“Jama3et el Janoub (southerners) met with jama3et el wasat (the middle), and agreed to form a pact this time and give their votes to one candidate!”
It’s that time of the year again, the University Student Council Election lobbying, and this guy who barely says Hi to me is suddenly nice and friendly, then explains in a low voice what the deal is this year… assuming unquestionably that I want to know what ‘they’ agreed upon and who I’m supposed to vote for!!
“There was no one running for the Christians, so I decided to nominate myself… because we have to have a candidate!” he continues proudly, and I’m trying to hide my outrage!! “But you’re graduating on the first semester and won’t be able to serve a full council term,” I ask him, “would the University allow you to run?”
“I’ll ask, but someone told me this won’t be a problem…” he says casually, and he goes on explaining, “the Christians decided to enter the south-middle pact, and they will all have an internal vote to agree on which candidate to support, I’ll let you know what happens… we’re having frequent meetings and things aren’t final yet, we’re not sure if the north will enter the pact!” Oh!! Please… I’m really waiting for your decision!! How can I not honor the unspoken rules of where I should stand and in what group I automatically fall!!!
Now in my fourth year at university, none of this is new to me, this sort of talk starts circulating during the spring semester with each election season. What infuriates me the most is the fact that people I don’t know have the nerve to assume that they represent me and can make a decision on my behalf and on behalf of a whole list of students whom they label as “their people”… Last year one guy came up to me and said “can you just let us know when you cast your vote so we can cross your name off the list?” He didn’t think he had any reason to doubt to whom I would give my vote…
Today this guy comes and tells me that they (God knows who they are and how exactly they were chosen to represent this group or that) agreed with Bani Hassan that “Christians will support Bani Hassan in the engineering faculty in return for the reverse in the faculty of business!” Believe it or not even students who couldn’t care less about any of this find themselves eventually drawn in, voting to this candidate or that under pressure from some friend through a chain that inevitably leads to a list with their name on it!!
We talk about Tribalism and Geographic considerations in the Parliament… come see the Universities first!! How can we expect to ever see a real change and true political development and democracy if this sort of mentality is so alive and being fostered among the nation’s youth??!! I will always be proud of my roots, but I refuse to let where I’m from or what my religion is categorize me… When will we have candidates who represent a genuine stream of thought and run based on a clear agenda?!
This whole political development scheme has been going on for quite a while now in Jordan, but I can tell you that from where I stand, political development is very far from taking place at our universities… My four years at university have introduced to me the practical meaning of tribalism, dogmatism, geographic and religious bias, and bigotry… and for all I know the student council does pretty much nothing… except perhaps the reception and registration of new students each year, to do them justice!!
There’s a lot that has to change at the grassroots level, in the culture, mentality, and upbringing of the young people! But the official approach takes a huge part of the blame… for a very long time political affiliations or activism simply meant trouble – a black point on one’s record, and a recipe for headaches, so the majority of students steered away from that path… Nothing tangible is being done now to change this perception, so not only are we not making progress, we are moving backwards… and this scenario doesn’t look like it will be changing anytime soon!!!
it’s very refreshing to get away from the same roads that one drives everyday (not necessarily to the borders though!!) and at the end of the day, it definitely got my mind off what was annoying me ;p
