Jordanian Communist Party
by Bdel Rahim A. K. Jouihan

Comrade, Chairperson of the Meeting
Dear Comrades,

It gives me great pleasure to convey to you the greetings
of our Gen Sec., members of the politic-Bureau, members of
the Central Committee, and members and friends of the
Jordanian Communist Party wishing success for this meeting
and hoping for good results that could push forward the
Communist and Labour movements world-wide.

The suggested main subject for the meeting: �The experience
from the struggles, alliances, co-operation of the
communists nowadays�, comes at a time when the communists
are in great need for exchanging experiences of communist
parties at present.

For the last 15 years, communists have been confronted with
a series of radical changes, which affected almost all the
political, social economic and cultural aspects of life.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the other Socialist
Countries in Eastern Europe was the most tragic of these
experiences that left the deepest effect. This enabled the
USA to be the sole super power in the world that uses all
possible ways and means including the military power to
over-rule the world and its wealth and impose policies that
increase oppression on all countries of the world,
especially the Globalisation through its instruments and
agencies. These instruments and agencies, including the
WTO, World Bank and the IMF pave the way for the complete
domination and dependency of countries to enable the
imperialists to plunder the wealth of nations and serve the
interests of the big business and the multinational
corporations.

These changes necessity a new outlook by the Communist
Parties to deal with the new reality differently.
Communists need to adopt new approaches for building new
alliances broader than before encompassing all
anti-American Imperialism forces and all those suffering
from the new political, economic and social changes. In
taking such a step the communist parties should consider
the following:
Adherence to Marxism-Leninism as a base to set off the
struggle and alliance at all circumstances and times.
Not to be taken aback or feel lost while confronting the
new changes or surrender to the new concepts that hide the
main objective of deviating the Communist Parties from
their Marxist-Leninist line by introducing new terminology,
colourful slogans or miss-interpreted concepts.

We have renewed the hopes and lighted the road for
communists is the growing increase in the effect of the
communist parties and the massive support movement around
them in many parts of the world. Among the most
distinguished of the communist movements nowadays are: the
communist party in Russia, the communist parties in the
countries of the former Soviet Union, the communist party
in Japan, the communist party of the USA and KKE which is
hosting us in this wonderful atmosphere which reflects its
abilities to gain the support of the masses.

Hence, it is important to discuss the experiences of the
communist parties in their struggle and alliance-building
to demonstrate and enrich the methods of struggle for the
communist parties.

Dear Comrades,
As for the struggling experience which our Jordanian
Communist Party passed through, we can say that in spite of
the small size of our country, the events and changes
happening made this experience rich. It indicated that our
party was close to our people's interests and concerns and
what our people confronted on the local, Arab and
international levels. Our experiences, which we would like
to highlight, had been marked in two essential stages,
before 1989 and the second after 1989.

In the first stage, the Jordanian people lived under
Martial Law and was subjected to oppression and suppression
imposed on the political parties from the whole spectrum
except for the Islamic trend. The progressive and national
parties used to practice their struggle in the underground
in a very cautious way. However, and in spite of the
barriers for not being allowed to struggle openly, the
progressive and national forces formed alliances on common
issues. They could mobilise the support of the masses on
several occasions. To give examples, we mention the
mobilisation during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to
express solidarity with Lebanese people, in 1982 and the
continuous mobilisation to support and express solidarity
with the national struggle of the Palestinian people,
especially during the Intifada. Such popular and massive
activities were conducted openly in the masses, against all
odds. At that time, these alliances did not reach the level
of forming a national front. They were forms of
co-ordination with a mechanism based on common grounds
stemming out of the pivotal role of the Palestinian cause.

In the second stage, the conditions for the political
struggle became different. New changes took place on the
Jordanian arena that ushered for a new epoch of political
relaxation. The political arena had seen the abolishment of
both the Martial Law and the Anti-Communist Law, a new Law
for Press and Publications and the Law for the Formation of
Political Parties, which enable us to declare the
establishment of the Communist Party in 1993. Alongside,
many citizens, who were dismissed from their work for
political reasons, went back to their jobs, confiscated
passports from political figures were returned to their
holders and travel was allowed for all. The parliamentary
elections were regained and the political parties took part
in them, including our party.

