This I Believe

I wrote this article a few weeks ago for the Rice Standard, so it is slightly outdated, but I still thought it would be nice to share: 

Studying abroad is not just about the rosy experience of intercultural learning, speaking a foreign language, and self-reflection. It is also about recognizing what I have left behind, especially the aspects of life that I take for granted while living in the United States. In the beginning of my semester in Jordan, I missed my morning bowl oatmeal and brewed coffee, shorts and t-shirts, and being able to walk to lectures. After I reconciled these trivial parts of life, I missed the camaraderie of the Rice club soccer and ultimate Frisbee teams, the quietness of Fondren stacks, and the smell of rain. Missing these things just makes me appreciate them more. Yet, one of the most important aspects of life I have truly come to appreciate is the intangible, priceless right to the freedom of expression.

The beautiful desert at Wadi Rum, in the southern part of Jordan close to Saudi Arabia.

Now that the semester is more than half way over, I am able to understand more details of Jordanian culture and life, rather than the generalizations. I can engage in serious conversations enabled by my increasing fluency in Arabic, dig much deeper than the superficial layer of tourism, and strengthen personal relationships with mutual understanding. These realizations do not just reflect life here in Jordan, but they also, strangely enough, affect my understanding of life in the United States.

In the past couple of weeks, many of my experiences, whether through visiting the Amman public radio station, engaging in a discussion with my Jordanian friends outside of class, or conducting interviews with physicians for a research project, have all seemed to connect one way or another to issues with freedom of expression. When I mentioned my thoughts about writing this article to my Jordanian host father during our post-dinner news-watching session, he chuckled, saying (in Arabic), “Oh, that’ll be easy, Jordan has fantastic freedom of expression.” His laughs belied his words, and then in a more serious tone: “There is not much freedom here, but America has the most freedom of any country.” He turned back to watching Al Jazeera—which he also noted is not an independent news source—and I went to start writing. 

There it is. We, growing up as Americans, hear over and over again that we are fortunate to have freedom of expression not just written in our Constitution, but also actively enforced by our government, courts, and society. According to Human Rights Watch’s “Freedom in the World 2012” report, Jordan is considered “Not Free” and ranks in category 6 for political rights and category 5 for civil liberties, where 1 represents the most free and 7 the least free. These ratings do not even take into account the recent endorsement in September of amendments to Jordan’s Press and Publication Law, which imposed additional restrictions on freedom of expression online.

The office wall of one of the employees at Al-Balad Radio who focuses on human rights issues. Most of these posters have slogans raising awareness of human rights issues, for example: the poster with figures holding hands supports a law protecting from family acts of violence, including crimes of honor; and the blue-colored poster is about fighting corruption

Aside from the official face of government and rankings, I have encountered these challenges to free expression on a more personal level. One of the program managers organized a trip for the students to visit Al-Balad Radio headquarters, which is an independent, public radio station in Amman. Among other topics, we discussed issues surrounding freedom of expression in the press during our meeting with the manager. She said that the environment has improved after the start of Arab Spring, but several lines of red tape remain. The most prominent taboos are public criticism of the royal family (punishable up to three years in prison), questioning the military establishment (especially the budget, about which any information is completely inaccessible), and challenges to the Islamic faith.

Before the Arab Spring, the radio station used to receive calls daily from Jordan’s secret police, renowned regionally for their strength and infiltration, to monitor programs as well as online posts, but most of these calls have stopped. However, the censorship remains. Likewise, the two largest newspapers in Jordan are government owned, and even many of the independent ones have close connections to the government. In short, media freedom of expression is severely curtailed, which not only affects the quality and credibility of information available, but also suggests a widespread fear of crossing the acceptable “boundary,” leading to self-censorship. The manager praised the work of the many bloggers who are now challenging the news agencies to provide more accurate information, but she is highly concerned about the amendments to the media law that could pose a major threat to freedom online. 

The fear of crossing the censorship line is real; I have witnessed it myself in Jordanians’ daily lives. One example is especially distressing because it involves not politics, but academia. Earlier this week, I was conversing outside of class with one of my friends – I will call her Fatima for the sake of privacy – who is currently writing her doctoral thesis for the Faculty of Shari’a (Islamic Studies) at the University of Jordan. She is in her fifth year and hopes to finish by the summer of 2013. Besides the difficulty of her topic, which critiques certain Hadith from the Prophet Mohammed to address contemporary issues in Islam, Fatima is struggling internally about the scope of her dissertation. She wants to include topics that she believes are extremely relevant but controversial. Many Islamic scholars in Jordan regard such criticisms of Islam as an unacceptable challenge that they fear may lead to a slippery slope of rejecting the veracity of some of their major religious texts. If she decides to include what she truly believes is correct, she may risk the rejection of her dissertation entirely, not on the basis of the quality of research and writing, but because of the intolerance of scholars within her own religion. Thus, Fatima would have exerted herself for the past five years for nothing other than tuition fees, lost time with her husband and son, and countless other stresses.

