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#21
07-31-2004, 04:16 AM
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Sarvath is perhaps least lavish of the women of the JRF. She has never gone in for couture clothing and fancy houses, and many of the more glitzy habits of some of the other members of the family. Although entitled to use the private plane as wife of the crown prince, she would always use the regular Royal Jordanian flights unless accompanying her husband. She never gave an interview about her private life to any newspaper or magazine, and generally no one in Jordan read very much about the meetings etc. she would chair almost everyday in connection with her various educational activities and the Red Crescent as she always prefered not to involve the press in her day to day life, and kept a very low profile. She would therefore be free to attend those meetigs in jeans and a T shirt as they were always private. ( He various orgaisiations have a a very friendly atmosphere in them, with all borad members being proper particpatory members who feel free to disagree with the princessa nd amongst themselves, without fear of repercussions, which is not always the case in institutions/organisations run by other members of the family ) Her domestic staff/secretaries/hairdresser etc are mainly all Jordanian, unlike the foreign chefs , butlers, dressers used by many other members of the family. Admittedly her car is a jaguar, but her present one is about fifteen years old, the car before, also a jaguar she had for seventeen years, and before that she had an old mercedes that was P. Hassan's second car when they got married. Her cars are always recognisable as she has always had a small silver cat figure on the bonnet where other people might have a horse or a dog emblem ! Unlike the other women of the family, she usually goes out without guards and if she does use a guard car it is a normal car following her, rather than use a big GMC as do most members of the family, including many of the women. P. Hassan and P. sarvath live in what is arguably the nicest house of any of the JRF members, in that it is one of the oldest houses in Amman, with a lot of old architectural charm, and a beautiful mature garden, but it is by far the smallest, least extravagent of any of the family members including the late king's children's homes. Clearly not decorated inside by any designer, inside it is a cross between that of a rather run down English country house and a university professor's house. No big receptions rooms, fancy furnishings etc - rather filled to the brim with Indian, Middle Eastern a nd European antique furniture, books, paintings, records and several cats and dogs. Some people who think that in fact P. Hassan should have had a grander home as crown prince complained about the fact that house has remained exactly the same since the prince and princess moved into it thirty five years ago, down to the same curtains and soft furnishings, except for getting fuller and fuller of books, records and paintings. ( K. Hussein, P. Mohammed, P. Basma even - one of the more sesible members of the family - have rebuilt , redeorated and expanded their homes several times over the past few decades) P. Hassan's married daughters live in the smallest and least ostentatious houses of any of their cousins ( and they were both married when their father was crown prince ). Their weddings were beatifully arranged but relatively low key, although admittedly with the glitzest guest lists prior to the wedding of P. Hamzah. P. Mohammed and P. Basma as siblings of K. Hussein, his late cousin P. Shakir, and many influential members of the Jordanian establishment etc all have much bigger houses than P. Hassan and the wives ( P. Firyal and co.) are decked out from head to toe in designer clothes. Undoubtedly the crown prince could have had the same if he and his wife had wanted it. Generally, their life style was extremely 'normal' with P. Sarvath taking her children to school every morning , in a track suit. Being seen in shops around town. And actually she is not unpopular with the rank and file Jordanian - admittedly there were some of the more glamoourous members of society who felt that she did not represent what they would want from their crown prince's wife. ( These are the same people who carp and snipe at Q. Noor and now Q. Rania's excesses so there is no pleasing some people). It is extraordinary that so much folk-lore should have grown up around a woman who in fact is the anthesis of everything she is accused of being. This is one of life's mysteries. As for the Jordan River Foundation. It was called the Jordan River Designs and was started by Q. Noor, with help from USAID. At some point in 1998, when the late king fell ill, Q. Noor handed over its running then P. Rania. The organisation was in trouble as USAID had pulled out and it needed a new breath of life and she was too busy to give it her full attention. [/b][/quote] Thank you Shelley for clarifying the story behind King Hussein's letters to Hassan on the issue of CP hood. Also for the background on Sarvath and the spending of members of the JRF.. Are the stories of her decorating the then ailing KH's offices true? In pro Abdullah articles, it usually talks about Sarvath's 'greed' and her 'unpopularity' within Jordan. So thanks for touching on those points. I agree a constitutional provison should have been made for him to be regent rather than king. I wonder who he would have named as CP, afterall, it seems KH changed his mind several times as to who he wanted to be CP. I have two questions: the first is, have you ever read or heard about the contents of the public letter KH wrote mapping out his reasons for changing the line of succession? If so, what were his reasons? Whenever KA or QN give interviews and the drama behind the scenes is brought up, immediately Hassan is cited as overstepping his position and somehow disrespecting the authority of the late KH. Also KA has said KH was very furious with Hassan over whatever it was he did in KH's absence - during his chemo therapy. the second is, why in the world is QR going around saying that she came up with the concept, launched and is behind the success of Jordan River Foundation - that is the name of the organization as she's said it many times and it is now referred to by her and her office as JRF - also taking credit for Jordan River Designs? Is it as successful as she claims? There are pictures from 96' I think it is, where she is at the foundation and posing with members and beneficiaries of the organization.. was she media hungry even back then? And yes, you have to be very careful what you believe in the media. Many reporters do not do enough research.. and those same reporters sometimes get it wrong. 
