Will unrest in Tunisia spread across the Middle East?

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Nasser Judeh
Jordanian foreign minister Nasser Judeh

Nasser Judeh
Jordanian foreign minister Nasser Judeh

AFTER unrest and the collapse of the government in Tunisia, there is now concern about a possible ‘domino effect’ in other Middle Eastern countries.

On CNN’s ‘The Situation Room’ telecast, anchor Wolf Blitzer asked if critically important U.S. allies like Egypt and Jordan could see their governments fall apart?

He pressed Jordan’s foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, about that on Monday’s edition of the program.

Judeh replied: “Well, we issued an official statement saying that this is the will and choice of the Tunisian people, and they had a violent episode, a violent two weeks, and we hope the future will hold nothing but stability and security.”

Blitzer commented that because there have been numerous articles that Egypt, for example, may follow suit, especially if President Mubarak tries to put his son in power, the population would uprise and explode.

Judeh responded: “I can’t, and you wouldn’t expect me, to pass judgment on other countries. Suffice it to say that you mentioned Jordan at the beginning, and let me just say that in Jordan, we have a leadership that recognizes problems from within — his majesty, the king, is the initiator of political and economic reform.

“In Jordan, there’s freedom of expression. In Jordan, there is an interplay between different organization of the state, between civil society and the government. And at the end of the day, I mean, look, for example, in recent days, we had demonstrations because of economic hardships in Jordan.

“And the harsh realities that we face [are] not entirely unrelated to the global financial crisis.”

The Foreign Minister said: “But you can’t put economic disenchantment in the same basket as political stability, which we enjoy in Jordan.”

Blitzer then read from Anthony Shadid’s article in The New York Times, which stated: “In Jordan, hundreds protested the cost of food in several cities even after the government hastily announced measures to bring the prices down.”

Blitzer asked Judeh how nervous is the leadership in Jordan right now, King Abdullah on down, that what happened in Tunisia could potentially happen in Jordan?

Judeh said: “Not nervous at all, because again, you can’t draw the comparison.

“Not nervous at all, because in Jordan, it’s economic realities that everybody is trying to pull their efforts together in order to resolve — yes, the government did introduce emergency economic packages, but at the same time, the demonstrations were peaceful.”

He added: “In Jordan, we know when demonstrations begin and we know when they end. And the demonstrations that took place, for example, on Friday, you had the police passing out water and juice and interacting with the society, and there’s freedom of expression.

Judeh explained: “The newspapers, the Web sites, the blogs, everybody is talking about it. At the same time, we’re all one team. And the most important thing is that the political leadership, his majesty, the king, and instructions to the government, is the initiator of reforms. We’ve just had democratic elections, we’re about to have municipal elections.

“There is a process in Jordan. So let’s separate political stability [from economic problems].”

“So you say Jordan is a totally different story than Ben Ali in Tunisia?” Blitzer asked.

The Foreign Minister replied: “Completely. Completely. But that’s not to say that we don’t have our fair share of economic problems and hardships. Don’t forget, again, [that we are] a country with meager economic resources, but a country that’s committed to political and economic reform.”

Blitzer wanted to know if, in Jordan, you could possibly see an unemployed college graduate lighting himself on fire, killing himself, and sparking that kind of outrage that took place in Tunisia?

Judeh stated: “Well, listen, the most important thing is to talk about the problems. I mean, I can’t predict who is going to light fire to whom, and this was a very, very sad example of what we saw in Tunisia.”

The Foreign Minister concluded by saying that the self-immolation incident in Tunisia, “sparked upheaval because of a Tunisian specific situation.”

Nasser Judeh has been Jordan’s Foreign Minister since February 2009. Before that he had also been a member of the Cabinet as Minister of State for Media and Communication. Earlier, he was the official spokesperson for the Government, and before that worked for a very brief period in the private sector.

Back in 1998, Judeh was Minister of Information, and before that was Director-General of the Radio and Television Corporation, which is the Jordanian National Broadcasting Company.

Judeh had also been head of the Jordan Information Bureau in London for two years, which he set up and directed. He had already worked for eight years at the Royal Palace with His Majesty the late King Hussein, and then with the Crown Prince.

Judeh was educated in the United States at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., having been at public school in England for a few years, while his elementary education had taken place here in Jordan.

Judeh was born in Amman, Jordan’s capital.

According to Wikipedia, Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and also known as the JK (short for The Jordanian Kingdom), is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan in Western Asia. It borders Saudi Arabia to the south-east, Iraq to the east, Syria to the north and West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing control of the Dead Sea. Much of Jordan is covered by the Arabian Desert. However, the north-western part of Jordan is part of the Fertile Crescent. The capital city is Amman.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a constitutional monarchy with representative government. The reigning monarch is the chief executive and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The king exercises his executive authority through the prime ministers and the Council of Ministers, or cabinet. The cabinet, meanwhile, is responsible before the democratically elected House of Deputies which, along with the House of Notables (Senate), constitutes the legislative branch of the government. The judicial branch is an independent branch of the government.

Wikipedia states that modern Jordan is predominantly urbanized. Jordan is classified as a country of “high human development” by the 2010 Human Development Report. Furthermore, The Kingdom has been classified as an emerging market with a free market economy by the CIA World Fact Book. It has more Free Trade Agreements than any other country in the region.

Jordan has a pro-Western regime with very close relations with the United Kingdom and the United States. It also became a major non-NATO ally of the United States in 1996, and is one of only two nations in the region, the other being Egypt, that have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Jordan is also currently undergoing close integration with the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Jordan enjoys “advanced status” with the European Union. ANS

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