Women, the State, and Political Liberalization: Middle Eastern and North African Experiences

Laurie A. Brand

Columbia University Press

1998

6. The State Retreats, the State Returns

 

The discussion that follows presents short cases of interactions between women and the state since the liberalization began in 1989. Examples are drawn from elections, the cabinet, the legislature, and women’s organizations themselves. No pretension is made here to exhaustive coverage. Nonetheless, the events covered below do illustrate a number of clear trends in the evolution of state and societal policy toward women in the framework of an opening of the political system.

 

Toujan Faisal: A Woman, the Islamists, the Courts, and the King

When it came time to declare candidacy for the 1989 parliamentary elections, twelve women presented themselves among the hopefuls. While there was speculation (mostly a great deal of doubt) about any of the twelve’s chances of winning, the women entered the fray along with their male counterparts. One of the women, Toujan Faisal, a candidate for the Circassian seat in the fifth district (north, outside Amman, including the traditional Circassian areas of Wadi Seer and Na‘ur) had worked as a television broadcaster for eighteen years, during which time she had presented a series on women’s affairs. She was also known as a writer and columnist who had raised the ire of conservatives on a number of occasions for programs challenging established Islamic or tribal practice. ₁ Supported by an array of intellectuals, liberals, Christians and the young, she ran in 1989 as an independent.

The story of interest here concerns an article she wrote prior to officially declaring her candidacy. On September 21 she published a piece in the Arabic daily al-Ra’y entitled “They curse us and we elect them” as part of an ongoing debate on women’s role in society and their competence in handling national issues. In it Faisal, who is well-versed in Islamic law, criticized “those who hold women to be intellectually deficient and in need of being treated like minors.” She claimed that this negative view of women is then covered up by regular proclamations of Islam’s having given women all their rights and holding them in a special place of esteem by assigning them the role of mother in the home. Her larger political point was that those who believe in discrimination on any basis cannot be entrusted with a family, an extended household, or a nation. With the franchise, women were in a position to defeat those who in effect denied them their humanity. It was a powerful indictment of both Islamists and other conservatives, but not intended to be a criticism of religion: her references were always to Islamists and not to Islam itself. Two weeks following the appearance of her article, Faisal was visited by “two bearded men” who demanded that she apologize for the article and withdraw from the election or they would take her to court. She refused. ₂

She subsequently received a subpoena to appear in a south Amman shari‘a court, and learned that an assistant mufti in the armed forces, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Ali al-Kurdi and a private in the armed forces, Mu‘tasim Faris, had charged her with apostasy. Jordan has no apostasy law, and several shari‘a courts had refused to accept the case before this court accepted. The suit sought to declare Faisal legally incompetent, dissolve her marriage, reject any repentance should she offer it, deny her all rights, ban her writings, and give immunity to anyone who shed her blood. According to the men’s lawyer, the publication of the September 21 article was merely part of the reason for the suit: “people were beginning to listen to her misguided views on Islam because she was given a forum to air her views.” ₃

The plaintiffs described the reasons for their outrage with her article in the following terms:

The defendant had dared to declare her apostasy and ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad’s saying which describes women as lacking in mind and religion . . . and considered these sayings as a crime and advocated equality between men and women. . . . She described as contemptuous the instructions to women to be polite and to dress decently and the divine order which stipulates that two women witnesses equal one male witness in court . . . and . . . she called for the domination of the mind rather than the domination of one person over another. 4

At the time, many activists described the suit as an attempt to “stifle the women’s movement in Jordan at a time when women were running in elections for the first time in the kingdom’s history.” A group of women and other political activists, lawyers, university professors, and journalists submitted a petition to the king denouncing the charges against Faisal as “intellectual and psychological intimidation which will reflect badly on Jordan’s image and on the democratic atmosphere for the elections.” ₅ In a very short time more than 700 signatures were collected. ₆ People were also contacted to attend the October 28 court session to show support. So many showed up at the proceedings that the attendees could not all fit into the building.

The day following the hearing, at which the plaintiffs presented their case and as a result of which the judge set a second session for November 9 (the day following the elections), the Jordanian press reported the story and triggered international interest. Journalists scrambled for interviews with Faisal and the case became a cause célèbre. It could not have been lost on the king that the first case of apostasy ever raised in the kingdom was coming at a time when Jordan was trying to hold its first democratic elections since the 1950s. The extent to which the regime sought to engage in damage control was demonstrated by a November 1 meeting on the case, and on the Islamists in general, called for by former information minister Layla Sharaf on behalf of a group of prominent Amman activists and personalities. In attendance were the king, Prime Minister Zayd bin Shakir, Crown Prince Hasan, and other ministers and officials. At a press conference that followed, the king “warned against a trend toward extremism” and against those who “exploit religion for political designs.” ₇

Both plaintiffs in fact withdrew the case after the Amman shari‘a court ruled five days before the elections that the case was beyond its jurisdiction. ₈ Shaykh Mahmud Shanqiti based his ruling upon Article 105 of the Constitution, which states that shari‘a courts have jurisdiction over cases concerning the personal status of Muslims, blood money, and Muslim religious endowments. Observers viewed the swift decision in the case as stemming from popular indignation and high-level pressure to issue a ruling prior to the elections. Nonetheless, ‘Abdallah Shamaylah, the lawyer for the two plaintiffs, subsequently filed an appeal himself on the grounds that the original lawsuit had been filed on behalf of the “public right.” ₉ Shamaylah claimed that certain groups in the armed forces had forced the original plaintiffs to withdraw the case. The story continued until February 1990, when a shari‘a appeals court found Faisal not guilty of apostasy, although the plaintiff said he planned to file a new lawsuit.

Gallagher notes that it was never clear where the case originated. There were certainly rumors that the mufti of the armed forces, Nuh al-Qidha, had instigated the case. This is what Toujan Faisal believes, because before the two men called on her, Qidha had reportedly sent a Circassian private, a former classmate of Faisal’s, to warn her to withdraw from the elections. Faisal believes that Qidha was acting on behalf of certain wealthy elites, whom she would have targeted for investigation if elected. ₁₀ While difficult to reject out of hand, this seems unlikely, given how little power any single parliamentarian has, and given Qidha’s reputation, which we shall examine in more detail in the next section. Some believed that there was Muslim Brotherhood involvement, in order to discredit secularists and mobilize support for their own candidates, but the Ikhwan denied any links to the two plaintiffs and claimed the uproar was hurting their campaigns.

Evaluation

There seems little question that the case was an embarrassment to the king, as it detracted from the campaign period and free elections. Given past experience it is certainly possible that an order was issued from the palace that the series of appeals was to be terminated so that no more international attention would be drawn to the matter. Another key consideration was that the regime was involved in drawing boundaries regarding what kind of activity would be permitted in a new, more open, era in which Islamists had taken one-third of the seats in the parliament. The fact that the Ikhwan stayed out of the fray—whatever their real feelings about Faisal—made it a much easier problem to solve.

Perhaps most important, one should not interpret the treatment of the case as indicative of a special dedication on the part of the palace to the protection of women or women’s rights. In the wake of the Faisal case, the crown prince did select a group to study possible changes to the Personal Status Law. But the appointment of such committees has generally been a strategy of adopt and defuse or demobilize rather than adopt and act. That seriously addressing women’s concerns was not a primary consideration was clear from the composition of the committee, which initially had no women members. Moreover, in 1993, the same Nuh al-Qidha who was suspected of having been behind the complaint against Faisal was appointed qadhi al-qudha, the Jordanian equivalent of a chief justice, by the king. Perhaps this argues against his having been involved in the first place, perhaps it owed to a palace need to placate forces in the army, or in the Ajlun area from which he hailed. Either of the latter two explanations is in keeping with the workings of the Jordanian political system. What the appointment argues against, however, is a regime concerned with further protecting women’s rights. Rather, placating, or at least not challenging the forces—tribal, Islamist, or simply socially conservative—upon which the legitimacy of the regime rests has been the most constant feature of palace policy in this regard.

