It was a rainy morning in Amman, the kind where the sky feels half asleep and the streets smell of wet asphalt. My alarm was set for 5:00 a.m., but I only dragged myself out of bed at 5:45. The bus would arrive at 6:15, which left me exactly thirty minutes to transform from a groggy teenager into a school-ready student.
I dashed around the house in a blur: cold water shocking my eyelids awake, toothbrush foaming, hair yanked into a bun because the principal had a personal vendetta against loose hair, a swipe of pink lip gloss subtle enough to escape authority yet obvious enough for my crush to hopefully notice. I always tried to follow the rules, while others in my class flouted them with a reckless ease I secretly envied.
I stood waiting in the drizzle until the yellow bus pulled up. Inside, my school mates were slumped behind drawn curtains, cocooned in sleep. From the outside, I could see everything: faces slumped against the glass, mouths slack in sleep. I climbed in, slid into my seat, pulled out my BlackBerry, hit play on Lil Wayne’s How to Love, the song my crush had sent me the day before, and opened Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun. American music in my ears, Palestine on the page. In that small, private rebellion, I existed between contradictions, savoring the moment before the day’s orchestrated rituals began.
By 7:30, we were lined up in the schoolyard for the dreaded “daily radio.” Rows of students stood by class: grade 9A, 9B, 9C, 9 IGCSE. The routine never changed. Arms raised, jogging in place, spacing carefully so I could lean toward my best friends later with whispered stories about MSN chats and teenage secrets. It felt silly, almost performative. But there was a lesson embedded in every motion: authority begins by disciplining bodies. The physical rehearsal of obedience primes the mind to accept hierarchy, a subtle pedagogy of power that extended far beyond the schoolyard. And by the time you are old enough to question power, your muscles have already memorized obedience.
Then came the “did you know?” trivia no one cared about, followed by stiff student recitations of dead poets, historical dates, and monuments. It always felt like an endurance test. Brain numb, body restless, eyes darting for distraction. And then, the anthem.
Most schools stuck to the official one, al-salam al-malaki (The Royal Salute). Backs straight, hands pressed firmly at our sides, voices pressed into unison as we praised the king. Three chosen students commanded the ritual: one tugging the rope to lift the Jordanian flag, the other two a few steps behind, fingers raised in a perfect, practiced salute. Written by Palestinian-Jordanian poet turned prime minister Abd Al-Munim Al-Rifai and modeled explicitly on Britain’s “God Save the King,” the anthem glorified the monarch as guide and master of the people.
The symbolism was clear. Although independence had been declared in 1946, the kingdom still carried the language of its colonizer. Singing it every day was pedagogy: sovereignty belonged not to the people but to the crown. It rehearsed a hierarchy long planted by Britain, a hierarchy that demanded our loyalty before it demanded our voice. The anthem was not about us; it was about obedience.
“Long live the King! Long live the King!
His position sublime, his banners waving in glory supreme
We achieved our goal
When you revived in us a renaissance that motivates us
That towers above the high, shooting stars
O King of the Arabs, you are greatly honored
By being a descendant of the best of Prophets, a great lineage
That all major books spoke of
The glorious youth are your devoted soldiers
Their resolve shall never subside
Because from you, they learn perseverance
May you always be a light, a guide, and a master among people
Delighted and exalted, and under your banners, the glory of the Arabs rises high.”
But my school had its own ritual. Before saluting the king, we always sang mawtini (My Homeland), the anti-colonial unofficial anthem written by Palestinian poet Ibrahim Tuqan in 1934. It is an anthem of exile and resistance, memorized by heart across the Arab world, especially in Jordan, where more than half the population has Palestinian roots. Unlike al-salam al-malaki, mawtini was not about obedience. It was about dignity, resistance, and liberation.
My homeland, My homeland
Glory and beauty, sublimity and splendor,
are in your hills, in your hills
Life and salvation, joy and hope
are in your air, in your embrace
Will I see you? Will I see you
safe, blessed, victorious, and dignified?
Will I see you rise to your heights,
reaching toward the skies, reaching toward the skies?
