Jordan king derides regional leaders, own family
…by Jim W. Dean, VT Editor …with Press TV
First published March 19th, 2010
King Abdullah – a New York Times Interview
I had to pinch myself when I first read this. I thought I might have been day dreaming with computer fatigue and needed to splash some cold water on my face. But it was real.
King Abdullah, in full Wizard of Oz style has given us a rare peek behind the curtain into the insularity, and even insolence of some of the Mid East leaders, and even his own family.
None of this should surprise anyone. Shallow leadership and even sociopaths rising up through political parties to the top positions in the West is something we have endured endlessly, so why should we think it would be any better in other regions.
In the West if they get caught looting or even raping they can actually be prosecuted. Then you take a place like Saudi Arabia with its 10,000 princes and what do you possibly think they could ever be prosecuted for? I can’t think of anything…even murder.
Years ago the Saudis had a problem with one of their princes getting drunk and then heading down to the local hospital in the middle of the night to look for Western women in a coma or similar state that he could rape. There was not a problem until one victim getting pregnant threatened a scandal.
The family was paid a tidy sum and the US embassy came up with an instant green card winner for the third world nurse who was the only witness, and off she when to American. I imagine the prince had his allowance withheld for a few weeks. Officially, the perpetrator was never discovered. As Gordon likes to say, “Welcome to the real world.”
And it is not a ‘Muslim thing’, either. Despite the historical looting by Pakistan’s political elite, President Zardari found himself being hauled into court for bribery corruption charges that happened before he become president. He tried to claim immunity anyway, but no luck.
While King Abdullah steered away from any princely looting he is the first I know of the publicly admit that the days of Mid East royalty ruling over countries are numbered. Some might say the wheels of time or progress are turning. I would prefer the analogy of the garbage disposal working properly and able to handle larger items.
Us older folks prefer Kirk Douglas as our SparticusI did a video interview with the King’s older brother here at Emory University in Atlanta about ten years ago after watching him during a theater style panel discussion.
He had fallen in with the elite crowd who was then working on a new bogeyman, the threat of ethnic cultures wanting autonomy. The ‘hiss word’ used for them was…’sssseparatists’, with a kind of Spartacus slave revolt image woven into it.
As I listened I smelled a Jewish Lobby, Morri Dees, SPLC con job being rolled out. Instead of thousands of fake militia groups charging down out of the hills to take over towns and cities, these folks were pitching that an explosion of ‘separatist movements’ was now the threat to world order as they might use rough means to achieve their goals.
The prince must have gotten a ‘C’ in history as I remember that ‘rough means’ were used to separate these ethnic groups from their autonomy in the first place. But of course you had a Hashemite prince whose family was installed by the British to rule over Palestinians, so he was defending his elitist turf.
I will let the King describe to you how this turf now includes their wanting flashing lights on their cars so they can have traffic make way for them when on the road. And I don’t mean his wife and kids. The siblings are always the trouble makers and as he says, “In-laws…my God!!!” Enjoy. This is a rare treat…the King doing a gossip column!!
As we so love to say around here at VT, “You just can’t make this stuff up.”
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The King with Queen Rania and daughterJordan King Derides Regional Leaders, Own Family
An up-to-date camelThe King Hussein MosqueJordan’s King Abdullah II has launched broadsides on regional leaders and his own family for their insufficient knowledge and not being up-to-date with developments.
The rare derisory criticisms of the presidents of Egypt, Turkey and Syria were made in an interview with veteran US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.
In an advance copy of the interview reported by The New York Times, King Abdullah went on to describe Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an authoritarian who does not differentiate democracy from a “bus ride”.
“Erdogan once said that democracy for him is a bus ride. Once I get to my stop, I’m getting off,” said the king whose words are to appear in full text this week in The Atlantic magazine.
The king went on to deride Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi for having “no depth”. “Instead of the Turkish model, taking six or seven years-being an Erdogan-Morsi wanted to do it overnight,” said Abdullah II.
Petra – The World WonderThe monarch whistled derision at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s provincialism.
“There was a dinner with me and him and the king of Morocco, at the king’s residence in Cairo. And so Bashar at dinner turns to us and says, ‘Can you guys explain to me what jet lag is?’?”
He said Assad had “never heard of jet lag.”
King Abdullah turned to his own family, saying they do not understand the fact that the era of monarchy is nearing its end.
“Where are monarchies in 50 years?” he asked in the interview. “Members of my family don’t get it. Look at some of my brothers. They believe that they’re princes, but my cousins are more princes than my brothers, and their in-laws are like – oh my God!” .
The king said he was fed up with having to stop members of his family from “putting lights on their guard cars.”
“I arrest members of my family and take their cars away from them and cut off their fuel rations and make them stop at traffic lights,” said Abdullah II. He did not shy away from labeling his family’s traditional supporters based in the East Bank of the Jordan River as the “old dinosaurs”.
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Jim W. Dean was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews.
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