A demonstration in Amman

Saturday I ran into this with my friend as we came onto Zarhan street, after having visited Silsal, one of my favourite shops in Amman.

When we moved to Jordan 2 years ago, demonstrations were simply not permitted. Today is another matter. That is one of the things that has changed in Amman after the Arab Spring of last year. I don't really know what the demonstration were for or against - but if I should guess probably for the King.

Now we have demonstrations practically every thursday at the 4th circle. 

Jordan welcomes Kuwait

The Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah is due to arrive in Amman today for a 2 day official visit. It is the first visit from the small gulf state in 20 years. I am not going to go into the details of the talks, you can read about them in the article from the Jordan Times. What I wanted to talk about is the public display around this visit - well actually all head of state visits. On the circles around town we have the flags of the visiting country, as well as on stretches of Zahran Street.

5th circle: a picture of the Emir and our King, Abdullah II of Jordan

You can also notice the flags: Kuwaiti & Jordanian

I think it is great to display the visits like this. It is important for the public to know what is going on. Of course you can read about it in the papers and see it on the news (well I guess, I haven't actually seen Jordanian news). In France for exemple I cannot remember ever seeing flags or pictures of any visiting head-of-state.