A Glimpse into the Netherworld of Jordanian Industrial Zones

I remember once when I was in Beirut's Hamra district, waiting for a take-away order of corn and ketchup breakfast pizza (it's tastier than it sounds, trust me). This tiny woman in a short, pink dress was ordering bread from the owner, who was attempting to seduce her with big grins and flour on his face. She definitely was south-asian, and my curiosity got the better of me.

"Are you Sri Lankan?" She sheepishly smiled and said yes. We talked a little bit more about where exactly she was from, about my background, and I think I tried to throw in a little bit of Singhalese, in vain. Well, nothing happened; she got her bread, I got my strange pizza, and we went our separate ways. But I had heard so much about slave-labor conditions of Asian immigrants in the Middle East that this encounter left me wondering, I wonder what she goes through.

Yesterday I left Palestine, passing Jericho on the Rehavam Ze'evi highway and crossing the Jordan valley over the King Hussein Bridge. (Just a sidenote about that highway: Rehavam Ze'evi was the ultra-right wing Minister of Tourism who supported the idea of forced relocation of Palestinians. He was assasinated by a PFLP hit-squad in Jerusalem in 2001, in revenge for the assasination of PFLP leader, Abu Ali Mustapha. The PFLP - Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine - is in theory a Marxist organization founded in the 60s to fight Zionism and is considered a terrorist organization by the US of A; the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades is the military wing. The highway, ironically, is given Ze'evi's nickname, "Gandhi", not because he promoted non-violent resistance to occupation, but because as a bespectacled lad in the army, he was skinny and the nickname stuck.)

The rains were heavy as I got into Amman, but today they eased up. I have always thought Jordan to be boring, an Amman is just one big slab of concrete. People always tell me to go see Petra, and I'm sure it's beautiful, but that gets old after awhile. So I decided to take a peek at Jordan's free-trade zones. Of course, I haven't read enough or been here long enough to openly pass judgement, so I will do so silently. (Free-trade zones = slave labor? At least, that's the story, right?)

I had just visited the tomb of the historic PFLP founder, George Habash, located in a quiet Christian-only cemetery just east of the Sahab suburb of Amman. Sahab is a industrial zone area, a dirty, glum concrete jungle. The industrial park stretches for miles, with 18-wheelers constantly coming in and out of guarded compounds, headed for neighboring countries by land, or to further destinations, leaving their goods at Jordan's Red Sea port city of Aqaba.

My taxi driver was confused when I told him to drive into the Al-Tajamouat Industrial Zone. The security guards seem to be bored and just nodded at us. Al-Tajamouat got a lot of bad publicity after the US-based National Labor Committee ran a series of articles and publications about sub-human work conditions at the zone; you can read more here. The managing director was trained by USAID after Jordan and the US signed a Free Trade Agreement in 2000. I walked around. There were many closed restaurants, with signs written in Hindi and English, proclaiming that they served authentic Indian, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan food. There are a few international call centers, offering calls to Sri Lanka for .02 dinars a minute (about 3 US cents). And of course, there is a Western Union, the scavenging vultures of the capitalist world.

I walk into a small store. Two middle-aged men, speaking Bengali, are buying some cardamom and some other spices. There are plenty of spicy red chilies for sale, and I see a bottle of woodapple jam, bottled by that ubiquitous Sri Lankan brand, MD. Then my eyes light up as I spot a package of Lemon Puffs. After so many years, that yellow package can still make my mouth water (screw you, Switzerland). I buy a pack.

The owner is a Bangladeshi, and we converse in broken Arabic and English. When I ask him about how conditions are here, his smile fades and he stops talking. Then he says "Ok, bye bye". I take that as an invitation to leave. Maybe I smelled bad. Or maybe he was worried that I was an informant.

I continue to walk around. Lots of buildings with small windows. At one building, hundreds of people are pouring out. They seem to be workers, all South-asian, mostly men, but with a few women as well. I walk in where the workers are leaving. At the end of the corridor, a security guard is locking the door as the last worker leaves. The worker spots me and directs me back out. "Problems for you", he says quickly in broken Arabic. "Are you Sri Lankan? Looking for work?"

Amusing that he thinks that this hippie-looking little pansy appears to need a job. No, I confess, but how is work here? "Not good," he mutters and quickly walks away. I overhear a group of women speaking Sinhalese, and I ask them where they are from. Colombo. They ask me what I am doing here. I tell them that I heard about this place and wanted to find out how life was here. They say "fine" and then "ok, bye bye."

I decide not to enter the buildings labeled "Dormitory K" and "Dormitory J". That seems too personal, too soon. I walk past another restaurant, where a group of men are standing around a delicious smelling pot of curry and dipping in and laughing. I wanted to eat, but felt that maybe I should let them relax and enjoy without having a nosy trouble-maker poking around with Lemon Puffs in his hand.

Well, I'll leave you all with a link to this video by the National Labor Committee, called "The Hidden Face of Globalization".