Jebel al-Qal'a, Philadelphia, and the Martyr's Memorial

In about 1800 B.C., the hill known as Jebel al-Qal'a was fortified for the first time.

According to Genesis (the first book of the Old Testament, not the band fronted by Phil Collins) Jebel al-Qal'a was a hill inhabited by the near-mythical Ammonites, the descendants of the "drunken seduction" of Lot by his two daughters. By 1200 B.C., the Citadel on top of this hill was renamed Rabbath Amman, which was the capital of the region.

Later, in the year 1000 B.C., the book of Samuel reports that that the Israelite King David sent messengers to Rabbath with condolences for the death of the Ammonite king. These messengers, believed by the Ammonites to be Israelite spies, were sent back to Jerusalem minus their beards and fine clothing. Later, David would send his army to defeat the troublesome Ammonites. David himself joined the battle at its end and soon returned home to marry the widowed Bat-Sheba. Soon after this, the future King Solomon was born.

After Alexander the Great conquered the region in 332 B.C., his successor Ptolemy II Philadelphus rebuilt Rabbath and named it Philadelphia - the "City of Brotherly Love." After a series of wars and turmoil, the Romans rebuilt Philadelphia in 114 A.D.. They built impressive public buildings, among them a theater:

(click on the pictures to enlarge)



And a temple to Hercules:



In 635 A.D., Philadelphia was conquered by the Arabs and city's name was changed to Amman. The city was ruled by the Damascus-based Umayyad dynasty. Amman became the capital of the area and the Umayyads quickly expanded on the Roman-developed city by building an expansive palatial complex which was quickly destroyed by an earthquake in 749. The remains of this city remain in the same place where they fell today.

This is the partially-reconstructed Umayyad Palace:

And some additional views of the ruins:





When the Abbasids took power away from the Ummayds, the center of power in the region shifted from Amman to Baghdad. Over the next centuries Amman became desolate - it was mearly a stop-over area for pilgrims to Mecca. The town barely changed until the Ottomans settled Circassian refugees in the area in the 1870s. Still, it remained nothing more than a farming villiage with some impressive Roman/Ummayd ruins until Emir Abdullah chose Amman as his capital after the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.

Of course, the next important milestone was Robert Marcus' visit to Jebel al-Qal'a this morning.

Today I also visited the Jordanian War Martyr's Memorial.

Like the Egyptian, Israeli, and American military museums I have visited, this one contained its fair share of propaganda. Of course, Jordan has never lost a war. Much of the museum is dedicated to the Great Arab Revolt. The rest is dedicated to Jordan's wars against Israel, its current-day peace keeping missions as part of the United Nations, and the late King Hussein's military paraphernalia.






And I will leave you with another panorama of Amman taken from atop Jebel al-Qal'a (note the return to the blog of the world's tallest flagpole on the far right):

Israel – Wiped Off the Map

King Abdullah of Jordan is as progressive a Middle East leader as you can find. He is working hard to modernize Jordan, and outside of President Mubarak of Egypt, he is the only regional Arab leader to publicly strive towards a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. Ok, the Saudis and the Arab League have made bold gestures, but I have my qualms about their sincerity. [Note: Queen Rania of Jordan is also very active in Israeli-Palestinian peace projects.]

In fact, last week the King reiterated his positions in a thorough interview with the Washington Post. Sadly, the King’s “progressiveness” is not shared by the majority of Jordanians from my experience. After all, it is estimated that between 60-70% of the Jordanian population consists of Palestinian "refugees". I put refugees in quotes because this is a very controversial issue. Of course, the vast vast vast majority of those classified as refugees were not born in Israel or the West Bank - they were born in Jordan. More on that issue in future posts.

Still, I was a bit surprised today when I took a closer look at the map of the world that hangs on the wall outside of my classroom.

The title of the map is “The World (Political)”. Here it is:

And now a closer look at the Middle East region (sorry about the poor quality of the photo):

Because the photo is poor, and I assume that the majority of my readers cannot translate the Arabic, let me point something out - Israel is not on the map. First of all, this map was published in 2005. Secondly, the purple country that is the State of Israel is labeled “Palestine”. The Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights are not pictured or labeled as unique territories, and while the West Bank is painted a different color, it is not labeled as a separate territory.

Of course, despite the peace treaty with Israel, I know that the Jordanian monarchy feels in its heart of hearts that the West Bank will always be part of Jordan.

Please note, the University of Jordan is the most modern university in this country. And the government is not shy about bragging about this fact. That is why I am intrigued by this map. I guess today I felt the need to dish up some some food-for-thought that wasn't hummus.

