Boston.com http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/21/jordans_isla mists_see_a_path_to_political_power/
Girls attending English class at the House of Akram School, which is part of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood political organization. Girls attending English class at the House of Akram School, which is part of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood political organization. (Thanassis Cabanis/ Globe Staff) <http://www.boston.com/news/globe/> <http://www.boston.com/news/globe/> The Boston Globe <http://www.boston.com/news/globe/> Jordan's Islamists see a path to political power Hamas's victory buoys movement By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff | March 21, 2006 AMMAN -- In the lobby of the House of Arkam school, a map shows a green wave washing over the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa. ''The Muslims Are Coming!" declares a banner above the map. The staid administrators of this well-appointed Islamic school have always maintained that Islam will one day replace secular governments throughout the Muslim world. But the victory of the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas, just across the Jordan River in the West Bank, has invigorated Jordan's steadily growing Islamist movement and reinforced its conviction that democratic elections will pave the way to an Islamic republic in Jordan. The school and the Islamic Action Front, the sole authorized religious party in parliament, are both wings of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that has followed the same blueprint as Hamas, cultivating support by running charities, hospitals, and schools along with its political party. Now the Islamists in Jordan have set the stage for a major confrontation over the election law. Jordanians are going to the polls in 2007 to choose a new parliament, and the Islamists have sworn to push through a reform that would fully legalize political parties -- and could dramatically increase the Islamist representation. Across the Mideast, analysts are calling this new optimism among Islamists the ''Hamas effect." ''We are in a peaceful battle for change," said Zaki Sa'ed, a politician in the Islamic Action Front who has friendly relations with Hamas. ''We represent the will of the majority of Jordanians who seek change." Their boldness is a source of worry to Jordan's secular, pro-American government, which already suffers pressure from unfriendly regimes in the region -- Syria's Ba'athist dictatorship to the north, Shi'ite Islamists in Iraq, the religious regime to the south in Saudi Arabia, and now Hamas to the West. ''Jordan didn't choose its neighbors," sighed Nasser S. Judeh, the official government spokesman. He said Jordan will continue to chart its own secular course despite the instability around it, as the small country has for decades. Jordan kicked Hamas out of the country in 1999, and has kept its own Islamists marginalized. The Muslim Brotherhood is still represented in parliament through its Islamic Action Front, unlike in many other Arab countries, but heavily gerrymandered electoral districts strictly limit the Islamist representation in parliament to less than 15 percent. Now politicians in the Islamic Action Front are boldly breaking with the gentlemen's rules of Jordanian politics, under which opposition parties never directly criticize the monarchy, nor point out government corruption, or call for major democratic reforms, in exchange for a modicum of free debate over such issues as education. In recent weeks, Islamist politicians have declared that without the monarchy's repressive control over parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood would win 40 percent to 50 percent of the vote. Jordan's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood -- the same international confederation that includes Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the Iraqi Islamic Party -- is cementing its control over a vast network of religious schools, hospitals, and charities that are giving it unprecedented influence and new confidence. ''All over the Arab world, the Islamists have the majority in the street," said Azzam al-Huneidi, leader of the Islamist bloc in Jordan's parliament. Huneidi made waves immediately after Hamas's election, declaring publicly that Islamists in Jordan were ready to take power just like their ''brothers in Palestine." Judeh, the official government spokesman, dismissed such talk as rhetorical posturing, ''people riding the bandwagon" of Hamas. In Jordan, the Brotherhood elected a new, more moderate-sounding chairman in February, in part to assuage government fears provoked by Hamas's victory. But the group's actual leaders -- its board of directors, who set policy, and the charity board, which dispenses millions of dollars a year to a network of hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and Islamist causes, including Palestinian militant factions -- remain the same, hard-liners committed to twin causes anathema to Jordan's rulers: Islamic rule and the Palestinian armed struggle against Israel. Abdullah abu Ramman, a newspaper columnist and specialist on the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, said that Jordan's Islamists are savvy political players who set long-term objectives. He said the chairman elected after Hamas's victory next door was simply a figurehead whose presence is intended to calm anxieties in the government. ''It's not sincere. It's just a tactic to win trust," he said. According to abu Ramman, the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is happy to assume a moderate guise, make alliances of convenience -- with secular opposition parties, even with Americans if needed -- to lay the groundwork to win control of the government through a democratic process. The current election law allows the government, through heavily gerrymandered districts, to depress the share of seats won by Islamists and Palestinian militants. Furthermore, candidates can't run as part of a political party slate, but must stand as individual independents. ''Jordan's election law is not democratic," Huneidi said. ''They're afraid to change the election law because they know the Islamic party will take a bigger share of parliament." Ripping a page from the Hamas playbook, Huneidi, Sa'ed, and other Islamic leaders have taken to criticizing the rampant corruption in Jordan, which the government has failed to stop. The government estimates the Islamist strength among voters at 15 percent, and also downplays the possibility that Palestinians living in Jordan might feel more loyal to a Hamas regime in the West Bank than to the secular Jordanian leadership in Amman, which maintains a functional if sometimes frosty relationship with Israel since the two states signed a peace treaty in 1994. In the ranks of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, however, members have trouble containing their glee over the success of Hamas -- and their sense that destiny is on their side to lead Jordan into a more Islamic future. Despite their rhetoric of restraint and moderation, Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood shares Hamas's uncompromising vision of an Islamic society. When they briefly joined the government in 1989, they pushed to end co-ed schooling and to ban alcohol on Royal Jordanian flights. Sa'ed, a rising star elected this weekend to lead the Islamic Action Front, said he thinks most Jordanians would be thrilled to see an end to un-Islamic activity, like nightclubs, in the country. The House of Arkam provides the best showcase of the Islamist model. The classrooms, playground, and offices are as fancy as any private school in Jordan. But girls and boys are separated after the second grade, and after English class last week all the girls attended special module in the school basement: ''The Importance of Hijab." ''Girls are free to wear the hijab or not, until the seventh grade. Then they must wear it," explained the mild-mannered school director, Khalil Askar. He fretted that a reporter making a short visit to the school would see it as a Draconian place where students learn nothing but what is ''halal and haram," allowed or forbidden under Islamic law. ''We are considered one of the 10 best schools in Jordan," he said, proudly ticking off his students success in academic and sports contests with other schools. But the school's main mission is clear -- to prepare its students to live productive, Islamic lives. Ala Hamdan, a confident 17-year-old, stood in front of her Arabic literature class to tout the strengths of her school to a visitor, speaking in flawless English. After ticking off the academic program she follows as a high-school junior, including instruction in English, physics, and computers, Hamdan said she wanted to be a lawyer or a journalist. But most of all, she said, she wants to be a good Muslim. ''Islam is more important than grades," Hamdan said, smiling. ''When you get old, your grades don't matter. Islam matters forever." 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