An Example of Idiocracy in Jordan ::Will it ever end?::

I am convinced this has become a dominos effect.  Seriously, how many shockers can one get in such a short amount of time? How stupid can people get?

Last Thursday, yup you guessed it I received a mega huge shocker which I would say completely and utterly outweighs all the previous ones I’ve ever gotten.  First let’s make it clear that I had no clue that the law here, in general, follows the ‘tribal’ laws.  That could be considered a shock in itself but when I found out it did nothing more than make me raise an eyebrow. Typical.

Here is the story that told me a little about how things are done in Jordan.  Now this is the mega eyebrow raiser and jaw dropper.One of the people I know was telling us (a bunch of friends and me) about a situation his brother is going through.  It seems his brother was involved in a (three) car accident.  His brother was a diesel truck driver and through no fault of his he was one day hit by another truck which in turn made them both hit a civilian car.  Everyone in the accident died except for this person’s brother.  It seems that by tribal law the surviving person in any type of accident is held solely accountable for the results of the accident.  Doesn’t matter whether he was just a bystander.  If he was in the wrong place at the wrong time he has to suffer the consequences.

So now his brother is in jail.  Waiting to be forgiven or condemned by the heads of the deceased’s families.  It’s positively medieval! The innocent has to be held because they have to blame someone and they can’t put the corpses of the dead in jail.  I still don’t understand the full concept but it seems that the heads of the families and the families’ allies’ heads have to meet up and discuss everything (the bigger the crowd the more important you are and the chances of success is bigger).  They have to try and come to an agreement between each other and then go tell their decision to the judge who then passes judgment upon the person who isn’t even supposed to be tried.  This meeting is called an Attwa.  And this Attwa can take up to a year to conclude and I’m even thinking it tends to take longer in many cases.

Now if the families decide to forgive (though not forget) they name a price which the survivor has to pay no matter how much it is. And in this case the brother has to pay for the lost diesel and the wreckage.  The insurance companies don’t have to do anything if the guy is acquitted.  Now if he is condemned that is when he doesn’t have to pay anything but then he has to stay in jail for as long as they deem suitable for his ‘crime’ of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and deciding to cross the green light.

I also found out that this is the same case when a person gets in an accident with friends and let’s say the driver survives but the friend doesn’t.  Pathetic.  Where is the justice in this? 

Another shocker:

One of our Omani students in the center I work at had a similar problem but to a much lighter degree it seems.  Someone tried to steal his laptop and run but the Omani dude fought the guy by pulling at the laptop in a way where it hit the thief in the jaw and hurt him.  Now who gets in trouble? Well duh the Omani.  He has to pay 200JD to get his id and things back from the police because he hurt the guy who was trying to steal his computer!  And of course the Jordanian thief doesn’t even get a slap on the hand. Typical.

We live in the 21^st century! I just can’t comprehend all this.