Cop Rock: Protest, Identity, and Dancing Riot Police in Jordan

Abstract

In January 1997, a diverse group of Jordanians gathered outside of Amman to demonstrate against the opening of the first Israeli trade fair to be held in Jordan. The fair, intended to strengthen economic ties between Israel and Jordan, was organized as a provision of the 1994 peace treaty signed between the two countries. The Jordanian government anticipated a large gathering of protesters and sent several security contingents, including army personnel and riot police. While the protests did not result in violence, they produced a rather strange reaction from the riot police, who at one point began singing and dancing traditional tribal songs. What explains this strange behavior? This article examines two dimensions of the protests that explain the exceptional nature of the response of the police to the challenges of the protesters. First, I explore the mobilization and coordination of disparate groups within Jordanian society (business association, Islamists, communists, and various opposition parties) around the issue of the anti-trade fair demonstrations. Jordan has seen few such large and well-organized protests, particularly where groups across the political spectrum cooperated to mount a single, large-scale event. This coordination produced a particular framing of the challenge to the trade fair that was critical to creating the context in which the riot police (and other state policing agents) responded as they did. Second, I offer an explanation for the strange behavior of the riot police on the day of the largest gathering: as the demonstrators framed their chants and slogans around loyalty to homeland (Jordan), they questioned the loyalty of those who defended the trade fair and accused the various policing agents present of greater loyalty toward Israel than toward Jordan. In response, the riot police sought to demonstrate their own loyalty to Jordan by singing and dancing to traditional tribal songs. Their response demonstrates the deep tensions in Jordan over national identity, that is, the divide between those of Palestinian origin and those (like the royal Hashemite family) of East Bank and western Arabian origin. In effect, the use of tribal songs served as a mechanism that enabled the riot police to challenge the demonstrators themselves around the question of precisely what makes one truly Jordanian.