RUTHFULLY YOURS

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  King Abdullah II of Jordan and his wife Queen Rania Salah Malkawi / Getty Images

Enter the Jordanian capital and the smiling face of King Abdullah II will greet you at every turn.

Like many autocrats before him, the King has placed his visage on any and every public space as testament to his canon.

“He is everywhere so much I do not even notice him anymore,” says Mohammad Salih, a restaurant owner in downtown Amman.

We are sitting outside his sandwich shop playing spot the king. He manages to find the King in the crooks and corners — the till at a kiosk, a building banner, and the faded photograph on the back window of a car.

Often his son, Crown Prince Hussein is pictured alongside him — a floppy haired and bespectacled teenager.

“He started appearing in 2009, when he was named the designate to the throne and the King distanced from his brother,” says Salih. “They are trying to get us used to his image already.

Earlier in the week, a friend in Jordan explained that when the King was crowned, few people were familiar with him. His brother, Prince Hassan bin Talal was earmarked to become king. Abdullah was more familiar with the Jordanian Army, and had spent much of his time out of the country.

“There was a famous story when Abdullah became King. He had gone to a village and an old lady asked in front of the TV cameras, ‘who is that guy’? After that you would see his picture everywhere,” says my friend, a local Jordanian journalist who preferred not to give his name.

“That kind of story looks bad for the King — we don’t like to say it too publically,” he explains.

It is clear that many here are afraid of speaking critically about the King.

In March and April, protesters inspired by the Arab Spring took to the streets and demanded government reform. Their key demand was that the King relinquish some of his current power, and return to the original Jordanian constitution that disperses power through various government ministries.

The protests were immediately shut down by the Jordanian security forces, while the King appeased opposition groups by announcing a series of “reform committees”.

“The problem is that the committees are lackeys of the King,” says Labib Kamhawi, a Palestinian Jordanian analyst. “For instance, in the committee for government reforms 90 per cent of the committee agrees with the King and doesn’t think there should be reforms. This is a nonsense situation that the Jordanian people won’t accept.”

We are sitting in this office in an upscale Amman suburb. Next door to us his son, Khaled, posts online about an upcoming effort to re-energise the protest movement.

“It stopped, because we were promised change. Now everyone sees through that. People are getting frustrated and there will be more protests,” says Khaled.

“Events” were being planned for later this week, I was told.

“We aren’t going to announce the dates because we don’t want to alert the King. Our movement is for reform. But the King thinks that to be pro-Jordanian is to be pro-King. They are not the same,” says Khaled.

A few days later, we meet at a restaurant where he has brought other figures from the protest movement.

They seem optimistic, promising that the upcoming protests would be “bigger and bolder”.

I ask how they feel about the King’s omnipresence in this country.

“His deeds speak more than his photos. And right now, his deeds are not making the people happy,” says Khaled.