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Jordan’s Iraqi Social Revolution Is Politically-Loaded

By Dr Marwan Asmar

17 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org

They are working as chemists, some taxi drivers, you see them everywhere moving in Amman, and old Bedouin women selling chewing gum and cheap cigarettes. Young chic women with the latest fashions and tight fittings saunter in the capital’s malls while young men try their hand to utter accents to make themselves acceptable to the locals and old people especially in mosques and churches.

What is happening today in Jordan is nothing less than a quite social revolution, unprecedented in dimensions but no less than the catastrophes of 1948 and 1967 when Israel moved into carving up Palestinian territories and created waves upon waves of refugees who came to settle in Jordan.

Iraqis are every where. Although their presence in the streets, commercial areas and residential districts of Amman have been more noticeable since 2005 and today, many started coming to such countries like Jordan and Syria after the 1990/91 debacle of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent US-imposed UN sanctions on the country.

The 1990s saw a slow but consistent population movement of Iraqi urban dwellers, artists, intellectuals and businessmen easing out of the country into the different towns and cities of Jordan. They came with their culture, styles of food, intellect and dirt-cheap paintings.


The whole thing got out of hand in 2003 when renewed influxes of large citizens started to leave Iraq as a result of the American pressure and eventual war that removed Saddam Hussein from power and occupied the country. These included the professional classes, the self-made millionaires and established businessmen.

With daily violence and mayhem becoming a function of the tribulations that followed, Iraqis, poor, rich and young, old, relatives began to scurry out of the country in search of security and a welcoming hand. The Iraq of Saddam or the Baath was now unable to protect them despite the fact that many said it was ruthless and despotic. But many lamented it provided us with security.

Official statistics in 2004, show Jordan had accumulated up to 500,000 Iraqis on its soil, however, the figures talked about in 2005, 2006 and today is up to 1.5 million Iraqis have settled in the country, some on the income they brought with them, but many as well straddled in the Kingdom’s tight labor markets as best as they can.

Added to this seriousness, their presence in the country started to contribute to high inflation, spiraling prices, and sky-rocketing rent increases which strained the locals who in the interest of Arabism and good neighborliness kept their dissatisfaction to themselves and only grumbled under the collar.

Experts suggest the Jordan government has been very lenient with Iraqis because many came into the country with lots of money and investments, something that was thought would make the economy in a better shape for the future.

But still the demographics are changing, new accents are being heard and a new and quite social revolution instituted underlined by the fact that where ever you go in the Kingdom, especially in Amman, Irbid and Zarqa, you see the sprouting of different Iraqi communities from social stratums and professions that are plentiful.

The mostly single migration of mostly men huddling 10-to-a-room have changed today into family migration and kinship migration. They are bearing Iraq no longer, and for the rich are buying flats and villas. For the poor and lower middle class they make do with rented accommodation.


The government in Jordan has recognized this fact, and that’s why last September, it allowed up to 50,000 Iraqi pupils in its public schools. This maybe be seen as one of a first of a series of long-term planning putting an end to speculations that the Iraqi move into Jordan is temporary and are here to stay, and many don’t wish to go back to their country.

The situation is still in a fluid stage as many observers tend to argue that many professional Iraqis and those with degrees use Jordan as an initial staging post for Europe. They are here to go abroad, Europe, maybe America, Canada and Australia.

While this may have been the case in the 1990s, the nature of the Iraqi migration in the last few years has been at such a scale that global immigration authorities are increasingly feeling the pressure to deal with the vast flow especially because of the security situation and the new complicated procedures following 11 September. Because of the threat of global terrorism the above states in particular have tightened their immigration policies.

That means Iraqis could very well end up in the country which that may well be very likely judging from the numerous posh Iraqi restaurants that opened up in the last few years. But they are here to stay in a country that is already under financial constraints and pressures of its own as its own local population—estimated at 5 million—is growing rapidly and eating its own limited social services.

Policy-makers, officials and independent observers to say it mildly are putting a brave face, saying the Kingdom has always been in the forefront of tough challenges, and this latest brunt is just one of a series with everything working out at the end.

Of course everyone is banking on a better Iraq in the future and see the “spillage” as temporary where Iraqis would in the end go back to Iraq and re-establish themselves among their kin and folk.

But sociologists and social planners may not so sure. The social revolution in the country has been building up for the last 17 years, today the Iraqi communities in Jordan have started to build roots, and it would be difficult for—apart from the fact they may not personally want to—to go back their traditional home place which they have been alienated from, firstly by the former Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent Iraqi governments in the wake of the American occupation of the country.

So the bet is on. Iraqis will stay in Jordan because it may not be a bad idea to add another force in the social and economic polity of the Kingdom as it further fragments the social structure and adds to greater and more effective manipulation by outside powers of the regional system.

Internal fragmentation would add to the imposition of policies from outside the region regarding the status of the Palestinian issue in Jordan and further knock down the peace process which has been on life-support for at least the last seven years, since the start of the Intifada since the year 2000.

Jordan’s Iraqi communities are certainly no time-bombs, they are changing the social structure, and whether we like it or not are bringing the old ideas of pan-Arab nationalism based on one people back into the Jordanian street.

But these are changing times where economic globalization is over-riding politics and political identity and were economic conditions and well-being is placing identity and affiliation.


Added to that is the overall international picture and danger that lies in manipulating the Iraqi presence to suit other purposes for much bigger international goals dictated to by callous powers like the United States in the interests of imposing its own regional security pact, system and peace view. Finally, the question that has to be asked is who is really in the driving-seat out there, and planning the strings?

 

 

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