I did not watch this movie, nor desire to, but from the trailer I predict that my allergies will spawn on me if I do. Do not be surprised that it is actually directed by a 'Jordanian' film maker, Amin Matalqa'. Here are two trailers, try to trace the techniques of engineering affect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmqbUW0Uj7k
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc2FKIh0QkE
Even though the second trailer for the U.S. audience is clearly narrated in the familiar American cultural production voice, the first trailer is similarly situated. To me, the story as cast by the trailer, the music, the relationships between the characters and the affect mobilized are all Hollywood incarnations. It is nauseating to say the least but instead of searching for the illusive authenticity in Jordanian representations, it is important to recognize that this creation is a reflection of something authentic to the film maker and that is the postcolonial and imperial location of his reality.
Before googling his name and biography, I assumed Amin Matalqa' is another Jordanian student who left to study abroad (in the West) and came back to join the cadre of Arabizi subculture of West Amman (subjects of my masters' research paper). He though has a better excuse and that is that his family immigrated to the U.S. when he was 13. This geopolitical detail presents another, fascinating case study for cultural representation. His movie is being promoted as Jordan's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Film. It may be that everything making the movie is Jordanian but it certainly does not even pretend to showcase itself as a Jordanian story in the trailer. Or does it?
One institution of the colonial past that still operates in Jordan is the British Council. As the United Kingdom’s principal agency for cultural relations in 110 countries, its purpose is to “enhance the reputation of the UK in the world as a valued partner.” Established in Jordan in 1948, it is documented as part of the effort led by the British Foreign Office to establish an organization “responsible for the promotion of British culture, education, science and technology in other countries, along the lines of existing French, German and Italian cultural organizations. While its work was mainly in securing resources and proper recruitment for English schools and British institutes abroad, its information work (during Britain’s engagement in the Second World War) was transferred to the Ministry of Information that was responsible for propaganda.
The British Council offers school-leaving certificates in Jordan called the General Certificate of Education (GCE) and the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE). These certificates are offered by Edexcel International Foundation and Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) and are operating in more than 29 schools in Jordan. The IGCSE system is a programme of education that has been developed by the University of Cambridge for examinations in English. Examination systems, such as the IGCSE, are important for assessing learning and for determining the selection of candidates for further education stages. More critically, examination systems play a significant role in setting the curricula at the classroom level. This issue is significant for postcolonial states because “[t]he creation of national examination agencies is …an expression of self-determination.” While many countries seek to localize their secondary school examinations after gaining independence, Jordan boasts about the increasing number of schools providing IGCSE. To the students’ detriment, a foreign examination system neglects the local culture and the realities of the exam takers. This educational experience facilitates students’ entry into and success in western universities and also focuses their academic interests and desires/dreams abroad.
Along with the spread of such English-medium education systems in Jordan, English language has become an important social marker for Jordanian middle class. The use of English in everyday speech functions as a marker of difference, in an almost ethnic manner. In the western, more affluent side of Amman, (East Amman houses a large number of Palestinian refugees, working class and underfunded infrastructure) it is inescapable to hear a mid-sentence hybridization of Arabic and English. This form of code-switching has been named Arabizi. It is often blamed on forces of globalization or the westernization of Jordanian middle class culture. According to news sources, Arabizi “is widely used among Jordan's Western-educated elites, drawing ire from language purists and exposing a widening social and economic gap in the small kingdom.” The “phenomenon” has become so prevalent that a documentary was made to explore this issue. While most of the theories provided to explain this situation concern either the popularity of American pop culture or the widening gap between rich and poor, the debate disregards Jordan’s colonial history and its current postcolonial moment.
In The Oxford History of the British Empire, Judith Brown considers the position of English language as an international language to be one of the most significant legacies of the British Empire. It is often stated that the starting point of the colonial education policy of the British Empire is the Macaulay’s famous ‘Minute’ of 1835. This is so even though ‘The Macaulay system’ was directed to the development of Indian education. While the terms of the debate over colonial education policy may have been similar between different colonies, some academics warn that “the disparity in local conditions, and the distinct priorities of different colonial administrations, led to a variety of policy outcomes.” For example, the British, under the mandate, refused to even engage educational reform in the rural areas of Jordan in order to maintain a level of underdevelopment and subordination.
Add those factors to American political and military alliance with the Jordanian regime and American pop cultural invasion through Hollywood and you get Jordanians dreaming in Austin Wintory's orchestral score. This last youtube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-sl-FmWnWQ&feature=related demonstrates something else and that is as the Hollywood Studio Symphony dude says in it: “contrary to expectations it’s totally not a political film.” This, I suppose, in direct contrast to the political and politicized socio-economic cultural reality of Jordan, deserves the applause and affirmation of the white man.
Judith M. Brown and William Roger Louis (eds), The Twentieth Century. The Oxford History of the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 706 quoted in Sweeting, Anthony and Edward Vickers. Language and the History of Colonial Education: The case of Hong Kong. Modern Asian Studies 41, 1 (2007), 1.