 

Reconsidering the Personal Status Law

In the wake of the Toujan Faisal row, Crown Prince Hasan assembled a committee composed initially only of religious scholars to review the existing Personal Status Law. When Zulaykha Abu Risha, a prominent feminist and writer, among others, criticized the committee’s composition in the press, contending that it should include specialists in other areas as well, the qadhi al-qudha at the time, Shaykh Muhaylan, summoned her and four other women to convince them not to worry. Subsequently, one woman, Dr. ‘Eida Mutlaq, an educator from the Irbid area, was added to the committee. Muhaylan also requested input from the Business and Professional Women’s Club. At the same time, another women’s group, the Women’s Research Center, of which Abu Risha was a member and which included more committed feminist activists, was officially called upon by a leftist member of parliament to submit another study of the Personal Status Law. Initially, these women had been denied the right even to see the draft. ₁₁

However, no parliamentary or further government action was taken at the time, perhaps because the legislators were preoccupied with the preparation of martial law-ending legislation. The issue of a new draft of this law resurfaced after the appointment in 1992 of a new chief justice, none other than Nuh Salman al-Qidha, who had been implicated in the Toujan Faisal affair. He was known to be quite conservative, a military man, and made clear some of the changes that he wanted. Again, however, no further action was taken to push the process along, and in the wake of the 1993 elections, he was retired. Given that he was not terribly old (he was brought out of retirement in late 1995 to take the post of Jordanian ambassador to Iran), one can only assume that it was a decision of the palace to replace him (perhaps because of his extreme positions, but I have no solid confirmation of this). In any case, the proposed draft did not offer many serious changes. One positive feature was that it raised the compensation to victims of arbitrary divorce (talaq ta‘assufi) from one to five years of alimony payments. ₁₂ Another draft was reportedly worked on thereafter, but no one outside the narrow circles of shari‘a judges seems to have had access to it. And when the government of ‘Abd al-Karim Kabariti was formed in early 1996, it was reported that the existing draft would be shelved and that the new government would produce yet another draft, but it did not, nor have its successors.

Evaluation

A shroud of secrecy seems to surround the drafting and redrafting of this law. Women activists speculate that given the socially and religiously sensitive nature of this legislation, the government has no interest in making a draft available for wide public discussion. At the same time, successive prime ministers and governments (as well as the palace) may have preferred to maintain the appearance of working on a new draft, thus placating those who want change, while never actually presenting one, thus avoiding the outcry from both liberal and conservative circles that any proposed changes would be likely to trigger. Some speculate that a deal of sorts may have been struck between the government(s) on the one hand and the religious authorities and Islamists on the other to the effect that reforms may be proposed on the margins of existing laws in other fields, such as labor and pensions, but that no move would be made by the state to force changes in the Personal Status Law. ₁₃ Given the history of the issue as well as the prevailing balance of forces in the country, this appears to be a reasonable conclusion.

 

The General Federation of Jordanian Women

It will be remembered from the previous chapter that the GFJW was established in 1981 to displace the Women’s Federation in Jordan and to bring women’s activities more closely under the control of the Ministry of Social Affairs. As this organization began to emerge from the martial law period, a controversy arose, in large part as a result of the old guard’s trying to maintain its position. The approach of long-overdue elections for the federation’s 17-member executive committee polarized women and triggered a contest among the state, the Islamists, and the secular opposition. Elections had been postponed several times in the 1980s, and as the summer of 1990 approached, the existing executive committee had outlasted its legal three-year term by more than a year, having given itself one extension and having received another six-month extension from the ministry. As a result, on June 10, Minister of Social Affairs ‘Abd al-Majid Shraydeh appointed a temporary committee to oversee the elections. This caused a huge row, as GFJW members claimed that the minister had no right to make such a decision. Indeed, some committee members blamed Shraydeh for the delay in elections, saying that, in consultation with them, he had postponed the elections for administrative reasons and that he had now appointed a new executive simply to carry out his wishes. ₁₄ The dismissed members of the executive proceeded to file charges against the minister.

The controversy crystallized around a legal/administrative matter. During the term of the then-recently ousted executive, a new set of bylaws had been drawn up that allowed not only for an enormous increase in the federation’s membership but also for gerrymandering of a sort. The changes in the bylaws were introduced as a result of the leadership’s realization that it had become isolated from Jordanian women. With the liberalization, it now appeared possible and all the more urgent to change the situation. To that end, a decision was made to amend the bylaws to add the possibility of broader, individual membership through a new category of “local committees.” Any group of thirty women could form a lajnah (committee), and they were often women from a particular quarter who were signed up by several women interested in the union. In this way, the GFJW leadership hoped to attract additional members, including perhaps some from the other, unofficial, women’s groups, with the goal of either energizing the federation or perhaps coopting the activists. ₁₅ The executive committee of the union opened the way to such individual membership on February 11, 1990.

The largest number of women who initially took advantage of this change were the members of Rand, the Democratic Women’s League, associated with Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. To the dismay of other leftist women, who continued to advocate a boycott of the government-sponsored federation, Rand had been calling since the mid-1980s for a reform of the GFJW to open it up to individual members. Yet, while the leftist women may have been the first to take advantage, beginning in March, women, the majority of whom “looked like they belonged to the Islamic sisterhood,” according to one GFJW member, ₁₆ began to show up regularly and in large numbers at the GFJW headquarters with lists and registration fees. The controversy began shortly thereafter.

The uproar that ensued indicated that the changed bylaws were at best complicated and at worst open to contradictory interpretations. Some contended the problem originated with the initial drafters of the changed bylaws, although observers also seemed to agree that the Minister’s interpretation of what would become the infamous article 12 regulating voting representation did have clear and deliberate political implications in that it gave unfair representation to certain groups—in this case, Islamist women. According to Shraydeh’s interpretation of the new provisions, each social institution, club, and society (no matter how large its membership) was to be represented in the regional councils by two members, while each group of fifty individual members was to be represented by three chosen delegates. The result, according to some, was that individual members were thus overrepresented (since societies generally had more than fifty members), even though they had had very little involvement in the federation’s activities up to that time. Ousted members of the executive claimed that Shraydeh had interpreted article 12 “according to his whim.” ₁₇

Shraydeh argued that the ministry had requested federation members to find an acceptable formula for interpreting article 12 for the provincial committees. When such a gathering failed to produce an agreement, he had called for a meeting of delegates to discuss the issue. When differences persisted, the delegates to this meeting agreed to leave the matter of determining a binding ruling to the ministry, after consultation with legal specialists on the interpretation. ₁₈ The former union leadership and their associates were then surprised when the ruling went against them. ₁₉

The Islamist women claimed that it was only when the minister’s interpretation did not meet the liking of the other women that they called foul. The story from the other side was that the “foul call” against the minister had come earlier: that the original executive had been dissolved, not because its term had expired (it had expired more than a year earlier) but because it had refused ministry interference in the union’s internal affairs. Thereafter, not only was the executive dissolved, but also members of the former executive who sought to run for high office in the union were banned from ordinary membership. There were also complaints that no one was willing to provide membership figures for the various branches in order to determine who could vote and how many representatives certain associations were due. While this may sound odd, it is quite possible that the level of organization was such that the information was not available. ₂₀

It was clear from the beginning that this was in part a power struggle between Islamist women and others over control of the union. Leftist women argue that, given the political opening and the union’s move to expand membership, they had hoped to forge a national coalition that included centrist and Islamist women. They claim that the Islamist women rejected the coalition idea and instead sought to win complete control of the union at a time when a number of Islamist MPs were calling for women’s return to the home, an anti-democratic program. ₂₁ The Islamist women, on the other hand, portrayed their efforts as aimed at thwarting an attempt by a coalition of nonrepresentative leftists and elite women to take control of the union. ₂₂ Given the political climate at the time—the newness of the liberalization experiment and the recent Islamist victories in the elections—the more secular women’s fears and the Islamist women’s sense of rising fortunes probably ruled out any possibility of compromise even before the fact.

When elections for the executive committee of the Amman chapter were finally held in mid-July, it was—to the surprise of many—not the Islamist women, but a nine-member National Bloc, that won. The leftist (many from Rand) and centrist (pro-government) women had managed to construct an alliance that swept the elections. A record number of women, 228 out of 238 representatives of organizations and individuals, had turned out to vote. However important this victory, the real test, the vote for the national executive committee, still lay ahead. ₂₃

Shraydeh set the date for the meeting and vote for August 3. On July 28 a seven-member women’s delegation met with the speaker of parliament, Sulayman ‘Arar, to protest Shraydeh’s decision, ask that proportional representation be guaranteed, and request a delay in the elections for the national executive. ₂₄ The most convincing evidence they gave for their demand was that 4,500 women of the various clubs and societies were, according to the current formula, represented by five women, while 1,250 individual members were represented by sixty women. At the same time, the ministry denied the eighty-five (non-Islamist) representatives of the Irbid district’s 1,385 individual members the right to participate in the elections, saying that they had not fulfilled the conditions of membership in time, ₂₅ although federation officials denied the charge. The decision was also decried as deliberately favoring Islamist elements, and the Irbid women protested vociferously. ₂₆ Outside those circles directly involved, several members of parliament openly voiced their support for the women and called on the ministry to reconsider.

