Queen

Disclaimer, this is not a blog post about a British rock band, but it is one about how Jordan is governed by a monarchy. Despite the fact Jordan's monarchy doesn't a powdery old British woman, it are still quite popular. The monarchy came to power a hundred years ago, after the great Arab revolt. In fact May 25th was Jordanian Independence day.

Jordanian independence was a long struggle, and it started with the overthrowing of the Ottoman Empire by the Hashemite Kingdom (the royal family that still rules Jordan today). Admittedly, I don't know much about the overthrow of the Ottoman empire to form Jordan. I never found a hyper dramatized portrayal of it playing on the history channel in my youth, so instead I stuck with my knowledge of what made World War I so bloody, instead of the politics of revolutions being paid for by the allies during it. What I do know slightly more about, despite my inability to locate Jordanian tabloids, is the royal family in Jordan. King Abdullah Hussein II has been ruling Jordan since 1999, and his wife, Queen Rania, has been at his side through it all. They have 3 children together, and their oldest son, Prince Hussein, goes to college at none other than Georgetown University.

In Jordan, it is against the law to say anything negative against the royal family. As restrictive as that seems to many Americans, most Jordanians don't have many negative things to say about the royal family. Most people are either preoccupied with Queen Rania's beauty, or King Abdullah Hussein's finesse. I was once in the car with a taxi driver who had King Hussein as his background. and even kissed the picture he liked the king so much.

Because of political structures in the Middle East, the royal family has held a lot of the power in government for a long time. After the Arab Spring uprisings, King Abdullah made the bold move of having parliament elected by the general public, instead of handpicking those in the top positions. Recently, the King has been criticized for taking steps backwards on some of his policies, but none the less he is still heralded as allowing more freedom than many other monarchs.

What impressed me the most about the royal family in Jordan was not how they were portrayed in the media, or talked about in the international community, but the stories you would here about what they would do with their power in Jordan. Queen Rania recently received an award for being influential in the battle over punishments against honor killings (a murderer enacted on young women by their male relatives if they are thought to be too promiscuous before marriage). She can also be found dining with a childhood friends, who owns multiple cafes in Amman, who is one of the few public figures in Jordan who is openly gay.

The monarchy also plays a touchy game of politics, and are often criticized from every angle about not doing enough, or doing too much, much like politics everywhere. They still seem to have to ability to push for small changes that represent important impacts. Observing the royal family in Jordan is a reminder that nobody can use the power they have perfectly, but that we can still all influence the world around us by utilizing what power we do have.