Gov’t working to reactivate partisan action in universities

AMMAN — In a bid to re-instill a culture of partisan action among university students, officials, academics and party leaders met on Tuesday with students at the University of Jordan (UJ) to discuss ways to “develop political life at universities”.

The USAID-sponsored forum, coordinated between the Political and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry, UJ and the International Republican Institute, also saw representatives of several political parties present the platforms and visions of their parties for political development in Jordan and how to engage young people in political life.

Minister of Political and Parliamentary Affairs Khaled Kalaldeh said the existence of active political parties is a healthy sign in a society seeking to build a democratic model.

To entrench such a culture, Kalaldeh said, his ministry plans to strengthen the role of political parties in the education system in the Kingdom. By doing so, he added, young Jordanians will assume their proper role as “messengers of change”.

UJ President Ekhleif Tarawneh noted that young people were engaged in political party action in the past, citing the 1950s when students used to “leave school and the mosque to join a political party”, and meet in “streets, clubs and theatres, united by their stand against Western policies”. 

“They did not need their universities or NGOs to encourage them to engage in partisan action.”

“All this was before the emergence of the tribe-religion-state trinity, which provided students with protection and replaced parties, although the sons of the tribes constituted the backbone of the national movement, the opposition and party action at that time,” Tarawneh said at the forum, titled “The Future is in Your Hands.”