Several prominent columnists also joined the fray. ₂₇ Ahmad Dabbas criticized the dependence of the union on the ministry and called for severing such ties. Mu’nis al-Razzaz criticized government interference in the union during a period of so-called democracy and called on the union to assert independence from the ministry, even if the consequences, especially the financial ones, would be severe. For their part, Islamist spokespeople argued that the women who had won the Amman elections were willing to declare their victory the result of democracy, but were unwilling to take the next step (national elections), again in the name of democracy: if the leftists/centrists won it was a triumph of democracy, if not, democracy had been violated. ₂₈

Despite the uproar, the ministry insisted that the elections be held on time, and as a result the non-Islamist women in the capital, as well as the representatives from the governorates, boycotted. Hence attendance at the session included only the sixty Islamist representatives of local committees from the capital. There were protests and even physical altercations outside the voting hall. ₂₉ To no one’s surprise, the boycott led to the victory of the Islamist list, headed by Mahdiyyah Zumaylah. The non-Islamist women cried double foul: the ministry had proceeded with the elections, and the nominating and voting processes had been conducted by a show of hands, not by secret ballot, as the bylaws required. Moreover, the boycott by the representatives of the governorates, they argued, meant that the federation had ceased to be a national union. As a result, they decided to take the Ministry of Social Affairs to court. ₃₀ For her part, Zumaylah extended her hand to all those who sought to work for women in Jordan and promised that she would try to be as inclusive as possible. ₃₁ By this time, however, people’s attention had turned to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and consideration of all other issues was postponed.

In the meantime, the non-Islamist women awaited the outcome of their court case. In early January 1991, a cabinet shuffle brought a new minister: Yusuf al-‘Athm, a Muslim Brother. Later in the month, the GFJW won its appeal to the Higher Court to have the 1990 election results reconsidered. According to the ruling, an interim committee was to take charge of federation business for two months until new elections were held. ₃₂ At this stage, ‘Athm’s presence made a difference. Rather than implementing the court’s decision, he insisted that the existing bylaws were problematic and that they should be reviewed. The differences persisted, and Na’ila Rashdan, lawyer, GFJW and BPWC member, and a woman associated with the Islamists in the GFJW, was asked to write a legal opinion on the problem. ₃₃

In early May, the non-Islamist GFJW women sent a memo to Prime Minister Badran charging the Ministry of Social Development and the interim executive with delaying the implementation of the court verdict and calling upon him to act to end the dispute. Later in the month, the Higher Court ruled the 1990 election results void and illegal, but ‘Athm refused to implement the decision. ₃₄

In June 1991 Tahir al-Masri was named prime minister and the Ikhwan presence in the cabinet came to an end. The new minister of social affairs, ‘Awni Bashir, was none other than the son of former GFJW head Haifa Bashir, who had been president of the union when the problematic articles had been introduced into the bylaws. Not surprisingly, after only a month in office, he assembled a 17-member committee of women of various political affiliations and gave them sixty days to prepare for new elections. He insisted that elections be held according to the existing bylaws, even though in the meantime, an official legal interpretation had ruled that there should be no individual membership in the GFJW.

On October 18, 1991, new elections for the GFJW general congress were held, with elections for the nine-member executive committee to follow. The Islamic Action Committees, Islamic Voluntary Societies, and independents decided to boycott these elections, although under ‘Athm’s stewardship of the ministry the number of Islamic charitable societies had grown exponentially. ₃₅ In a statement published in the semiofficial daily al-Dustur, they announced their decision, arguing that steps taken to prepare for the elections were illegal and had been initiated by a small group that sought to exclude the majority of Jordanian women from participating. They also complained of a variety of what they contended were electoral irregularities. ₃₆

These elections, not surprisingly, brought into the leadership a group of non-Islamist women, led by Dr. Haifa Abu Ghazalah, a longtime employee of the Ministry of Education. She had been the choice of the outgoing president (and also, reportedly, of higher powers). The other women who were elected with her were more politicized, like those who had been elected to the Amman council in 1990. ₃₇ But the story does not end here. As a result of what was viewed as yet another unrepresentative outcome as well as the lingering dispute over the bylaws, Na’ila Rashdan filed a suit charging that these election results should also be overturned: a major segment of women (the Islamists) had boycotted, and one particular trend, the leftist women, whom she claimed in no way represented average Jordanian women, had taken control. ₃₈

The saga dragged on until August 1992, when the Higher Court abolished the regulations regarding individual membership and declared the GFJW executive board illegal. The court ruled that all members had to belong to social organizations that were registered with the Ministry of Social Development. ₃₉ During the period leading up to this decision, the federation’s activity had in effect been frozen. In the end, the elections were repeated and Abu Ghazalah won again, in part because of her position as incumbent president and in part because of support she received from above. However, given the termination of the committee form of membership, the leftists who had been voted in with her in 1991 were no longer union members. The result was an executive committee more akin to the pre-1989 formula: a coordinating committee among organizations with no common program. As a result, the final settling of the election and leadership and membership issues did not lead to a reenergizing of the union. The new leadership was almost exclusively Amman-focused, and most seemed more interested in appearing at public functions than in serious work. Stories abound of personal aggrandizement, clientelism, and corruption. In addition, once preparations began for Beijing, Abu Ghazalah was appointed the coordinator of the Arab region for the UN conference and hence spent a great deal of time traveling rather than working on local problems. ₄₀ The near final blow came with the establishment by Princess Basma of the Jordanian National Women’s Forum (see below), thus raising questions about the GFJW’s future role.

Evaluation

The tortured history of the GFJW is explained in part by political rivalries among various women (particularly the non-Islamists versus the Islamists) but also by the changing composition of subsequent Jordanian governments and, in particular, by the political inclination of the successive ministers of social development. The introduction of the new membership category underlines the fact that until 1989 there was no real interest in individual members, which is quite telling about the GFJW’s role and reach. The executive appears to have sought to change the bylaws to check its growing irrelevance and perhaps also to curb or coopt the more politically activist women as the liberalization got underway. What they did not expect, however, was the surge in organized Islamist interest in the GFJW. In the end the strategy backfired, as it led to instability in the leadership and a stagnation of activity on the ground.

The failure of subsequent ministers to resolve the issue owes to their ambivalence or lack of interest as well as the determination by women on both sides of the divide not to accept the status quo. Had Jordan not been in a period of liberalization, it is possible that the issue would simply have been dismissed or that the state would have imposed a new leadership immediately. Thus, the liberalization itself opened the way for a certain amount of contestation and infighting. However, the state’s failure to act decisively to resolve the issue in the context of close ministry responsibility for the union indicates both bureaucratic malaise and a continuing lack of interest in seeing women develop effective institutions. In the end, the state’s ambivalence toward the federation resulted not only in its being taken over by a leadership that appeared to have little commitment to serious activity, but also, as we shall see below, in its being superseded by a new women’s group led directly from (one wing of) the palace.

 

The State, the Islamists and Legislation

Chapter 4 briefly mentioned several Islamist attempts to issue directives or advocate legislation seen as compromising women’s rights. Here the focus is on two Muslim Brotherhood ministers in Mudar Badran’s second cabinet, January–June 1991, a period during which the Islamists were still riding high on their 1989 legislative successes.

