Following are excerpts
from statements made by former Jordanian MP Ahmad Uweidi Abadi and posted
on the Internet in the course of 2011 and 2012.
January 18, 2012:
Ahmad Uweidi Abadi:
A republican regime in Jordan is bound to come. I don't think it will
take more than two years at the most. A republican regime embodies the
will of the people through elections, whereas the monarchic regime has
become a thing of the past, which does not reflect the will of the people.
The king does not rise to power by the will of the people, but by his
own will, and he therefore treats the people as a herd of subjects.
We want to have a president of a republic who would treat the people
as the ones who elected him, and who brought him to his position.
[…]
The King forged an alliance
with the domestic and foreign enemies of Jordan against the Jordanians.
Interviewer: How?
With whom?
Ahmad Uweidi Abadi:
I don't want to be specific – domestic and foreign enemies against
the Jordanians, so that if he leaves or flees – call it as you like
– a civil war would break out.
[…]
We don't want a civil
war. We want life in our country to be good and honorable. Therefore,
the King must return to his senses, and realize that the will of the
Jordanian people, and especially that of the tribes and the army veterans,
is not what it used to be. We are not cattle in a pen. We are not a
herd of sheep. We are cultured and educated people who achieve high
degrees.
[…]
Constitutional monarchy
is completely unacceptable. Let's assume that [King Abdallah] becomes
a constitutional monarch – where are the billions that he, his wife,
and his brothers took? Does that mean that the money of the Jordanian
people would go to his coffers?
[…]
We Jordanians are people
of honor, but he treats us with the utmost contempt. What constitutional
monarchy?! Who made him king upon us?! Who made the [Hashemites] kings
upon us? The first King Abdallah said: I have come to visit Jordan in
order to occupy it. By their own logic they are occupiers. He calls
himself an occupier but he wants us to call him king? He is an occupier,
and Jordan must be liberated from this Hashemite family.
[…]
Interviewer:
The bottom line of what you are saying is that the King is not qualified
to rule this country.
Ahmad Uweidi Abadi:
The entire Hashemite family, the King included, is not qualified.
[…]
Someone on behalf of
the King came to negotiate [a compromise] with me. I asked him: Is there
a poet among you? He said: No. I asked him if there was a philosopher,
an engineer, a doctor, or a historian among them, and he said: No. I
said: My brothers and I by ourselves hold all these titles, so how come
you rule us?! What qualifies you to rule me?
Interviewer: What
do you think about the mentality of Prince Hassan?
Ahmad Uweidi Abadi:
Forget it, they are all the same.
[…]
Jarash, Jordan
June 29, 2011:
If I were in the position
of the King, or of Ranya, or of the intelligence agencies, or of the
government, I would not lose any sleep over all these gatherings and
marches, because none of these gatherings targets the mastermind behind
the corruption.
[…]
Someone who sells out
our homeland, sells out our people, plunders our country, humiliates
and degrades us, and within a decade, gives Jordanian citizenship to
two million people, in violation of the law and the constitution –
is he not a criminal, a corrupter, a deceiver, and a killer?
[…]
We declare: Ranya, you
destroyed this country. Ranya, you and your cronies plundered this country.
If you say this, I'm with you, but if not, I will not be with you.
[…]
There are people in this
country who form [private] armies, and they plan to fight us. We do
not plan to fight, but by Allah, my brothers, if… A serpent's poison
is in its head. My brothers, either we call a spade a spade, or it will
be just talk. By Allah, the Jordanian people is fed up.
[…]
They can go and shoot
me, but I won't ask for their permission. Why should I!?! This is my
country. I didn't come to this country yesterday. I have been here for
a million years. I award legitimacy to them, not the other way around.
Look, they say that our legitimacy is something they kindly bestow upon
us. Our education – they bestow it upon us. Our democracy – they
bestow it upon us. To hell with all that bestowing. What, everything
is bestowed upon us by them? Even sleeping with our wives?! What shamelessness
is this? It is inconceivable.
[…]
September 23, 2011:
I am speaking on behalf
of the Jordanian national movement. We have no problem with the government,
the secret service, America, or Israel. We have no problem with the
Palestinian issue either. Our problem is with the Hashemite family,
with the political Hashemite entity. Apart from that, we have no problem.
[…]
We say to the King: Listen
to us, before we stop listening to you, obey our ideas before we stop
obeying yours, and cooperate with us, before we refuse to cooperate
with you. The Koran says: "And these days We alternate among the
people."
[…]
We demand that the king
give back all the property and lands that were confiscated. We demand
that the King's wife and her family give back all the property.
[…]
The current constitution
is unconstitutional. For one thing, it deifies the King.
[…]
How comes it deifies
the King? He's a person just like us. Another thing that we demand from
the King… This country is not the private estate of kings, queens,
princes, princesses, and descendents of the prophet Muhammad. This country
belongs to us. This is Jordan. We have no such thing as princes, princesses,
or descendents of the Prophet. [In the constitution] there are only
a king and a crown prince.
[…]