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What Syria?

       The new chairman of the Jordanian parliament who formerly served as Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister answered the following when asked about possible reconciliation steps between Damascus and Jordan and intelligence cooperation: "as far as I know, Jordan does not interfere in Syrian territories in any form, and Jordan’s role is to protect its security and citizen well-being, with a clear decision from the very beginning of a policy of non-interference".
      Assuming that a high-level figure such as the former Minister of Interior/Deputy Prime Minster is indeed kept in the dark about a major security crisis occurring 300 km away from Amman, the neutrality and passiveness in his response still struck a chord. What does it mean to follow a policy of non-interference? Is this is civil disaster occurring in a Latin American country with which Jordan has no historic, cultural, economic and  political ties? Is the destiny of the Syrian nation, a nation with whom we-Jordanians-share a history, a religion, a culture and a language, a matter out of our realm of interest? Or are we promoting extreme acts of respect towards national sovereignty?
      When thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and Jean Bodin called for sovereignty of states, their governments and their citizens against the intervention and attacks of neighboring regions, their call was meant to establish peace. The intention and drive was to ensure that nations live peacefully side by side, respecting each others’ boundaries and rules. Experts as we are in the Arab world in transforming ideals and slogans into tools of control, molding them to suite the tastes and interests of political elites, we have managed again to interpret sovereignty as an abstract concept, applied strictly as has been theorized. We voided it from any humanistic perspective and moral obligation.
     The neutrality towards the Syrian crisis is an embarrassment and a disgrace to political integrity. Pointing rifles and canons towards the Syrian regime or the revolutionists or both is not what is being requested; what is is a position of compassion, indignation and rejection of what is happening. An active, responsible and inclusive position is what should be expected. A position of apathy and political shrewdness to ensure the protection and security of one group of people while the other group suffers is an embarrassing one.
     To conclude, Turkish rhetoric about what is happening in Syria is void rhetoric, but it is a lesser evil. So pretty please dear Excellencies, when asked about what the government is doing about a humanitarian catastrophe just across the border, do not fake ignorance and do lie for compassion’s sake.

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