Since the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt early this year, a movement has begun in Jordan which is #ReformJo. The hashtag is used because it began on Twitter. The reform is different than the Arab Spring that is spreading in the Middle East. This movement includes young Jordanians with different ethnicities and backgrounds calling for political, economical and social reform. The movement wants to cut unemployment and corruption that has been a cancer spreading in the society.

Jordan is no Egypt or Syria but has a more complex situation. We are a monarchy and Jordanians love their Royal Family. But we have more than 1 million Palestinian refugees and more than 500,000 Iraqis living in the country putting a heavy load on a country with minimum resources. There are 40 poverty pockets in Jordan and the country is considered the poorest in terms of water resources. 60% of the population is under the age of 30. All this makes Jordan a special place.

But lately, #ReformJo has taken a wrong turn when people opposing the change started accusing the pro #ReformJo as not being loyal to the King and the country. While many Jordanians have had it with the corruption in the government and calling for real change but things are not getting any better and people are getting more frustrated, especially the young. The poor are getting poorer.

Today we see people fighting over silly things and spreading accusations on Facebook and Twitter and literally wasting time that could have been used for a better cause. The country did not advance in terms of reform except for the new changes in the constitution that was approved by the King and the members of the Parlament.

I do not want to be part of this social media conflict so I started avoiding getting into discussions that do not lead anywhere. So, my #ReformJo has taken another direction. I went to the Olive Tree! My Olive Tree!

My 4 years old initiative “Under My Olive Tree” has been concentrating on empowering the local community in Jordan. So, I decided not to wait for the reform to take place by loyalist or the pro reform groups or even by a new government. I decided to take it to my neighborhood.

What we have been doing for the past years is secure less fortunate students with decent education in schools and universities. Support families that need health care and most importantly open sustainable small businesses.

With our very humble resources and donations from the local community and Jordanians living abroad, we secured education for 300 school students and 15 university students. We secured treatment for 2 cancer patients, one was featured in a LiveStrong video. We opened 2 sustainable projects for 2 less fortunate families and the 3rd is on the way. We are encouraging the young to volunteer and realize how they too can make a difference. I believe the best way to put a frustrated young person in the right track, is when they realize they can accomplish something.

I believe in the good will of people to make a difference and we help them realize it by empowering their communities.

The reform might take months or even years, but I’m not going to spend my time on the sofa tweeting.

Being Jordanian is not the passport or national ID we hold, it is what we can do for our country and not what our country can do for us.

For more info visit UnderMyOliveTree.com

Angry, unemployed, and oppressed youth finally broke the long silence and fear and burst into the streets calling for Mubarak to step down. As more and more people poured into the streets calling for “Mubarak, leave, leave, leave,” Mubarak finally decided to agree to “not run for presidency in the next election” and pledged political reform. The protesters took no heed to it and continued to protests. Day by day, the Tahrir Square of Cairo was being filled with determined and ambitious people calling for Mubarak to leave. Mubarak, on the 17th day of protest, transferred some of his power to a newly appointed vice-president, Omar Sulaiman, but that did nothing to encourage the protesters, now in millions, to go back to their homes. During an interview with ABC’s Christiane Amanpour, Mubarak said that “he’s fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot; for fear that the country would sink into chaos”.

Dictators and autocrats like to think of themselves as the sole protector of the nation. They like the population to think that without them, there will be chaos and violence and that the country will shatter. Thus, they began to make such comments. This is in fact their illusions speaking, thinking that the mass would listen to them and stop with protesting and go back to their lives. The lives that were ruled with an iron fist, with violence and suppression by the government; the life that there exists no equal opportunities in employment, education, social services. If these leaders are so sincere in reformation, why do they speak of reform after the people take the streets? Why do they not speak of them and take actions sooner? Why after 20, 30, 40 years?

This is precisely what the Yemeni President Ali Saleh said on March 22nd: “Those who want to climb up to power through coups should know that this is out of the question. The homeland will not be stable, there will be a civil war, a bloody war. They should carefully consider this”. And this he said 30 days after the Yemenis started to protest and after mass defections by top generals, soldiers, government ministers, his son-in-law Yehia Mohammed Ahmed Ismail, as well as his own tribe taking stance against him. In other words, he said this while he is weakest and trying to use the card to defuse the protests, but he failed. On March 25th, the soon-to-be-ousted President Saleh announced that he does not want power but wants to put the power into safe hands. And it is very clear how the protesters responded to that.