A view of (part of) Amman at dusk. I live in a relatively quiet, residential part of the city that has not been affected by the recent protests.

Fatima drew a picture with her hands to compare herself, as a moderate Islamic scholar in Jordanian society, to a small bird struggling to fly in stormy weather. She is at the mercy of the buffeting winds that push her around without regard, making her feel lost, alone, and in danger. She and her husband are strongly considering moving outside of the Arab world in the coming years so that she will be able to publish her writings. Otherwise, she said, there is little hope of finding a publisher in Jordan or in the surrounding Arab countries because of the content of her writings.

Sometimes, pressure to limit my own speech during personal conversations with Jordanians pushes the limits of my own self-control. One evening, I was watching the news with my host family and some relatives the day after the U.S. presidential elections, and my host aunt – I will call her Noura – asked me about same-sex marriage in the United States, obviously stemming from something she had heard in the news about recent policies being approved. Her facial expressions already indicated how she felt about the issue, but I explained in an even tone that some states now allow same-sex marriage, but there is no federal policy regarding their marriage rights. For most Muslims that I have met, same-sex marriage is not an issue of individual human rights, but is tied to their religious beliefs. Noura stated that homosexuality is disgusting and unethical, forbidden by the Qur’an and punishable by God. She cited a passage in the Qur’an in which God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with a violent wind that turned them upside-down as a punishment to the people who were engaging in acts of sodomy and rape. She also reasoned that God created two genders for a purpose, and we are thus supposed to marry and have children with the opposite sex in order to raise a family.

I tried to offer an alternative point-of-view that homosexuality is a natural preference, not a disease or something that can be changed. But she immediately denied this suggestion, acting as if I were insulting Islam, and insisted that homosexuality is “wrong and disgusting, and those people need to go to therapy to make them straight.” I wanted to stand up for what I believed, for my friends, and for science, but at the same time I wanted to maintain my relationship with Noura and my host family, because I know that she is not alone in her opinions. So as much as I struggled internally to sit quietly, I submitted to self-censorship. I only hope that my comments planted the possibility of a different perspective.

The Rainbow Theater, where I attended a concert by Jordanian rappers. Rap is becoming more popular in the Arab world, and especially after the Arab Spring, most of the lyrics are politically oriented. It was really interesting to see the type of crowd that it attracted - mostly young, well-to-do Jordanians who seem have chosen to live a more 'alternative' lifestyle.

From past experiences, most conversations here tied to religion are exceedingly difficult for me because I consider religious beliefs to be a very personal issue, and many Muslims I have encountered in Jordan believe very strongly in what is written in their religious texts. I respect their faith and try to understand their opinions, but I usually do not enjoy conversations on religion because they often seem to turn into one-sided lectures. 

Was I wrong to submit and not assert my beliefs? I am still not sure how to balance the different factors, but if nothing else, I am sure that I will never take the freedom of expression for granted because I understand how it feels to not be able to say what I truly believe and want to say. Even though similar conversations could easily happen in many parts of the United States, and it was neither the government nor police that imposed this limit on me, I still felt marginalized and frustrated.

I can give up my bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, kicking around a soccer ball, and even spending time with my friends during my semester here because I have been able to find numerous other delicious foods, several opportunities to play sports, and amazing new friends. However, I cannot give up my freedom of expression because there is no alternative. I wish that I did not have to go abroad to truly appreciate the freedoms that we, as citizens of the United States of America, are fortunate to have inherited from the work of previous generations. At the same time, I cannot be happier to have this opportunity to experience a different culture, communicate in a foreign language, and witness how achieving individual rights requires a long process of effort and advocacy.

As I write this article, thousands of Jordanians are in the midst of protesting in the streets against the sudden spike in fuel and bread prices. On November 13, the government decided to remove subsidies to help redress budget deficit problems, even though many areas of governmental spending lack any sort of transparency in the first place. The search for freedom is a progression that cannot be denied. Self-expression is an undeniable human necessity. The freedom of self-expression: this I believe.