Not Weird, Different.

(Ch)

So I'm going to write a little bit about the culture here, hopefully over several blog posts - but this will be the start. As we meet up with our friends here, we're learning so much about Arab and Jordanian culture, it's all very interesting.

One thing I've noticed about this culture is that there seems to be a lack of choices. I freely admit that, as a westerner, I value choice and freedom perhaps too much. I think it's a very western idea to hold our freedoms in such high regard - that they are worth dying for. Definitely we prize our choice as a key value in our society.

That said, I still feel there is a huge lack of choices here in Jordan. As an example, we might think of some of the huge decisions that we make during our lives - we choose our religion, our politics, our careers, and our spouses. But here in Jordan, the vast majority of the decisions are already made for people.

For religion, everything is decided by your family. What your family believes, you also believe. This goes for seemingly all the religions in this area, whether you are Christian or Muslim. In this country, it is perfectly fine to be any religion you like - so long as that is the religion that your family belongs to. However, if you want to switch religions, to choose one, then you're going to run into a lot of problems. If you ask people here why they believe what they believe, it will almost always go back to, "Well that's what my family is." There is no personal choice.

For politics, there isn't all that much choice either. Granted, people here love the king and would not want to remove him or anything, but there isn't much in the way of choice. I believe they elect one house of parliament and the other is appointed by the king.

For careers, everything is determined by your marks. Here, your tests and grades determine what jobs you can and can't do. For instance, those who score 95 or higher at the end of high school can become doctors, those who score 80 or higher engineers, etc... If you don't make the grade, universities here will not accept you into their programs. While someone who scores 95 or higher can technically do any of the jobs below, they will always choose doctor because it makes the most money. There is no personal choice.

For spouses, there can be some choice involved. Depending the family, there may be arranged marriages or not - so this varies.

The point of this is simply to say that the culture here does not allow people to make many choices for their lives. The results of this play out in many different ways - at least as I see it. For example, I think that there is a very fatalistic view of life here. If everything is determined and decided for you, there is a sense of being trapped and "stuck" - there is little hope for the future. Of course that's a much more complicated issue, there are a lot of other things in this culture that contribute to it.