How did Jordan celebrate the King’s birthday?

On his sixtieth birthday, and in the year that marks the beginning of the bicentenary of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, His Majesty King Abdullah II preferred not to limit his royal message on this occasion to accepting congratulations and blessings; his message rather included a comprehensive political and social speech, characterized by transparency and frankness, through which he shared the facts with citizens, and tackled the challenges and obstacles Jordan confronts today.

One of the most important aspects in the King’s speech was his emphasis on continuing the legacy established by the Hashemite fathers and grandfathers, and working to reinforce the principles of the country they established, so we can be able to complete the development and growth process of the Kingdom. We can achieve this by following a long-term strategic vision, through a cross-government comprehensive national project, and a road map that outlines the features of the next phase of the Jordanian state at the beginning of its bicentenary, and in a way that ensures Jordan would be among the best developed countries.

The Kink’s message, in its analysis of the social and governmental reality, comes from the recognition contained in the King’s words about the gap existing between the reality of Jordan today and what it should be. His sentence: “Our reality does not rise to the level of our ambition” directly discusses the essence of the problem the message aims at shedding light on. As for the solution, it was clearly and explicitly referred to by the king when he addressed Jordanians, as one of them; not only their leader, saying: "I see no place for us but at the forefront of change.”

What is the "change" intended by the King’s speech? how can it be progressed? What are the features of the next phase in Jordan? Addressing all of these issues will be the responsibility of all concerned Jordanian leaders, the government, legislative and executive institutions, and of course the people, especially since Jordan is preparing to be engaged in a general national dialogue, as indicated by the King’s will in the message.

The ideas discussed by the King are important because they present the project of responding to all internal and external challenges Jordan confronts today at all political, security and economic levels, which are imposed by the unstable regional surroundings and the insecurity of Syrian and Iraqi borders, which causes severe damage in the strategic depth for Jordan.

This will be accompanied by a decrease in the expected economic benefit from the Kingdom’s natural markets, in addition to the accumulation of administrative problems in governmental and national institutions.

These challenges impede the development and the full openness we aspire to, and require strengthening the internal front, and harnessing all efforts to formulate and pursue self-reliance policies in light of effective economic plans and programs. This has to be achieved in parallel with adopting the policy of dialogue and confidence-building, in line with the King’s tireless efforts to address all challenges regionally and internationally.

Although the royal message outlined a comprehensive plan of action, putting this plan into practice requires serious and urgent follow-up by the current Jordanian government and future one. This plan has to start with changing the administrative approach and finding a solution for the lack of competencies, in addition to facing the challenges created by bureaucratic complexity and traditional forces that impede development and modernization.

It is no secret that the most important manifestations of administrative corruption the government performance suffers from is the lack of leaders capable of making sound decisions benefiting the country and its citizens, in addition to placing personal interests over public ones, not to mention the rumors that contributed to the increase in manifestations associated with populism. Therefore, the absence of a national program aimed at addressing these problems will lead to the continuation of these challenges and bequeath them to future governments.

Therefore, the administrative reform Jordan seeks begins with a strong will that supports and motivates development projects, and focuses on selecting senior leaders depending on appropriate scientific and methodological bases.

“The public sector can never be developed without appointing competent leaders” as the King’s message clearly indicates. Since the system of selecting competent leaders is still subject to nepotism and favoritism, achieving the King’s visions requires insisting on applying transparency and accountability, and adopting the standards and key performance indicators in all government departments and at all levels, in addition to linking the planning and financial budgets of each ministry to the general state budget and through appropriate and well-prepared mechanisms.

Within this framework, this necessitates establishing Jordan National Bank for Public Administration, which must contain a database of all the information related to public administration, which will contribute to saving time and effort and achieving accuracy and flexibility in the administrative work, following the example of developed countries.

In another context, the concerns of Jordanian citizens and their demands to lead a dignified and secure life were also included in the king’s speech, which included a clear compass towards a comprehensive economic renaissance, starting first from defining a set of measurable goals in this regard, and then putting them into practice by governments, in order to serve the people’s demands, with a focus on the future prospects that guarantee the continuity of meeting these demands and raising their level quantitatively and qualitatively, as these horizons emphasize solving unemployment and poverty seriously.

Therefore, the government’s attempts towards creating new job opportunities in non-traditional sectors such as tourism in general, medical tourism in particular, renewable and alternative energy, and the need to focus on supporting technological industries and activating commercial traffic with neighboring countries and in the region should be supported. These sectors have become vital, and have promising future prospects; therefore, their development is linked to the need to develop advanced economic legislations that support investment and grant Jordan an advanced place in the regional competition in these sectors.

