In Mauritania, they say: throw a stone in the market and it will hit a poet. The poet there does not sell — he carries. He carries the tribe's memory in his chest and walks with it when no one else will. In Jordan, the scene is different. Throw an idea into the digital market and it won't hit a poet. It will hit a seller — he presents his opinion as the merchant presents his merchandise: loudly, with a flexible price, and an ever-present smile.
The word was not always like this. The article was a rare currency, its path long and passing through many hands before reaching the eye. It was not necessarily censorship, but beneficial friction — the idea collides with another mind, losing some of its certainty and gaining some depth. Today, however, the idea moves directly from the head to the algorithm, and the algorithm does not ask about truth but about excitement. Power has not shifted to the people as we were promised — it has shifted to the market. And the market rewards not the deepest but the loudest.
But why does Jordan in particular seem a model not just a participant in this phenomenon? Because the Jordanian carries an existential question in his pocket that has been hanging for decades: Who am I? In a country where identities intersect and still negotiate themselves with every wave of refuges and every regional crisis, proving expertise becomes a form of proving existence. To analyze the Middle East means you are not just passing through a suspended geography. You are the one who understands. You — at least in the view of your followers — exist.
Hence, that unique category emerged: the analyst who predicts the military strike with millisecond precision! And when the prediction comes a whole week later, he does not review himself, but repackages the goods — rearranges the timeline anew to prove that he was right in essence. In the non-stop market, whoever reviews himself loses place before he finishes reviewing.
What exactly has been lost? Not just quality — quality is a measure that can be raised. The creative silence is lost. In a market that rewards quantity not depth, no one has the courage to stop — because to stop means to disappear, and disappearing means to be forgotten. Thus, writers write not because they have something to say but because they fear that they may not have said anything. The difference between writing from fullness and writing from fear is the difference between the text that stays and the text that is forgotten the next day.
The big irony: Jordan, the country of a million writers, is silent on its deepest questions. Read all that is produced daily then look for one question: What does Jordan want for itself? Not for the cause, not for regional stability, not for a new Middle East. For itself — about its identity being squeezed between its diversities and yet to define itself, its relationship with its land and the narrative it rewrites without declaring it, the meaning of being Jordanian when asked and the answer stumbles in your throat before it reaches your tongue. This question is conspicuously absent in a market that never stops talking.
Because this question does not fetch likes. The market rewards what comforts the audience, not what disturbs them. And the deep existential question — Who are we? What do we want? — is unsettling by nature. It calls for confronting a history drawn in rooms where Jordanians were not sitting, and an identity still in formation. The most profitable solution is to talk about Washington and Tehran and avoid Amman.
The real writer in this market is the one who refuses to sell. He refuses because he knows that there is a question that finds no buyer — and it is precisely the question that deserves to be written. He does not write because the algorithm rewards or because the audience applauds, but because silence about certain things costs more than saying them. This writer is rare in any market, and even rarer when the market is thriving.
In Mauritania, the stone that hits a poet also hits a living memory. In Jordan, the stone that hits an analyst hits a commodity whose validity expires tomorrow. The difference is not in talent or intelligence or the size of the country. The difference is that the Mauritanian poet knows who he is, and writes from this knowledge. Whereas the question still hanging in the air of the Jordanian market — that question that still finds no writer because the market does not pay the price — still waits. And it will continue to wait as long as everyone is busy selling.
