Queen Rania, a
beauty battling for balance
By Roula
Khalaf
Published: July 6 2001 19:09GMT
Queen Rania's chief of protocol
greets me at the River Cafe and tells me she is stuck in
the Hammersmith traffic. "If she knew her way around,
she would get out and walk," he assures me.
When the grey Mercedes enters the driveway half an
hour later, Jordan's tall, riveting beauty steps out.
She apologises as we make our way to a table in a
shady corner of the garden.
She seems in a
hurry and suggests we order promptly. "I hope they have
good desserts," she says - a surprising remark given
her tiny waist. Only nine months ago, she gave birth
to daughter Selma, her third child. "You lose weight
quickly after the third child," she explains. "And I work
out."
I stare at her - as do many around us -
as she studies the menu. Her white Celine trouser
suit and small diamond-studded earrings seem fit for
smart royalty. But the camouflage top is the taste of a
fashion-conscious 30-year-old. A few lines are visible under her
huge brown eyes; the shiny eye-shadow is definitely
superfluous.
Rania, brought up in a middle-class
Palestinian family, has won sudden stardom as the youngest
queen in the world.
"Being the youngest queen
doesn't mean anything," she says, as she settles on a
safe bet of mozzarella salad, grilled sea bass and
sparkling mineral water. "Being young is temporary."
She maintains the same confident, no-nonsense style
throughout the lunch, as she displays her two personalities
- the queen who speaks seemingly well- rehearsed
lines with a US accent and the more spontaneous working
mother who attempts to juggle family life and a hectic
job and peppers her talk with Arabic expressions.
As she nibbles on a piece of bread, she tells me
that King Abdullah - "my husband," as she refers to
him - took the children that morning to buy toys (she
does not mention that he was due to meet British Prime
Minister Tony Blair that day).
The rest of the family met her in
London for a short break, following a trip to the US,
where Rania attended the congressional launch of a bill
providing $155m to the US Agency for International
Development for microfinance projects around the world.
Her star status and interest in microfinance, the
main activity of a foundation she runs, have turned
her into the unofficial spokeswoman for the industry
- a role the Business Administration graduate from
the American University in Cairo seems keen to
highlight.
"In a country like ours where we have
unemployment, where we want people to be more self- reliant and
not count on the government to create jobs for them,
microfinance can be part of a solution," she says. "It's also
excellent for women. The majority of borrowers in Jordan
are women and they gain confidence, become in control
of their lives."
There is, surprisingly, no
hint of inexperience in her fast talk, even though she
was thrust into the limelight in controversial and
unexpected circumstances. The late King Hussein altered the
course of the succession shortly before his death two
years ago, removing his brother Hassan as crown prince
and appointing Abdullah, his eldest son.
Also
awkward was that her mother-in-law, the glamorous Noor,
retained her title as queen - a move the late king
insisted upon. "There is no tension between us," insists
Rania, denying rumours of a family feud. "It's very
normal to have gossip about this. People come and go
into positions. I understand this and she understands
this - and I'm not a jealous person."
Much of
Rania's focus seems to be on helping push forward King
Abdullah's agenda of modernising a desert kingdom with a
struggling economy. She travels around the country to open
new computer centres in schools - one of her
husband's key projects. And, like him, she is often abroad.
But while the couple may be toasted in the west as a
model of modern leadership in the Arab world, they are
criticised at home for spending too much time away. Some
people ask whether the royal family is more concerned
with its international image than Jordan's problems.
"When people see me and King Abdullah, they see
Jordan," says Rania. "In this global community we live in,
if you don't have your agenda on the world scene,
you don't get the attention." In fact, she adds, "if
you ask me what I hate most about my job, I'd say
it's the travelling. I'd love to stay in Jordan, with
my three kids, in my house."
Perhaps because
the king is untouchable, any disapproval of the royal
couple has been targeted at Rania.
As we move on
to the second course, I glance at her khaki handbag
and ask how she feels when she is called the
"handbag" queen in the fancy salons of Amman, the Jordanian
capital.
"Of course I shop, every woman shops, and
everything in my wardrobe I bought because I need to be
involved in every aspect of my life," she says. "Labels
will come and go, but the most important thing is not
to feel victimised. It just comes with the
territory."
It is easy to be a popular leader,
she says. "But those who follow public opinion all
the time sometimes make the weakest leaders."
Is this not a time when the monarchy in Jordan might
want to make an effort to win popular approval for the
sake of stability? Since the Palestinian uprising
against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip erupted last year, neighbouring Jordan has faced
concerns of a spillover.
Most of the kingdom's
population is of Palestinian origin and it complains of
discrimination in politics and public service. Jordan's 1994
peace treaty with Israel - never favoured by the local
population - has become increasingly difficult to defend.
The government has appeared to raise tensions through
a ban on anti-Israeli demonstrations and a brief
decision last month to restrict access to Palestinians
from the occupied territories.
"People have
the right to express themselves but we've had enough
demonstrations. The trouble with them is that they're not
peaceful and they turn into non-productive situations,"
says Rania, toeing the official line. "And if you're
in the UK and you see demonstrations in Jordan, the
tourists won't go."
Jordan, she says, can only
help the Palestinians in the territories if it is
strong and stable.
While Rania's Palestinian
origins were once thought an asset to the king, they have
become controversial. During a soccer match last year,
supporters of the Jordanian team called on the king to take
a Jordanian wife.
Rania is unperturbed when
the subject is brought up. "When I came, people
started saying that I'll bring the two people together,
but I think the fact that I'm married to the king
means that the two people are already together.
"Now we have an uprising and people are using me as a
symbol of what's going on. There will always be some
people who will say I'm not Palestinian enough and
others who will say I'm not Jordanian enough, no matter
what I do."
As a chocolate cake with caramel
ice-cream is placed before her - chocolate is "one of my
major vices" - we talk about Tulkarm, the West Bank
town her family comes from and where her grandmothers
now live under Israeli economic blockades.
She has not been there recently.
An aide
approaches to remind her she is due at another appointment.
Half the cake is left on the plate when she rises to
leave.
That evening, she was to attend the
dinner of the Osteoporosis foundation of which she is
the international patron. I learn later that it was
the event where the Prince of Wales publicly kissed
Camilla Parker Bowles for the first time. I am kissed,
too - as she leaves, the queen places three kisses on
my cheeks, as is the Arab tradition, and says she
hopes we will keep in touch.
©FINANCIAL TIMES
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