Seif al Islam Qaddafi, the son of Muammar Qaddafi, did not wanted to be left out of this trend so he warned on February 20th that because of the demographic of Libya, civil war will peril. The warning however fell on deaf ears and the rebels and the people continued with their demands for Muammar Qaddafi to leave. Muammar Qaddafi also blamed the problem on Al-Qaeda telling Christiane Amanpour “my people love me, they would die for me.”

The Bahraini government on February 26th dismissed several of its ministers. The government also announced to cancel 25% housing loans that have already been given. But these concessions failed to appease the protesters and they defiantly continued to protest. The protesters are mainly Shia sect of Islam, a majority in Bahrain, being ruled by the Sunni minority. The Shias have long complained about poor treatment in employment, housings, education, infrastructure, while the Sunnis benefit higher status. The Shias are also prohibited from important political and military posts. The Bahraini government security forces have very brutally cracked down on the protesters killing at least 21 and injuring over 600. The government has gone as far as keeping the access to the hospitals blocked.

The brutalities seen by these governments against their own people, these oppressed people, is mind boggling; and it only shows that these governments and leaders are not sincere to their leadership and to the vanguard of their nation and its citizens, it is only to accumulate more wealth and to maintain the control of power.

The world was waiting for Syria to join in the mass Middle East protests, and it finally did. The story of the Syrian government in treating its people is like the rest of these governments: oppressive, abusive, unequal, dictatorial; and the faith of the Syrians are like the same faith of other nations. So then on March 24th, the Syrian city of Daraa finally erupted drawing thousands of people calling “Freedom, freedom.” And, as expected, Bashar al Assad, Syrian president, vowed to increase public worker’s salaries, greater freedom of press, and may lift the 48-years old Emergency Law. The opposition groups and protesters, as imagined, have refused the concessions and are continuing with the protests. Syrian forces have responded as abusively as did their counterparts in other countries with more than 61 killed so far with Syrian army opening fire on the protesters.

Kurdistan region of North Iraq is also not immune to these protests. Although the situation in the Kurdistan region is much different and better than most of the Middle East, the region has also been plagued with corruption, nepotism, high unemployment, and rotten social services. There have also been increased attacks, assaults, and murder on journalists and members of the opposition groups. Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) must take great notice of these mass protests in the Middle East and do what these governments have not done by creating better institutions that is based on justice, equality, liberty; and to stop doing what these governments are doing, in repressing their citizens and curtailing basic freedoms. Kurdistan Regional Government, too, used the same excuse; excuse of pointing their fingers for their problems on somewhere else: Iran.

Many government-controlled media outlets blame Iran and its influence behind the protests. Do they mean Iran is behind the corruption, nepotism, high unemployment, attacks on those who criticize, and all the other problems in Kurdistan? Do they mean that those tens of thousands of people in the street are being influenced by Iran and not protesting because of frustration and they no longer will tolerate the injustice by the government? While it does not take rocket science to know that Turkey, whose prime minister Reccep Erdogan, is scheduled to be in Kurdistan region in a day or two, and Iran, whom just received Nechirvan Barzani, the former prime minister of Kurdistan region, would love to see Kurdistan region destabilized and would even help in its destabilization, neither does it take rocket science to know that those people in the streets are sick and tired of government taking them as fools by making empty promises of tackling corruption and providing better services such as clean water and electricity and yet nothing ever gets done. The Kurdish people endured much in the hands of Saddam Hussein and continually are being suppressed today in Syria, Iran, and Turkey; the people do not need to suffer any more under the rule of their own government.

The people must not stop until their legitimate rights are respected and responded; this is an opportunity that was long missing and must not be passed on easily. The liberty and equality of the people must in all ways be attained, and this battle must be won by the determined and revolutionary people of the Middle East. The world must condemn these nations and governments who suppress their citizens; and those who are responsible for assaulting peaceful protesters and journalists must be put behind bars. They must be brought to the Hague and face their crimes.

Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, we are waiting for your bravery and courageous steps to be taken in this fight of liberation, of dignity, of honor.

(1) R. Clemente Holder (1994-08). “Egyptian Lawyer’s Death Triggers Cairo Protests”. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Because of the Japan nuclear crisis, set in motion by a 9.0 Richter Scale earthquake last week, world trade markets have been reeling, setting off unstable prices in foreign currencies, insurance markets, and nuclear technologies. The quake which has either killed or left unaccounted for some 15,000 people, could put millions more in peril should the nuclear situation deteriorate.

As I’ve said before – there is no insurance against nuclear reactors: you can buy insurance for your homes, you can buy it for your cars (there are tons of places online nowadays for cheap car insurance quotes), but there is no insurance to protect us against a nuclear disaster.