In ‘Abdallah ‘Akaylah’s first meeting with ministry employees following his appointment as Minister of Education he informed women that he did not want to have them working in sensitive and important places. He also ordered the “cleansing” of the ministry by segregating the sexes, and began firing some of the higher ranking employees and replacing them with Islamists. His “retiring” of fourteen such people was approved by the cabinet, even though at least seven were still productive, and one was a woman, the only female to reach so high a post. ‘Akaylah also introduced a series of measures to Islamicize education: he limited the freedom of schools to close on Christian holidays and set the dates for mid-term exams during them, and attempted to ban books deemed incompatible with the kingdom’s “moral and religious ethics.” ₄₁

He then moved to ban male sports instructors from working with female students, while his colleagues in parliament submitted a proposal to ban the mixing of the sexes in all educational facilities. None of this, however, elicited any noticeable public reaction. Then on April 30 ‘Akaylah issued a decision forbidding fathers to attend their daughters’ sporting events. The minister argued that the young girls were often scantily clad for such events and that they therefore would not have total freedom to display their skills without embarrassment if males were present. This time, parents reacted swiftly and angrily, forming an ad hoc PTA of sorts. One legislator was approached by a concerned parent for help with drafting a petition protesting the measure, which was then circulated and quickly attracted more than 5,000 signatures. ₄₂ In mid-June, a delegation of parents angry over the minister’s decisions met with Badran, insisting upon their right to choose on the issue of mixing of the sexes and rejecting the imposition of the minister’s will. ₄₃ Badran resigned only a few days later.

Similar stories are recounted about the Minister of Social Affairs, Yusuf al-‘Athm. In the first place, during his brief term in office he allowed the registration of more than fifty Islamic charitable societies, some of which did not meet the legal registration requirements. He reportedly tried to push through seven on his last day in office alone. More troubling, however, were his policies in the ministry itself. He took advantage of the beginning of the Gulf War, as people were upset and distracted, to begin to segregate offices by sex. He also decided to have separate meetings with male and female staff. Yet when he met with female staff, he reportedly did not discuss work-related matters. Instead, he admonished them about their style of dress, telling them they should wear less makeup, that he preferred but would not require Islamic dress, and then requested that they not wear heels that would click as they went up and down the stairs. ₄₄

He then proceeded to bring women preachers from the Awqaf Ministry to preach to the Muslim women employees; attendance at the weekly sessions was mandatory. The Muslim women were reportedly annoyed with the requirement and complained that the women preachers were deficient in their knowledge of Islam. In the meantime, Christian employees began to feel under siege, as their Muslim colleagues were warned by the minister not to be “contaminated” by them, and subtle forms of pressure were initiated to undermine their position. Al-‘Athm also reportedly denied one woman the approval to go abroad based on his concern regarding the poor morals of foreign men and women. ₄₅

Evaluation

It is difficult to say how important these policies, particularly the uproar created by those of ‘Akaylah, were in the decision by the regime to change prime ministers and exclude the Ikhwan from the next cabinet. The importance of the unusual and rapid parental response should not be downplayed given the sector of Amman society—upper and upper middle class—that became involved. Nevertheless, while the king prides himself on the image of Jordan as a moderate and forward-looking country—and the edicts of these two ministers certainly clashed with that image—it seems more likely that foreign policy or security considerations played the primary role in the ouster of the Ikhwan from the cabinet. The prelude to what became the Madrid conference—discussed in chapter 4—and the Ikhwan’s likely refusal to support such a meeting seem the most likely explanations for the Ikhwan’s fall from grace.

 

The Role of Princess Basma

One of the most significant stories of the period and the counterpart to the decline of the General Federation of Jordanian Women has been the rise in prominence and power of Princess Basma, the king’s sister. This section explores two elements of this important development: the establishment of the Jordanian National Committee for Women (JNCW) and the Jordanian preparations for the Beijing Conference.

The Jordanian National Committee for Women

The origins of Princess Basma’s interest in women’s issues is open to some speculation. What is clear is that until her involvement in 1992 as the patron of efforts to draft the National Strategy for Women, discussed below, the princess had a low profile in the public life of the kingdom. Her most notable involvement was as honorary chairwoman of the Queen ‘Alia Fund for Social Development (QAF), which was established in 1977 and which targets developing self-sufficiency, especially among women and particularly in rural areas. If a member of the royal family was to take on a prominent, national role regarding women, however, she was the most obvious candidate, since neither Queen Noor nor Princess Sarvath, the wife of the crown prince, is originally Jordanian. Moreover, in public appearances Basma exudes a warmth and a modesty that have endeared her to many Jordanians.

According to the official account, ₄₆ in September 1991, a delegation from the United Nations Fund for Population suggested the establishment of a national committee on women to work to integrate women more fully into development. As a result, in January 1992 Minister of Planning Ziyad Fariz (an ally of the Crown Prince, who reportedly has taken a special interest in promoting his sister) and Prime Minister bin Shakir requested that the princess chair such a committee and choose its members. In March 1992, Princess Basma established the Jordanian National Committee for Women (JNCW), a policy forum on women’s issues intended to work to improve women’s social status and increase their involvement in development, to upgrade their legal status, and to improve their political participation. The JNCW was located within the QAF (officially an NGO) and comprised the ministers of planning, labor, education, and social development ex officio, as well as representatives of the civil service bureau, the private sector, the General Federation of Jordanian Women, and women in the public, private, and academic sectors. One of the first tasks set out for the committee was to produce a national strategy for Jordanian women. To that end, USAID was contacted and, as was noted in the previous chapter, a Women in Development (WID) team played an important role in early discussions and proposals for a National Strategy for Women and for an action plan for the JNCW. The AID team submitted its draft proposal in June 1992.

In 1993, a series of four seminars was held by the JNCW, the first for planners and policymakers, but the other three for concerned women in the northern, central, and southern parts of the country to ensure grassroots participation in drafting the National Strategy. Although an attempt was made to include suggestions made at these various meetings, the process was carefully orchestrated from above. For example, at one of the meetings, held in May 1993, it was the ministers who presented papers and who were most clearly directing the intellectual content of the meeting. In this session many women expressed concern regarding the intentions of the JNCW, particularly on the question of what role it would allow for existing women’s NGOs. There was also a strong and direct questioning/criticism by Toujan Faisal of the fact that some of the ministers on the committee had been prominent during the martial law era and yet were now involved in project pushing for greater empowerment and involvement of women; why were they now advocating women’s causes? ₄₇

At the final session, a national conference on June 29 presided over by the crown prince, the strategy and recommendations that had been assembled during the meetings in the governorates were distributed, and people were divided into two groups: one to discuss political/legal issues and the other to look at educational and economic issues. When the two groups returned for a plenary session, the presence of the crown prince introduced a formality that made further changes impossible. All the participants were aware that they could not leave that day without having produced a document. Some women objected, saying that the draft could serve as a basis for future work, but not be accepted in its entirety. However, at that point, a deputy (generally described as a leftist) suggested that whoever was in agreement with the document should stand. To have remained seated was not really an option, since it would have been construed as a direct challenge to the princess. The document was adopted. ₄₈

A number of interviewees made clear that one major problem with the National Strategy and with other work sponsored by Princess Basma is/was that everyone seeks to please her. No one wants to express views they think she may not want to hear, so they simply agree with her. ₄₉ Indeed, when I commented to one of the organizers of the May session (noted above) that Toujan Faisal had been courageous in making her remarks about the ministers’ martial law pasts the woman responded, “yes, but it’s not proper to speak that way in front of the princess.”

The National Strategy was then sent on to the cabinet, which approved it on October 30, 1993, and called upon all relevant bodies to take the steps necessary to implement it. The JNCW then formed a coordination committee comprising several representatives of the main NGOs in Jordan. In addition, several technical committees consisting of a number of specialists and experts were assembled to prepare programs of action in various domains, including action plans for the relevant ministries. In the political domain, one of the key initiatives, begun in 1994, was the appointment of 99 women, recommended by the princess, to municipal and village councils throughout the country. (Such appointments could not have taken place, however, had the government not already, as noted in chapter 4, mandated the dissolution of the legally elected councils as part of its anti-Islamist political program.) The appointments, requested by the princess, were then approved by cabinet decisions.

The women selected for these posts were chosen from existing or recently established “women’s committees.” Beginning in the 1980s, the QAF had begun to establish community development centers in rural areas to aid rural women in generating income for their families through training, education, and productive projects. Through these centers a series of women’s committees was eventually started on the village and governorate level. In 1992, 1,416 women were active in 72 committees, which in turn reached 60,482 women. ₅₀ The women’s committees that were involved in the municipal councils effort, however, were something different. They were established in the twelve governorates following the adoption of the National Strategy to promote its goals and to form pressure groups to lobby on women’s issues, in addition to their responsibilities in community development in cooperation with the QAF centers. These committees were formed with the cooperation of the governors of the governorates and the Ministry of the Interior, and operate under the umbrella of the JNCW. Government facilities of various sorts have been put at their disposal, especially schools, and a large number of memberships have been solicited among teachers.

