Even as the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was hanging on to power by the skin of his teeth on Friday evening, commandeering troops and tanks in Tripoli against the protestors who have already written his epitaph, the protests in Yemen were gathering force, in Bahrain's streets protesters were shouting for freedom, and Baghdad's Pearl Square saw huge protests, I run into an immensely interesting and philosophical tour guide in the Unesco heritage site Petra in Jordon.

Ashraf (name changed on request) is 34 years old, extremely handsome, speaks flawless English and is a tour guide par excellence, having done this from the age of 16. He unfolds the secrets of the hidden treasures of Petra with an expertise one rarely finds in tour guides. But he also provides an interesting insight into the present turmoil engulfing the Arab world. There is no way to tell if he is being politically correct or otherwise, but on Jordan's young King Abdullah II being worried about when or whether Jordan will come under such an uprising, he says: “Of course he is worried; every Arab leader is worried. For too long these people have been dancing to America's tunes. But you have to make a difference between our King Abdullah and rulers like Hosni Mubarak, Tunisia's Ben Ali or Gaddafi.”

Invested In People

That difference, he says, is that the Jordanian government, “which is under the control of the King of course, has invested a lot in its people.” His statistics: 68 per cent of Jordan's population of around 6 million is under 35, 42 per cent of people are in schools and colleges, and Jordan is different from the rest of the Arab world in that it is a modern country, girls and boys get equal attention when it comes to education and “while I learnt English from Class V, today it is taught right from Class I and in private schools they teach French too.”

Of course he is very proud of his being a Muslim and of his country (“this is the most spiritual place in the world”), says this part of the world was the cradle of civilisation, and classifies Israelis as “the most mean-minded people”.

‘Reading opens up mind'

All this is expected. But Ashraf is equally scathing about the root of the problem with the Arabs. “When you go to London or any other European country, people are always reading… in the tube in London they are always reading newspapers. But have you ever seen an Arab reading? They simply do not understand that reading opens up the mind. That is why the western powers overtook us.”

He is most bitter about the loss of Jerusalem to Israel in 1967; “actually Arab leaders sold Jerusalem to Israel,” and harbours the confidence that “one day we will get back Jerusalem. What is taken away from you by force has to be regained by force. Inshah Allah that will happen sooner than later.”

I ask him what hope is there of that happening when Arab leaders were more interested in fighting each other. “That is true, there is a lot of infighting among Arabs. But till the Americans came we had not heard the word Shia or Sunnih. They divided us along those lines so that they could sell American weapons to us. American uses us… all Arab nations.. as a market, whether it is for weapons or consumer goods… it's all about money.”

‘People teach you …'

Ashraf is very sad about what has happened in Iraq; if stability returns to Iraq, in the backdrop of the fight for freedom in so many Arab countries, “in a few years the economy of this region could boom and tourism too, but I'm afraid that is not going to happen. Iraq is the biggest problem… I believe Iraq is the new Palestine.”

I am curious about his education. “I studied at a private school in Petra, but my knowledge has come from the thousands of people from around the world I've met in my work over years. People teach you more than books.”

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