Trigger warning: rape, child sexual abuse, forced marriage
While probably not the most obvious choice for a vocal detractor of religious doctrine, the ‘Holy Land’, or more accurately the Levant region of West Asia, was to become my place of work and travel after a marginally traumatic exam term. Having travelled pretty extensively already on various placements, internships, and expeditions into the wild, I was fairly confident that living and working for a month or so there wouldn’t be much more of a challenge than other places I had been.
I started my time there in the “Hashemite Kingdom” of Jordan, for 4 weeks, working as an intern for a Jordanian Women’s Legal Aid organisation, mostly working on an informational campaign promoting female access to legal justice and condemning forced marriage of children. One of the things that struck me early on was that despite being a haven of humanitarian activism there were a lot of taboos that hamstrung some of the goals the organisation was working so hard to achieve.
The obvious taboo was criticism of Islam, that in Jordanian society dominates the legal-political landscape as well as forming the basis for much of societal practise. While it was completely understandable the organisation wouldn’t seek to be openly confrontational where they might risk losing governmental support (being a domestic NGO), board discussions were frankly stifling when any recognition of problems arising from religious doctrine were swiftly and directly shut down. It became quite clear that domestic NGOs, unlike UN agencies, had to tread a very careful line, nudging society towards reform but edging back to avoid outbursts of religious privilege.
Another barrier was talk of anything carnal. Given one of our primary aims was the prevention of “early marriage” (marriage of under 18s to those over 18, recognised by the UN as ‘forced’ marriage) which brought with it chilling accounts of reproductive malady, and the terrifying frequency of marital (and clearly, child) rape – not being able to address directly anything tangentially related to sex or sexual education, the campaigns to end sexual violence lost significant potency.
More surprisingly, talk of religion in general was taboo. Completely unrepresentative of Jordanian culture, my office contained 3 Atheists, 4 Muslims, and 2 Christians. I had imagined that given a fairly diverse showing conversations around faith might come up, yet when they did, criticisms of all forms of belief/non belief seemed utterly shocking – as if daring to challenge opinion privilege was decidedly ‘Haram’.
What surprised me, despite Jordan’s reputation as liberal in the Arab region, was that it is constitutionally Islamic, with significant judicial power afforded to religious leaders, which implicitly lacks accountability. Jordanian law is split between business law – legacy of the British Mandate, and Shari’a “personal status” law which deals with family law and interpersonal disputes.
Despite Jordan largely being a safe and tolerant nation with a constitutional guarantee of gender equality, the dominant Shari’a court fundamentally undercuts progressive reforms. Particularly in gender equity, the Shari’a system overwhelmingly disadvantages women in terms of divorce, child custody, sexual assault and financial security, requiring absurd standards of evidence from female victims of violent crimes, as well as victim blaming, slut shaming, and affording male members of family agency on behalf of their female property.
It became frustrating that in the most stable Arab nation, a perfect platform for a renaissance in Arab intellectual thought, dogmatic and maddeningly conservative Islamic doctrine was preventing social reform. Given over “90%” of Jordanians are defined as Islamic adherents (over 35% of Jordanians are under 15 year of age, so really, really don’t count), there’s also the public force of religious conservatism to be reckoned with. So much so, that when an anti-honour crimes bill headed up by the progressive monarch was tabled in the Jordanian parliament, it suffered a monumental public backlash, spearheaded by well supported religious leaders. The remaining legislation legalises murder of female members of family, if that family consents to the murder. Being someone who subscribes to a liberal-secular reading of human experience, this was pretty hard to stomach, and challenging to address.
One observation I made about the nature of Islamic culture as opposed to my native historically Christian homeland was that it seemed prescriptive and rigid. I got the impression that one of the problems facing progressive members of the Islamic community is that the Qur’an is very clear and in cases exceptionally precise, particularly in its focus on personal behaviour. This seems to limit social reform in countries with constitutional preference for Islam, where there is an in-built conservatism which is hard to shake. That, and a lot of the prescriptions limit and influence a large portion of your daily human activities including prayer requirements, legal status of women and minorities, as well as dietary restrictions and sexual interactions.
Although this probably presents a very regressive image of Jordan, it really is as advertised – “Switzerland of the Levant”. Jordanian culture has managed to withstand around a dozen huge influxes of refugees from neighbouring Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian Territories. It was astounding to see such a small and economically handicapped state manage this situation with what appeared to be a huge amount of success, integrating these diverse cultures and welcoming them into Jordanian society. Obviously there were some tensions, and some issues, but largely Jordan seemed to be a successful re-envisioning of the immigrant state.
As well as providing stable ground for the region’s refugees, Jordan also seems to perform the function of regional buffer. While Jordanian society does harbour some seriously troubling anti-semitism, ironically Jordan could be the bulwark against which the self styled Levantine caliphate crumbles and fails in its gruesome mission to exterminate the Israeli state. Where IS, or whatever tedious name they’ve settled on this week, gained in fractured Iraq and tumultuous Syria, in Jordan, a negligible minority in a tiny rural village fly the IS flag. A large proportion of Jordanians live in Amman or the surrounding towns and villages, with relative economic security, a stable political system, no Shia/Sunni divide or seemingly any reason to resort to medieval egoism as a form of civil governance.
While Jordan is overwhelmingly conservative, I believe that is changing. Universities are harbouring more dissent, the irreligious are becoming more open, conversations are being had about controversial issues and the exuberance of Jordan’s youth is driving a new Jordan forward. While I’m pretty sure I met all 5 of the Ammanian irreligious community, sporting Iron Maiden t-shirts and knocking back tequila while discussing the finer points of anarcho-liberalism, there does seem to be a thrust of ideological discourse bubbling under the conservative surface that I believe will be a force for good in Jordan and an example to the region.
Jordan certainly isn’t some seculo-liberal paradise, but its definitely far from broken. Yes, it sits in the middle of a maelstrom of turmoil, but it’s also the nexus of thousands of years of intellectual revolution and cultural splendour, and I imagine that it will continue on that course into the future.
Outrageously Liberal 