The world witnessed what happened at Chernobyl in the Ukraine in the 80s, and those of us who are older, saw the US disaster at Three Mile Island (links to Wikipedia). I implore all Mideast Youth bloggers and readers to push for reforms that stops the proliferation of nuclear energy development, for weapons and for power. As a child of the 70s, I grew up with fears that the Russian President Mikhail Gorbochev would nuke America and Canada (during the Cold War). And some say the world came “that close” to a full on nuclear war back then.

Countries like Turkey, Israel, Iran, Egypt and Jordan are far too unstable, politically and geologically, for nuclear energy of any kind. As we see news of the tragedy in Japan unfold, countries like Australia are offering uranium to the United Arab Emirates. The thought that such an unstable Middle East is pursuing nuclear energy with enthusiasm and no shame gives me nightmares.

Do we want to build a world that answers all our materialistic greed in the here and now?

Or one that our grandchildren will prosper in?

As the Arab world moves into the realm of a potential renaissance, please rethink the issue of nuclear, and can all existing programs that are on the table. If Japan – one of the world’s leaders in earthquake technologies, and like the Swiss – very organized – can’t keep its nuclear facilities in check, I only hazard to guess how idiotic it would be to build a nuclear plant in the midst of uprisings and fault lines. For more reading, Rola, over on Green Prophet gives a very good argument why the Middle East can’t risk investing in nuclear.

The last move of the king

Hashtag Tahrir, hashtag revolution, Lotus revolution, among many other names given to describe the ongoing protests in Egypt.

The last 12 days have seen a lot of twists and turning points since the very beginning, when we’ve expected here that Egypt was on the verge of several successive days of rage, following the first Day of Rage which has jolted the regime on Tuesday 25th of January 2011. Accordingly, the regime has had to step closer to a real democratic reform, but on the other side, the protesters kept their pressure up, their hands high, and their fingers crossed.

Mohamed Bouazizi has started it all in Sidi Bouzid. In Egypt, it was #SidiBouzid only which has broken the border of fear, it was the firing level and the parent of #Jan25. Sidi Bouzid has inspired a historic cyclone of sweeping revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa.

Today it’s in Egypt, but Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq, and others are queuing. The world is following Tahrir closely with some mixed feelings, between admiring the Egyptian youth bravery and worrying about the Muslim Brotherhood rising power and massive popularity.

We’ve taken one step closer, and decided to penetrate the heart of the revolution, the famous Tahrir square, not the virtual one.

The first demand: To overthrow the regime

A spontaneous debate between a group protesters with different opinions has arisen in the making of this podcast; An English debate between a group of Egyptians in the heart of Tahrir. The experience of wandering the square, Maidan in Arabic, talking to people, debating, singing, laughing, chanting, eating, and even cleaning the square with the protesters was beyond all the expectations. Everything was well organized, and everyone was civilised. The protesters were expressing their opinions peacefully while respecting the others. This Tahrir Carnival should be commemorated every year, I can’t get enough of it really; the creativity, the high morale and spirits, and even the songs. So make sure you don’t miss this! Listen or download this exclusive podcast directly from the core of Tahrir square, Egypt.

The song used in the intro of this podcast is a sample of Rebel, a new song by Arabian Knightz dedicated to the Egyptian protests. Check it out on Mideast Tunes here.

Stay tuned to everything about the ongoing unprecedented protests in Egypt around the clock through Egypt’s voice on CrowdVoice here.

Browse and listen to Mideast Youth podcasts and Arabicasts all in one comprehensive place here.

Special thanks for Ahmed Youssry for his help and participation in the making of this podcast, and also I’d like to thank all the protesters who have taken time to record this from the square, risking being labelled as foreign agents “with agendas” by the state controlled media outlets in Egypt.

The father was 12 years old when Israeli soldiers shot him in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet fragmenting his skull and damaging part of his brain. Ten years later, Israeli army officers severely beat and tortured him.He got married to his cousin immediately after.

Palestinians kicked out of their home in 1948

The family originally comes from Al-Walaja village, the village along with some 530 Palestinian villages, was destroyed and ethnically cleansed in 1948. Most of this village land came under Israeli rule. The part that came under Jordanian rule was used to build a new Al-Walaja where some of the relatives returned and built homes in the early 1960s.

After having their first child, the young couple received a blessing in the form of a donation of a very small plot of land from their uncle and they built a humble one room house (literally one room) in Al-Walaja. Both had jobs.