The appointment of the 99 women to municipal posts was intended to provide them with training in government service and local issues, to break the women’s and the communities’ psychological barriers to seeing women in such posts, and therefore to enhance their chances for running in and winning in municipal elections. ₅₁ Following their appointments a number of training workshops were conducted and the JNCW distributed flyers encouraging women to register to vote. In the end, twelve women ran for election: one was elected mayor, in the Ajlun district, and nine others were elected to municipal council posts. Ten, including the one who won the mayorship, had been members of the women’s committees.

JNCW activities in other fields have included: the taping of fifty awareness-raising programs on women, family, and the law in conjunction with Jordanian broadcasting; the establishment of nurseries in the Sahab industrial area (south of Amman) to benefit working mothers; the organization of a number of sessions to raise women’s awareness of health care issues; and the commissioning of a number of studies on such issues as poverty, female-headed households, and problems of child-rearing. ₅₂

On December 29, 1995, in a major step, representatives of the women’s committees assembled in Amman for a conference founding a new women’s organization, the Jordanian National Women’s Forum (Tajammu‘ Lijan al-Mar’ah al-Watani al-Urdunni) (JNWF). The ostensible reason for setting up this forum was to provide the national institutional framework to push forward the National Strategy for Women after the Beijing conference. ₅₃ This structure was intended to tie together all the local committees referred to above. Although it was billed as an NGO and a grassroots effort, with Princess Basma as its head, with logistical and financial support coming from the governorates and ministries, and with its mission the implementation of the government’s National Strategy, this was clearly a governmental organization.

In the press coverage of the event, none of the traditional faces from the “women’s movement” appeared and none was mentioned. Only passing reference was made to the past role of the general federation in the general framework of the JNWF’s intention to continue to work with other women’s organizations. ₅₄ The founding of the forum was completely unexpected and literally everyone involved in women’s issues—from employees of UN agencies to women activists of various stripes—was taken by surprise. The GFJW and JWU were particularly alarmed and requested meetings with the princess to clarify the nature of their relationship to the new JNWF. The princess reportedly reassured them that the relationship would be one of cooperation, not domination or exclusion, but word was that they were not fully convinced. Whether simply as a means of no longer sharing the limelight with women who owed their positions to people other than her—the patron of the GFJW is Queen Noor—(the most negative interpretation), or out of a desire to in effect “clean house” of those who had been prominent but most active in parties and expensive trips (the most positive construction), or out of a growing desire simply to establish for herself a formal, national women’s organization (the most likely explanation), the princess had clearly made her move to take control and begin a new era. ₅₅ The founding congress was charged with looking into the situation of each of the local committees over the next six months in preparation for holding elections. ₅₆

In a related move, just before the March 8, 1996 celebrations of International Women’s day, yet another institution was opened: the Princess Basma Women’s Resource Center (PBWRC). Housed within the QAF’s Queen Zein al-Sharaf Complex for Development in northwest Amman, the PBWRC is directed by Princess Basma’s daughter, Farah Daghestani. Although at the time of this writing it was difficult to ascertain how active the center would be, its goals included: initiating media campaigns to raise public awareness and debate of women’s issues; holding seminars and workshops to raise women’s awareness; conducting research and collecting information on women in Jordan so as to serve as a national resource center on the subject; and offering cultural, educational, and social activities to women of all ages. It was also intended to provide implementing mechanisms for the Platform of Action, agreed to at Beijing. ₅₇ The center’s first formal activity was to serve as a focal point for a week-long program of activities in honor of International Women’s Day.

While the atmosphere was hardly ripe for criticism of the royal family, Rand, the Democratic Women’s League, probably came close to voicing what many others thought: that the JNWF was an official federation, that it had not been founded at the behest of its committees’ reported 15,000 members, and that it therefore constituted blatant interference by the government in the affairs of Jordanian women. ₅₈ On the other hand, Nawal Fa‘uri, one of only two women to serve as a member of the IAF shura council (its executive body) praised the role of the princess in adopting women’s issues on an official level through the National Strategy, the JNCW, and the JNWF. She also referred to the JNWF as the legitimate framework for women’s efforts in the kingdom. ₅₉

The Preparations for Beijing

In early 1992, Princess Basma was designated by the cabinet to serve as the head of Jordan’s delegation to Beijing. Certainly by June 1993 it was clear that the discussions surrounding the National Strategy for Women would play an important role in shaping the kingdom’s official report to be presented at the conference. As the international conference approached, Basma gradually assumed all the Beijing-related “hats.” In addition to heading the official Jordanian preparations, she also chaired the Jordanian committee that coordinated among the NGOs intending to participate. Each country was supposed to have a focal point organization to serve to coordinate NGO preparations for Beijing. However, the princess simply said that it was unnecessary to designate such a focal point, that the national coordinating committee, which was not an NGO but a body housed within the QAF, would carry out this function of establishing liaisons with the various NGOs. ₆₀

In July 1993 Basma was named an honorary UN ambassador for human resource affairs, and at the end of December she was named by UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali to membership in the International Advisory Group in preparation for Beijing. At a mid-November 1994 regional preparatory meeting held in Amman under the princess’ patronage, she was voted Woman of the Year in appreciation of her efforts. At Beijing itself, she was elected one of six vice-chairs of the conference for the Asian region, a development that received a great deal of play in the Jordanian press.

The Jordanian media highlighted the positive, constructive, yet moderate position of their home delegation in the deliberations. Jordan’s position was always noted by the princess to be within the framework of the kingdom’s traditions and culture, and in keeping with its Islamic heritage, although only one IAF member, Nawal Fa‘uri, had been included in the delegation, and there had been no formal participation by IAF women in the preparation of the national report. ₆₁ Shortly after the return from Beijing, the princess held a meeting specifically with IAF MPs to review the outcome of the conference, and the deputies expressed their willingness to cooperate with the JNCW to achieve its goals. She held no such meeting with deputies from other parliamentary blocs or parties. Since then, discussions of the conference have stressed that the decisions of Beijing “promote women and support them in the framework of Islamic teachings, accepted social traditions and mores, and the Jordanian constitution and National Charter.” ₆₂

Evaluation

In the end, the preparations for Beijing served to catapult the princess to a position of prominence and power she had not previously enjoyed. By the end of 1995 with the establishment of the JNWF, she had clearly taken the mantle of leadership of the “women’s movement.” It remained to be seen whether the hard work promised to improve women’s status and legal position would in fact produce concrete results. Certainly the establishment of the PBWRC noted above, as well as, only a week later, the formation of the Jordanian Committee for Non-Governmental Women’s Organizations (also to be chaired by the princess) further illustrated her intention to play the premier role in the realm of women’s issues in the kingdom. This latter committee was founded to serve as a coordinating body for NGO work in general and had as its first task putting together a working team to revise the National Strategy and to prepare a plan linking the Beijing conference recommendations with the Jordanian National Strategy. ₆₃ In reality, of course, the fact that Jordan’s official and NGO delegations were combined is indicative of a broader problem, that of the state’s insinuation of itself into what should be civil society activity.

One final important observation regarding the JNWF is that it is heavily Transjordanian, developing out of the QAF centers, the constituent committees of which are based in villages, which are almost exclusively Transjordanian. It is as yet unclear what the practical implications of this development are. It may be an attempt by the regime to try to ease some of the concerns of Transjordanians that the kingdom’s future lies with the Palestinians. More likely, it is simply the natural product of the fact that the initiative emerged from the QAF and that the Palestinian refugee camps are serviced by UNRWA (United Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) and its donor contacts. In any case, the communal dimension is not lost on the women participants.

 

The Women’s Union in Jordan

One clear, positive development owing to the political liberalization was the reemergence of the WFJ, under the name of the Jordanian Women’s Union (JWU). Its members were generally of a leftist or pan-Arab persuasion, tending toward a more political, if not always feminist, analysis of women’s problems in Jordan and therefore less interested in traditional forms of charitable social work. Once it became clear that the GFJW would remain a grouping of societies and not a real women’s union, the leftist women who had tried to work within the federation turned their attention to working within the JWU. One source argued that it was the failure of the more politicized, leftist women to take over the GFJW in 1992, after the 1991 elections were overturned, that led them to turn their attention to the JWU and capture the leadership in the 1993 elections. ₆₄

During the first years of its reinvigoration, the union concentrated on political issues or foreign affairs: collecting donations for the children of the intifada and for the Iraqi people in the wake of the Gulf crisis. However, in April 1993 elections were held and lawyer and activist Asma Khadr was elected president, replacing Da‘d Mu‘ath, who had been president for nearly twenty years.

