Sunday, November 28, 2021

The Zen Master of the Asylum

 

Growing up as an ethnic minority in the UK in the 1990s, I developed a great pride in being part of the “Overseas Chinese” community. My pride stemmed from the fact that “MY” people had the great talent of being able to make everything from nothing. From where I stood, the Chinese were what you’d call a necessary people. Singapore and Hong Kong had become bywords for building everything from nothing and Chinatown in any Western city was an oasis on sanity. These were pockets of prosperity built by people who came to the country without a penny to their name and without speaking a word of the native language and yet they built things for themselves. I used to enjoy baiting my friend by telling them that “MY” people could build something in their country from the ground up whereas “THEIR” people could only come to “MY” country if they were part of a big company.

In a way, you could say that I got sold on Singapore’s propaganda even though I hadn’t really grown up in Singapore. It’s become something of religious mantra to talk about how Singapore was a fishing village, with no natural resources or hinterland to speak off and yet prospered within a generation. It’s often repeated that we are an oasis of stability in a chaotic region and our “Great Leader,” Mr. Lee Kuan Yew was a master strategist in navigating troubled waters.

There is no doubt that Mr. Lee was an amazing national leader who was able to do the necessary with the circumstances that he had to face. However, Mr. Lee did do a good job with poor circumstances, he is not actually the master of creating everything from nothing. If you were to look at our history beyond what the PAP government tells you, you’ll find that Singapore did have a few things going for it. For a start, we were not exactly a fishing village. Our colonial masters set us up as a port and we had an administrative infrastructure. Furthermore, whilst we did face real threats of invasion in our early days (Both the Malayan Communist Insurgency and Konfrantasi were real but we were helped by the British), the region, and in particular our immediate neighbours of Malaysia and Indonesia stabilized, thanks to the rise of Mahathir and Suharto. As one Indian expat said “Singapore and Malaysia have creative competition – you build a port, I build a bigger one as opposed to destructive competition of India and Pakistan – you build a bomb, I build a bigger one).

The real master of building everything was from nothing is not from Southeast Asia. He was from the Middle East. That man was the late King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, who reigned from 1952 until his death in 1999. Unlike Mr. Lee who was 32 and with a successful law career when he first entered politics, King Hussein was thrust onto the throne before his 17th birthday when his father, King Talal was forced to abdicate due to his health.

I will leave the analysis of the late Jordanian King’s life to the better qualified. One can get an overview of his life and achievements from the following Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussein_of_Jordan

What I will say is that the biggest miracle of the Jordanian monarchy was the fact that it survived and whilst Jordan may not have the GDP per capita of one of the Asian Tigers or one of the Petro-States in the Arabian Gulf, it has become an oasis of calm in a really rough neighbourhood.

Sure, Malaysia and Indonesia may seem chaotic when compared to Singapore. However, the last armed conflict between states in the ASEAN region was in the 1970s during the conflict in Vietnam and Cambodia. States in the ASEAN region have pretty much kept to themselves and whilst there have been a few skirmishes like during the liberation of East Timor (or Timor-Leste as it is now known) there’s not been a major conflict that has driven masses dispersed.

It’s a different story in the Middle East. Jordan’s immediate neighbours include Israel, the Palestinian West Bank, Iraq and Syria, all of which in seemingly never-ending state of conflict. Yet, despite this, Jordan has managed to keep these conflicts out of its borders. One of King Hussein’s major achievements was to drive the PLO from Jordanian soil so that they would not use Jordan as a base to launch terrorist attacks against Israel, thus making Jordan a target for Israeli aggression.

Then, there’s the issue of population management. Jordan has been in a position where its had to absorb waves of refuges from his its neighbours since the 1948 and as at 2016, Jordan is the largest refugee hosting nation in the world. Nearly a quarter of the accepted refuges have since been given Jordanian citizenship and whilst the influx has caused a strain on the Jordanian economy, Jordan still manages to accommodate them and integrating them into Jordanian society.

With the possible exception of Saudi Arabia, Jordan does not have a “Must be in” trade partner in the same way that Hong Kong has China and Singapore has Indonesia.

In Singapore, we’re lucky in the sense that whatever waring parties are out there, they seem to understand that they have to behave in Singapore. We’ve hosted the most unlikely of pairings. There was the Trump-Kim Summit and we even hosted Taiwan and China.

This hasn’t been the case for Jordan. The influx of refugees brought emotions about conflicts beyond its borders into the country. One of the largest groups of refugees are the Palestinians, who had been kicked off their home land by Israel. The Jordanian government has needed to be sensitive to domestic passions. One of King Hussein’s more harrowing moments came in the aftermath of the Gulf War to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Jordan stayed out of the coalition, which displeased the Western Powers and the Gulf Arabs did not take kindly to it either. However, domestic sentiment in Jordan was “Pro-Iraq” and there was no way the King could have joined the coalition without causing domestic disturbance.

Yet, the late king managed to get his country through both foreign and domestic turmoil’s. He was the second Arab leader to sign a Peace Treaty with Israel. Yet unlike Anwar Sadat who got frozen out of the Arab League after signing the Camp David Accord, King Hussein remained a respected figure.

When King Hussein died in 1999, the world mourned. Old enemies like Yasser Arafat paid tribute. Four US Presidents attended. Enemies like Israel, Syria, Iraq and Iran all turned up at the funeral. A more complete attendance list can be found at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_state_funeral_of_King_Hussein

 


 Copyright ResearchGuide

How did a monarch of a small nation with no natural resources to speak of, managed to become so respected by the rest of the world? He was what you’d call a “Zen Master in an Asylum” and his status as such was clearly seen when leaders of the world powers flocked to his funeral. The world should miss this Zen Master of international diplomacy.

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Maira Gall