They moved out of the refugee camp and lived in this house for 3 years during which time, they delivered their second child who then died at 18 days of age (by SIDS.) Then the Israeli army demolished the home saying that it was built without permit (Israel gave no permits for any houses in the village since the occupation began in 1967.) The family rebuilt the house but Israeli threats forced them to not live in it (Israel wants also some NIS 20,000~ US$ 6.000 for the cost of destroying the home and wants to levy other fines on the family.)

So the young family came to live in a small dwelling underground and without windows (bought with money from selling the wife’s wedding jewelry) in the refugee camp of Dheisheh. There, the third child (second who is alive) was born and they named him Mohammed. He turned out to have Bardet-Biedl Syndrome (a genetic disease characterized by obesity, eye problems, kidney problems, hexadactyly or six fingers and toes, developmental delay etc.) An uncle and an aunt of Mohammed (refugees in Jordan) died before age 20 with this condition (we took blood samples from the family for genetics study at Bethlehem University.)

The first snow in years came and the roof of their dwelling collapsed. The husband had developed a psychiatric disorder and was treated at a local hospital. Both he and his wife were unable to hold jobs anymore. They had one more son (healthy) and she is now pregnant. Thankfully, UNRWA rehabilitated the home in the refugee camp, and the home in Al-Walaja remains unoccupied and unfinished (and no water or electricity).

The family is loving, hopeful and steadfast (we call it sumoud in Arabic). We spent a few hours during Eid Al-Fitr together and visited the home in Al-Walaja. I personally witnessed how the family cares for each other. Their eldest son Khaled (in 5th grade) is simply brilliant and very loving for his two younger brothers. A short video is at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd17icOsDdo

This is one of millions of Palestinian stories of tragedy and persistence after ethnic cleansing and under colonial occupation.

Mazin Qumsiyeh,

PhD

A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home

http://www.qumsiyeh.org

Professor, Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities Chairman of the Board, Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People,

http://www.pcr.ps

Please consider taking action in any way that you can. This will only take a moment of your time to sign. These animals are living in horrible conditions, as you can see on the additional links on the page. Each one of you can make help make a difference.

Thank you.

If you look at the varied political landscapes of the Middle East you will begin to see a whole host of hidden dangers lurking in the midst. The Mullahs in Iran, for example, have quite a lot on their plate: an angry citizenry demanding change, a weak economy, the onset of international sanctions, and the looming threat of a military attack. Iran’s answer is to pursue nuclear capability, to sponsor terror organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, and to forge new alliances with countries such as Turkey, Syria, and perhaps even Iraq. We may soon see an alliance of like-minded countries which have come together to project influence in the region, and to protect themselves from both domestic and international threats.

What will Western countries do in response? They will have no choice but to react. If left unchecked, a political alliance with Iran at its center could easily develop a nuclear capability, and use that as a means of stifling domestic and international dissent, and consolidating control of the entire region. A nuclear capacity will act as a protective shield to protect nations like Iran from any outside interference with regard to domestic policies and foreign policy agendas. The ability to discourage outside interference is precisely why Iran is so hell bent on producing nuclear weapons.

The West will have to react. Too much is at stake including access to oil, as well as the looming threat of a further radicalization of extremist groups. But what can the West do, short of war, to counter the threats posed by an alliance of the more fundamentalist elements in the Middle East?

The West will have to find a way to ally itself militarily and economically with the Sunni world, with countries that see an Iranian backed alliance as equally threatening to them. How can all of this be accomplished? My guess is that we will soon see a peace deal struck between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Fattah in the West Bank is a lot more worried about an Iranian backed Hamas takeover of the West Bank, than it is about Israel. In fact, Israel is probably the only military force in the region that can actually protect the West Bank from such a takeover. And Israel is a lot more worried about a nuclear Iran, allied with Syria and Turkey, than it is about the West Bank Palestinians, who seem fully committed to growing their economy, consolidating their security, and establishing a Palestinian state within the span of two years.

A peace deal struck between Israel and Palestine will reverberate across the region and around the world. New alliances will be forged, and a massive effort will be launched to revitalize the region as a whole, by consolidating security and growing the various economies. Saudi Arabia, for example, along with the other Sunni states, would likely use the Israel/Palestine deal as a pretext to recognize Israel in accordance with the Arab Peace Plan of 2002. Egypt and Jordan would likely join in, having already signed peace agreements with Israel, and also facing daunting challenges from within and without, including the possibility that a nuclear Iran could foment internal opposition throughout the Arab world.