Between 1993 and 1995, the union implemented a number of basic reforms, moving toward greater decentralization, establishment of new branches, more democratic forms of interaction, and guarantees for more effective participation of the branches. In 1994, the union counted 3,800 members in the capital alone in addition to branches and centers in Irbid, Zarqa, Madaba, and Ramtha. ₆₅ Two sets of new activities have been particularly notable, as the union has been reenergized. The first aims at changing a variety of laws to promote greater equality between the sexes, and the second concerns family relations and domestic violence. To address the first set of concerns, the union assembled a committee to look into proposals for changes in the Labor Law to enforce equality between men and women, and to accommodate the needs of working mothers. ₆₆ In February 1995 it made public its intention to work to establish a secretaries union in the kingdom as a result of the numerous complaints of exploitation and abuse it had received. In the fall of 1995 the union announced that it planned to offer its premises as a place where divorced parents could visit with their children, to provide an alternative to the existing practice of meetings at police stations. It also began a program to provide free court representation to women, along with the legal advice it had been providing for some time.

In September 1995 the union initiated a campaign to press lawmakers to amend or overturn a series of discriminatory laws. The first target was the Passport Law, which it sought to change so that women would no longer need to obtain their husband’s or guardian’s permission to obtain a passport. The plan was then that every four months the union would focus on a different law it felt needed amending. Further changes were to be lobbied for in the Nationality Law, the penal code (regarding abortion), the Civil Personal Status Law (to restrict polygamy and arbitrary divorce), the Labor Law, and the Pension Law. ₆₇

By early 1995 the JWU had opened three legal advice centers, one in each of the two refugee camps of al-Wihdat and al-Baq‘a, and the third at the union office in Jebel Husayn. This then complements the second thrust of their work: a campaign to raise awareness regarding the problem of violence against women. To this end they have worked to establish a violence hotline (opened in August 1995 and formally inaugurated in March 1996) and a center that employs counselors who meet with women to advise them of their rights and options.

Although the liberalization enabled the JWU to resume and expand its activities, it has nevertheless encountered some problems. For example, in 1994 a controversy arose between it and the general federation, ostensibly over similarity of name. While the JWU contended that there was no basis for competition, since the GFJW offered membership only to societies and the JWU offered individual membership, the GFJW threatened to take the JWU to court on the grounds that the similarity of name caused confusion. The GFJW did file a complaint with the Ministry of the Interior on these grounds, but the ministry supported the JWU, which had been registered under that name prior to the founding of the GFJW. ₆₈ However, the Ministry of Social Affairs then requested that the JWU either change its name or merge with the GFJW. While the JWU initially refused, contending that they were registered with the Ministry of the Interior, and not the Ministry of Social Affairs, and it should therefore have no jurisdiction over them, in the end there was a name change from Al-Ittihad al-Nisa’i al-Urdunni to Ittihad al-Mar’a al-Urdunniyyah, the Jordanian Woman’s Union. Of course, as had been the case in the early 1980s when a name change was forced on these women, the name was not the basic problem. This was a power struggle between the two organizations.

The name change did not end the problem. Khadr claimed that following the initial dispute over the name, the JWU was subjected to a hostile campaign of slander, including charges of embezzlement. In addition, the JWU name change did not lead the GFJW to withdraw its suit. GFJW President Abu Ghazalah continued to contend that the JWU was not really a union and that the name change did not end the confusion. She also questioned the authority of the Ministry of the Interior in such matters. Nevertheless, the JWU ultimately won its case and opened a new headquarters only a few weeks later, inaugurated by the Minister of the Interior.

Also in the late spring of 1994, around the time that the name change problems had begun, the union submitted a change in its bylaws to the Ministry of the Interior. Like other institutions that are not political parties, it is governed by the Charitable Societies Law, which stipulates that these organizations not engage in political work. The text of the changed bylaws included a goal of “raising the awareness among Jordanian women of their role and rights in the social, economic, and political spheres.” Objection was raised to the word “political” in this phrase. The JWU leadership had a long discussion with the governor of Amman over this word, trying to convince him that political rights were part of overall human rights and that this did not really aim at achieving political goals, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. ₆₉

By 1995, as the liberalization was clearly in retreat, it was reported that the final communiqué of the JWU congress in June surprised a number of attendees, who claimed that the positions adopted had been reformulated. The report contended that this had been done under threat of dissolution of the union by the Ministry of the Interior, whose representative was seated at the back of the conference hall. ₇₀ It is also worth noting that the JWU had planned a program called “Beijing in Amman” to coincide with the UN conference. This was to have been a series of activities—lectures, presentations, and discussions—related to what was happening in China. They planned to include presentations of the Jordanian reports, discussions of the working plan submitted to the conference for approval by all women, as well as expositions of relevant UN conventions and presentations by delegations from other countries. The proposed three-day event, September 1–3, was canceled at the last minute. It was unclear whether it had been the victim of the general retreat in freedoms the country had been experiencing or whether the delegation in Beijing had brought pressure to bear at home so as not to lose the limelight.

Evaluation

The JWU’s development illustrates a number of the trends noted in the previous examples. In the first place, it is clear that the liberalization opened the door to the energizing of this women’s NGO concerned with national political and social issues affecting women. Second, some of the issues it has addressed—domestic violence, abortion, changing the nationality law—were generally not discussed openly before the liberalization. At the same time, however, the possibilities for expanding the union have been limited in part because of competition with the GFJW, but more recently owing to the role and activities of the princess.

 

Conclusions

Despite the negatives, there is no question that women’s organizations have been able to take great advantage of the political opening. The reinvigoration of the JWU and its concentration on issues that the GFJW would not address is just one example. Its ability to survive the challenge from the GFJW, maintain a high profile, and keep some sensitive issues on the table for public discussion are others. There has also been the growing emphasis on women’s involvement in local and national politics, and, no matter whence the initiative, Jordanian society is gradually becoming accustomed to seeing women holding political office. This may be most important at the municipal level, where close interaction with or observation of women candidates may lead to a change in attitudes that the presence of a female deputy in (too far away) Amman cannot.

Moreover, the increasing involvement of women in politics is by no means limited to non-Islamist women. The importance of the female vote to the successes of Islamist candidates in both the 1989 and 1993 elections is widely acknowledged and was noted in chapter 4. The story of the struggle for control of the GFJW was another important episode for Islamist women, even if it ultimately ended in failure. Subsequently, however, some Islamist women with an interest in politics have become members of the IAF, which at the end of 1995 transformed its women’s committee into a more powerful “women’s section.” Two women sit on the IAF’s shura council and 5 percent of the party membership is female, a percentage they seek to increase. Clear in their goals and well aware of the importance of the female vote to Islamist candidates, these women have also developed a pragmatic approach that allows for alliances with other women’s organizations, particularly on issues related to protecting children and the family or on fighting against normalization with Israel, the major field of cooperation at the time of this writing. Depending upon the circumstances surrounding future elections, especially if a quota for women should be introduced into the electoral law, they see a strong possibility of fielding female candidates for parliament. ₇₁

Another remarkable development of this period is the number of workshops, seminars and conferences devoted either entirely or at least in part to women’s issues. While many of these activities have been funded and/or encouraged by foreign NGOs or aid agencies, in many cases they have also been extensions of the activities of existing organizations. Media coverage of women’s meetings, whether chaired by the princess or sponsored by one of the major women’s organizations, has been prominent and has played a role in sensitizing people to women’s concerns.

That said, it is true that the “women’s movement” is fragmented. In 1993, Jordan had a few hundred women’s associations (not all of which deal with women’s issues, of course), five women’s organizations that were part of or attached to political parties, and two women’s unions. Those women’s organizations attached to political parties, like their counterparts elsewhere, work on women’s issues only to the extent that the parties take an interest in them. While some argue that this certainly weakens the “movement,” it may be unavoidable. Others did not see the existence of a multiplicity of organizations as in and of itself a weakness. Rather, the weakness derives from the fact that these organizations see themselves as rivals: bickering and maneuvering for position are the real problems. ₇₂ There was an attempt in July 1993 to unify women’s ranks, but it was called for and orchestrated by women members of Rand. The five-hour session turned into a shouting match and a free for all. ₇₃ In any case, this situation is not particular to women. It also holds for political parties in general and is probably not unusual after a long period of political repression.

