A British tourist has been shot dead and a number of others injured in Amman today. While it's easy to jump to the conclusion that this was some sort of "terrorist act" as the mainstream news outlets are reporting I want to caution you that this is a HUGE city with violent and tragically random crimes just like all others. While it certainly could have been some sort of premeditated act by some sort of "al-Qaida Terrorist" (terrorist masterminds aren't usually disposed to taking pot shots at tourists in broad daylight with a pistol) it's just as likely that this is an ill Jordanian that thinks he's a terrorist... or anything else.
Sitting in that bus - now the one heading to Amman - was nearly as nerve wracking as sitting in that other coach heading across the bridge. I wasn't entirely sure that this bus that I was on was the right one. I guess I'm not a fan of buses.
But it was the right one. And while I had held out hope that I could get to Amman in enough time to catch a servees or a mini-bus to Petra that evening, I was quickly convinced that that wouldn't be possible. It took forever to get to Amman. At one point we stopped for no apparent reason. A few people got off and had a smoke... I think the driver's helper got off and picked up his dinner from the BBQ restaurant that we had stopped in front of... I'm not sure what was going on and between my uncertainties and the kid beside me who rarely took his eyes off of me it was altogether another painful experience in what had turned out to be a series of painful experiences.
When we got to what looked like the beginnings of a city I was convinced we were in Amman and while my spirits picked up thinking that I might be able to make it to Petra, the fact that the bus kept on driving through the city for what seemed like an hour, immediately told me that Amman was huge and my ability to get from point A to point B in any semblance of timeliness was extinguished. Yes Amman is huge. With a population of more than a million and a half people, I hadn't been expecting such a city. I live in Toronto here sprawl has given the impression that the city is even bigger than it's nearly 3 million people suggest... but I've been living in rural Palestine for months, where even my trips to the city (Jerusalem) only get me to a place half of Amman's size. Being also fairly familiar with the history of Jordan I had the image in my mind of a much smaller and dispersed place (the territory of Jordan was sparsely populated - and mostly by nomadic bedouins - less than 100 years ago).
So we drove and drove through city - past MacDonalds and Pizza Huts that looked as if they were transplanted physically from suburban North America (again, I hadn't seen a fast food place in months either!) until we eventually came to a large parking lot that was actually the Andali bus station.
I descended from the bus and decided that it being 7pm, I wasn't going to be able to get to Petra that night. I walked across the open space towards a large "hotel" sign, entered on the ground floor and took the elevator up to the 7th floor - the lobby. "For you I'll give you a good price" right "35 Dinars for the night". For such a great deal it sure was a lot for a room. Again I was being ripped off. And again I didn't have the energy to fight it.
The room was nice enough - the air conditioning was especially welcome - and I quickly collapsed on my bed.
An hour or so later, as the sun was beginning to set on Jordan's capital, I left the hotel and walked around. There were a string of book stores off of the square that was the bus station and I went in them looking at the Arabic books. Expensive, I decided not to buy but continued to browse. Cook books, children's stories, books by Edward Said, politics, religion. Many - especially the politics books concerning the Middle East had comically inflammatory (yet in many ways accurate) covers. But then I saw something that I had expected to see, yet had hoped I wouldn't. The cover was a painting of a bearded wizard-like figure with extended hands towards the viewer between which, floated magically, the globe. An innocuous cover in a section with few innocuous covers but immediately I knew what it was. The Arabic title confirmed my disappointment: "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The book, detailing the "protocols" of a secret Jewish Cabal to a new member describes how this cabal is conspiring to take over the world. Claiming to be an ancient document, The Protocols has been proven to be a hoax and is actually mostly a plagiarized text based on a fictional anti-Napoleon French document from the 19th century. The reality is that The Protocols is erroneously thought to be a real document by some in the Middle East where European anti-semitism has found an audience since the creation of the State of Israel. I knew that you could get the book fairly easily here but still had hoped that it would be harder to find than it turned out to be. In fact, until 2004 you could by a copy of the book online from Wal-Mart throughout North America... and this document gained most notoriety as an anti-Bolshevik text in eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century - don't get the impression that this is limited to the Middle East. (For a good set of articles on the current state of anti-semitism check out the October 2004 issue of The New Internationalist magazine at http://www.newint.org/issues/2004/10/01/ )
Leaving the bookstore I continued along my circuitous route around the square. Lined up along most of the four streets were travel agencies. In the windows of the agencies are listed the locations to which they dispatch buses and taxis. You order a taxi ahead of time or take a bus that departs on a preset schedule. I became increasingly uncomfortable in Amman as I passed by each travel agency...
The taxi and bus destination, listed first in each of the windows and written on with paint that had probably been applied years ago, was Baghdad.
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Picture:
Amman at Night
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