Arquitectura blob, blobitectura, blobbismo.

This chapter describes the background of low-income housing organisations in Jordan and analyzes the process of their formation prior to the WB intervention.

As it will be noted, various organisations and housing policies in that country have emerged and being modified in response to a number of outstanding social and political events, as well as the interests of particular local groups. This review aims to provide a context for the following two chapters, in which the significance of social awareness and political solidarity in access to resources is laid out. Based on the Jordanian housing-social structure clarified here, it will then be argued that the recent shifts in the WB's approach to focus on structural adjustments, as means of accelerating provision of the low-income housing units, will fail, due to its intrinsic disregard for establishment of grass-root housing organisations and its ignorance concerning the effects of different social and political formations in each society on its proposed schemes.

This analytical review is divided into four main historical phases, based on the important intemal/extemal events which have noticeably affected the social and political formation of Jordanian society in general, and hence its goals and priorities. A significant part of these events have primarily been out of the housing arena and namely political. They have arisen from the ongoing conflicts between the interests o f a combined modem nation-state and a traditional tribal society, in its formation period, within the context of war and economic instability. To these unfolding events, one must also add the impact of a mass immigration

struggle with a foreign power. These are the movements that have polarised the Jordanian society into separate communities, each with their own clear cut social, economic and political privileges.

1. LAND AND PEOPLE

The kingdom of Jordan is a part of historical region of Fertile Crescent, known as Al-Sham, and has a long record of civilisation from the pre-Roman era to the present time. In modem political terms however, she is a relatively young country, gaining its independence from Britain in 1921. The exact geographical extent of Jordan and her international borders were not clearly defined in colonial period, but her mainland was known to be the east side of the river Jordan, called Trans-jordan. The bulk of Jordanian territory is desert, encompassing only a limited number of oases and agriculturally fertile regions, all marked and divided according to tribal territorial lines.

Tribes and the boundaries of their territories have played an important role in defining the country’s geographical formation. In fact, Jordan was deliberately formed and carved out of the historical region by the colonial administration on the basis of these tribal distinctions, and kept separated from the major centres of culture and population in Syria and Lebanon.

To the east of river Jordan, the new country was largely a tribal society. Some of these tribes were settled in agriculturally productive areas and lived from working on land. There were other tribes, called Bedouins, who followed a nomadic life style, and their economy was based on animal husbandry of limited scale, and seasonal search for grazing lands for their animals. In contrast, the West Bank of the river Jordan was mainly populated by Palestinians whose main occupation was agricultural work and petit trade, and lived a

relatively prosperous life.

As far as the overall pattern of land ownership is concerned, nearly 40% of the Jordanian tribes were Bedouins who had no particular interest in owning land. Their livelihood largely depended on providing camels for pilgrims, travelling from Damascus to Medina via Jordan. The remaining %60 of tribes, however, collectively owned some oases, water wells and agricultural lands which were known to them as their ancestral tribal territories. Land and water rights were, thus, the prime sources of their income, as they earned their livelihood from husbandry and agriculture.

2. POLITICAL STRUCTURE

King Abdulla (1921-1951) was the first modem m ler of Jordan who was established and recognised in his position by Britain in 1921. The new king was one of the notables of Arabia, from the Hashimite family, allegedly a descendent of the Prophet of Islam. In the eyes of Jordanian tribes, this nobility and family background was attractive and respectable enough to accept him as their m ler with great enthusiasm. Simultaneously, the King had also found this tribal support very useful, and made every effort to solidify his patronage over them and to use it as a mean to maintain his political grip on the country.

In the first few years, prior to her independence, Jordan faced a period of economic decline and political chaos. Creation of small Arab nation-states in the Fertile Crescent had changed the shape and balance of the traditional economies of the region, which was based on open boarder relations. New technological innovations, particularly constmction of the Hijaz rail road, connecting Damascus to Medina, also diminished the customary ways of earning livelihood for many nomadic Jordanian tribesmen (Lunt, J., 1990). To sustain themselves, these tribesmen started to raid and plunder other settled and agricultural communities, and

the result was anarchy, instability and open tribal warfare in the area.

British colonial administration found this situation intolerable, since not only it reduced the amount of collected taxation on agricultural products, but it also threatened to destabilise the whole region. To combat this phenomenon, unemployed tribesmen were recruited into a newly formed local police or militia. They were paid minimally to stay out of trouble, and were used as a formidable force against the remaining plundering tribes. This policy worked so well that by 1939 this Bedouin militia developed into an army proper for the new kingdom, while still remaining under the command of its founding British officer, called Glub Basha.

Incorporation of the nearly %90 of Bedouin tribesmen into the army had a two-fold effect on the Jordanian social formation. Firstly, it consolidated the official ties between the state apparatus and the tribes. Politically speaking, this relationship created a secure position of power for the tribal structure and its associated system of kinship based loyalties (with the royal family at its top), which safeguarded its related clients within the newly established nation-state.

Secondly, it enhanced the social position of the Bedouin tribes within the society as a whole, and gave them a strong bargaining power to demand, and gain, access to public resources, through influences of their high ranking members, often occupying sensitive official posts (Gubser, J., 1983).

It was during this period that the foundation of enduring relationship between the Jordanian government and the majority of Bedouin tribes was forged. The new political regime needed to build a nation-state, and these tribes needed to consolidate their social and economic status; so, in response to their loyalty, the government offered them land and position. As it will be discussed this relationship has exerted a continuous influence on the process of

resource allocation at national level in general, and on government's urban/housing policies in particular. The influence of this two way deal between the state and tribal system is most evident in government's early organisations and their land allocation programmes.

3. INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS AND LAND ALLOCATION