Saturday, May 24, 2008

How to Become a Jordanian Citizen Without Speaking Arabic?


All what you need to do is to play basketball.

Our Basketball Federation is pushing to award the Jordanian citizenship to non-Jordanian citizens in order to allow them to play for our national team.

Let me start with some basics. On the club level (like Zain did), the club has the freedom to buy and sell whoever player they want because the team represents only the club, and you can argue about how much that club represents the country. In the NBA you can have a game where there are more non-US players on the field than US players. Same applies for European football and many other sports.

However, on national level, players have to be citizens of that country. They represent it in different games and their people stand behind them in support.

What our basketball federation is doing, is treating the national team like a club. They're even arguing which players deserve the citizenship more depending on their position on the field.

So imagine, all what you need to become Jordanian is to play in the right position in a basketball team.
Imagine a Jordanian citizen who doesn't speak your language, doesn't know the country and doesn't understand the culture.

You can argue that half Jordanians are not originally from Jordan. True. But they fled to Jordan from Palestine after disastrous wars and they share a very similar, if not identical, culture and language and heritage and history.

You can argue that the US gave hundreds of millions of immigrants green cards and citizenship. Absolutely True. But they have to be fluent in English and should have lived a considerable time in the US before becoming citizens. I was totally with giving our previous Chinese Taekwondo coach, Mr. Chen, a Jordanian citizenship because he's lived many years in Jordan and spoke Arabic pretty well. and neither his origin or race should stand against that.

You can argue that being Jordanian doesn't give these players any additional privileges they didn't have as Americans. Probably true. But that doesn't make it right to award them the Jordanian citizenship.

Maybe I'm thinking too highly of my country but to become Jordanian you need a little more than play basketball. You need to feel somewhat loyal to the place and to love it, and to feel attached to it even if you found one million wrong things about it, and I don't think that for someone who lived a few months in the country he'll able to do so.

This whole thing is making me feel one thing: cheap. Dirty cheap.

I sent an angry e-mail to the federation (their e-mail is : info@basketball.jo ) and you're free to contact them if you have anything to say.
Fares

7 comments:

kinzi said...

A friend of mine is one of these candidates.

In light of the fact a JORDANIAN WOMAN cannot confer Jordanian citizenship to her children, stuff like this make me wanna scream.

Hani Obaid said...

Your (you can argue) paragraphs covered all my arguments so I'm going to shut up, and nod now :)

Anonymous said...

I can still argue hareega that now almost 75 per cent of 'jordanians' r non jordanians,and have no understanding of the culture nor the traditions of the country... so come on, a few more palyers from anywhere in the globe is no big deal really in our semi cosmos country after all.Tough fact but true! Ask anyone who gets our nationality if they love Jordan,they will most faithfully deny it and start a tirade of complaints...i got used to people drinking from our well and spitting in it..i bet if u ask the players they wil tell u they hate the burden of the Jordanian nationality..u should be sad hareega,not angry nor indignant.

7aki Fadi said...

Hey, I got trained by Mr Chen. Back in 90 - 91.

Mr Chen ilsgheer not ilkbeer in Nadi Funon alqital. Zo3by used to train there too. Is that where you went?

Hareega said...

kinzi, that's an excellent point. Maybe these women should enroll their kids in a basketball camp

hani.. thanks for reading!

caroline... I agree to some extent on what you're saying, but that's only true to a limited extent and certain situations. I wouldn't generalize it to include everyone. The difference is still huge between a Palestinian, or IRaqi or Lebanese who had become a Jordanian citizen and someone who couldn't spot these countries on the map a couple of years before coming here.

7aki fadi... no I never trained in Taekwondo (I did Karate 2 years ago in the US and my ass got totally kicked by some kids)

http://hareega.blogspot.com/2005/08/my-sad-ending.html

viagra online said...

I don't think that it is bad like as looks like but they are doing it to improve the level of Basketball

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