Queen Noor by Pamela Dell

Author:Pamela Dell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC

OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES

As she settled in to being Jordan’s queen, Noor’s responsibilities as a royal wife increased and her social programs expanded. For the most part, her work did not involve politics. Rather, she saw her role as complementary to her husband’s job of ruling the country. She aimed “to fill gaps in our socio-economic policies,” she said in a speech in Washington, D.C. This included developing several kinds of cultural programs.

In 1981, Noor inaugurated the first annual Jerash Festival of Culture and Arts. Set in a spectacular location—the ruins of an ancient Roman town known as Jerash—the festival quickly became world renowned. Every year since 2008, the event has brought together musicians and other artists from around the world. Since then, these festivities have merged into a new and larger nationwide event, the Jordan Festival.

Queen Noor also became active in Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN), which King Hussein founded in 1966. The RSCN was a reflection of the king’s forward-looking vision. For many years it remained the only environmental conservation agency in the Middle East.

BANISHMENT OF LAND MINES

A global issue of critical importance to Noor is the effort to ban landmines. These treacherous bomb devices are buried by the thousands throughout many parts of the world. When unsuspecting innocent people set off land mines, they are often maimed, blinded, or killed. Unlike some countries, Jordan has not imported any land mines since 1974, and Noor is an active spokesperson for removing them from wherever they are found.

QUEEN NOOR’S APPEAL TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Today, most of the world’s countries have signed a document known as the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty. But the United States, along with China, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and Cuba, is not among them. Queen Noor has been trying to get the American government to change this.

In December 2009, Noor wrote an article to mark the twelfth anniversary of the Ottawa Treaty. In that article, titled “Obama’s Opportunity to Lead a Landmine-Free World,” she reports that since the treaty began, land mine casualties have decreased from 25,000 a year to about 5,000 a year— a reduction of 80 percent. In addition, thousands of stockpiled mines around the globe have been destroyed.

At the end of her powerful appeal, Queen Noor writes, “Just as President Woodrow Wilson, another Nobel laureate, decided to forever ban the use of poison gas in 1925, perhaps President Obama, as he heads to Oslo to accept his Nobel Prize for Peace, will commit the U.S. to join the global movement to ban landmines. I can think of no greater gift to future generations.”

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