Wes­ley Gib­bings

Ah­mad, the taxi dri­ver, has "on­ly one wife," five chil­dren and earns a month­ly salary that can just get him a night's stay at the pala­tial ho­tel, the name of which is em­broi­dered on his im­mac­u­late pin-stripe shirt.He is one of sev­er­al peo­ple whose ar­tic­u­late sound bites a cu­ri­ous jour­nal­ist would note, even in the crush of an Am­man street in 36 de­gree Jor­dan­ian heat and dust.It is the In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute's (IPI) 62nd Con­gress and while Ah­mad's (not his re­al name) choice of com­pact car for the bud­get-mind­ed re­porter ne­go­ti­ates dif­fi­cult park­ing space, Lebanese broad­cast­er, May Chidi­ac is not im­prob­a­bly wheel­ing her mo­torised chair at break-leg speed through the con­fer­ence hall.

Less than eight years ago, the out­spo­ken tele­vi­sion pre­sen­ter had had her left leg, from the knee down, and left arm ripped from her body when a bomb went off un­der her car–an act wide­ly be­lieved to be the penal­ty for her re­lent­less at­tacks on what she saw as con­tin­ued Syr­i­an in­ter­fer­ence in the in­ter­nal af­fairs of her coun­try. This week, on an IPI stage, Chidi­ac de­scribes her quick and painful re­turn to the jour­nal­ist's desk. She is in the pres­ence of a group of in­ter­na­tion­al jour­nal­ists in­clud­ing vo­cal crit­ics of the bloody civ­il war in Syr­ia and Mid­dle East cor­re­spon­dents and blog­gers who have wit­nessed the rav­ages of ex­treme con­flict in their own ter­ri­to­ries.Ah­mad mean­while slows for speed bumps and lurk­ing po­lice­men with guns us­ing speed-track­ing radar, not bul­lets, while re­lat­ing the Syr­i­an refugee an­gle to the sto­ry. These neigh­bours to the north have been ar­riv­ing in droves to es­cape the fight­ing �500,000 to date and count­ing.

Not un­like the West In­dies, Jor­dan's past co-min­gles freely with the tales of those who came. Ah­mad is Pales­tin­ian and he knows the sto­ries be­hind the com­ing of the Egyp­tians, the Iraqis, the Saud­is and the Asians and, lat­ter­ly, the Fil­ipinos who make the beds at the ho­tels.It would how­ev­er be Hamzah, the Pe­tra tour guide, who would quick­ly add, to his own mi­gra­tion sta­tis­tics, the no­tion that while those who came of­ten car­ried the bur­dens of vi­o­lent cir­cum­stance, Jor­dan re­mained "a place of peace."Peace in­deed.Chidi­ac had ac­tu­al­ly painstak­ing­ly made her way up a nar­row tour bus stair­well the evening of the IPI awards cer­e­mo­ny at the near­by King Hus­sein Club. As the bus slowed at the sight of po­lice in ri­ot gear and a small but ag­i­tat­ed crowd, the lo­cals quick­ly ex­plained that the pro­test­ers were Jor­dan­ian "pan-Ara­bist" Ba'ath par­ty sym­pa­this­ers whose loy­al­ty to the po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion of the late Iraqi leader, Sad­dam Hus­sein, has en­dured.One week be­fore, Iraqi em­bassy staff, in­clud­ing its Con­sul Gen­er­al, had been en­gaged in a fran­tic fist fight with sev­er­al pro-Sad­dam pro­test­ers, in­clud­ing his for­mer Jor­dan­ian lawyers, at an of­fi­cial func­tion to com­mem­o­rate the mass killings of the for­mer dic­ta­tor's regime. A YouTube video of the clash with over 2,700 hits, records the vi­o­lent fist and chair-throw­ing scenes.

This evening, the crowds had start­ed to mass around the view that the Jor­dan­ian gov­ern­ment could have done more to pro­tect its cit­i­zens. Ner­vous of­fi­cials would have re­called last No­vem­ber's demon­stra­tions which in­clud­ed un­prece­dent­ed pub­lic dis­plays of de­fi­ance against the monarch, King Ab­dul­lah II.The king was a no-show at the open­ing of the IPI con­gress and in­stead sent his prime min­is­ter, Ab­dul­lah En­sour, who strong­ly de­fend­ed a con­tro­ver­sial press and pub­li­ca­tions law which calls for the reg­is­tra­tion of on­line news web­sites–a move con­demned by Jor­dan's Cen­ter for De­fend­ing Free­dom of Jour­nal­ists (CD­FJ) with sup­port from the IPI.Nei­ther Ah­mad nor Hamzah could be lured in­to di­rect ob­ser­va­tions about the state of po­lit­i­cal af­fairs; not with for­eign jour­nal­ists at any rate. But they are both clear that the ex­ter­nal im­age of a peace­ful oa­sis in a desert of pain rep­re­sents a ten­ta­tive but im­por­tant chance of sur­viv­ing the most chal­leng­ing of Ara­bic springs.