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#22
07-31-2004, 05:45 AM
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It is always cited that P. Hassan overstepped the mark, but I have written and argued about this on several threads and posts. P. Hassan had been regent several times over the past 34 years, and for almost half of the preceding seven years when the king was basically tired and suffering not only from cancer but from a certain degree of 'burnout' which is not surprising considering he had been in the job since the age of 16. During this period, P. Hassan was increasingly being asked to take over the day to day afffairs of state, in addition to his normal duties and responsibilties. This included making foreign visits on behalf of his brother, sitting in on policy meetings with the cabinet and army top brass, receiving foreign ambassadors' letters of credence etc. But there were certain limits to his powers. On this last occasion, the king all but abdicated. He transfered all his powers in total to the prince. Despite there not being a constitutional need for this, P. Hassan still kept in close consultation with his brother, sending weekly reports etc, and speaking to him almost daily. Yes, decisions were taken, but the whole point of the exercise was that the head of state was incapitated and decisons had to be made. It can perhaps be argued that certain decisons were the wrong ones, but no one should argue why P. Hassan actually took decisions. We now know that unfortunately many of the reports were carried back and forth by people who themselves had an interest in making sure Hassan did not succeed - ie the two men who are now discredited as being corrupt. I cannot rememeber if it is in this thread or one of the others, but it is mentioned that the Mayor of Amman was removed from his post during the period of Hassan's regency. The man was found guilty of accepting a huge bribe to allow 56 story hotel to be built in a residental district of Amman where the limit had hitherto been 4 stories. Unfortunately it then turned out that one of the major shareholders was a brother of the then prime minister and when this was relayed to the king he asked that both the mayor and the prime minister be changed. P. Sarvath definitely did not redecorate the palace nor the king's offices. The President of Germany was to pay a State visit to Jordan, and the king asked P. Hassan to go ahead with the visit. The president's wife was seriusly ill and needed special food prepared for her, and travelled with a cook and a dietician. Knowing from previous experience that the public areas of the official palace were often not particularly clean, P.Sarvath paid a visit to the kitchens and cloakrooms accompanied bu the Chief Chamberlain, the Head of the Royal Court, and a young protocol officer who is now Prime Minister of Jordan. The kitchens and bathrooms were predicatably filthy and P. Sarvath gave instructions that they be cleaned up, irrespective of whether there were visitors or not and then paid a visit to all the kitchen and pantries that are scattered about the palace for general use, to check on them too. At no point did she even enter the King's personal offices. The accurate story has been fully reported in more than report and magazine now. But naturally the officials were not pleased at being caught out as being negilgent in their duty. As one of the articles pointed out - this was essentially one of the differences between Q. Noor and P. Sarvath. The former really had no interest in things like kitchen and bathroom hygenie if it didn;t directly pertain to her. The latter did feel a responsibilty to make sure that all these details were proerly supervised. In this she is taking a leaf out of P. Hassan's book, who always made a bee-line for places like cloakrooms when inspecting a conference centre etc as he knew all too well that in countries like Jordan this sort of detailed tends to get overlooked and only the VIP's facilities are of an appropriate standard. I may be wrong in saying Q. Noor handed over the Jordan Rivers Design in 1998, rather than 1996, but I am right in saying that it was first started by Q. Noor and revamped by Q. Rania. The same goes for the violence against women project, which was started by P. Hassan and P. Sarvath before being taken over by Q. Rania. P. Hassan spent a lot of time and effort using his prestige to talk to senior police officers, tribal heads etc to try and get them to understand that these women were victims and not the guilty party. he brought over police officers from Britain who were trained in dealing with vistims or rape and abuse, to train Sarvath which have been similarly hi-jacked. It is sad that P. Hassan is not given credit for any of these in the Jordanian media, and is never asked to attend functions connected with them. I hope this answers most of your queries.
