Abdullah II
The king stays on the powder keg
Abdullah II bin al-Hussein at a performance in Berlin.
© imago/Reiner Zensen
Abdullah II. bin al-Hussein can be celebrated. The King of Jordan turns 60 on January 30. Here’s what you need to know about him…
A king celebrates his birthday, and a round one at that. He will be 60 years old. Schoolchildren sing, little girls scatter flowers, dignitaries stand in line to wish them well, soldiers may even fire a salute of honor. How you imagine it when a king turns 60. This or something similar will probably also happen with Abdullah II. bin al-Hussein. The King of Jordan turns 60 on January 30.
In Western media, Abdullah II has the image of an oriental ruler straight out of a picture book. This is not least due to his attractive wife Rania (51), who is considered the most beautiful queen in the world. The royal family resides in the Raghadan Palace above the capital Amman, the great-grandfather King Abdullah I had it built in 1926.
Glamorous ambience
Abdullah II likes to appear in uniform, he is pro-Western and completed his military training in England (Sandhurst Officers Academy) and political studies in Oxford and the USA (Washington University). Moreover, his mother is English by birth – which also contributes to the glamorous ambience of this king:
Antoinette “Toni” Gardiner (80), daughter of a British officer, worked in 1961 as a film assistant on the Hollywood epic “Lawrence of Arabia” (seven Oscars). Jordanian soldiers acted as extras during the shooting in the desert. Occasionally, Abdullah’s father, Jordanian King Hussein I (1935-1999), stopped by the set and that’s where he met Gardiner.
“Star Trek” fan
Love must have struck like lightning, because the couple married in May 1961. Gardiner became Princess Muna al-Hussein, and Abdullah was born at the end of January 1962. The marriage ended in divorce in 1971, and Muna still lives in Jordan today. Her son apparently inherited her passion for film: in 1996, the self-confessed science fiction fan starred as an extra in the role of Lieutenant Junior Grade in the US series “Star Trek: Raumschiff Voyager”.
As a young king, he liked to slip into other roles to explore problems in his country. He allegedly disguised himself as a beggar or went to the Zarqa free trade zone as a journalist and listened to the complaints of the businessmen.
“The royal family avoids any personality cult and strives for a modest and down-to-earth charisma,” wrote the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” years ago. Queen Rania’s children’s book, “The Exchange of Lunches,” a parable for a peaceful coexistence of cultures in the Middle East, is an example of the closeness to the people that Abdullah strives for, which the majority of the population perceives positively.
Characterized by conflict
Abdullah II does not live and work in the comfortable feel-good zones of western royal families such as in the Netherlands, Sweden or Norway. He is king of a country with a constitutional monarchy. The ruler, who also sees himself as the protector of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third most important shrine, is the head of state and supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces of an Arab country of ten million inhabitants, which is marked by internal and external conflicts. His father and predecessor King Hussein was assassinated more than 30 times, all of which he survived. Great-grandfather King Abdullah I was shot in Jerusalem in 1951.
The marriage with the beautiful Rania also has a serious political background. Rania comes from a Palestinian family. This marriage was intended to placate the Palestinian refugees, who make up more than 50 percent of the local population, and to pacify Jordan’s internal political tensions. This has been reasonably successful, the royal couple functions as a link between the long-established Jordanians and the immigrant Palestinians. There are also millions of refugees from Iraq and Syria.
Merkel pays tribute to him
As nice as the stories of Abdullah and Rania sound – on the first date he is said to have cooked “traditional Japanese cuisine” for them – the political reality of the king and his family is just as serious. For Abdullah, a humane refugee policy is the cornerstone of his rule. In 2019 he was presented with the “Lamp of Peace”. The then German Chancellor Angela Merkel (67), winner of the 2018 award, said in her laudatory speech: “Your Majesty, you are dealing with the atrocities of war with humanity.”
However, Abdullah must always reckon with the worst. “The ruling family, which is sponsored by the West and works with Israel, has many enemies – including Islamists, other Arab ruling dynasties and, time and again, members of their own family,” wrote the “Spiegel” last spring. Then it became known that Abdullah’s “tightly organized security apparatus” was apparently able to thwart a putsch. One of the masterminds is said to have been his half-brother Hamsa (42). The crisis could be averted. Hamsa later pledged his “full loyalty” to his brother. And King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein remains what he has been since his coronation 22 years ago: a king on a powder keg.