And how would Western countries react to a realignment of this sort in the Middle East? The U.S. would probably continue to back Israel, especially as a peace deal is consummated, and would probably lend its support to a military/economic alliance which would counter the Iranian threat, and which would include Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and a great many other Arab states.

Will the realignment of the Middle East into two camps necessarily mean war? In my opinion, not necessarily. If a peace deal is forged between Israel and Palestine, and if such a deal is used as a springboard to revitalize the region economically, and if a military/economic alliance is forged between the Western world and much of the Sunni world, then such a result could actually stabilize the region. The Western/Sunni alliance could conceivably be much more powerful than the Iranian alliance, both in terms of military strength, and economic prosperity. As a result, Iran would have to think twice and maybe three times, before taking on such a powerful opponent. Under such circumstances, a certain sense of stability may ensue.

Eventually, if a Vision of Hope is realized in parts of the Middle East, a vision of Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom, then countries which may have had no intention of following suit, would likely reconsider their approach in light of increasing domestic pressure. “Hey, where is our share?” the people on the street would ask. In other words, if the military option is no longer on the table, and if terrorism begin to lose its luster, and if there begins to emerge shining lights of success in the Middle East, then everyone in the region will be forced to follow suit, and jump onto the bandwagon of job creation, including: jobs which grow their economies, jobs which protect the environment, and jobs which help to weaken the hold of extremist thinking.

Granted, there are an awful lot of “ifs” in this scenario, and perhaps a healthy dose of wishful thinking to boot. And granted, people emboldened by an ideological agenda often make the wrong choices. But I would argue that there is at least a pretty good chance that things could work out this way. And given the dismal alternative—a mixed fruit salad of death, destruction, and despair—it is a chance we cannot afford to lose.

The extensive 26-page report surveyed the conditions of domestic workers in Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain (as well as Malaysia and Singapore). The report remarked that the conditions of migrant domestic workers are gradually, albeit slowly, improving. However, domestic workers are still extremely vulnerable and under-protected in the Middle East.

The report details how migrant domestic workers can be subjected to exploitation by several actors, starting from recruitment agencies in their own countries and up to policemen in their country of destination if the approach to report abuse. As the report states “the failure to properly regulate paid domestic work facilitates egregious abuse and exploitation, and means domestic workers who encounter such abuse have few or no means for seeking redress.”

The vulnerability begins at home, where recruitment agencies often provide false information to migrant workers about their future conditions and pay. Those agencies usually demand a high fee for securing the work visa, forcing the future workers to go into debt. The burden of debt to the agency makes the domestic worker fearful about reporting abuse and possibly losing their job and being unable to repay the “loan” to the agency. Once a worker arrives to his county of destination, recruitment agencies sometimes substitute the contracts the woman signed back home with a new contract with poorer conditions. We have covered a case of such worker, Grace from the Philippines. She was promised a job in Qatar as an executive secretary for 700 QAR per month, but upon arrival she was informed that she’ll be taking care of a child, with no days off and for 600 QAR ($165) per month.

Domestic workers in the surveyed countries require a local sponsor, to whom their work visa is tied. The sponsorship creates dependency and vulnerability and makes exploitation much more likely. As the report remarked “As the immigration sponsor, the employer can typically have the domestic worker repatriated at will, provide or withhold consent on whether she can change jobs, and in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, obstruct her ability to leave the country. In practice, termination of employment often means the worker is obliged to leave the country immediately with no opportunity to seek redress for abuses or settlement of unpaid wages… Migrant domestic workers who leave their employment without their employer’s consent lose their legal status, making them subject to immigration penalties and deportation.”

We’ve previously reported how an unpaid Indian worker (read: slave) resorted to hiding in an airplane bathroom to be able to return home, after his abusive employer wouldn’t return his passport and give him permission to leave. Other employers, once their domestic workers muster up the courage to report the abuse, often counter-accuse the worker of committing crimes like theft of running away, and the police sometimes takes their side. We previously reported about a Sri Lankan maid who ended up in a Jordanian hospital after her employer beat her. When she complained, the employer accused the maid of theft and child abuse and the maid was arrested while still recovering from her injuries.

The invisibility of domestic workers in the homes of their sponsors to the outside world creates an increased risk of abuse, sexual harassment, food deprivation, and forced confinement. “In the worst cases, domestic workers may become trapped in situations of forced labor, trafficking, or slavery, or they die from murder, botched escape attempts, or suicide”, the report states. As we’ve documented, the high numbers of domestic workers taking their lives in Lebanon, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia is extremely worrisome and attests to the poor living and working conditions those housemaids have to endure.