It is also necessary to expand these sectors throughout the Kingdom and in the governorates, which will reduce pressure on the capital, and contribute to attracting young people and workforce in all regions.

Legislative development is as an inevitable solution to the problems caused by legislations obstructing economic growth, in addition to the negative role played by the Investment Promotion Corporation, whose work has become questionable by many.

Contrary to what its name indicates, it is currently obstructing investment, as it has accumulated nothing but career failure year after year. Its actual performance does not rise to the required level, it is rather limited to the work of companies and offices that track transactions, while its regulatory reality is restricted to laws that are not conducive to investment.

Developing the economy of countries and pushing it towards growth and prosperity requires the availability of a wide and comprehensive package of modern and flexible laws and legislations, and a great ability to update and develop these laws and their executive instructions in a way that always ensures achieving economic growth and considers it the main goal for which all means and tools are harnessed, in addition to removing all obstacles that ministries and government departments are suffering from.

 After that, all government services can work, each according to its competence, within one strategy that supports and encourages investment, so that supporting investment becomes a general vision that all institutions adhere to and cooperate to achieve, not just one specific institution.

It is also important in this context that laws and decisions to facilitate and attract investments be immediately developed and improved in a manner that ensures rapid response to the needs of investors without being restricted by laws and legislations literally which, no matter how renewed, they cannot include all the new cases that legislators may have neglected. This is normal and part of life and work.

In addition to what was mentioned above, it will also be necessary and positive to give the institution’s employees and supervisors greater freedom to make decisions, and allow the personal initiatives to solve problems and overcome obstacles without the obstructing bureaucratic procedures, or fear of behavioral penalties imposed on everyone, especially because the complexity of the field of economy and its expansion imposes a wide margin in the powers of those in charge of the institutions concerned with supporting and developing investment.

With this approach of thinking, real facilities can be provided to encourage investment and attract capital to Jordan. As for being satisfied with the current role of the institution, it is no longer useful in light of the acceleration of the global economy and the expansion of opportunities for competition and growth together.

Today, Jordan is in dire need to form a completely new institution, to be an alternative to the current one to encourage investment, so that it keeps pace with the process of modernization and development, and facilitates the movement of capital to invest in the state. After achieving that, the new institution can be able to issue, approve and implement its legislations, and ensure clarity to protect them from bureaucratic disruption, or personal interference and individual interpretations that may lead to the opposite of the intended results.

We have to taking serious steps to stop the influential, update plans constantly to attract investors and support the establishment and development of economic projects without any restrictions and obstacles.

In addition, addressing unemployment also requires developing a comprehensive plan to integrate the work of the public and private sectors. That plan aims at confronting the difficulties experienced by both sectors.

With its current capabilities, the public sector is unable to create new job opportunities, while the private sector is still suffering from the negative effects caused by the conditions of the Corona epidemic inside and outside the Kingdom, in addition to the other problems due to the administrative corruption that sponsors the private sector, and the stagnation of laws and regulatory instructions that have been the reason for its weakness for many years, which led to the complexity of the unemployment problem and the delay of finding effective solutions to it.

In this context, the King called for starting a series of participatory dialogues between the two sectors in the Kingdom, with his personal guarantee, so that the outcomes of these dialogues would draw up an executive plan for developing projects, attracting foreign investments, and moving towards comprehensive economic advancement.

Change is the feature of this time, this is why facing internal and external challenges requires keeping pace with the technological and civilizational progress in the world constantly, which has become the standard for the development of countries in the current era.

Although Jordan has started creating the e-government since 2001, its mission to educate Jordanian citizens about it and its services is still almost absent, which deprives citizens of the benefits of this government, foremost of which is saving effort and time and facilitating all procedures. To achieve this, the government has to provide public and free courses and workshops for all citizens, especially in universities and community centers, to familiarize everyone with the technological tools for dealing with the e-government.

This is also helpful in easing bureaucratic constraints, facilitating procedures, reducing costs, saving time and limiting unnecessary communication between citizens and administrative institutions as much as possible, which will reduce administrative corruption and reduce the manifestations of nepotism and narrow personal benefits.

On the other hand, any kind of development and modernization needs building mutual trust between citizens on the one hand, the government and the various sectors of the state and civil society institutions on the other hand, which allows citizens to feel that they are real and effective partners with their government in making decisions and participating in public affairs.

