It is difficult to process what shifts occurred in this man's mind to sway him from trying the rather bankrupt Jordanian "left," which still stubbornly stands with Assad in his systematic extermination of the Syrian people, to aligning himself with Jordan’s Islamists, to fighting for al-Qaeda in Syria. I imagined this young man being lent a worn copy of the Communist Manifesto, margins littered with notes and lines, and him having conversations with his leftist mates about class struggle and social justice.
Then I imagined him absorbing al-Nusra's doctrine in a Syrian town, now seeing that their vision for Syria and the so-called "ummah" is the only way to achieve social justice. Having tried the different flavours of the overwhelmingly tasteless Jordanian political spectrum, he chose to embrace action, even if it meant the very reversal of his previous political tastings.
But then we cannot strip this story of all context. The climate in Jordan in 2011, which saw the birth of a wide-spectrum pro-reform (and at times revolutionary) movement known as the Hirak ushered a moment of unprecedented political agitation. Weekly protests, frequent and frank citizen-led debates, highly vocal and widespread political dissidence cultivated a fertile environment for new, bold voices to emerge, and for political action to materialise.
