Gunfire at Rites Turns Deadly in Jordan

Sitting in a wheelchair, Yusra Ahmed bitterly recalled the wedding that ruined her life.

It was on July 14. She was a guest.

“This fool fired bullets into the air to express his joy. I was accidentally hit. Now I am a cripple,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Yusra, 28, is among the estimated 900 Jordanians injured in the last five years in what officials say is an alarming phenomenon of gunfire as part of social and family celebrations.

“My life has become hell,” she said at her three-room house in Qrayyat Salem, a 20-minute drive from Amman. “ . . . This foolish guy. . . . He destroyed my family life, and I have become a burden on my three children, my husband and my family.”

According to police, 18 Jordanians were killed and 260 were injured in 220 reported shooting incidents in the first eight months of 1988.

In an interview, Interior Minister Rajai Dajani strongly criticized what he termed “a negative and bad social trend.”

“Drastic measures are the only way to deter people from carrying on such a habit. . . . People have to feel that such an act will not pass without sanctions,” he said.

Historian Ahmad Oweidi Abbadi traced the custom of celebratory gunfire back to ritual tribal dances of the mid-19th Century and said it is deeply rooted in Jordanian society, where the tribal structure is traditionally dominant.

“Tribes used to celebrate various occasions of victory, including weddings, in a special sword and spear dance, which usually reflected the group’s combat skills, unity, solidarity, strength and happiness,” he said.

But the tools of expressing joy through dance were then different, said Abbadi, a member of a 100,000 strong tribe from the central area of Jordan.

Changes began to appear around the turn of the century. “Guns and pistols became largely available and eventually replaced the swords and spears that were used in these dances,” he said.

Abbadi, who has written 36 books on the legal, historic and traditional life of Jordanian tribes, said the old tribal custom is now badly abused.

“Now Jordanians from all classes and social backgrounds fire bullets at all kinds of social festivities--at weddings, when Muslims return from pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, when male babies are circumcised and when results of the secondary school examinations are announced,” he said.

Although some young, Western-educated Jordanians regard the practice as backward or shameful, many in the older generation maintain that it is part of the tribal identity.

In apparent acknowledgment of past leniency, Prime Minister Zaid Rifai ordered authorities to firmly enforce the laws against indiscriminate shooting.

Legally, anyone caught firing a weapon can be jailed for up to three months, and anyone possessing a gun without a license can be jailed for up to a year.

“The penalty increases in accordance with the violation,” said Col. Ibrahim Harb, head of the Public Security’s public relations department.

He said that the increase in casualties from random gunfire shows that the authorities have been too soft on the problem in the past.

“Now the law will be enforced firmly. We shall enforce the law on all people regardless of their social status and family background,” Harb said. “We shall show no mercy.”

But he added that law enforcement must be coupled with a public awareness campaign on the dangers of festive gunfire and the benefits of other ways of rejoicing.