A couple of years ago we've been introduced to the Jordan First slogan. We'd see it on billboards, on bumper stickers, in magazines, just about everywhere. Our government succeeded in implementing the slogan nation wide that it has become something like a national anthem.
However, our government seemed to have forgotten a rather important slogan that we were more than familiar with years before Jordan First came into existence. If you haven't guessed it yet, let me just remind you of those badges we used to hook tour school bags as kids, those that had the picture of the King, with a line underneath the picture that read: "The Human is our most valuable resource" Or الإنسان أغلى ما نملك
When the standard of living in Jordan becomes so high and everything becomes so expensive that people start fleeing out looking for a decent life for their kids, when someone tells you that he won't go back to Amman because he doesn't want the day to come when his daughter asks him to buy her something and he tells her "I don't have money", when life becomes too expensive that anyone with a monthly income under 500 JD's is considered under the line of poverty and when the percentage of poverty in some areas reaches 80%, all that and much more means one thing: The human being is no more our most valuable resource.
That's the ugly truth so let's just face it. As the bar of poverty keeps rising, the prices rise along. Case in point, the latest blatant rise in gas prices. Just in the middle of the bleak harsh winter our wise government decide to raise the price of the gas cylinder to 9,90 JDs. I wonder if they have given any thought as to how all those Jordanian living under the line of poverty would fare in this situation. And you know what? I don't want to hear excuses, I don't want the government to explain, because it won't change anything, and I don't think anyone is buying it. I think Hajjaj expressed it much better than me…
December, 30, 2007 4:45 PM