The justice system in most Middle Eastern countries discriminates against migrant workers. As the report remarked, “Human Rights Watch has documented patterns in which the combination of poorly conducted investigations, lengthy trials, and weak enforcement of judgments combine to pressure victims of violence into accepting small financial settlements, a return ticket home, or nothing at all.” Last year we mentioned the case of an abused Sri Lankan maid who ran away from her Bahraini sponsor and approached the police, only to be returned to him. We also reported about the case of an Indian maid who was severely abused by her Bahraini sponsor who returned to India five months after the case was filed, and yet no charges was brought against her abusive sponsors.

Labor and Immigration Reforms

The report discusses the positive reforms in the labor and immigration laws made by regional governments. Unfortunately, other than in Jordan, regional governments do not include domestic workers under the protection of its labor laws. Other regional governments, like the UAE and Lebanon, introduced the standard employment contract, which regulates the domestic worker’s wages, but “falls short of providing the comprehensive protections provided under national labor laws”, the report noted. The contracts, which are also in use of private recruitment agencies in Saudi Arabia, do not give housemaids a weekly day off, it does not limit their working hours, and permits employers to forcibly keep their maids indoors. The reformed laws in Jordan still allows employers to hold their domestic worker’s passport and prohibit them from leaving the house, even on rest days. Changes in the sponsorship system in Kuwait and Bahrain excluded domestic workers.

Exposure to Racism and Sexism

The report notes that “Government officials, employers, and recruitment agents often make arguments against reform that reveal deep racial and gender stereotypes about migrant women and men, and the insecurities of wealthy elites that may feel physically and culturally threatened by large migrant populations but are also deeply dependent on them.” As we’ve shown, media reports in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE portray domestic workers as abusive sneaky witches, lazy liars and criminals. In addition to this “A second set of tensions around immigration reform center on sexual stereotypes and fears. Employers commonly describe their fear of migrant men or express stereotypes of migrant women as either sexually loose or as innocent and naïve in order to justify their practices of confining migrant domestic workers to the home and prohibiting them from taking a day off”, the report states.

The Human Rights Watch report paints a bleak picture about the rights of migrant domestic workers in the region. Despite the reforms, there is still a long way to go before domestic workers can arrive to the Middle East without fear of being abused, exploited, discriminated against and ignored by authorities.

This originally appeared on Migrant-Rights.org

It was a meeting of minds, water minds. Water consultants, ambassadors who’ve built water treaties, and government specialists and negotiators from around the Middle East and Europe gathered in Montreux, Switzerland for a two-day workshop on Water Security in the Middle East last week. Green Prophet was invited to attend. The object was to explore sustainable and cooperative solutions to water security, and to use the problem of water and turn it into an instrument of peace.

Organized by the Strategic Foresight Group, the same India-based firm that brought us the Cost of Conflict to the Environment in the Middle East report, the event included a gala supper, and meeting with the Prince of Jordan, sponsored by the Swiss and Swedish governments. Both peace-loving and humanitarian nations are eager to ease future conflicts in the Middle East, with all fingers pointing to water conflict being the fuel for the next big one, many believe. But how can it be done?

The second day workshop, which I was invited to attend (and presented my interviews with Israeli water experts), included a panel of Palestinians, Turks, Israelis, and Jordanians, and officials from Ireland, Switzerland and Sweden, India and Syria who helped moderate.

Before the long day of talks, we met for cocktails and supper at the Montreux Palace Hotel. We were in great company: previous guests to the hotel include Deep Purple (whose fans burned down the Montreux Casino), Led Zeppelin, Freddie Mercury, and and Dostoevsky. It was a venue fit for a king, or at least a prince.

After some small talk with that day’s workshop (from Iraq, Lebanon and more), we all greeted Prince Hassan bin Talal, the Prince of Jordan, and a voice for global sustainability, reconciliation and interreligious understanding, graced us with his presence, along with his wife Sarvath last Monday.

He talked about the problems of global warming, and the impact it will have on humanity.

“When Al Gore talked about global warming, I talked of human warning,” said Prince Hassan, who pointed to the Balfour Declaration signed 90 years ago, as the as the start of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arab people. In the context of water, “Territory migration is the conflict we face,” he said.

Possible solutions?

Prince Hassan talked about developing the earthquake prone Jordan Rift Valley, and how the region needs a “master plan for water management. We need to go from concept building to a new concept,” he addressed, adding it was time to mobilize the “silenced majority.”

