One notebook.
One city.
And patience that has lasted longer than it should!
I am a son of Zarqa.
And I know that this city has a memory that does not flatter.
It does not memorize speeches.
It memorizes facts.
It does not applaud the promise.
It waits for the installment.
In the accounts of this nation, Zarqa has never been a party that asks.
It was a party that lends.
It gave its workers to the factories before the rest of the kingdom awakened.
And it gave its sons to the army and security forces in every place that needed men.
For many years, it contributed more to the national fund than it withdrew!
And it bore enough of the state's burdens to have its name written on the creditors' page, not the debtors'.
This is a debt that is not issued by a treasury.
But it is kept in the memory of nations that do not forget those who silently lent to them!
When Dr. Jafar Hassan came to Zarqa yesterday, he did not come for a mere ceremonial visit.
He came as one who opens the old notebook.
To see where the last repayment stopped.
And he found a number:
Eight hundred million dinars.
Three years.
And one hundred and fifty-five projects.
But numbers alone do not repay an old debt.
For debts are not measured by numbers, but by what they buy in terms of peace of mind and security for their owners.
Prince Faisal Hospital is not just an item on the agenda.
It is an overdue installment for a patient who continued waiting for a bed that never arrived!
And the new schools are not just cement.
They are a delayed repayment for a child outgrew his desk and his classmates.
And expanding the bus route to Hashemite University is not just a transport line.
It is a postponed apology to a student who gave more of his life than the journey deserved!
As for the new industrial city, it is the most important chapter in this account.
Because industry in Zarqa is not an economic sector judged by profits.
It is the family name.
The name that is not erased.
And when natural gas reaches it, and its doors open to investors, the state is not giving it a gift.
It is reopening a line of credit that had been closed for too long!
And the discussion was not all about the debts of development.
There was another debt.
Heavier and deeper.
When the Prime Minister announced the move to amend the law to apply the death penalty to major drug traffickers and smugglers linked to foreign gangs, it was not an item in the budget.
It was a settlement of accounts.
A settlement with those who attempted to carve out a piece of the community's security balance without permission.
And anyone who reaches out to the security and military personnel, in fact, borrows from the state's authority a debt that the state only settles for one price!
But Zarqa knows something that numbers do not.
It knows that security does not weaken at once.
And that if small gaps are left, they grow.
And in its memory, there are enough wounds to understand this well.
For the boy whose story shook all of Jordan, is today a young man walking with what remains to him, still waiting for the entire page to be closed, not just some of it.
