“Restoring Pride in Jordanian National Identity”: Framing the Jordanian National Identity by the National Committee of Retired Army Veterans

Ahmad El-Sharif

Abstract


This article tackles the issue of the separation between the Jordanian and Palestinian national identities as stated by a group of Jordanian retired military servicemen who named themselves “the National Committee of Retired Army Veterans”. This group has introduced to the Jordanian public a radical conservative discourse that denounces the in-ground reality that Jordan has become an alternative homeland for Palestinian refugees; so the nationality rights of Jordanians of Palestinian origin shall be removed to support their return to the West Bank. Following a historical approach to discourse analysis, the article studies the distribution of a set of topoi, themes or motifs, which are approached by the frequent reference to Jordanian national identity. The discussion is based on a qualitative analysis of a corpus of 29 statement by the Committee and the contexts in which the keywords identity, agenda, naturalization, settlement, quotas, disengagement, and the alternative homeland occur. The article concludes that the Committee’s radical conservative discourse is mostly based by foregrounding the topoi of threat, conspiracy, and their role as a guardian of national identity.

 


Keywords


National identity; Jordan; Palestine; Discourse analysis; Topoi

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/8378

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