(MENAFN- Jordan Times) I started writing a column about the disgraceful behaviour of some of our parliamentarians, especially their failure to hold political dialogue and resorting, instead, to violence - including the use of guns - to press their point home.
The sad thing is that it is not only the Parliament that has become immune to the disgraceful behaviour of its members, but we as a nation of people, the press and even the government often find it normal to use violence as a credible, acceptable and unpunished way of communicating our point of view.
Why else would we just watch and shrug our shoulders - at best make up a couple of jokes - when a misbehaving parliamentarian comes to choke his colleague or when another pulls out a gun and tries to hit a fellow talk show participant to end a verbal disagreement?
But since no one seems to care, why should I, and take time to spill my guts here about how parliamentarians should by definition be the most accomplished of political interlocutors and how this behaviour truly alienates the Jordanian people who had hoped to see mature behaviour in their House of Representatives.
The government clearly has no stake in commenting on this, the judiciary has no role and the Parliament itself - as an institution - has no disciplinary regime to brandish about in cases like this.
Like I said, why should I care if no one else seems to?
So I thought I should scrap the idea and write about the amount of rubbish that has accumulated along the sides of the road to the Dead Sea before turning off to the Baptism Site. Or maybe the islands of accumulated household rubbish that have become a destination of groups of tin collectors and stray cats. Or maybe even the miles and miles of strewn and shredded black plastic that hugs our trees and plants and covers our farmland, suffocating them.
But if the Jordanian citizen is the main culprit and perpetrator of this crime against the environment, throwing bags of rubbish out of car windows and leaving mountains of non-biodegradable refuse all over our tourist sites and roads leading to those locations, why should I care and write about it?
And if the municipalities and governmental agencies entrusted with organising the collection of the rubbish, enforcing the law and penalising the perpetrators of this spreading environmental disaster do not care, why should I take the time and dedicate the space to pleading for more government/citizen responsibility towards the protection of our environment?
I scrapped that idea too and decided to go back to reform.
It occurs to me to ask what kind of reform we are talking about. Does reform only happen when those important men (not women because these are not important) who speak politics sit sideways in their salons and discuss larger issues, like international agendas and regional priorities versus national concerns?
Is reform about a one-person, one-vote system and the shortest way to elect one's cousin and his friends - who are also ours - to Parliament so they can hit each other over important national issues?
Is reform about forming political tribes or networks of beneficiaries who can collectively speak of political platforms and agendas? Is reform about balancing budgets so that the government gets to collect all its supporters on one huge pay roll subsidised by everyone else who scrambles for his/her livelihood as lifelong taxpaying "entrepreneurs"?
Exactly who cares about this type of reform? Is it the people?
I doubt it.
I would suggest that we begin our reform by picking our rubbish off the streets, highways, farms, villages and towns, and then perhaps making sure that we do not pick unbefitting individuals to represent us in Parliament. And we must remember to care.
NermeenMurad@gmail.com
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