LOYALIST youngsters wearing red-and-white checked headscarves around their necks and carrying flags and portraits of King Abdullah of Jordan were first to assemble yesterday in the garden next to the Amman municipality buildings. Security was tight. Blue-uniformed policemen outnumbered the demonstrators.
As children rolled down a grassy knoll, a clutch of loyalists gathered around the head of internal security, Hussein Majali, were told: no violence. Last week a man was killed when loyalists attacked the reform encampment in front of the interior ministry.
As the call to prayer resonated in the bowl formed by Amman’s many heavily built hills, loyalists, reformers, policemen and neighbourhood folk streamed into the King Hussein mosque and its grounds for the noon service.
The preacher pointed out that Jordan was not Tunis, Egypt or Yemen. “We must have freedom and democracy,” he said.
On the knoll, several dozen loyalists cheered, danced and sang to music blaring from loudspeakers while another 100, surrounded by 200 policemen, marched along the road and joined the group.
On the other side of the mosque, hundreds of riot police in helmets and flak jackets surrounded the paved courtyard where the March 24th reform movement was holding its rally.
A few posters of the king bobbed up over the crowd as some 600 called for unity and reform. The group was older, more serious and settled than the lively loyalists.
Movement organiser Muhammad Bitar said: “We want a Jordan with no corruption, a government voted by the people [and] monitored by the people, at least to some extent. We have no clear future because of high taxes and growing debt. We want the same freedoms they have in Europe.”
Over lunch, a senior statesman listed the differences between how the Arab spring is manifesting itself here and elsewhere.
“Jordan is not a dictatorship like Tunisia or Egypt. We made the important changes between 1989 [the kingdom’s second key parliamentary election] and 1993,” he said.
Although political parties were not formally allowed, he said, they not only existed but fielded independent candidates who represented all shades of opinion.
“All our parties are pan-Arab parties – unlike those in Egypt,” he said. The statesman added that Jordan abolished martial law in 1992 – unlike Egypt, where emergency law is still in place, and Tunisia, where it has just been lifted.
“We don’t have political prisoners. The human rights committee has campaigned successfully against torture,” he said.
“We need to amend the constitution and the laws to fit current circumstances. It’s not difficult to legislate changes. This can be done in a month, not two or three. It must be done and soon.”