By Thoraya
It is one month since my 28th birthday and I am having an existential crisis.
If someone told me about this impending crisis a few months ago, I would have guessed it had something to do with whether or not to take the botox plunge. But the Arab Spring is upon us, and suddenly we have politics to worry about.
Real politics.
Not laughing-at-tacky-election-posters politics. Not going-to-vote-for-a-Neanderthal-distant-relative politics. But a chance to be part of something that can affect of all our lives and the future of this country.
A friend just called me to ask whether I would be attending tomorrow’s protest calling for a return to the 1952 Constitution and the revoking of martial law-era amendments. As a self-proclaimed social democrat and anti-colonialist, you would think that the answer would be a resounding: Yes!
But it’s not.
You see, I have a problem. I don’t know if I am Jordanian.
On the one hand, my mother is Jordanian. I’ve lived in Jordan for ten years of my life, three of which I worked in public service. I pay tax. I even own a small business in Amman employing four people (all Jordanians!). But under Jordanian law, I am not entitled to citizenship because my father isn’t Jordanian (he is from Gaza).
And if I’m not Jordanian, then it’s not really my business to be protesting for constitutional change, is it?
Every year, I go through the same soul-sapping experience of renewing my Jordanian residency. This involves countless hours running around from one government office to another, like a rat in a bureaucratic maze from hell. It also involves a very unpleasant trip to a decrepit Ministry of Health office to get a HIV blood test. Every year, I sit in the same dirty plastic chair waiting for a sour-faced nurse to stick a needle in my arm. And I try to convince myself that it’s all perfectly hygienic, although I have serious doubts.
It is small things like that which make me feel like an outsider. Small things like constantly having to explain to people why I don’t have Jordanian citizenship. Like how I was the only person in my office at the University of Jordan who didn’t receive a bonus from the Royal Court (مكرمة ملكية) because non-Jordanians can’t be normal staff.
And over the past few years, during political discussions I’ve found myself saying things like “I don’t care what happens in Jordan anyway. It’s not my country.”
Except that it is the closest thing I have to a country, really. And maybe if the system was fairer, I would be Jordanian. Maybe I would feel like a citizen, rather than an unwelcome foreigner. So maybe I have a right to protest for a fairer system.
But the government says I’m not Jordanian, and many Jordanians would agree. I’m curious to know what other people think. Do I have I right to protest?
