By Lahib Bani Sakher

Photo by Charles Roffey

What started as a peaceful day turned out to be one of the most important days of my life, or at last, our lives.  By ‘we’ I mean female Bedouin Jordanians.

Yes, if you are a Jordanian and have never came across one of us, then you
are not alone, since the government and for the past 64 years has overlooked us.

On July 27 I found out that our Prime Minister, Samir Rifai, has joined Twitter.

I thought that this is definitely a window of opportunity and a rare access to the most senior person in the government  for Jordanians to communicate with and address their concerns, aspirations etc .., with no barriers what so ever.

I decided to seize the opportunity and address the PM with a question regarding the systematic marginalization of Bedouin females when it comes to appointment of senior level/ decision making  positions. Below are the tweets exchanged regarding this issue:

“Me: Sir, I promised my fellow Bedouin females to  ask you why we’ve been systematically marginalized in our country’s development process?

SamirAlRifai: Development is truly effective only if it’s all inclusive.Pls share specifics & let’s together forge a better way forward

Me: Exactly. these powerful highly educated ladies felt left out not as beneficiaries but as decision makers, when it comes to designing projects targeting ordinary Jordanians like them! A clear example of what I meant by systematic marginalization is the absence of any name for a Bedouin female in any Snr. position in the country since the Independence, although females from all other origins (Lebanese, Syrian, Caucasian, Palestinian) have been given opportunities to be part of the process & they did well in general but this is no excuse to exclude OTHERS as if they don’t exist.
Sir would love to have the chance to meet with you to further discuss this issue among others as Twitter limits us to the 140 characters/message .Thanks for your prompt response

SamirAlRifai: Could we have this conversation online so that others can be part of it? Perhaps on a blog or site somewhere

Me: Great but yet again the Internet accessibility of the concerned people is very limited/nil at least the villages where I come from. So the relevant inputs and the views of this group will be minimal. But I totally appreciate your prompt feedback suggestion, &willingness to listen. We will try to arrange for the online discussion as a 1st step. Please let me reiterate my gratitude.”

First I should say that I felt that Mr. Rifai was sincere in his discussion although I was not fully in agreement with the suggestion of taking this debate online or to post it on a blog, as for me and the people I represent, we believe that the cause which we are advocating is very clear and doesn’t require any further debate or justification , because if you do a simple statistical study from the government’s own archives you will not spot any name for a Bedouin female in a position of minister, deputy minister, director of a public institution since the Kingdom’s independence.

Therefore,  the outcome of this process should be more than enough to highlight and  bring to the table the  injustice that has been committed against this dynamic group of devoted Jordanians who have overcome social  and  economic barriers to become active members of their society.

Here we should be fair and not deny the efforts by the system to educate and  empower the Beduoin Jordanian women, but the Government fell short of sustaining the dream for those women, leaving them confined to a certain level of positions and were not able to break the ceiling of the public success ladder.

And the Bedouin women themselves never got the chance/opportunity to assist in the development of their own communities, as such functions have been executed by people who are not fully aware of the situation on the ground, therefore. Projects  in many cases failed as they didn’t address the real need of those communities.

One can argue that at some stage, the number of educated Bedouin females was very small, but such was the case at the time. Nevertheless, we have moved a long way and we were able to accomplish a lot. We have dozens of PhD  degree holders, hundreds of medical professionals, scientists, social and media workers, UN staff, engineers, scholars, writers, poets, to name a few example.

In conclusion, what we want to point out is that this situation should be honored immediately without any delay, as we are frustrated and feel that we are trapped in a vicious circle , but yet again from now on, we want to make it clear that we will be vocal about our cause in order to pave the road for our fellow highly qualified educated Bedouin females to acquire what they deserve from their country as other females from all backgroungs in Jordan  have been afforded opportunities to acquire expertise in the government and then moved to the private sector, benefiting from their governmental and public sector expertise. So they have more chances because of the governmental support and empowerment, and this is what we all deserve!