The Good Citizen: Part I: Story of a Jordanian applying for a Saudi Visa

Ever wondered how to get going when you are vulnerable in a police state? Well, wonder no more because I have been to hell and the house of Hades and back. Here is the perfected art of attaining, attesting and applying to get your Saudi visa in Jordan, so grab your favorite drink and lay back and learn it first-hand before you indulge. 

I have been told that I have to prepare three sets of documentations. The first is prepared thru and by the Jordanian intelligence; to check if I have been a good boy or not. The second is the Army eligibility certification. The Third is your educational credibility that needs to be presented in a manner that is OKAY and acceptable with our progressive educational departments.

First things first, are you a not-wanted criminal or God-forbid part of a banned political party? Worst even are you an Islamist who has been spotted in the proximity of another person who has been spotted in the proximity of another wanted person? After all it’s all 6 degrees of connections and possibilities are always high if you extend your imagination a little bit. The Jordanian intelligence keeps nothing to chance, and has not been wasting time the past couple of decades. They have been stacking names and databases of everyone and everything. I needed one certificate that illustrates that I have been an okay citizen. In Arabic it’s called "hosn seir wa soloook" (good conduct and behavior certificate) and in this adventure I got more than I bargained for. 

I entered the intelligence building in Al-Abdali after an hour or so of continuous detours in that area. At the entrance you are asked to take off your sunglasses and give up your mobiles. The smoking-reception man orders you inside towards the detection machine. I am inside and have no idea what is the process. I reach to another smoking-receptionist with a tie. He asks for my ID card while searching for his ashtray and hands me an application form. I guessed that I had to fill it up. He provided no extra info. After I did, he pointed ahead and said: “straight down the corridor, third office to the right”. I reach to the third office and ask who I have to meet to attain my Good Conduct Certificate, the man in the first window, who is on a higher ground, looks down at me and silently points to the third on his side. I reach to the man who probably deals with my likes hundreds of times a day. I will call him Shady, as I could only see his shade thru his window from a lower ground room. Shady asks for 2 stamps and 2 pass-sized photos. I ask where to get the stamps from and nervously yells “from outside, from library”. There is certain uneasiness to that place; the vague procedures and the not-knowing-what-to-do feeling can get on anyone’s nerves. The mere sentiment that one is dealing with people who could control his fate in any direction they feel like, is just scary. My feelings were not to be disappointed, because the surprise was just ahead! 

I walked out the same way I walked in and I headed towards the library down the street next to a dump. In the library was an old man watching the news and handed me what I needed without either looking at me or exchanging many words. Each stamp cost around 20 groosh if I remember right. I went back to Shady who had a voice of thunder and a dreadful face. He staples the paper to the stamps and photos and orders me to “go to “Qasr el Adel”” (Court of Justice) which is across the road. Shady probably staples hundreds of applications a day and says this sentence thousands of times a week, and has been probably doing this for years and years. I understand his frustration. I am assuming this considering his high motivational levels he demonstrated in our few seconds of encounter. 

It turns out that I needed to get another certificate to get this one. This other one is called "3adam mahkoomeyye" (No Sentence Records certificate). I reached to the Court of Justice after a 10 minutes fast stroll. I had no idea where to get this paper from and only got there after a while. The place is abuzz with thousands of lawyers who are moving in all directions. Smoke creates this looming shadow of a haze beneath the Court’s dome. It looked like a cloud. The office I was seeking is built outside the main building in a compartment that looked like a 40' cargo container. Inside of-course there were many people caught like me in the system; half of which were waiting and staring in silence, some with a cigarette in their hands. I asked around which window to apply to in my case, and some frantic little man pointed me to what seemed to be window number 7. Later I knew that the guy at window #7 is called W. Behind the counters there was a glass office that was covered with window-wrap with the color of light wood. All missing officers, some in uniform and others in civil clothing, got together there behind the covered glass-windows. They smoked cigarettes and had falafel breaks. I saw W. sitting there while enjoying a good loud conversation. I could see his teeth shine every time the door of that room opened and closed. Eventually he came to his window.

