What we aspire to be and what we are

[Nadine Toukan]

Today's news headlines are leading with the king's London visit and related speeches and comments.

From Ro'ya News:

جلالة الملك من لندن يؤكد أن الأردن يقود عملية إصلاحية رائدة ومؤسسية ومدروسة تشكل نموذجا في الشرق الأوسط في ضوء التحولات السياسية التي تشهدها المنطقة

I do not believe this to be accurate as our reality on the ground. In fact, I believe it is far from.

What HMK is saying is a possibility to live into. There's a lot of hard work ahead to achieve this transformation. A lot.

Let us not, again, fall into the dangers of speeching that is disconnected from our day to day reality. But let us allow ourselves to imagine this as the kind of Jordan to work for.

What we aspire to be and what we are are two different things right now. The path between them is real, hard, long term work where everything must change.

I often say that stories allow us to persuade ourselves.

The other part of that is: stories of fiction belong in the movies, not in the king's speech.