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#23
07-31-2004, 06:10 AM
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It is always cited that P. Hassan overstepped the mark, but I have written and argued about this on several threads and posts. P. Hassan had been regent several times over the past 34 years, and for almost half of the preceding seven years when the king was basically tired and suffering not only from cancer but from a certain degree of 'burnout' which is not surprising considering he had been in the job since the age of 16. During this period, P. Hassan was increasingly being asked to take over the day to day afffairs of state, in addition to his normal duties and responsibilties. This included making foreign visits on behalf of his brother, sitting in on policy meetings with the cabinet and army top brass, receiving foreign ambassadors' letters of credence etc. But there were certain limits to his powers. On this last occasion, the king all but abdicated. He transfered all his powers in total to the prince. Despite there not being a constitutional need for this, P. Hassan still kept in close consultation with his brother, sending weekly reports etc, and speaking to him almost daily. Yes, decisions were taken, but the whole point of the exercise was that the head of state was incapitated and decisons had to be made. It can perhaps be argued that certain decisons were the wrong ones, but no one should argue why P. Hassan actually took decisions. We now know that unfortunately many of the reports were carried back and forth by people who themselves had an interest in making sure Hassan did not succeed - ie the two men who are now discredited as being corrupt. I cannot rememeber if it is in this thread or one of the others, but it is mentioned that the Mayor of Amman was removed from his post during the period of Hassan's regency. The man was found guilty of accepting a huge bribe to allow 56 story hotel to be built in a residental district of Amman where the limit had hitherto been 4 stories. Unfortunately it then turned out that one of the major shareholders was a brother of the then prime minister and when this was relayed to the king he asked that both the mayor and the prime minister be changed. P. Sarvath definitely did not redecorate the palace nor the king's offices. The President of Germany was to pay a State visit to Jordan, and the king asked P. Hassan to go ahead with the visit. The president's wife was seriusly ill and needed special food prepared for her, and travelled with a cook and a dietician. Knowing from previous experience that the public areas of the official palace were often not particularly clean, P.Sarvath paid a visit to the kitchens and cloakrooms accompanied bu the Chief Chamberlain, the Head of the Royal Court, and a young protocol officer who is now Prime Minister of Jordan. The kitchens and bathrooms were predicatably filthy and P. Sarvath gave instructions that they be cleaned up, irrespective of whether there were visitors or not and then paid a visit to all the kitchen and pantries that are scattered about the palace for general use, to check on them too. At no point did she even enter the King's personal offices. The accurate story has been fully reported in more than report and magazine now. But naturally the officials were not pleased at being caught out as being negilgent in their duty. As one of the articles pointed out - this was essentially one of the differences between Q. Noor and P. Sarvath. The former really had no interest in things like kitchen and bathroom hygenie if it didn;t directly pertain to her. The latter did feel a responsibilty to make sure that all these details were proerly supervised. In this she is taking a leaf out of P. Hassan's book, who always made a bee-line for places like cloakrooms when inspecting a conference centre etc as he knew all too well that in countries like Jordan this sort of detailed tends to get overlooked and only the VIP's facilities are of an appropriate standard. I may be wrong in saying Q. Noor handed over the Jordan Rivers Design in 1998, rather than 1996, but I am right in saying that it was first started by Q. Noor and revamped by Q. Rania. The same goes for the violence against women project, which was started by P. Hassan and P. Sarvath before being taken over by Q. Rania. P. Hassan spent a lot of time and effort using his prestige to talk to senior police officers, tribal heads etc to try and get them to understand that these women were victims and not the guilty party. he brought over police officers from Britain who were trained in dealing with vistims or rape and abuse, to train Sarvath which have been similarly hi-jacked. It is sad that P. Hassan is not given credit for any of these in the Jordanian media, and is never asked to attend functions connected with them. I hope this answers most of your queries. [/b][/quote] Thank you very much, Shelley for your answers :flower: ... Your response really puts a new light on things. Could you share with us the name of a website carrying the letter in it's entirety? From the way the letter has been described - it's as if it carries descriptions of any wrong doing Hassan did.. as well as praising Abdullah. Why didn't the King just keep Hassan CP? Was Abdullah one of the people relaying stories of what was going on in Jordan to King Hussein and that's why he became CP? He claims he was surprised by the decision, but I never bought that. In every interview I have ever seen with QR/KA or QN - Hassan is always portrayed as a coniving, backstabbing, traitorous man who would have somehow been a terrible leader for Jordan. And neither the current King and Queen or QN ever bothers to clarify it. Did Abdullah scheme his way to the CP position? And was Noor trying to influence KH behind the scenes? Do you think Jordan would have been a different place under Hassan? It seems also that Hassan is not being treated with respect by KA. And KA coming off as benevolent for allowing Hassan to stay in the Country, despite of his alleged wrong doings - I've even seen pictures of Hamzah seeming to glare at Hassan. What are Hassan and Sarvath's position in Jordan now? It's sad that Hassan or Sarvath are not getting credit for whatever positive things they have done - and are in a sense scapegoats. But a lot of projects that had nothing to do with either QR or KA - they are suddenly taking credit for so that isn't surprising. Did the Jordan River designs and well as P Hassan and P Sarvath's projects, did they do any better under Rania or were they better off with their original founders?
