Our morals are not merely statements, but enduring patience over mistakes made in their name, before we quietly ask—increasing with time: How long?!
Jordan was built on profound kindness, not as naiveté, but as a collective moral choice; the kindness of its people, the calmness of its streets, the tolerance of its leadership, and that instinctive preference to prioritize forgiveness over punishment and inclusion over confrontation. Thus, Jordan has remained, in a troubled region, a haven spared from bloodshed, not because it was not provoked, but because it chose to control itself more than others.
"A Kind Town and a Forgiving Lord" was never just a noble verse or a rhetorical slogan, but an unwritten moral contract that connects the earth with the sky, and places upon humans the responsibility of grace before enjoying it.
However, kindness, when it stays too long in the public sphere without balance, can transform from a virtue into an excuse. From here begins the deferred Jordanian question: When does leniency become a cover for transgression? And when does mercy, if not supported by accountability, become an unintended incentive for laxity? For history does not punish those who err once, but those who habitually err because they were never questioned. And nations do not fall suddenly but erode silently, when negligence is rewarded with patience, and shortcomings are met only with prayers without any firm action.
Jordanians are kind… sometimes more than necessary. They swallow the first mistake, then the second, then the third, until the mistake turns into a pattern, the pattern into a habit, and the habit into "a reality"!
They accept incomplete services, deferred promises, and repeated explanations, then return to their homes saying, "May God improve our condition." This is not indifference, but deep faith that the country is greater than a mistake, and that the state is not run by noise. However, the problem lies in how some officials misinterpret this patience, believing it to be a carte blanche rather than a temporary trust; they view national kindness as an umbrella protecting them from the consequences of failure.
Thus, the same stories keep repeating under different names: projects are approved but not completed, contracts are awarded then adjusted with addendums, roads are paved then crack at the first rain, networks are installed then fail at the first real test. Year after year, the reports of the Audit Bureau do not scream but whisper; they list observations, violations, and procedural excesses, as if they are quietly telling the state: be careful, the accumulations are more dangerous than the mistake. And the state sometimes forgets—intentionally or unintentionally—that a whisper, when not heeded, becomes over time the noise of disasters.
When the recent rains came, they were not a surprise in meteorology but a surprise in management! Streets flooded, infrastructure failed, and cities appeared as if they were being managed reactively rather than proactively. The question was not: Why did it rain? But: Why were we not prepared for it, even though we knew it was coming? This is the core of the modern Jordanian crisis: knowledge without preparedness, and experience without application, and documents without execution!
The painful paradox is that this country, which exports its talents to the world and excels its children in building the most complex systems abroad, sometimes fails to protect its small details at home; as if we live a dual reality: a Jordanian intellect building the future in exile, and a homeland in geography living off the patience. Institutions are raised in the media as flags of achievement, but at the first real test, their fragility is discovered, and the theatrical décor falls, revealing the mud underneath!
In political thought, Gramsci distinguishes between power exercised by force and dominance exercised with consent. Jordan, historically, is a land of ethical dominance, not authoritarianism; the state is obeyed because it is respected, not because it is feared. However, this dominance, if not renewed with justice and firmness, could be misinterpreted within the public apparatus. Foucault reminds us that the issue lies not only in the absence of surveillance but in the absence of the feeling among those held accountable that they are constantly visible. When officials feel that mistakes will pass because "the country is kind," structural faults begin to form, and the tolerance transforms from a moral value into a comfortable administrative culture.
The Hashemite leadership, at its core, is a lenient leadership, believing in quiet reform rather than political or administrative revenge. And this is one of the greatest strengths of the Jordanian state. But it is conscious kindness, not an invitation to chaos or a license to transgress. For "he who feels secure from punishment misbehaves," not necessarily because he is evil, but because the human soul tests limits if they are not clearly defined! And there is no justice without mercy, and no mercy without justice.
The government of Dr. Jaafar Hassan came at a moment burdened with accumulation, not to start from scratch, but to confront a heavy administrative legacy. It tries, clearly, to patch up where the rip has grown too large for the renter! and to reconnect what has been severed between the field and the office, between decision and execution. But patching, no matter how well-intentioned, is insufficient if it does not transform into a comprehensive reengineering of the public work logic. There is still room for reform, yes, but that room narrows the longer the transition from managing crises to preventing them is delayed.
The problem, in my opinion, is not the lack of intention, but the absence of graduated administrative decisiveness. It is not a shortage of plans, but an abundance of them without strict follow-through. And it is not a scarcity of competencies, but their squandering in processes not measured by results. The Jordanian citizen, quite simply, does not ask for a harsh state, but for a just one. He does not want a whip, but a system. He does not seek a display of accountability, but the certainty that mistakes have consequences, and that proficiency has rewards.
This is a kind country, yes. And a forgiving Lord, yes. But states cannot be run on pleas alone! Kindness must remain a moral value for society, not an administrative policy. And forgiveness must remain a divine matter, not a bureaucratic procedure. For when these boundaries are blurred, society pays a silent price, accumulating until it explodes in the form of a flood, collapse, or loss of trust!
The current moment should not be one of-breaking, but one of awareness. Awareness that Jordanian patience is a national treasure to be protected, not depleted. And the gravest thing we could lose is not a project or a road, but the deep sense that the state sees, knows, and will act. If this sense is restored, kindness returns to its natural place: a virtue of society, not a refuge for shortcomings. Only then does the meaning of "A Kind Town and a Forgiving Lord" translate into kind institutions, present justice, and a state that knows mercy is only complete with accountability.