In this new atmosphere of political relaxation and the
implementation of gradual democratic practices, the work of
the political parties was broadened, the demand for more
liberties grew wider and some important democratic changes
were realised.

The relationship among the progressive and national forces
and their parties started to take place through common
activities in the civil society organisations such as the
trade unions and professional clubs in spite of the
contradictions and polarisation in some activities.

Then, in 1994 the Wadi Araba Treaty between Jordan and
Israel was signed causing decrease in the space of
political relaxation and suspension of the democratic
freedoms. In the face of the new reality, many forces and
political parties joined action in refusing the Treaty.
Amongst these forces are those who refuse the political
settlement out of principle and those who consider that
this treaty does not correspond to the demands of the
peaceful settlement according to international legitimacy.
Moreover, it did not assist in bringing a solution to the
basic problem of the Arab Israeli conflict, ie; the
Palestinian problem, which grew more complicated with the
Oslo Accords.

This situation allowed the formation of wider and stronger
alliance among many forces according to their stand towards
the Treaty and later on according to their stand towards
normalisation with Israel. What had been new in the
political arena is the transfer of the Islamic trend into
the opposition front after being under the umbrella of the
regime since the fifties. Traditionally, it used to be the
regime's sward facing the communists, nationalists and
progressive forces. This transfer stems out of the
religious stand towards the Arab-Zionist conflict.

The contradiction between the Islamic trend and the regime
developed to the extent that the Islamic trend boycotted
1997 elections. Consequently, the government took tough
actions against the Islamic leaders, but the confrontation
did not reach the level of cutting the relations. They
still have enough space to communicate and overcome any
misunderstandings at any moment.

Our Party is aware of the motives of the religious trend
whether on the political or the intellectual levels. It
also understands the importance of the class and social
structure within the ranks of the religious trend. It is
emphasising the formation of the alliance with the
enlightened religious fractions and the forces that respond
to what goes on in the country and the Arab world without
neglecting the conservative nature of the forces in the
religious trend.

Within this context, a High Co-ordinating Committee-HCC,
for the opposition parties was established. The main
concern of the new alliance is the struggle against
normalisation with Israel. Eventually, new common issues
grew in number due to efforts exerted by many forces
including our party to strengthen the socio-economic
struggle in Jordan. HCC has developed and adopted an
internal bylaw and specific objectives. The HCC includes
political forces and parties including religious, national,
progressive and leftist trends. HCC meets regularly. Thus,
this type of alliance is distinguished from any other
alliance in the Arab world for including a wide range of
the opposition forces of different ideologies. At present,
the HCC represents 14 opposition parties,. One should keep
in mind that there are serious differences on many issues
among the allied parties, but each party has the right to
express any viewpoint on any topic whenever it wishes to do
so outside the alliance.

This alliance, as well as the previous experiences, has not
been able to reach the level of national front. There are
differences among its members and many practices that go
against the interests of the alliance, especially those
undertaken by the religious trend. These differences
manifested themselves during the syndicates, the students
union and municipalities elections. This indicates that
whenever the Islamic trend feels that it has power and
influence in certain sectors, it turns its back to the
alliance and works alone.

Despite the mentioned facts, the alliance as it stands
faces accelerated attacks from the government to downsize
and minimise its role its mechanisms. This is carried on
through introducing laws and regulations to limit its mass
activities and movement. To give examples, we mention the
one-person one-vote provision in the Electoral Law,
anti-freedom provisions in the new Press and Publication
Law, the permit for holding massive meetings and street
demonstrations and other procedures and practices that
contradict democratic life. Therefore, our party works very
hard to protect the framework of the HCC of the opposition
parties and to maintain, deepen and broaden such a
framework. Moreover it seeks to create one common attitude
among all the allied parties in the common struggle for
socio-economic development and against globalisation and
its instruments: the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF.

We work in good will to upgrade the struggle of HCC to
reach higher levels of alliance to achieve more effective
and dynamic results.