"what do we have here" I gave him the application paper. "give me your ID card". He punched my "rakam watanee" (my national Jordanian number), and quickly turned faces. He left with my papers to his superior desk, who was smoking. By now I was following W. with my eyes everywhere he moved. I got worried. I also started analyzing all facial expressions to assess the situation. W. disappeared and signaled me to wait every time our eyes crossed across the vast number of people in the room. Only after 3 hours did I feel the need to ask for a friends help.

E. is my childhood friend and has never left the country, unlike me. His network of friends reaches the tops of people. What is also unique about E. is that his connections reach downwards too, which is more useful sometimes. He quickly told me to speak with Mr. Tall at the same office. E. also called Mr. Tall himself and told him to take good care of me. Mr. Tall immediately came along and greeted me and I told him where we at with things. He assured it won’t be a problem and to give him 2 minutes to assess the bottle neck. He came back in 30 minutes and told me that yes I do have a problem, but it isn’t really a problem!

E. phoned me back and assured me that Mr. Tall will sort out this problem. He told me that he might ask for money and in that case alone hand him the amount he asks for. It was kind of peculiar for me, as I have never offered baksheesh before, especially in this kind of manner and situation. And as said, Mr. Tall approaches me while W. eyes gazed in the distance, and asked for JOD 50. I hand him JOD 60 instead. I think I did that to emphasize they just rid me off the bureaucracy. He then asked me to head to the Arabic Police department and to call him from there.

I reached there at 2:30pm and the officer roughed me up for being late. All officers and governmental clerks love to leave on time. He was a Jordanian in a Jordanian police uniform, who I will call X. I wonder why it was called the Arabic Police, I don’t know know what it’s function was. I expected foreign officers with foreign uniforms. I had to come the following day.  

The following morning, I started calling Mr. Tall the moment I reached to the Arabic Police headquarters behind the Four Seasons hotel. Around the 10^th call attempt he finally answered. He told me to head up and check with X, and I did. The building looked like an old villa refurnished with big painted pictures of our King on its entrance which had an outside stairs towards the second floor. X remembered me and told me to wait. A couple of hours later in the smoke-filled waiting room, a low-ranked old officer asked me what was it that I was doing there, for a second I didn’t know how to answer. Then I started telling him the process of which ended me up there, he look away with indifference and lost interest in the conversation. It made me feel more uneasy. I still didn’t know why I was there. By that time, I was feeling scared that there is something that is making X delays me that long. And even worst that Mr. Tall sent me here. I started thinking what if someone had sued me for something, or even maybe it’s because my uncles and aunties are Hezbollah recruits since my mother is from the South of Lebanon. I started wondering what it is that got me to the Arabic Police. I was thinking I was doomed!

Minutes after that horrible thought, X showed up with what seemed and smelled like a falafel sandwich stuffed in his face. Falafel is quite common in these public offices. “your paper is done from my side” I asked if there were any papers that I needed to get from his side or dispatch back to the Court of Justice. “no need” he answered, he answered briefly.

Off I went back to W. and Mr. Tall. They gave me the paper and Mr. Tall by now was fond of the usefulness of his interdepartmental connections. I was sent off back to Shady again. Shady took the papers and gave me a slip of a handwritten paper that indicated when I should visit next. It read a week’s time.

I visited after 7 days. Shady angrily threw it back at me and told me to look at the date scribbled badly on the long slip of paper he shove thru his window a week ago.

I came back on the exact mentioned date. Shady took the effort to ask for the documents on the phone, and he searched for the documents around his desk. He couldn’t find them. He told me to come back in 2 days.

I came back in 2 days, which was the last day of the week. I handed over the slip to him and greeted him nicely; I thought we bonded by now and that might help to ease the process of my application. He made me sit and wait. In 15 minutes time, I heard Shady on the phone shouting at a certain Ahmed who seemed to be placed on another floor of the creepy-looking building. Shady was really upset about the fact that Ahmed didn’t send him the applications he requested. Shady got real angry to the extent that the guy waiting in the room with me seemed scared by the extreme yelling and cursing. Shady calls my name loudly, I came to the window and he throws the slip in my face, “come back on Monday”, I didn’t dare discuss what for or why am I being delayed.

To be continued…