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#24
07-31-2004, 09:59 AM
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Frankly, I think Abdullah only came into the picture by default, as it was the only way that Hamzah could be named crown prince with the consitution ( brother or son, not nephew ). I am sure that if there had been a way by which the late king could have consitutionally nominated Hamzah to succeed Hassan, things might have been very different now. I have written about the difference in the style of the two men, and how and whom I think was responsible for the change or at least the misunderstanding between the brothers, and other people have contributed to that discussion ( I think in survey says - 'Do you think K. Hussein made the right decision ?' You might find the information you are looking for there, regarding how Jordan would have been under Hassan. ) Regarding what P. Hassan does now. First of all, none of the dirt stuck on either him or P. Sarvath as people saw if for exactly what it was, smokescreen to allow various changes to be made. If anything, the affection and respect he is held in in Jordan elsewhere ( Arab or non Arab) is higher than anything,as previously it was the Crown Prince of Jordan who was invited to attend functions and join boards and committees etc. Today El Hassan bin Talal is in even more demand and is I believe trying to scale down the various international activities and committments he is involved in as he just cannot cope with the volume of work and requests coming his way ( I think people work on the old premise, if you want to get something done, ask a busy person!) No photographs are allowed to be put up in government offices and he is not allowed to be heard or seen on Jordanian televison or radio, although in the last year or so, since the war in Iraq, he has been allowed some press exposure. Despite this, he is constantly on the other Arab channels, state and privately owned, in Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebabnon, Algeria etc etc and is often on the BBC and CNN etc as well as other televison and radio stations world wide. With cable and satellite, everyone is Jordan follows him and there is a feeling of quiet anger that they haev to follow 'their' prince through other countries' networks. It is particularly galling as there really is no one else of stature ever speaking up from Jordan on any issue, and so the Jordanians feel rather let down. P. Hassan still meets people informally throughout the country, listen to their problems, and acts as a sort wailing wall for them and tries to help . He gives talks and lectures, and somehow there are always masses of people wanting to to hear him, although these are rarely publised before hand. A dinner and talk he gave a few months ago was sold out twice with people asking to come, after dinner, not to eat but just to hear him. In the spring, it got known that he was going to give an address at a private memorial meeting for friend. When it was known that he would be there, the family had to change the venue twice ending up with a hall that can seeat 2000 people which was packed. Internationally P Hassan travels a lot and his opinion is sought by many people as diverse as the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the French Foreign Minister, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury and so on and so forth. But no official in Jordan can ask for his advice even on matters that he dealt with intimately for twenty/thirty years . He is never consulted on anything remotely political or economic. I believe that there was a report brought out by the ICG and by the independent Centre for Strategic Studies, in which they both said that if the prince's advice on how to diffuse the troubles in the Southern city of Ma'an a year and half ago had been listened to, the crisis might well have been averted. How are things doing ? Well, the Al Bait Foundation which was taken from him is limping badly. Crown Prince Hamzah does not have the knowledge and stature to pull together Muslim scholars from all over the world and promote creative dialogue. Q. Rania is working hard with the Family Protection Unit but she just does not enjoy the same sort of credibility that P. Hassan did. Some of the big projects like the completion of the Wadi Mujib Dam which was a baby of P Hassan's have been finished without him, but these were projects that were well on their way, as was the QEZ in Aqaba and the Free Trade Agreement with the US, and the various financial aggreements such as with the Paris Club, the Barcelona Process etc. A sensible thing that the new government did was to keep on the same minister of economy who had worked under Hassan until these and other like projects were completed. I will look for other threads etc to quote to you. have you read P. Hassan's websit ? It seems under reconstruction as its a bit out of date but it might give you an idea as to what the man is doing these days and what he has been involved in in the past. P. Sarvath is going on with her educational projects. As she never started them with any help from the State, they are hers and hers alone, and there was no that they could be easily diverted. In Jordan, P. Hassan is still responsible for the Royal Scientific Society, The Higher Council for Science and Technology, The Arab Thought Forum, the Royal Intitutue for Inter faith Studies, amongst others, which he started as private initiatives .
