman) that have no interests except
Democratic Palestine, June 89
in the accumulation of unlawful money
and wealth at the expense of the
people» (as quoted in The Guardian,
April 25th).
It has been from among Jordanians
living under tribal conditions that the
regime has recruited its most loyal
troops for repressing the people, as was
apparent in the war on the Palestinian
resistance from September 1970 until
July 1971. However, this year’s revolt
signalled a narrowing of the regime’s
social base, as soldiers took their place
in the ranks of the people protesting
government policy; several soldiers
were among those martyred, including
a senior air force officer - an un-
precedented occurrence. The revolt was
preceded by a near mutiny in the army’s
12th battalion, led by Masoud Al Ad-
wan, protesting inflation; this led King
Hussein to visit the battalion several
times before departing for the US. The
military has recently called for salary
raises but the government refused,
showing how the economic crisis has
limited the regime’s maneuverability in
terms of satisfying even sectors con-
sidered of vital importance. Such fric-
tion is almost unknown in the Jorda-
nian army since 1970 when the regime
purged those with nationalist inclina-
tions or hesitations about confronting
the Palestinians.
These characteristics of the revolt,
added to its timing which coincides with
the Palestinian intifada in the
neighboring occupied territories, mean
that it could mark a turning point for
the struggle in Jordan. It gives the op-
portunity to link the daily social and
economic issues of vital importance to
the masses with overall national
political issues - the struggle for
democracy and for Jordan to have a
nationalist policy in harmony with the
interests of the masses and with the
Palestinian cause. This is the meaning
of spreading the Palestinian intifada
throughout the Arab world, to make it
a mass struggle for freedom and social
justice
POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS
Narrowing the social base of the
regime, and questioning its stability,
means narrowing its room for
maneuver and thus its potential
usefulness to imperialism as a buffer
zone protecting Israel and subsuming
the Palestinian problem. It is this func-
tion of the regime which has enabled it
to garner aid from the US in particular
and from other reactionary regimes,
like Saudi Arabia. Thus, the regime is
in a bind, for it needs such support
more than ever in the light of the revolt.
This explains the authorities’ quick
response, both the immediate violent
repression and the king’s rushing home
to set things in order, leading to the
hasty resignation of Zeid Al Rifai’s
government on April 24th and promises
of speedy elections. There have been no
elections in Jordan since 1967, and the
regime had only recently contemplated
holding new ones. This idea did not
stem from any sudden democratic im-
pulse on the part of the regime. Rather,
the intention was to constitute an all
Jordanian parliament after having
severed ties to the Palestinian West
Bank, the residents of which had been
nominally represented in the old
parliament. Also now, in the absence of
overall democratic freedom, new elec-
tions in themselves would offer very
little as the parliament does not have
real power and political parties are
banned.
The political implications of the mass
revolt were summed up as follows by
Abdel Rahim Malouh, PFLP Polit-
bureau member who spent a number of
years in Jordanian jails during the
seventies, in an interview in Damascus:
«This broad mass movement will
force the king to sit down and think, to
discuss the situation and reevaluate
previous policies. This process has
begun with dissolving Rifai’s govern-
ment, and that in itself is a achievement
for the masses, since it was one of their
demands. This means that the regime
acknowledges that their past policies
were responsible for the situation.
However, we are convinced that this
will not solve the problem, because the
roots of the crisis are the class nature of
the regime and its subordination to
imperialism. There is a big possibility
that the regime will resort to repressive
policies, but in any case, this unique
event, which has not occurred in Jor-
dan for years, will have a decisive in-
fluence in the coming stage... It is a
qualitative, militant turning point and a
prelude to future events.
21 - هو جزء من
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