The experience of the Royal Committee to modernize the Political System, which was established and guaranteed by King Abdullah, is an important proposal, a bold and inspiring step in this context, and a promising model that can be applied in other sectors.

However, many challenges blocked the way of achieving our goals, as the officials responsible for this committee, and those in charge of its work who were entrusted with the implementation process neither succeeded in realizing the deep purpose of establishing it, nor were they up to the efficiency required to address this sensitive and delicate type of responsibility, especially concerning the failure to overcome the problem related to the necessity of taking into account the privacy of the Jordanian society.

This failure prevented getting the final result of the committee’s work, led to the loss of this opportunity and spoiled its content and importance, led to deepening the gap between citizens and the government, and increased its failure before the Jordanian public opinion.

Therefore, selecting qualified people who are equipped with experience and skills to supervise the work of this committee, or other committee, is the most important factor to achieve what Jordanians hope for.

In this context, it is also necessary to allow an open dialogue with and among citizens through electronic platforms, media sites and public conferences to express their opinions and observations about the desire for change, its mechanisms and directions.

This can encourage specialists to submit any studies and working papers on all the topics tackled to be developed. This will make all Jordanians more interested in the work of these committees, and will strengthen their feeling of true partnership with their state, and that they are no less efficient and knowledgeable about public affairs than government teams.

It is recognized that building trust requires the work of both parties, and it is the responsibility of the citizens to stay away from narrow affiliations as much as possible, mitigate the tyranny of the tribe and fanaticism, and separate customs and traditions from the law that must prevail state institutions and their management.

While doing this, we have to keep in mind the importance of preserving established principles and values of the people of Jordan, which are derived from the essence of religion and its teachings, Islamic and Christian, and from human morals in general.

Bullying of government sectors - which is remarkably prevalent today - puts pressure on state institutions, leads to the disruption of their work and in many cases, and makes them unable to solve the problems assigned to them, thus losing their prestige.

Despite the shortcomings and poor performance in the work of some state institutions, rejecting all the new ideas and plans presented by the government with skepticism is a deliberate obstruction in many cases, carried out by some personalities and political parties in Jordan, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, which is directly opposing all steps and decisions the government intends to take.

Therefore, we stress that trusting and supporting the government are necessary and inevitable, even if some mistakes occur during its work. Those who do not work neither make mistakes, nor devise solutions or solve problems.

Free and irresponsible skepticism does not serve Jordanians in any way, and does not conform to the aspirations and calls of its leadership. This, in my opinion, necessitates the need to seriously address this very sensitive issue, in a way that does not threaten the gains of democracy, and does not in any way prevent the freedom of expression.

I do not think that attacking the state and its institutions and constantly questioning its work can provide a solution to the problems. Rather, the optimal solution can be achieved through a rational national dialogue, with the serious participation of all parties, so that the state remains a reference that guarantees the rights of everyone, without losing its prestige and the effectiveness of its role.

In this regard, we have to learn from the experiences of neighboring countries, which were led to the brink of collapse by corruption, closure, and the absence of dialogue.

In view of all the visions, aspirations and goals the message presents, the most important question is related to transforming them into strategies and policies that ensure sound implementation and transparency of oversight and accountability.

Concerning this, the King directed the Royal Hashemite Court to start organizing a national workshop, including representatives of experts and specialists in the economic sectors in cooperation with the government, to develop a comprehensive vision and a solid roadmap for the coming years.

Again, this emphasizes the importance of appointing specialists and competent people, away from favoritism that devoted a group of names known by the Jordanian society but are no longer trusted, after they took their chance but did nothing for the country.

Despite the contents of the messages sent by the King previously, which carried serious calls to change the methods of work in order to obtain real results, the real problem in implementation is still related to the absence of forces and personalities capable of organizing these calls and developing a clear map for them, whether at the economic or political levels.

Therefore, the outcomes of the Royal Committee for modernizing the political system are still being debated in the House of Representatives, at the time when no effective economic program for the government is mentioned in the headlines and news, this is why there is no clear path or goal.

With all of these challenges, the last message conveyed a royal approach towards implementing follow-up and direct supervision strategies, which means placing the mistakes of some officials and their corruption before popular and official accountability.

In order to achieve the optimal response to this royal approach towards following-up and supervision, it will be essential for the government to work urgently, in partnership with legislative, judicial and civil bodies and institutions, to develop and renew transparent national dialogue mechanisms.

