Self and Others in Jordanian Textbooks 1964–2010: A Reflection of Jordan’s National Identity Challenge

Abstract

The Hashemite regime in Jordan faced a series of domestic and foreign threats in the final third of the twentieth century, all of which were linked in some way to the existence of the Israeli state and the concept of Zionism, as well as to the conception of the Palestinian issue as an internal and external Jordanian problem. These threats continue to challenge the current regime on political, demographic, ideological, social and cultural levels. This chapter explores the Jordanian state’s response to these threats in the context of its actions to reinforce its own national identity through various means, including its educational system, and, particularly, its textbooks. It will argue that transforming identities is a salient process in Jordanian nation-building that generates a dialectical synchronisation of the multiple identities endemic throughout the entire Arab world. The Jordanian case illustrates how identities shifted from transnational (Arab nationalism) to territorial (Jordanian) and to parochial (tribe) loyalties under different conditions.