“War does not make additional water, but regional cooperation can… There is an urgent need for developed countries to provide technical assistance and support to water poor countries to reach a better level of water safety,” he said.

“Our challenge in this part of the world is to come to terms with the international inconsistency and double standards to which we find ourselves subjected year after year. We have had enough of being the subject of development policies. We would like to become the object of development,” he added.

Jordan is one of the most resource-poor countries in the Middle East, but a moderate that can help broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The Prince sees the following avenues open to explore new channels in fulfilling water supply and demand in the region:

He mentioned the significance of Desertec – a pan-European, pan-African solar project that will collect solar energy from North Africa and pipe it to Europe, and the need for other countries in the Middle East to be involved in the project.

He talked about the potential of freshwater reserves from the Nile region in Egypt, and reminded us about the Dead-Red canal, and the project’s potential to bring water and energy to the resource strapped region.

Prince Hassan pointed out the value of surface water, especially for the Palestinians in Gaza, as a means for obtaining more freshwater, explored Jordan’s advancing technologies in nanotechnology to remove pollution from water; and Jordan’s interest in turning the clay-based deserts into arable farmland while pointing out the role the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, should play in the Middle East.

When I met him I promised to make sure that Jordan gets even and fair coverage of its environment news and breakthroughs; and he said he’d be happy to help in any way he could.

Facing the waters of Lake Geneva, held by mountains on both sides, the night provided a safe and secure meeting ground for us to listen to Jordan’s concerns, which were all of our concerns; we later heard from Swiss and Swedish governments; and how the Swiss and French worked to turn Lake Geneva into a clean cross-boundary water resource now enjoyed by millions.

We went to bed with our bellies full of Swiss delights –– chocolate and cheese –– with high hopes for the next day’s workshop. Stay tuned for my updates.

::Strategic Foresight Group

(This post first appeared on the Green Prophet blog.)

When it comes to some monarchies, especially in the Middle East, all reason and self-restraint are abrogated, according to a Jordanian writer in a Reporters Without Borders report on free expression in Jordan. He was commenting on the multiple charges of “lese majeste” injury or insult to King Abdullah – which were brought against a Jordanian writer. In Jordan, speaking negatively or critically about the king is viewed as a serious crime – tantamount to endangering national security.

Lese majeste differs from outright censorship in that it is often presented as libel, or as a personal offense against a head of State, rather than as a pure free speech matter. It is often used to silence those who express an inconvenient truth that sheds a negative light on the regime and its undemocratic practices (i.e., exposing corruption or criticizing unpopular decisions). Under such antiquated laws, regular citizens as well as writers and bloggers can be prosecuted for this “crime”.

Many monarchs or heads of state – with their self-serving belief in a regent’s “divine right to rule” – have traditionally had a hard time dealing with criticism. Some manage to ignore it, others ensure that journalists employ self-censorship through bribes and intimidation, but still others like the king of Jordan crack down on any criticism, using brutal, repressive forms of coercion to stifle dissent (Mr. Ahmed Al-Tamimi and Mr. Yasser Abu Hlalah are examples of this criminal, barbaric and reprehensible behavior).

Relying on a mix of indicators such as detentions, regulations, and intimidation to crush any peaceful and generally loyal opposition, the Jordanian regime has now emerged as one of the leading online and print media oppressors in the Middle East. This is evidenced by the outright and clear violation of the fundamental principles put forward by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to measure a society’s tolerance of free speech; these principles include but are not limited to: governments’ use of filtering, monitoring, and regulation (Arab Times newspaper and its online version is an example); authorities’ use of imprisonments; and other forms of legal harassment to deter critical journalistic writing (Mr. Ahmed Al-Abbadi is another example).

In the face of this intimidation, more and more Jordanians are exercising their God-given rights by turning to cyber activism to fight for human rights and freedom of expression in their country. The new forms of communication opened up by these opportunities have proven to be an immensely powerful tool for those citizens marginalized by the regime – the powerless and voiceless citizens of our society.

I am using this preface to shed light on the recent decision by the Jordanian regime to silence one of its online “constructive” critics. Mr. Salah Momani is a citizen journalist and a founder of an online magazine called “Arabissues.net”. He is also a regular writer and commentator on various Arab websites who has dedicated a large part of his personal time to advance an open dialogue dealing with Arabs, Muslims, Arab Americans, democracy, interfaith and human rights.

Mr. Momani has recently been forced to make a very difficult, soul-searching decision to shut down his online opinion shop so he can receive a royal “clemency” and consequently can be taken off the Jordanian government and its intelligence services’ blacklist; this quid-pro-quo will allow him and his children the regime-granted “privilege” to visit his native country.

