LEADERS IN PROFILE Hussein Of Jordan Playing Big Gamble

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28133, 23 November 1956, Page 3

LEADERS IN PROFILE Hussein Of Jordan Playing Big Gamble

(By

LES ARMOUR)

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a creation of power politics: a tiny plot of rolling arable country surrounded by a sprawling arid steppe. It exists because it bisects Arabia: it stands between the oil-swelled greed of Saudi Arabia and the volatile nationalism of Syria, between the uneasy nationalism of Israel and the wrath of the rest of Arabia.

It is valuable as a vantage place for keeping the peace’. Together with almost equally artificial Iraq it forms part of a wedge which bisects Arabia from the Israeli borders to Persia. It has remained inviolable because it has had the British Legion. But the most astute of politicians may sometimes forget that a state is not just a patch of land. On that patch of land there are a million land a half people. There are Arab I refugees from Israel—nearly half-a-million of them. There are wandering tribesmen and peasants who wrest a precarious living from the soil.

They have only two things in common; the fact that they are Arabs and the fact that they recognise a common King—2l-year-old Hussein.

They are not concerned much with power politics. The 500,000 refugees spoil to destroy Israel—they know not how, but any way will satisfy them. The rest thirst for the good

things they do not have: for more water, houses with furniture, an extra wife. They are open to suggestion. Anyone who can tell them why they are not as rich as other men and show a way in which they can be as rich as other men is sure of a hearing. Men with such tales include the agents of a certain King Saud from nearby Saudi Arabia. These men do not explain that Jordan is poor because sand is not oil. They explain that Jordan is poor because attachments to Britain are not independence. Over it all the youthful Hussein presides with seemingly unruffled calm. There has been trouble. But when there was trouble there was Glubb Pasha and the Arab Leigion. And the Arab Legion could, at least, bring peace. Now there is no Glubb Pasha. And one day there may be no Arab Legion. And then there must be civil war. Still the young Hussein sits unruffled; but he is betting on a dream. Educated at Harrow Let us begin at the beginning. Hussein first met the world at Harrow—where he suddenly had to polish his own boots and make his bed, where he was just another boy among boys, where once men were trained to go out and build empires. You might have thought that the grandson of the King of Jordan—a boy who, even then, was the heir presumptive to the throne of Jordan—might have found life hard at a school where boys are taught first self-reliance, second their duty to the community, and third Greek.

But it was not so by all accounts. The young Hussein took to Harrow and Harrow took to the young Hussein. He thrived there, and, when he left, he had not had enough. The old King was assassinated and Hussein’s father could not rule. He suffered from a serious mental illness. Hussein was the heir. He was not yet 18 and so, by Jordan law, he could not rule. But, even so, he was a Field-Marshal of the Arab Legion.

Yet at the moment he was plain Private Hussein at Sandhurst, Britain’s military academy. He was there because he wanted to be there. He was just another cadet. He was treated like any other cadet.

He came to London at the weekends and he rode the buses. He lived in a small bedroom at the Dorchester hotel on those weekends—because he liked the view over Hyde Park. He had a batman with him (a batman from Jordan, not one provided by the British Army). The batman stayed elsewhere—at the Jordan Club. But sometimes you could see them together. That was when they dined together in some quiet restaurant. Hussein was no autocrat.

Again, Sandhurst liked Hussein (his fellow cadets called him “Hus”) and Hussein liked Sandhurst. The officers said he -would make a fine soldier. They did not know much about the business of king-making at Sandhurst, but British officers are taught wise and humane rule as well as deadly aim and they thought he might make a king, too. Hussein said he wanted to stay on at Sandhurst because he liked the “British way of life.” When he graduated, he went home and he was crowned King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: Al-Mamlakah Al Hashimiyah Al Urdiniyah. He went, from his tiny room at Sandhurst to a palace. It is a small palace (just 15 rooms) and he lived quietly in it with his collection of jazz records. It was and ic one of the world’s best collections of jazz records.

He learned to fly jet planes. He talked strategy with John Bagot Glubb. He drilled the Arab Legion

now and then. He listened to John Glubb when Glubb told him he must above all keep peace on his Israeli border. He must not provoke trouble. He must not be too quick to respond to provocation. The Dreamer And Hussein also dreamed. He dreamed of irrigation for the waters of the Jordan—of fertilising deserts, of finding employment for the tens of thousands of refugees, his biggest liability, and of raising the living standards of the rest of his people. He dreamed, too, of a democracy that would work—that would be a model for the states of Arabia. Gradually he transferred more and more powers (now formally but factually) to the elected Parliament and took care in his appointments to the Senate which is under his direct control. He had support—and money—from his British allies. It looked as though his dream might come true and he was happy. He was brave, too. When there were riots in Old Jerusalem he went there personally and walked openly through the streets—the streets in which his grandfather had been assassinated. But there were troubles. The irrigation schemes were slow in materialising. The Israelis, too, had an interest in the Jordan and, if you took the Jordan side, you would have said they were un-co-operative. Outside, the tide of Arab nationalism was growing. Jordan was poor compared with Saudi Arabia, timid compared with Nasser’s Egypt and its promise of social revolution followed by heaven on earth.

Saudi agents, Egyptian nationalists, Soviet diplomats and their friends played on the poverty and on the timidity. It was spread around that Jordan was poor and timid because she was a vassal of Britain and that there would be no progress so long as she remained so.

Hussein still did not worry. Britain was his ally and Britain was strong. Time would show that the rumours were nonsense. His government was good and time would show that good government paid higher dividends than loud words.

Glubb reassured him. But the outside world moved faster and faster. Czech guns emboldened Nasser, tension mounted on the Israeli border. The refugees asked why Hussein did not move. The poor asked, again and again, why they could not be rich like the Saudis. Hussein’s democratic Parliament was not very experienced. It,, too, began to grow uneasy. Clash Over Bagdad Pact

Then there was the Bagdad Pact. Hussein saw it as a buffer between him and Arab nationalism, between him and whatever it was that the Russians were planning. The uneasy among his people saw it as another excuse to use Jordan as a tool. They forgot that Jordan could survive principally because she was a vital part in the Western defence scheme, a stronghold in an area on the verge of chaos. The Government rebelled. Hussein dismissed the Government and tried again. Saudi Arabia promised big bribes if he would give in and break with Britain. Feeling grew more and more inflamed. At length Hussein had to give in—for the moment. If he held out, political chaos would destroy his dream. He would have, at least, to smash the early structures of his new democracy in order to make his will stick. And the ensuing chaos might sink him. too. A little appeasement, on the other hand, might calm everyone and save the day. But his opposition, having won a round, was determined not to give in.

That was when Hussein determined—determined on his own—to fight back. He dismised Glubb and announced the “Jordanisation” of his army. He proved himself to be the power in the land and to be more nationalist than the nationalists themselves.

They had intrigued but they had never tried openly to get rid of Glubb.

Having established his point, he turned round and advised his politicians to join the Bagdad Pact after all.

The manoeuvre may have won. It silenced the men in the cafes who said that Hussein was weak, not a patch on the old Amir. It stalled the men who said Hussein was nothing but a British agent. But the question is: will Britain, smarting under the sting of Glubb’s dismissal, continue to give Hussein their backing? Will the money still come? Can the Legion stand on its own?

It is a desperate gamble for Hussein.

He may win. Even Glubb hopes he does.