Everyone has to adhere to these mechanisms under the rule of the law, especially after this dialogue has become part and parcel of the interactive process aimed at developing institutional work in the country.

It should also be emphasized that activating this dialogue should be accompanied with updating directives, decisions and guaranteeing tools to achieve a clear separation between objective criticism along with the efforts of its official and social bearers, and destructive and disruptive criticism of the state’s function and roles at all levels.

All of the above is accompanied by emphasizing the importance of working to restructure the state’s sovereign institutions, providing them with distinctive national experiences, and enhancing their role in combating corruption, especially the judiciary, the Central Bank, public oversight institutions and bodies in various sectors.

To activate the role of the Jordanian citizen, the royal message focused on the importance of restoring Jordan’s leadership in education, reconsidering its system in various departments, developing it, directing it towards creating a new and completely different educational system.

This can be considered the first building block for building the secure and stable future Jordanians aspire to, led by His Majesty the King, especially since the quality of education today has become in the whole world the main key to the development of countries, the progress and well-being of societies, and the constant criterion by which their growth and prosperity are measured.

It can be said that modern countries and societies consider scientific and educational competition the most important field in ensuring the future, and that it goes beyond political, military or economic competition, as science is the basic condition upon which achievement is based in these domains, and other ones as well.

Therefore, all these tasks, and others that cannot be mentioned here, should be included in the list of governmental and national priorities, especially since the royal message has conveyed this year the actual words of the people, and included a constructive criticism of previous and current governments, and clear guidance on what future governments should focus on.

The message also stressed that everyone should be asked to assume their responsibilities and accomplish their tasks in the fullest manner, and to stop invoking that foreign parties target Jordan on social media, which is the pretext made by some officials whenever they are held accountable for their shortcomings, especially since the existence of such conspiracies must be motivation to work hard and diligently block the path of those who want to exploit mistakes and weaknesses and invest them to influence citizens in order to distort Jordan's image internally and externally.

In fact, the message did not come without disappointment that were caused by the repeated deficient policies of those in charge of some state institutions, which required direct intervention from the King to amend their course and correct their mistakes. The recurrence of this situation indicates that the sublime assignment letters addressed to governments are not, in most cases, understood deeply and comprehensively by those receiving them.

Despite the methodological and practical clarity contained in these assignment letters, it seems that they do not receive an in-depth and accurate reading among some officials.

In fact, “we do not have the luxury of time”, and the royal message expresses this in the clearest way. When the King calls to “translate our vision for the future we desire”, this call should be taken as a direct signal to start drawing lessons learned from the centenary’s achievements, and building on them to reach a future that can advance Jordan and enable it to occupy its Arab, regional and international stature, so that it can invest in its distinguished qualifications and capabilities that enable it to bridge the remainder of the civilizational gap that still separates it from the developed countries in the region.

Finally, I call on all Jordanians, who are known for their love for their homeland, pride in their belonging and sincerity of their loyalty, to place their absolute trust in His Majesty the King, and to stand up to all what raises doubts and propagates negativity, whether through rumors, opinions or incomplete and unexamined judgments.

The Jordanian youth and competent people bear the primary responsibility for this. Jordan is fortunate with its educated and enthusiastic youth that can build their country and participate in its development.

I hope that the year 2022 will be declared, under royal patronage, a year of dialogue, anticipating the future of Jordan and planning for the second century of the state's life. I also hope that all Jordanians -with no exception- will participate in this dialogue, and that conferences, seminars and workshops will be opened for it in all schools, universities and places of worship.

For this dialogue to succeed, a special royal committee concerned with studying all the outcomes of this dialogue, discussing them and presenting them to the public opinion has to be established.

I share hope with most of the Jordanian people for His Highness, the Crown Prince, to be at the head of this committee. I believe this will guarantee it credibility and professionalism. The Crown Prince has proven unprecedented success in the tasks assigned to him, such as when he took over supervision of the vaccine program against the Corona virus, the number of dose recipients increased from about 70 citizens per day to approximately 5,000 citizens. Two clear factors combined in the success of his mission: the leadership and administrative skills enjoyed by the Crown Prince, and the Jordanian people’s love for him and their consensus about his great personality.

I believe that assigning him the presidency of the Royal Committee will increase the success chances of its outputs and will contribute to achieving the comprehensive and desired change which is our only choice, and to achieving the ambition the King addressed to realize his vision of Jordan being among the most developed countries.

Happy anniversary to Jordan, the King, and the people.