Jordan is often said to be divided, both demographically and politically, between so-called “real” Jordanians and those of Palestinian descent. Yet that is hardly the only fault line lurking below the relative peace that has reigned over the Hashemite Kingdom in recent decades.
The capital, Amman, for example, is like an apple split into two unequal halves. West Amman is rich and spacious, dotted with grand villas complete with lavish lawns and pools. Here one finds French supermarket chains, luxury hotels and foreign embassies. Here live the diplomats, aid workers and just about every Jordanian who “made it”. Here when they eat, the choice is between sushi, steak or pizza.
East Amman, on the other hand, is a giant beehive of cheap concrete in desperate need of a lick of paint. Here live most of Amman’s 2.8 million people on a variety of bread and beans. The city’s east and west meet at the Husseini Mosque in downtown which, though not even 100 years old, is one of the oldest buildings in the young capital. The mosque was also the center of recent demonstrations that have attracted a few thousand people — and nearly as many policemen. Yet so far people have not taken the streets en masse.
“I have no time for politics. I have three kids to feed,” said a taxi driver, Ahmad. To do so, he works an average of 10 hours per day, 6 days a week. Every morning, he rents his yellow cab for JD 24 ($33.8) and buys petrol for around $22. On a good day he goes home with nearly $30 in profit, on a bad one with about $10. “You know the difference between Bahrain and Jordan?” he asked. “In Bahrain people have money but no freedom. In Jordan they have freedom but no money.” Still, as if to illustrate the limit of liberty à la Jordanienne, he insisted that his full name not be used.
Based on 2008 figures, the 2010 Jordan Poverty Report determined the national poverty level as below an income of $80 a month for an individual, and below an income of $5,473 annually for an average family of 5.7 members. The average annual family income in 2008 in Jordan was just $8,706. The report concluded that the number of people living in extreme poverty in 2008 increased by 0.3 percentage points to 13.3 percent, despite the fact that gross domestic product that year increased by no less than 7.6 percent, prompting economist Yusuf Mansur to conclude that “economic growth has nothing to do with poverty reduction.”
Purchasing power in the different spheres of spending becomes clear at a market in east Amman, where one Jordanian dinar (equal to $1.4) will buy four pairs of large underwear, six pairs of socks, 10 kiwis or 10 kitchen knives “made in China”; for the same amount in west Amman one can buy half a hamburger in an American fast food joint. The rift between east and west, rich and poor, is perhaps more profound than between “real” Jordanians and “Palestinian” Jordanians, given that these groups live on either side of the city’s socio-economic divide.
However, the divide between haves and have-nots is also linked between capital and country, said Nawaf Tell, head of the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the Jordan University. A recent CSS study concluded that the tribal regions of Ma’an in the south and Mafraq in the north of Jordan are by far the country’s poorest. For people living there, west Amman is like another planet, with even poor east Amman a step up the social ladder. According to Tell, the government’s development policy and constant focus on Amman is only exacerbating the divisions; the provinces have seen hardly any development and the north and south threaten to become a “chain of ghost cities” as the poor continue to migrate to the capital city.
“Amman does not have the resources to absorb such growth,” he said. In this era of regional unrest, one can only wonder how long this increasingly lopsided tale of two Ammans can remain a stable one.
PETER SPEETJENS is a Beirut-based journalist
