The Joy of the Jordanian People
From north to south, the whole people participate in the joyous celebration of the wedding of their beloved Prince Hussein. Rami Khaled, a Jordanian traditional music singer, performed in the Bedouin tent right next to the most famous archaeological site in Jordan. On Rainbow street, the waiters of a bar left the tables and went down to the street to improvise the dabkeh, the rhythmic dance that men do in line, holding hands to the sound of percussion and bagpipe instruments. Everywhere flags, banners and music, and a ferment that crosses Jordan from north to south. To curious tourists, Jordanians point to a giant photo of the two spouses, Rajwa and Hussein. She, a 29-year-old Saudi, he a 28-year-old heir to the Jordanian throne, are the portrait of happiness, as well as of beauty and modernity. The new icons of this country, where tradition perfectly coexists with modernity, seem to have awakened the spirit of belonging and identity.
The Royal Wedding of Prince Hussein
Already from the morning of Thursday, June 1, the day of the wedding, on the super highway of the desert, which runs from the Red Sea to Amman, countless white minivans are heading for the capital. Looking at them, you seem to hear the music at full volume that resonates inside the compartments and that the passengers accompany by clapping their hands and greeting the passers-by. That of Prince Hussein, protagonist of the numerous songs written for the occasion, is the first royal wedding of a Hashemite heir to the throne and certainly the most sumptuous for many years. The last one dates back to 1993, when his mother Queen Rania and his father King Abdullah II married, who was not yet the heir prince. On the throne sat Hussein I and the designated heir was Prince Hassan, brother of the King. So many things have changed since then and today the future of Jordan is destined to the hands of this boy, already captain of the Jordanian Arab forces, graduated from the Military Academy of Sandhurst (like Prince William, expected for the wedding with Princess Catherine) and Georgetown University in Washington. He has several interventions to the Security Council and the General Assembly of the UN, a discreet experience of international diplomatic missions next to his father, he is brilliant, sporty, loved by the people and since 2004 destined to receive the scepter of the country instead of his uncle Hamzah, son of his grandfather Hussein and the former Queen Noor.
The Icons of Jordan
The Christian Madaba, the cities of the north and the most isolated villages of the desert are not behind. The new icons of this country, where tradition perfectly coexists with modernity, seem to have awakened the spirit of belonging and identity. Already from the morning of Thursday, June 1, the day of the wedding, on the super highway of the desert, which runs from the Red Sea to Amman, countless white minivans are heading for the capital. Looking at them, you seem to hear the music at full volume that resonates inside the compartments and that the passengers accompany by clapping their hands and greeting the passers-by. That of Prince Hussein, protagonist of the numerous songs written for the occasion, is the first royal wedding of a Hashemite heir to the throne and certainly the most sumptuous for many years. The new icons of this country, where tradition perfectly coexists with modernity, seem to have awakened the spirit of belonging and identity.
