7iber.com, the Jordanian citizen journalism web site has posted an article with pictures and an audio interview about a broken side walk in Jabal Amman. This damage was caused by the process of paving which several streets in Amman are undergoing these days. I won’t add much to 7iber’s post.
The scene above might be seen by some as just a small problem in a city that has a lot of them. But that would be the wrong way to see this photo. It stands for the general culture of sloppiness that has engulfed Jordanian life.
It’s not just the sloppy work of one road paving team, which breaks the sidewalk and doesn’t care to fix it.
Sloppy driving is killing us on the streets.
Sloppy reporting in the newspapers misinforms millions.
Sloppy maintenance has caused many governmental and public buildings to look like disaster zones.
The list goes on.
Even the shrines of private sector consumption suffer from sloppiness. It took City Mall over a week to fix its sign, which read “City All” for all that time.
Maybe the country needs to create a Quality Police, modeled after the religious police of Saudi Arabia.
This Quality Police should be headed by a creature who is a mixture of Saddam Hussein and a Swiss watchmaker. This creature will then recruit, train and brainwash a troupe of aggressive “Quality Fanatics” and “Good Work Fundamentalists”. They will roam the streets in big white trucks with a threatening looking “check mark” logo and raid public and private institutions, streets, parks and neighborhoods looking for “Quality and Safety Sins”.
Special laws should be enacted (without referring them to parliament) that allow the Quality Police to perform all kinds of public shaming punishments (let’s not go as far as public floggings in front of Al Husseini mosque, shall we) of people found to be committing Quality Sins. Collective punishments will be allowed to facilitate bringing “Quality Justice” not just to the low level workers and employees who committed the Quality Sins, but also their bosses.
I am only half joking by the way.
Comments
10 responses to “Fixed streets, destroyed sidewalks and the sloppiness that is killing Jordan”
Are you kidding me, only in Jabal Amman, you mean in all the streets of Jordan. Then you have the Water Municipality that digs the streets and after they are done the electric company comes and detsroys what was left from teh street. Then the cable company arrives with its buldozers and dig the remaining of the streets. The Amman Municipality is to be blamed for all this chaoes, not the us the tax payers
“This Quality Police should be headed by a creature who is a mixture of Saddam Hussein and a Swiss watchmaker.”
that’s so funny a line!
Where can I sign up!?
The punishment for those found guilty of sloppiness should be:
Men: Left side of head and right side of mustache shaved.
Women: Face make-up applied by 4-year-olds.
And we’ll see how they like the sloppy look!
The number of days (or years!) each person is sentenced will depend on the severity of the offense. We’ll start with all the bosses who don’t follow up on their employees’ work and move down, if necessary.
Then again, the West Amman Elite™ will probably embrace the sloppy look and start shaving off half their hair and smearing on the make-up. Ma a7lakom bil sloppy look! Shoo cool!
Sometimes, I really hate this city.
your creature may be funny but reminds me of Big brother in 1984
“your creature may be funny but reminds me of Big brother in 1984”
lol i was gonna say the same thing. I think it’s the term “quality police” they may have subconsciously triggered that thought!
“your creature may be funny but reminds me of Big brother in 1984â€
in germany, that police is called “ordnungsamt”, and they are constantly pissing off everyone by doing almost exactly what ahmad requested here. in dresden, they even have a police-like division driving around in their van taking care of dogs not being leashed. they give out the parking tickets. but they also take care of house owners not following their responsibility for keeping their own property in a tidy state.
they are probably the most hated people in the country. next to politicians. so don’t cry too loud, you might regret it soon.
I wish we can have that, or let the GAM do their supervising role.
I believe that all problems in this country origin from muscling the government by the individuals.
The government is focused on doing whatever makes the people happy rather than doing things right.
If good laws are introduced and good practice follows that, alot will change before depending on the change of negative mind sets.
Haha Yanone, I’m from Dresden, Germany too (what funny accident to meet on a jordanian design blog).
Partly I can only confirm what you say. The “Quality Police” here really sucks. What bothers me most is their attitude to stick their noses into the most private matters.
On the other hand it’s not the “quality police” who are the problem, but the people who keep on demanding them for every fallen leave that isn’t straight lying on the street.
My lawn is higher than 1.5 inches or there are more apple trees than cherry trees in my garden? – So my neighbour quickly calls the “Quality police”. So everything is clean and square and even in Germany. But at the same time everything is death.
I thought the call for order control would be a very german thing. But obviously it’s not. As citizen of Germany I must say that a bit less order and quality would sometimes be a huge relief. In this way I envy Jordanians.
Mmh…I’m wondering if this is just another case of “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”?
Yanone and Torsten.. you German guys are really funny
Disclaimer: I am half German.
Look my friends: when the lack of “quality” makes things unsafe for people, when it leads to pollution, when it leads to waste of money, it is no longer the “spice of life” that you seem to want.
When patient records are lost in hospitals, when every job done in your house is done wrong, when texts come back full of grammatical mistakes, the lack of quality becomes a hinderance to life.
Maybe the german quality police and those who call them overdo it in Germany, but they are needed here in Jordan.
Torsten: It’s not a long lawn, or too much leaves on the streets as in Germany, we are talking disasters here in Amman… Not only side walks and hospital records as Ahmad says but complete patients are being lost!
Side-walks, trees and public gardens are all disappearing, or simply ugly and not usable! We definitely need quality police but more importantly ‘aesthetics police’ and that would be a combination of Saddam Hussein & some european city planner…