Mr. Momani had recently decided that his American-born kids should establish ties with their father’s homeland. However, he was told by Jordanian security services that he would not be permitted to enter Jordan to live or visit unless he petitioned the government for forgiveness for his purported “crimes”. Mr. Momani has been informed by friends and relatives that he will remain in the Jordanian security services’ blacklist as long as he refuses to renounce his political views pertaining to Jordan and its repressive government. Mr. Momani’s only transgression – as defined by the Jordanian government – was the sponsorship of a website in the United States (Detroit, Michigan) which was perceived by the Jordanian authorities to be hostile to the Jordanian regime.

Mr. Momani had already paid a very high price for his principled independence, when the Jordanian regime placed him on its blacklist which resulted in an indefinite self-imposed travel ban to visit his old and ailing mother. So this time around, he felt that the price of his conscientious stand, which would force him and his family to cut ties with his beloved native land, was too high to pay, so he is reluctantly considering a compromise with his principles, and capitulate to the regime’s demands. It is my fervent hope that he would not!

The Jordanian authorities have dictated that in order for Mr. Momani to be removed from its blacklisted individual database, he has to stop his online critique of Jordanian political issues. which alas, he has done (http://arabissues.net/), stop writing negatively and disparagingly about Jordan and its ruling elite – especially its corrupt and sycophantic politicians – and not engage in any activities that could be perceived as hostile (however defined) to his “majesty’s government”?.

The irony of this egregious capitulation was that Mr. Momani never attacked the “the monarchy” itself, but merely criticized the regime’s political and governance practices, which he correctly described as autocratic. Also, there has been no attempt by him to cast any doubt on the legitimacy of the regime or the King; Mr. Momani merely contented himself with cataloguing and documenting what he felt were some of the regime’s undemocratic excesses.

The decision by the Jordanian authorities to blackmail Mr. Momani whether directly or indirectly clearly shows the political and moral bankruptcy of the Jordanian regime. Here is a man of principle, with great affection and concern for his native country, who ran a website which was open to a diverse collection of views that allowed participants to engage in a wide-ranging intellectual dialogue about freedom, human rights, art, and poetry as well as community issues. Surely he is the kind of opposition figure that Jordan needs and not one who deserves the indignities of being censored and harassed.

Over the years, as part of its’ efforts to silence its critics, (i.e., reformers, bloggers and independent writers), the Jordanian regime has enacted publication and press laws that grant authorities sweeping powers to jail and fine journalists and writers and to shut down publications that violate a host of vaguely defined statutes, whose interpretation is a right reserved solely for government censors and its security services.

As a reaction to these dictatorial measures, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed grave concerns about the Jordanian regime’s gangster mentality in its approach towards independent writers and journalists. The organization has rightly and unequivocally criticized the Jordanian regime’s overt hostility toward independent writers, a policy which the CPJ has considered to constitute a serious threat to freedom of speech– one which violates the right to free expression guaranteed under international law.

I agree with the CPJ’s position and I believe that these attempts to silence Mr. Momani also constitute flagrant violations of the most fundamental rights to free expression guaranteed under international law such as Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, accepted by all civilized democracies, which underscores this basic principle.

For those of us fighting for human rights and freedom in Jordan and around the world, the opportunities offered by cyberspace are strengthening our outreach strategies and enabling us to pursue our hopes and dreams for a better future. While our efforts are not entirely beyond the reach of government censors and their security services, they are still influential enough to inspire, help and contribute to positive changes in Jordan and other countries which are beset with dictatorship and corruption.

Therefore, I call upon concerned freedom of expression activists, and the online community users (bloggers and human rights activists) to come together and establish a coherent effort to defend the rights of Salah Momani and others who have committed themselves to peaceful reforms of oppressive regimes like the one presently ruling in Amman.

We the public also must speak out regarding the mindless, repressive idiocy promulgated by the regime and its propagandists as well as the Monarchy’s self-proclaimed supporters in Jordan and elsewhere. Namely: The constant lies and deception spread about reform advocates! The horrible and explicitly inhumane treatment of dissent toward critics! This behavior must not be tolerated in a supposedly free society that claims to be a member of the civilized, democratic family of nations.

Free Jordanians and their human right allies and advocates should rise up and protest this appalling behavior by this undemocratic regime. They must make every effort to advance peaceful democratic reforms that will benefit ALL Jordanians, not just those citizens who approve of and benefit from the regime’s undemocratic excesses.