Jordanians Feel Loss of a Benefactor

Eyes swollen with grief and nose reddened by a chill wind, Zwein Madi waited outdoors for hours Monday, determined to catch a glimpse of King Hussein’s funeral cortege and bid a personal farewell to the sovereign who was her beloved benefactor.

In November, a friend of Madi’s family asked the Jordanian king to help cover the cost of medical treatment in Austria for a rare genetic problem in the young woman’s shoulder. “He paid for two operations,” the 18-year-old said as tears ran in rivulets down her cheeks. “He gave to me. He gave to everyone who asked.”

The surgeries cost $20,000, more than the teenager’s family could afford. But Hussein, or his office, approved the treatment without hesitation, ending Madi’s bouts of pain.

Monday, she stood near the back of the crowd along this capital’s Queen Noor Street moments before the army vehicle bearing Hussein’s flower-bedecked casket drove slowly past.

“Everything we have, we have because of him,” she said simply.

The belief of many Jordanians that they could turn to Hussein for help--a view that the king carefully cultivated--was an underpinning of his power and of a popularity that was unique among Arab leaders and rare elsewhere.

It was part genuine compassion, part savvy.

Hussein, Jordan’s ruler for 47 years, was able to command the loyalty of his subjects through a system of benevolence that required people to be beholden to him. In contrast to simple, ready access to medical care, an institutionalized system of personal patronage obliged people to seek, and receive, care from Hussein.

It allowed him to show that virtually all things good emanate from the king.

“Therein lies his grip on this country, and his power,” said Dr. Daoud Hanania, a lifelong friend of the late monarch and former director of the King Hussein Medical Center. “Nothing buoyed him more than the reaction of the man in the street. He just loved to be loved by his people.”

They returned the affection many times over.

“We exchange it with him, love for love,” said Mohammed abu Rayyash, a biomedical engineer who watched Monday’s procession with his family, members of the Riashat Bedouin tribe of about 10,000 people.

Critics call the patronage system barely disguised corruption, while one political analyst this week said it was a system of “handouts” left over from the days of the Ottoman Empire. Because of its effectiveness in cementing loyalty, however, no one expects it to change in the near term.

Across the length and breadth of this nation of 4.4 million people, stories of Hussein’s generosity and compassion are legion. He was known as a regular listener to Jordan Radio’s morning call-in programs and often picked up the phone himself to offer help to the needy. Cases involving children held a special place for him.

Bus driver Samir Kanire wrote the king in 1993 to plead for help in treating his daughter’s heart ailment.

The child needed an operation that would cost nearly $5,000, far more than Kanire, a father of eight, could afford. Within two days, the Royal Court responded and sent little Wasila, then 7, to the hospital. The way Kanire sees it, Hussein paid for a heart valve operation and has continued to pay for regular treatment ever since.

“I wrote the king because I knew he was kind and that he loves all children and he would help,” said Kanire, 40, who stood among the crowd Monday awaiting a glimpse of Hussein’s casket. He said he was confident that the free medical care will continue under King Abdullah II, Jordan’s new ruler.

Hanania said Hussein frequently ordered medical care for poor patients, soldiers or humble shepherds, anyone whose case attracted his attention. Then the king would drive hospital directors crazy by telephoning to inquire about a case.

“He would call and ask very detailed questions, and call again and again,” Hanania said.

There was the case of a military helicopter pilot who was severely burned in a crash in the late 1980s. Hussein visited the burn unit almost every day to inquire about him, Hanania recalled. And a young girl whose arm was ripped to shreds in a boating accident in Aqaba. Not only did Hussein follow the case for six months, but he brought specialists from the U.S. to repair the girl’s arm.

Jordan’s huge Bedouin community has remained a bastion of loyalty partly because of benefits its members received from the king. Largely nomadic tribes that populated the desert lands straddling the Jordan River long before the kingdom was created, the Bedouins credit Hussein personally with bringing them into the 20th century.

On Monday, the clans arrived in large numbers in the capital, some traveling from deep in the south to reach the designated route before the funeral procession began. Headdresses wrapped tightly about their faces to ward off the cold, the members stood in loose family knots, with many clutching homemade mourning flags.

Mahmoud Awad Ajarme, 45, a Bedouin farmer from Naour, south of the capital, waited with his pregnant wife and four sons. Ajarme said the king was responsible for bringing his community paved roads, irrigation systems and better seeds.

“Our lives are not so difficult now, and it is because of the king, praise to God, and his efforts,” he said. His wife, Amna, 37, said it has now been 15 years since she had to carry water from wells to their home.

It matters little that such progress might have come regardless of who was ruling the area; the Bedouins credit Hussein.

While much of the outpouring of grief bordered on the theatrical, growing any time a television camera came near, the king’s death from cancer also provoked much genuine pain and sorrow.

At a spot halfway along the route Monday, several gray-haired businessmen in conservative suits prayed softly as the casket passed. “God bless and keep you, dear king,” one said in Arabic. Nearby, a soldier nodded and blinked away tears.