Jerash and Um Qais

On Friday I had the opportunity to visit the ancient cities of Jerash and Um Qais. I looked at my thermometer/compass at 11am and it read 110 degrees. The day was "hot" in both a historical and temperature sense.

The sites were huge and amazing. I have posted all of the pictures from my tour here:[http://picasaweb.google.com/RobertNMarcus/JerashAndUmQais], but I will describe a few of the sites below.

Jerash is considered one of the largest and most well-preserved sites of Roman architecture in the world outside Italy. To this day, its colonnaded streets, baths, theaters, plazas and arches remain in exceptional condition. Within the remaining city walls, archaeologists have found the ruins of settlements dating back to the Neolithic Age, indicating human occupation at this location for more than 6500 years. This is not surprising, as the area is ideally suited for human habitation. Jerash is fed year-round with water and it has a relatively moderate climate.

When you first enter the ancient city of Jerash you are confronted with Hadrian's Arch (below). This 11m high, triple arched gateway was built in honer of the visit of the Roman emperor Hadrian to Jerash in 129-130 AD.

Walking past the Hippodrome (which was used for chariot races) you enter the amazing Oval Plaza (below). This plaza comprises a large central paved area enclosed by two curving colonnades. From here you can see the Temple of Zeus to the north (not pictured) and the Cardo to the south.

Next comes the South Theater which is perhaps the most impressive of all of Jerash's monuments. This 3000 seat theater, which is still used today, rivals the acoustics of even the most modern performance center. I stood at the center of the stage and spoke in an "inside voice" and I was heard by my friends perched in the top row.

The most important edifice in the ancient city was the Temple of Artemis. If you lean against the pillars, or insert a stick between their joints, you can cause them to sway. This brilliant piece of Roman engineering allowed the huge temple to remain standing even after multiple earthquakes.

Here is the blogger on the Jerash Cardo:


Here are Ottoman ruins (formerly shops) in Um Qais:


The view towards Israel from Um Qais:


The West Theater:

The King's Hummus

Tonight I ate the King's hummus.

Located in a narrow alley in the oldest part of Amman is Hashem - an outdoor diner that was founded by Hashem al-Turk in 1920. There are only three dishes to choose from: falafel, hummus, and fuul. (For those of you who read Arabic you can see the menu on the picture below)


There are three kinds of fuul that are available. The first, Jordanian-style pictured below, contains a dollop of chili. But if you ask for fuul Egyptian-style, you will get it minus the chili but with a lump of tahini. There is also fuul Jerusalem-style, which is fuul with a blob of hummus in it. Everything is freshly made and its costs only pennies. It is brought to your table within seconds of ordering. A full meal ranges between 1-2 Jordanian Dinars, that is around 2$ US.


Pita, chopped onion, hot sauce, salt, and fresh mint are free. I learned from my travel book that the restaurant goes through 50 kg of onions a day.

This restaurant feeds the royal family and is where the King enjoys the best hummus (arguably) in town. The smile on the King and his father's face that adorn the pictures on the wall say it all. I plan on enjoying Hashem's food several more times before I depart.

Freedom of the Press in Jordan

There are many newspapers published in Jordan. I became interested in learning more about their publishers after I noticed that most of the papers ran the same pictures and stories at the same time on the same day. It was also 100 degrees in Amman today, therefore a good day to sit inside and think about something serious.


The following information (below) comes from the Freedom House. First take a look at Jordan's "Freedom of the Press Score" compared to that of the United States. (The lower the number the better)

Jordan
Status: Not Free
Legal Environment: 21
Political Environment: 24
Economic Environment: 18
Total Score: 63

United States
Status: Free
Legal Environment: 5
Political Environment: 8
Economic Environment: 4
Total Score: 17

Jordan’s media suffers from oppressive media legislation, informal pressure from the intelligence services, and cautious advertisers and printers afraid of running afoul of the government. In addition to constitutional guarantees of the right to freedom of expression and of the press, the Parliament approved a new Press and Publications Law on March 21 that explicitly prohibits “detention as a result of the enunciation of an opinion in speech, writing, or through other means.” Nevertheless, the new law drastically increased fines to up to 28,000 dinars (USD$40,000) for speech that offends religious beliefs, offends the prophets, or slanders the government. Journalists may also still be prosecuted under the penal code that allows for imprisonment up to three years for defaming the king or royal family. Although, in practice, limited criticism of the government and its allies is often tolerated, as is speech in favor of Islamist movements. Journalists must be members of the Jordan Press Association (JPA) to work legally. In the past, critical journalists have been excluded from the JPA and prevented from practicing their profession.

