I Love Jordan- Are Jordanians Chauvinistic?

There is a widely spread myth that Jordanians are chauvinistic, that we are divided into small groups based on our origins and religion and that each group believes it is superior and acts, hates, loves, helps, works, marries and breaths based on that belief.

If you look at the general shallow behavior, you can claim it is true! But if you take a deeper look at the history of this country you will recognize that chauvinism is relatively new and absolutely fake and illogical!

The biggest chauvinistic myth is based on origin, Jordanian and Palestinian are the two major origins in Jordan, and historically it is known that Jordanian cities and Palestinian cities had a much stronger social and commercial East-West relationship than its North-South relationships! For example Khaleel and Karak had a much stronger relationship than Karak and Salt or Khaleel and Nablus on the other hand Nablus and Salt relationship is very strong, actually most of the Muslim families in Salt are from Palestinian origins who came to Jordan before 1948.

The East-West relationship led to mixed marriages; I would easily assume that most Jordanians have Palestinian blood and vice versa!

Chauvinism in Jordan exists, however it is not original but induced and fake thus it will vanish sooner or later! But definitely that doesn’t mean it is harmless, it is extremely dangerous!!! It makes us (regardless of our origins) distrust each other, distrust the system, disbelieve that we will get a fair chance for education and work, and most importantly afraid to question, criticize and correct the government because we are in constant fear that a stupid civil war will happen, we ended up losing confidence in our ability as a nation.

Is the stupid lie that one origin is superior to the other worth all these loses , worth paralyzing our ability to build our beloved country , is it worth depressing all those talented people and making them escape to a better place seeking justness , freedom and a fair chance for success!

I absolutely believe that fake-chauvinism in Jordan will come to an end, but I am not willing to wait too long for it, not willing to accept corruption as a price for buying peace from “the strong”, not willing to hear the poor beg on the radio for medication, not welling to watch more people forced to leave Jordan with a broken heart and a broken identity.

Change has to happen now, because the Jordanians of now deserve a home and the Jordanians of tomorrow deserve to be raised with an identity.