In the realm of state action, a number of women have been appointed to high-level jobs since the liberalization began, but particularly as Beijing approached. The king has appointed several women to the senate: Layla Sharaf (1989, 1993,1994) and Na’ila Rashdan (1993), Rima Khalaf and Subeiha Ma‘ani (1997). Both Sharaf and Rashdan played important roles in legislative issues related to women. The prominence of women increased dramatically, however, after the 1993 elections. First, of course, Toujan Faisal was elected to parliament. Shortly thereafter, Prime Minister ‘Abd al-Salam al-Majali appointed the first adviser to the prime minister on women’s issues, Dr. Umayma Dahhan. In the meantime, Princess Basma had become involved in the National Strategy project, which gave her growing prominence.

Since then, in the cabinet formed in January 1995, Salwa Damen al-Masri was appointed Minister of Social Affairs and Rima Khalaf Minister of Trade and Industry. (She was transferred to Planning in a subsequent cabinet shuffle.) Khalaf’s appointment was particularly significant because of the importance of the two ministries she has headed, but also because, unlike what is so frequently the case in Jordan, she was actually qualified professionally to head such ministries. Also notable was the fact that in his early 1996 speech before the parliament presenting his government’s program, the prime minister designate, ‘Abd al-Karim Kabariti, stressed that Jordan was bound by the articles of the National Strategy and the resolutions of the Beijing conference. This was a clear acknowledgement of the importance of women’s issues, the first such reference to women ever by a prime minister. ₇₄ In late May 1996, in another major departure, Kabariti appointed Jordan’s first woman judge. It was therefore a disappointment, if not a surprise, that none of the seventeen female candidates in the November 1997 elections was successful, including Toujan Faisal.

Of course, one may also quite rightly argue that the impact of such women is limited and that not all of them have gender concerns among their priorities. One could therefore conclude that these appointments are signs of tokenism rather than early indications of positive changes on the horizon, examples of an embryonic Hashemite state feminism. Indeed, when one considers the emerging role of the princess, such a conclusion may well seem more appropriate than the more optimistic one.

Some observers believe that a planned division of labor is at work, according to which each member of the royal family is made patron (and hence, supervisor or even controller) of a particular sector. In this way, as an increasingly superficial liberalization unfolds, control of various sectors is gradually being taken (back) by the state. The argument is that Princess Basma has been given the “women’s movement” portfolio. In this role she must strike a balance between modernization and tradition acceptable to broader regime and societal concerns. One target of her efforts is external funders. Her role in appointing women to municipal council seats and the subsequent efforts of her women’s committees to get women elected in July 1995 may be viewed in this context. Some contend that the regime had made a decision that women should be so appointed, since it is good for Jordan’s image with the West and with donor agencies to increase women’s visibility in public life. The fact that these efforts took place during the immediate prelude to Beijing should also not be forgotten. Some contend that her efforts are also a part of an ongoing process of regime legitimation, and use as an example the fact that meetings of the QAF women’s committees have been turned into gatherings in support of the peace process. ₇₅

While the “division of labor” argument may be appealing in explaining developments in a country in which cooptation of opposition or civil society actors has long been a successful policy, there is also evidence to suggest that developments are not so clearly planned or controlled. A strong argument against such a contention is that policymaking in other areas manifests no such coherence. Moreover, the evidence could just as easily be marshaled to argue that what is going on has less to do with societal control and more to do with ambitions and rivalries among members of the royal family. One indication that the division of labor argument does not hold was an announcement by the NHF in March 1996 that it would hold leadership (political, economic, administrative) training sessions for women. This was really the first NHF (read Queen Noor) attempt to become involved in a realm outside social work, children, and economic development projects, which the “division of labor” argument contends are her “portfolios.” Stories of rivalries among the upper tier of royal woman are common. And, the drive for media attention and societal role has only increased in recent years as the next generation of royals (men and women) has begun to come of age and seek the spotlight themselves.

In the women’s sphere, the result has been a clear reassertion of state involvement (in the form of the princess) in the women’s movement and an increasing marginalization of efforts that fall outside the official framework. This does not coincide neatly with the retreat of the liberalization; it seems to be triggered by the opportunities that Beijing preparations offered. In any case, whether part of a plan or the result of conjunctural factors, the princess’ (and to a less prominent extent, the queen’s) involvement in women’s issues has also led to a growing monopolization of external donor funds by QAF and NHF. Some donors see the patronage of the princess or the queen and assume that by virtue of their positions their respective organizations will have access to the best of personnel, networks, cooperation, and the like, something which others argue is not necessarily the case.

However, even for those who want to work with other, smaller NGOs, there are problems. Despite their NGO designation, the QAF and NHF are, not surprisingly, closely tied to the government. Unlike other organizations with an NGO designation, these royal NGOs (or RONGOs—pun, not of my creation, intended) are not subject to the Laws of Charitable and Voluntary Societies (1966) as are other NGOs, and they cannot be interfered with in the same way (by having elections monitored or results overturned, for example). ₇₆ They do not need permission from the Ministry of Social Development to hold fundraising events or to submit funding proposals to foreign donors (something all other NGOs are required to do), nor are they required to fulfill the same financial reporting requirements as the real NGOs. Moreover, the RONGOs receive money that is part of bilateral (government-to-government) aid packages; regular NGOs do not. In sum, they enjoy all the benefits attending their self-designated (and generally unquestioned) NGO status, while they are subject to none of the controls.

In addition, personnel rotate in and out of them from government ministries and often push potential funders or local NGO applicants in directions that benefit the RONGOs. This is not to say that no funds are available for smaller groups; however, they are increasingly unlikely to be able to compete for large grants. In addition, there have been cases of individual or small NGO efforts that have been quashed or “adopted” by a RONGO: a message was simply conveyed that the proposal would be carried out by the larger organization, and there is not much that can be done to counter a quasi-royal directive. Furthermore, even UN donors’ local offices are not in a position to deny a request by a RONGO, since royalty have been known to take their case, always successfully, to UN headquarters and have a funding denial overturned.

On the other hand, while one may criticize the state (princess’) increasing control over women’s activities in the kingdom, if one takes the example of the preparations for Beijing, one may legitimately ask whether the NGOs in Jordan would have been able to come together and produce a report on their own. Whether the fact that they produced one orchestrated by the state authorities is better than not having produced one at all is another question. Most interviewees note both the positives and negatives of the princess’ involvement. She has certainly raised the profile and drawn media and upper-level administration attention to issues that they could otherwise have ignored. She also has the influence to command resources that probably no other woman in the kingdom could. The drawback, however, is that an organization run by a member of the royal family cannot be an NGO in the true sense, if for no other reason than it must be bound by the policy(ies) of the monarchy. While Basma brings a generally enlightened outlook to many issues, her leadership of a national women’s movement in the kingdom means that certain topics will not be broached.

Another negative is that the princess has increasingly centered control over women’s issues in her QAF and its various extensions. Moreover, a patron-client relationship between the princess and the “activist” women has been established and so people have become afraid or unwilling to do anything without her. They or the princess also reportedly marginalize women who are seen as too strong, and hence, as threatening. Indeed, the departure of Umayma Dahhan from her post as the first adviser to a prime minister on women’s affairs after only a few months on the job reportedly owed to pressures from just such women who felt she constituted a threat. ₇₇ In another example, I was told that numerous women had ideas for post-Beijing follow-up. However, because the princess was in charge, no one dared to take the initiative.

Also, interestingly, just as some former male opposition figures appear to be falling over each other to line up for government appointments, so some of the long-time female political activists with an oppositional bent now seem intent upon working with the princess, whether out of conviction that this is the only way to get things done, or because, after having been outside the system so long, the attraction of being an insider is just too great. One of the most notable examples has been Toujan Faisal. Although she railed against various aspects of government policy, she seemed, nevertheless, to have become a favorite of the princess. JWU president (until spring 1997) Asma Khadr had also increasingly been involved in meetings organized by the princess and had served as a legal adviser.