Intelligence agencies watch journalists closely, and the government of former Prime Minister Ma’ruf al-Bakhit, whom Nadir al-Dahabi replaced on November 25, gave free rein to intelligence officials, the police, and prosecutors to clamp down on legitimate speech. As a result of government threats of fines or prosecution, many journalists practiced self-censorship. Editors and journalists claim to have received official warnings to refrain from publishing certain articles and avoid certain topics, and security officials have pressured printers to delay publications until editors agree to remove sensitive stories. On April 18, security officers confiscated videotapes from an Al-Jazeera journalist containing an interview with former Crown Prince Hassan bin Talal in which he criticized Saudi and U.S. policies in the Middle East.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), security agents banned the April 30 edition of the weekly Al-Majd because of a front-page story about a “secret American plan” to topple the Hamas government in the occupied Palestinian territories with the connivance of “unnamed Arab parties.” Fahd al-Rimawi, the paper’s editor, told CPJ he reached an agreement with the security services whereby he ran the story in the paper’s next edition, but off the front page. In both cases of censorship, the government claimed to be acting out of fear of harming relations with neighboring countries.

The media was also subject to physical violence and harassment at the hands of state security officials. In January, Khaled al-Khawaja, a journalist with the pro-government daily al-Ra’i, filed a criminal complaint against a public security officer alleging that the officer assaulted him while he was trying to cover the disbursement of government meat rations. The officer responded by filing a counter-complaint, and in February, Khawaja was arrested and charged with assaulting a public security officer. State security officers also assaulted a journalist and a cameraman from the Al-Ghad TV station, Aubaida Dammur and Fady Ramhy, in April as they attempted to cover a bus strike in Amman.

The government owns substantial shares in Jordan’s two leading daily newspapers, and all publications must obtain licenses from the state. There are high taxes on the media industry and tariffs on paper, and the government has been criticized for advertising primarily in newspapers in which it owns a stake. In 2003, the government officially gave up its monopoly on domestic television and radio broadcasting by creating the Audiovisual Licensing Authority, which in 2004 began to license and regulate private radio and television outlets. While the first privately-owned television station ATV was licensed two years ago, it is still in its pilot stage and has not been allowed to start broadcasting. The country’s state-run Jordan Television and Radio serves mostly as a mouthpiece for the government. The new Press and Publications Law requires the licensing of publications and provides the courts with the right to withhold publication of any printed material, as well as the power to withdraw licenses. However, the new law does limit the government’s ability to shut down printing presses. No restrictions are placed on satellite broadcasts, and satellite dishes continue to proliferate.

The Jordanian government is actively seeking to promote access to the Internet and claims to place no restrictions on the roughly 13 percent of the population who access it. However, online publications became subject to press law on September 25, and on October 9, former MP and head of the Jordan National Movement, Ahmad Oweidi Abbadi, was sentenced to two years in prison by a state security court for posting material on his party’s website. Abbadi had been detained in May on charges of “slandering a public official” and spreading false news abroad that “would impair the prestige of the state,” based on a complaint from the interior minister who took offense to a letter Abbadi openly posted on the Internet to U.S. Senator Harry Reid accusing the minister and other government officials of corruption.

Visa Extension Part I

Before departing for Jordan, I mailed my passport to the Jordanian Embassy in Washington, DC, in order to obtain a 6-month multiple entry visa. This cost me about $40 and a lot of time at the post office. I did this in order to not come across any visa problems during my stay in the Hashemite Kingdom.

When I arrived at Queen Alia Airport, I confidently handed my passport to the border patrol agent with the page open that contained my beautiful visa. This border patrol agent looked at my picture, and my nationality, quietly reached into a drawer below his desk, and swiftly stamped my passport in purple ink with a stamp that reads: "CONTACT THE NEAREST POLICE STATION WITHIN ONE MONTH". (Thank you, can I have my $40 back now please?)

Apparently, the University knows that this is often a problem, so they explained during our orientation how to renew our visa at the police station. Doing this is important so I took notes. I clearly remember the program director saying, "First you need proof of enrollment at the University. Go to the building where you payed your tuition, go to the second floor, and go to office number 3." So, with two friends, I went to said building.