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#25
07-31-2004, 11:22 AM
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#26
07-31-2004, 05:44 PM
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__________________
I don't know if I ♥ the Hassan family any more.
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#27
07-31-2004, 05:51 PM
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__________________
I don't know if I ♥ the Hassan family any more.
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#28
07-31-2004, 05:55 PM
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 Private message to QR: I hope you are reading this and take a page. 
__________________
I don't know if I ♥ the Hassan family any more.
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#29
08-01-2004, 12:42 AM
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Once again, thank you Shelley for your answers.
And especially for the detailed information you provided. I haven't visited Hassan's site.. Yes! I totally agree Abdullah became CP by default. And Papillon - I totally agree that QN continually saying she did not press for Hamzah to be CP - is not true. I too think she pressed hard and championed for her son to be named CP. I also agree that Abdullah was not the right choice - Hassan should have become King. Also, I must say that in light of what I've learned about Hassan recently - positive things - it's sickening that other members of the JRF were 'built up' by trashing Hassan. And that he never spoke out or trashed them back says he is a class act. And sorry, but in reference to Hamzah as King - I think the king's love for his son - in a sense blinded him to who really was the best man for the job.
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#30
08-01-2004, 12:43 AM
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Private message to QR: I hope you are reading this and take a page. [/b][/quote]Careful Papillon - or you'll be accused of harboring jealousy for QR :P
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#31
08-01-2004, 12:48 AM
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Shelley, was it KH's hope that KA ruled until he died - or is Abdullah expected to abdicate sometime in the near future?
And also what do you make about the stories of the KA/QR's spending, the stories about the silverware and the Kuwaiti oil aid money said to have been deposited in private foreign accounts managed by abdullah and his bros for parties? It sounds to me, Sarvath would have made a better Queen than Rania.. You seem knowledgeable on Jordan - are KA and QR good rulers?
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#34
08-01-2004, 02:03 AM
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There has been no mention in the Jordanian press about the silverware but it would not stupid not to assume that many new items have been ordered for the new palace that the king and queen have recently moved into. The oil scandal is much talked about, both in the media and by people. There seems to be no clear answer. All I hear is that the Prime Minister met with concerned parliamentarians in a closed session to reassure them that all was well, and they left yet more angry and disatissfied with what he had to tell them ! The Kuwaiti Parliament is less discreet and there have been many questions raised there. I don't know about Sarvath being a better queen - certainly she would have been conscientous. But from a whole a whole swathe of society's point of view perhaps she would have been a disappointment as I am sure that well into her fifties, and having established her lifestyle as crown princess, she would not have found much need to change. For instance, I doubt that she and P. Hassan would have moved out of their home into something larger and more palatial. They in any case used to use the large dining rooms in Basman and Raghadan Palaces for state entertaining when necessary and I am pretty sure that they would have continued to do so ( King Juan Carlos in Spain did much the same thing when he became King ). And she really did have a reputation for not suffering fools and hanger-ons lightly, ( which is why people who were the couples' friends in their crown princely days are still their friends - they were genuine and not in it for what they could get out of the friendship), |