What appears to have developed during the liberalization as well as during the period of “reclosing” is a gradual renegotiation of the boundaries for dealing with issues related to women. While in the early period there were several clashes and certainly some government embarrassment over the behavior of certain ministers and Islamist legislative initiatives related to sex segregation, since 1992 these clashes have all but disappeared. In the first place, the Islamists’ presence in the 1993 parliament was only half that of the 1989 parliament. However, the regime (or its government) has also apparently conceded—or made clear its acceptance of Islamist influence in—certain areas. In its semi-official and official organizations dealing with women, the powers that be have been careful to stress that change will be introduced, but only if it is within the framework of society’s religious and cultural traditions. The types of legal changes that the JNWF seeks, while significant, are quite modest (improved maternity leave policies are most prominent), and in the social, health, and educational realm, all amendments are presented as strengthening the family (the traditional family) as the basic unit of society. The marking of limits of the types of reforms sought is in effect being exchanged, it appears, for Islamists’ refraining from pushing for parts of their program that would, in light of Jordan’s modernist image, constitute an embarrassment. The resultant “reformist” program appeals to both the religiously conservative and the more secular, but nonetheless still socially conservative, camps. That includes most of the population.

Indeed, the vast majority of Jordanian women are concerned that issues related to women’s rights and their role in society be addressed within a framework that upholds Islam and societal traditions. The percentage of women who feel comfortable with trying to move beyond that framework remains small. Activists who go to villages or refugee camps stress the need to base any discussion with women on Islamic principles; otherwise, women assume that what is being proposed contradicts religion, and will likely reject the ideas presented. This problem is, of course, not limited to Jordanian society. Political liberalization does not necessarily mean social liberalization. And the political liberalization in the kingdom has been in clear retreat since 1994 in any case. Therefore, changes or reforms that imply a restructuring of the existing social order are likely for the foreseeable future to continue to be vigorously resisted by most Jordanians—women and men alike.

 

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Endnotes

Note 1: Nancy Gallagher, “Gender, Islamism and Democratization in Jordan: The Case of Tujan al-Faysal), draft paper, 1993, pp. 7&-;8. Back.

Note 2: Ibid., pp. 10–15. Back.

Note 3: Jordan Times (hereafter, JT), 4 November 1989. Back.

Note 4: Ibid. Back.

Note 5: Ibid. Back.

Note 6: Gallagher, “Gender, Islamism and Democratization,” p. 17. Back.

Note 7: Ibid., pp. 26–28. Back.

Note 8: JT, 22–23 February 1990. Back.

Note 9: Ibid. Back.

Note 10: Gallagher, “Gender, Islamism and Democratization,” pp. 21–22. Back.

Note 11: Interview with Professor of Psychology at Jordan University and women’s activist Arwa al-‘Amiri, May 10, 1993. Back.

Note 12: Inas al-Khalidi, “Al-Himayah al-Qanuniyyah l-il-Mar’ah al-Urdunniyyah,” unpublished paper presented at the First Conference of the JWU, June 13–15, 1995, p. 9. Back.

Note 13: In my May 11, 1993 interview with MP and former PM Tahir al-Masri, he denied that such charges were true and contended that only in the case of the Miri land law had women’s rights been compromised. Back.

Note 14: JT, July 10, 1990. Back.

Note 15: Interview with Majida al-Masri, member of the JWU executive committee and Rand, June 9, 1996. The cynicism in the evaluation is mine; she saw the GFJW attempts at revitalization as part of strategy to prevent the union from descending into irrelevance. Back.

Note 16: JT, June 20, 1990. Back.

Note 17: JT, July 10, 1990. Back.

Note 18: JT, July 31, 1990. Back.

Note 19: Commentary by Na’ila Rashdan in al-Ra’y, February 20, 1993. Back.

Note 20: JT, July 10, 1990. Back.

Note 21: This was the evaluation of Majida al-Masri in my interview with her. Back.

Note 22: This was the evaluation of Senator Na’ila Rashdan, who was close to the Islamist camp. Interview with Senator Rashdan, who was active with the GFJW during the period, August 6, 1994. Back.

Note 23: JT, July 21, 1990. Back.

Note 24: JT, July 20, 1990. Back.

Note 25: JT, August 31, 1990. Back.

Note 26: JT, July 29, 1990. Back.

Note 27: Mu’nis al-Razzaz in al-Dustur, July 31, 1990; Ahmad Dabbas in Sawt al-Sha‘b, July 30, 1990. Back.

Note 28: Muna Banduqji Abu Ghunayma in al-Dustur, August 1, 1990. Back.

Note 29: JT, August 4, 1990. Back.

Note 30: Haifa Malhas in al-Ra’y, August 4, 1990. Back.

Note 31: Al-Ra’y, August 4, 1990. Back.

Note 32: JT, January 28, 1991. Back.

Note 33: Na’ila Rashdan in al-Ra’y, February 20, 1993. Back.

Note 34: JT, July 25–26, 1991. Back.

Note 35: Interview with Dr. ‘Abla ‘Amawi, UNDP, formerly with the Noor al-Hussein Foundation, March 18, 1996. Back.

Note 36: “Jordanian Women Federation Elections,” an unsigned (although clearly from Islamists) statement dated September 15, 1991 and found in the archives of the Jordan Times. Back.

Note 37: JT, October 20, 1991. Back.

Note 38: Rashdan interview, May 22, 1996. Back.

Note 39: The Star, August 27, 1992. Back.

Note 40: Rashdan interview, May 22, 1996. Back.

Note 41: JT, May 23–24, 1991. Back.

Note 42: Off-the-record interview. Back.

Note 43: JT, June 13–14, 1991. Back.

Note 44: Off-the-record interview. Back.

Note 45: Off-the-record interview. Back.

Note 46: See “Draft Project Proposal: Support to JNCW for Implementation of the Political Domain of the National Strategy for Women in Jordan,” submitted to NDI, January 1996, and USAID, “Proposed National Strategy and Action Plan for the National Women’s Committee,” June 30, 1992. I am skeptical of many details about the source of initiatives. (One source indicated that a women’s committee had in fact been in existence since the prime ministership of Tahir al-Masri (June–November 1991), although it did not meet until bin Shakir’s second premiership, in spring 1992.) Having observed their emergence and development, the logic or coherence of the projects appears only in hindsight. Back.

Note 47: I attended this meeting as an observer. Back.

Note 48: Off-the-record interview with one of the women who was in attendance at the session. Back.

Note 49: Off-the-record interview. Back.

Note 50: QAF, “QAF facts: Women on the Move,” n.d., p. 1. Back.

Note 51: JT, July 16, 1995. Back.

Note 52: Al-Aswaq, March 11, 1996. Back.

Note 53: Al-Aswaq, November 20, 1995. Back.

Note 54: Al-Dustur, March 1, 1996. Back.

Note 55: Al-Dustur, December 30, 1995. Back.

Note 56: Al-Dustur, April 1, 1996. Back.

Note 57: PBWRC, brochure and press release, no date. Back.

Note 58: The Star, April 1, 1996. Back.

Note 59: Al-Aswaq, March 11, 1996. Back.

Note 60: Interview with Maha al-Khatib, director of UNIFEM office, Amman, February 27, 1996. Back.

Note 61: Interview with IAF member Hayat al-Musaymi, June 16, 1996. She said that the extent of their involvement was having obtained a copy of the report and submitting input on an informal basis. Back.

Note 62: Al-Ra’y, February 10, 1996. Back.

Note 63: JT, 14–March 15, 1996. Back.

Note 64: Rashdan interview. Back.

Note 65: Interview with Asma Khadr in The Star, March 24, 1994. Back.

Note 66: JT, January 8, 1994. Back.

Note 67: JT, September 25, 1995. Back.

Note 68: The Star, April 14, 1994. Back.

Note 69: Comments by Asma Khadr at a panel on women at a conference co-sponsored by the New Jordan Research Center and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, “Jordan’s Democratic Path,” May 31, 1994. Back.

Note 70: The Star, June 29, 1995. Back.

Note 71: Musaymi interview. Back.

Note 72: JT, April 27, 1993. Back.

Note 73: JT, July 17, 1993. I attended this session as an observer. Back.

Note 74: Al-Aswaq, March 11, 1996. Back.

Note 75: Off-the-record interview. Back.

Note 76: ‘Amawi interview. ‘Amawi did not coin or use the term RONGOs. Back.

Note 77: Off-the-record conversations. Back.