The first problem that I encountered was that building floors in Jordan are labeled differently then in the United States. The ground floor is 0, the second floor 1, etc. After getting lost on the wrong floor (everything is labeled in Arabic) we were kindly directed to the correct floor where we found a nice man who was willing to help us. He invited us to sit down. This is when I found out that he was the director of the engineering program. We had been told to go to the wrong building. This kind man then advised us that we needed to visit the administration building near the main gate where human resources is located. I snapped a photo of that building:


After climbing up to the "2nd" floor, we found human resources. A woman in the hallway asked us, in Arabic, if we needed help. Quickly realizing that we couldn't easily understand her, she asked in broken English, "Where are you from? Spain? Turkey?" (I'm constantly asked if I'm Spanish or Turkish. It must be my lovely desert suntan.) I never say that I am from America, because then I'm immediately associated with President Bush, so I told her that I'm from Chicago. This softens the blow. The woman continued, "Oh, you are from America (rolling her eyes). Hamburger!" Well, I'd much rather be known as the guy from the "Hamburger" country than the guy from the 'we started the Iraq War' country so I smiled and said, "Yes." She then told us that we were in the wrong building (again) and directed us to the Deanship of Student Affairs building across campus. There I took another picture:


We climbed up to the "2nd" floor again and managed to find a kind man who spoke enough English to understand what we were looking for. He asked around his office to find out if we were in the right place. We were not. He then told us to go the the Registration Building.

Fortunately, this building was next door so we quickly made it to the next "2nd" floor. We even found office number 3. Upon entering the room, the woman who was working at the desk made eye contact with us and quickly looked back down at the stack of papers in front of her. We stepped in closer and explained that we were looking for our proof of registration. She said, "give me your I.D.'s and come back in 10 minutes. " We looked at each other and handed over our I.D.'s to the woman. Not knowing if this woman meant 10 minutes in real time or Jordanian time, we waited for 25 minutes outside and then went back. The woman handed us our I.D.'s and a piece of paper and told us to go to room 1 to get a stamp. We walked down the hall, past a gaggle of Jordanian students and into room 1. We pushed through the crowd of maybe 25 people in the small office and approached the desk to ask for our piece of paper to be stamped. The woman there said that we were in the wrong office. We needed to go down the hall and find the OTHER office number 1. I snapped a photo outside of that office, I wish I could have shown you the scene inside:

Down the hall we found the other office number 1 and asked for a stamp. Surprise! This too was the wrong office, but we were in luck, this WAS the office where we needed to get a signature on the back of our registration paper before getting THE stamp. Good thing we found our way there by accident because I didn't know a signature was required. The man laughed at us, put down his cigarette for a minute, and signed the back of our forms. Better yet, he actually pointed in the direction of the correct office where we could get our stamp. More than an hour after we started, our mission was accomplished. I can't wait to go to the police station. Something tells me I'll have something else to report about.

On the way out from campus after my stamp adventure I snapped a quick picture of some students who were graduating from the university:


In order not to be rude I covertly attempted to take this interesting picture (you may need to enlarge it to see why its interesting to me as a Westerner):


Finally, to follow up on my last post, I took one more picture of 2 of the restaurants across the street from the main campus gate:

Ma'asalaama.

First Day of Class and Fried Chicken

I consider my first day of class a success. My professor, Doctor Muthanna, seems experienced and enthusiastic. For now, I have a class size of ten, which is perfect. There are four Americans (including myself), a Scotsman, Italian, Aussie, a woman from France and a gentleman from Taiwan. There is also a woman who looks like she has 10 cats at home and I'm uncertain of her nationality.

English is allowed to be spoken, very sparingly, only for the first two weeks. I'm pleased about that because I'm not going to learn this language unless I'm speaking it constantly. Our textbook contains no English. The first class was simply an introduction and we will begin moving through the book tomorrow.

In addition to learning Arabic a major goal of mine this summer is to be immersed in Arab culture. I want to eat what they eat, live where they live, dress how they dress, etc.. This will allow me to make more informed policy decisions in the future. However, its hard to be 100% immersed in Arab culture when in every neighborhood in Amman there is a McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Subway, and Pizza Hut. I promised myself that I would do all that I could to avoid American influences.

However, today I couldn't help myself, and I slipped. After class I had to return to ACOR where I had been staying before moving into my apartment in order to pay my bill and say thank you and goodbye. On the way back to my apartment I made a quick stop...

Love that chicken. (My roommate assures me that I don't look this red in person)

I was reminded of a bit that a Palestinian-American comedian did during the "Axis of Evil Comedy Tour" when he tells a story about visiting a cousin in Amman and listening to his Jordanian relative rant about America's world dominance. "United States, you think you are so big and strong and powerful!" (mimicking his cousin's thick accent). "You are a paper tiger! You will fold!" Without missing a beat, his cousin asks: "You hungry? We got Burger King, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Appleby's. . . . You look tired. You want coffee? We got Starbuckus! You like Starbuckus?"

I think the view of America from the Arab world can be summed up like this: "America: Hate Your Politics, Love Your Fried Chicken."