My homeland, my homeland
The youth will not tire,
until your independence is won
Or they die, or they die
We will drink from death and will not be to our enemies
Like slaves, like slaves
We do not want, we do not want
An eternal humiliation nor a miserable life
We do not want, but we will bring back
Our proud glory, our proud glory
My homeland, My homeland
The sword and the pen, not idle words nor quarrel
Are our symbols, are our symbols
Our glory, our promise, and our duty
Moves us forward, moves us forward
Our glory, our glory
Is an honorable cause
And a waving standard
O, behold you
In your eminence
Victorious over your enemies
Victorious over your enemies
My homeland, my homeland”
Every morning, amid gossip, giggles, and teenage drama, our voices rose with a conviction we barely understood. Eyes stung, lungs ached, but we shouted Tuqan’s words: “we will drink from death, and will not be to our enemies like slaves.” Even at fifteen, we felt the weight of it. It was not just a song. It was a collective refusal, a rehearsal of a memory and a homeland denied. All of us were swept up in its promise: that our homeland would one day be free, that we would not accept eternal humiliation.
The contrast was almost absurd. One anthem glorified monarchy and promised glory through the monarch, the other glorified freedom through struggle. One demanded loyalty to the Hashemite crown, the other promised resistance. And there we were, teenagers caught in the middle, standing in the rain, rehearsing both scripts at once. Jordan in our lungs, Palestine in our heart. Our schoolyard condensed the politics of belonging: allegiance was important, memory was survival, and identity was layered.
And then we’d be ushered into classrooms whose walls told the same story: posters of Palestinian poets like Fadwa Tuqan and Mahmoud Darwish alongside tributes to the royal family. Our education was half state curriculum, half collective memory. Jordanian nationalism was spliced with Palestinian grief and pride. We learned Jordan’s history but also Jordan’s custodianship of Jerusalem. We learned about advancements in education and healthcare systems under the king, but also the Battle of Karameh, when Jordanian soldiers and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) fought side by side. We studied British English grammar, yet our talent shows overflowed with embroidery and Palestinian dabke. We learned the anthem of one homeland, while yearning for another. And between them, we grew fluent in contradictions.
Even at home, the layering continued. Fridays meant steaming mansaf, Jordan’s national dish of lamb, rice, and fermented yogurt sauce, anchoring us in Jordanian hospitality and generosity. Tuesdays meant musakhan, roasted chicken and caramelized onions over bread, a dish inseparable from Palestinian identity. No graduation party was complete without Habiba’s Palestinian knafeh, golden and sticky with syrup. Food, like anthems, carried politics: mansaf said “you belong here.” Musakhan and Knafeh said “don’t forget where you came from.” Our identities were layered, negotiated, and deeply political. Not in the abstract language of a classroom lesson, but in how we moved, sang, ate, and remembered.
By the end of each day, we carried these contradictions: allegiance and defiance, stability and memory, colonial legacy and anti-colonial resistance. Identity, I learned, is not a neat allegiance. It is an anthem layered over a poem, traditions layered over memory, mansaf layered over musakhan, love for Jordan over pain from Palestine’s loss. Each layer visible, each one refusing to vanish. Rain-slicked streets, the yellow bus, the echo of both anthems, the smell of wet asphalt, all became markers of a childhood lived between worlds, a geography of loyalty, belonging, and diaspora. Jordan was home, a generous one, yet it too bore the weight of colonial design, where loyalty to the throne was ritualized into the body. Palestine was a memory, grief, and resistance. And we, children of both lands, learned early that politics, history, and identity are never abstract. They are in the rain, the songs, the food, and the very air we breathe.
"Every morning, amid gossip, giggles, and teenage drama, our voices rose with a conviction we barely understood. Eyes stung, lungs ached, but we shouted Tuqan’s words: “we will drink from death, and will not be to our enemies like slaves.” Even at fifteen, we felt the weight of it. It was not just a song. It was a collective refusal, a rehearsal of a memory and a homeland denied."
This (and everything you're doing here) is so vivid and powerful!