"Oh, the Places You'll Go!": A Meeting with his Royal Highness

Hello,

So today I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to meet a member of the Hashemite Royal family, His Royal Highness Prince Hassan bin Talal. The director of my program, Dr. Raed knows the Prince through their work together on environmental projects. After talking to the Prince, our beloved director was able to get a meeting for our class with him.

Prince Hassan is the current king of Jordan, King Abudllah II's, brother. He was the Crown Prince of Jordan from 1965-1999. King Hussein, Hassan's brother, made King Abdullah II the Crown Prince shortly before his death. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford College and recieved his BA in Oriental Studies and went on to receive his MA. He is fluent in Arabic, English, French and German. He has working knowledge of Turkish and Spanish and also studied Hebrew in University, a decision that he told us he was criticized for. He is married to the daughter of a Pakistani diplomat.

To read more about Prince Hassan, please read the attached link:
Biography

To prepare for this meeting, the SIT group was told to dress in formal attire. So this morning, we all showed up in our best outfits and boarded the bus. On the bus, we were told that we should stand when the Prince walked into the room and to avoid asking questions about members of the Royal family or personal questions. No problem.

We sat in a conference room for a while. We were given juice and an assortment of pastries that were served to us on a small plate. It was fancy. Arab hospitality is totally spoiling me! After waiting for a few minutes, the Prince came in. We all stood up. He walked around to shake our hands. He made small talk and asked us where we are from and what schools we attend. He was a pleasant and personable man.

He opened the discussion with a joke. It was about a Jewish man. I thought oh no! Please don't be awkward. And it was not. The joke was that a Jewish man constantly prayed to God to let him win the lottery. He prayed and prayed and had received no luck. Finally he asked God why he had not won the lottery. God replied that it was necessary for the man to buy a ticket first. He used this as an example of peace in the Middle East. Everyone wants peace, but no one is "buying a ticket" or taking steps to make it happen.

The Prince was probably one of the most intelligent men I have ever heard speak. He is so well read! We were fortunate to have 3 hours of the Prince's time. During that time, the group asked four questions. Each question received at least a 35 minute answer. Sometimes the answers were hard to follow as he was providing us with so much information that it was hard to store in my little head.

During his lecture, he talked about many things. He addressed the civil war in Syria calling it "Mutalation". He also discussed much of the history of the Middle East that occurred after World War 1. In reference to the Sykes- Picot Agreement, the Prince said "Sykes Picot agreement carried with in it the seeds of its own distraction". The Sykes-Picot agreement was the agreement between the British and the French as to who would mandate certain parts in the Middle East. Syria was given to the French, Jordan to Britain and other existing countries were divided between the two empires based on resources. The treaty said that the British/French would rule the territories until the Arab countries could rule themselves. However, we all know this did not happen and eventually each country fought for freedom. He concluded this part of the discussion with "My family suffered because of the plans it tried to impose".

The most interesting thing, in my opinion is that he referred to the Middle East as "West Asia". The term, Middle East has recently been contested as it is Western Centric. West Asia is the term that the Prince prefers and uses. Another interesting comment the Prince made was "Totalitarian regimes contain everyone in the region- even monarchs". This is interesting. Is he referring to Jordan as a Totalitarian regime? Is this comment reflexing his dissatisfaction with the current government, or head of Government? I don't want to say for sure, but it is worth thinking about. I did get the feeling that he is kind of the black sheep of the family for having different views and opinions. This might also be because he is the only true academic of the family. He also said "I'm not happy to see the choreography of the Jordanian parliament", referencing how the parliament keeps changing and is not stable. I really appreciated his honestly. He also stated that he feels more institutions and parties should help run things in Jordan: "Why should [the King] be working 24 hours where there are institutions and people benefitting from [the King's] coat tails". Very interesting stuff.

There was a lot more said, but honestly it was hard to write down.