In the West, Rania from Jordan represents, among others, glamor, sophistication, diplomacy, commitment to noble causes. The former first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy had also revealed that she was one of his favorite crowned heads. In his portrait by The Obs, the issue of October 14, 2021, another face is revealed, not its hidden side but the one that the Jordanians themselves observe. The wife of King Abdullah II is not a simple first lady of the country. While her intelligence and beauty aren’t at all in dispute, her influence in power games shows just how bad this 51-year-old is. not a foil that shines during the ambassador’s evenings.
Very dense and rich in information on the geopolitical context in the Near East region, this long article by The Obs dwells on the position of Rania of Jordan within her own country and in neighboring regions. Among the angles discussed, there is the contrast between his humanitarian commitment and his sumptuous life. To illustrate the offset, numbers: “25% unemployed and 1 million inhabitants below the poverty line in this country of today 10 million inhabitants“, writing The Obs. Difficult not to be embarrassed by this inventory and the fortieth anniversary of the queen in 2010, organized in a desert in the south of the country, the Wadi Rim: “600 guests from all over the world including Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and Tony Blair, a military parade, tankers that watered the ground so guests weren’t bothered by dust and sand – as the country passed through a period of drought …“
The image of a model-sized queen, an economics graduate from the American University in Cairo, who is involved in many causes such as education while sporting chic outfits, makes people cringe. She sees more in her a “Marie-Antoinette with expensive outfits” or “the queen with the handbags” To not say “the foreigner “…
Foreign in her country?
Mother of Crown Prince Hussein (27), Princesses Iman (25) and Salma (21) and young Prince Hashem (16), Rania al-Yassin comes from a family of Palestinian origin. With her marriage to King Abdullah, “the regime believes that its Palestinian origin will be an asset, a means of easing the permanent tensions within a population divided between the native Jordanians (also known as ‘Transjordanians’) and the Palestinians, who arrived en masse in the country during the the creation of Israel, then following the Six-Day War in 1967“. But as explained in detail later The Obs, the divide between these two peoples of Jordan will not be repaired. Too close to the Hashemite dynasty, too Palestinian, Rania of Jordan is constantly referred to her origins and her marriage, not to mention her difficult relationship with Queen Mother Noor, widow of King Hussein of Jordan, of whom she is the fourth wife and therefore stepmother of King Abdullah. A complex situation in which Rania holds a delicate place …