History lesson

Ok so the region of the Middle East was sliced up but the western powers into the nations that exist today in the early 20^th century with only vague concern for what the people wanted and what would be feasible to govern.   Jordan is no different.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was establish in the late 1940’s out of Transjordan by the British.  They made Abdullah I king.  He fully expected to be placed in charge of Syria shortly and only kind of cared about this Jordan idea.  So he decided to plunk down the capitol of his new “temporary” kingdom in Amman.  (Amman was close to the boarder so he wouldn’t have to move far.) 

            Side note, his brother, Faisl got Syria for a while, but ended up with Iraq.  They're part of the Hashemites, who trace their linage back to the Prophet.  

Amman has been around for thousands of years. This area is the beginning of civilization.   But Amman at the turn of the 20^th century was a bit of a mess.  A few earthquakes  in the proceeding 50 years had turned a lot of the city to rubble, and what was left was small village really.   When the king arrived, there was nowhere for him to begin his reign, so he hunkered down in a train car to rule the country.

Since then, Amman has flourish.  But there has been some serious influx of people arriving that overloaded the city’s infrastructure and capability too.  The region’s constant wars and Jordan’s consistent status as a calm neighbor makes it a great place for refugees, especially from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that shares boarders.   So refugees begin pouring in to the city, absolutely overwhelming what exists and something has to be built to contain it all.  So, city planning out the window, Amman explodes. 

Roads are build anywhere they fit and houses and shops are squished anywhere people have the money and space to put them.  Currently the population of Jordan is about 6 million.  2 million are Jordanian. The other 4 million are Jordanian Palestinian.  (It’s a huge source of conflict and stress and the cause of the civil war.  You don’t talk about it here.) And then there is still the million of refugees who are not citizens. They certainly stress the city and resources.   Most are Palestinian, many are Iraqi. But there are others as well.

Jordan is far better off than many of its neighbors. The way the Middle East was divided up after the WWII and occupations and colonization, account for many of the tensions we are still seeing.  You cannot build nations out of people who inherently hate each other. So Jordan’s society is mostly homogenous.  Jordan is a stable country, with peace treaties with all its neighbors.  Jordan plays a balancing game between pleasing the international community, with which it has good ties; its local neighbors, and their expectations; Israel with whom its strategically needs good relations; and the Arab and Islamic world, who also have expectation of this Islamic monarchy.   The whole Middle East is a balancing game.  And Jordan is a fulcum.