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The wizards of Jo

Apr 29,2019 - Last updated at Apr 29,2019

The original book titled “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was authored by the American L. Frank Baum and published in 1900. The characters of Dorothy, her dog Toto, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow named Hunk, the Tin Man and the Wizard of Oz are figments of Baum’s imagination. Yet, they are real and exist in our world.

How many people do we meet who are Dorothy, or the dreamy girls who tiptoe their way to wonderful worlds like Lewis Carroll’s Alice or Charles Perrault’s Cinderella?

The Tin Man tries to imitate Don Quixote’s larger-than-life persona, yet deep down he is a scared buffoon. The Cowardly Lion roars and purrs to frighten others, but deep down he is merely a pussycat.

Yet, the real magic reaches a crescendo when all of these characters encounter the huffing and puffing Wizard of Oz. This place of Oz which is reachable through a yellow brick road was invented by Baum when he was looking at his files which were indexed under A-N and from the letters O-Z. He loved the sound of OZ and used it as the name of the place in the title of his children’s book.

Consuming a great deal of energy, guts and emotions in preparing themselves to meet the fire-spitting Oz, the characters stand in his presence dumbfounded and tattering. Nosy Dorothy finds out that the real Wizard of Oz was a small man hiding behind a huge costume and a machine that magnifies his voice and delivers the high-pitched sentences.

In Jordan, petite girls in big wagon cars drive on the roads like the thundering Witch of the North. They use their big cars as protective armour. Once any of them reaches her destination and dismounts from her big auto, she turns into a gentle daddy’s girl. This applies to young male teens who drive Korean-made cars with a huge egoistic manner to look bigger.

Others use fancy clothes, like the Tin Man, to convince others that they are important, with the “don’t you know who I am” attitude. Once they start talking you find them to be closer to pity than pride.

And then, there are those who insist on shooting their rifles and guns as freely as the NRA, the National Rifle Association of the US, would like them to do. Yet, those guys are trying to reveal their true bravado identity hidden under the guise of gun-happy vigilantes.

Many people are toting personalities aiming to impress others, which are cumbersome to them and to society at large. Many of them are innocent, but in reality they are unwilling, urban terrorists who end up killing many people. These victims should not be considered as a collateral damage; they are victims of reckless behaviours which fall outside the realm of the law.

Jordan is a peace-loving, generous country, but we should not keep mum over the illegal acts of few.

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