Then I realized this story comes shortly after this remarkable Jordanian blogger, Ajloun, calls it quits, after seemingly never ending tales of corruption revolving around public officials. This is happening in a country facing political, economic and social challenges all taking a heavy toll, with a local media in a perpetual downward spiral, and an extremely frustrated people.

Brand Jordan is bust. Brand Jordan is in the worse shape ever, it seems. And no sooner had I come to that revelation, this appeared. Country brand ranking. I’m not big on rankings, but it is some kind of gauge. So not only is brand Jordan aching from the inside, but it’s also aching out there.

Brand Jordan needs to evolve into something amazing so as to regain the trust of those who love it. Brand Jordan needs its diverse lovers to find new ways of living on common ground. Brand Jordan needs to be able to reignite compassion in everyone.

While reading the wide range of comments on Madian’s Books@Café story I realized every single one was right. Nobody was wrong. Not only was every contribution right, but each was put out there with so much passion.

So if they are all right and the passion is clearly felt, what’s the problem?

The lack of vision is the problem. Brand Jordan has failed to keep the vision alive and the lights are dimming, it fell off the track at some point. Why does that matter? Because people need a vision to be able to achieve their goals. Passion helps us define the spheres we want to be in, but a unified vision helps us see the journey. And when brand Jordan is bust, we can’t see.

This task is for everybody. Coming from diverse origins, faiths, ethnicities, classes, political affiliations, cultures, colors, ages, shapes and sizes, people in Jordan can find their places on the road forward.

Shutting down the Books@Café and the other F&B outlets around the country in a way that allows the system to abuse its own rules is the saddest low point we can get to. It does nothing but drive us to lose faith and cultivate apathy. A restaurant’s license should be honored. A rule should be respected. Common sense should prevail. Public servants should not forget that they are there to serve. Instilling fear in people should not be allowed.

If our vision includes a Jordan with special rules during Ramadan, everyone will respect that. If the vision includes business as usual twelve months a year, everyone will respect that. But when we dishonor our own rules, disrespect our own diverse society, deny its realities, we become a broken people with a broken country brand. And no matter how hard we try, how much we invest in it, how loud we shout, we will not get it right. All that happens is that we pollute the intellectual, spiritual, and physical landscape of our country.

Vision is why we are able to take on change and challenges passionately when everyone else says it’s not possible. Brand Jordan needs our help. Defining, sharing the vision for, and fixing brand Jordan must be our absolute priority. If we know where we want to go, we can better define who we need to be for the journey.

The original version of this piece is here.

I recently got asked a bunch of questions by someone from a past life currently writing a book that includes a chapter on creativity, cinema, Palestinian and Arab independent production among other topics. After a few emails back and forth, the writer popped the question: “Do you mind if I include you in the chapter on Palestinian (as opposed to Jordanian) cinema?” I replied that that would not be true nor accurate to me personally and professionally and proceeded to dissect my life in an email back:

“I know that you’d like my answer to be the ideal story, but to tell you the truth, it’s not.

On identity – I am Jordanian. I never felt Palestinian nor can I relate to that part of me beyond the wider family meaning. It’s not how I grew up and the lifestyle I led allowed me to look way beyond borders of origin and just be a citizen of the world who happened to be from Jordan and from a family of Palestinian origin from Nablus. I did not grow up in a home that was Palestinian at all and did not receive that kind of awareness from my Jordanian-born father and Lebanese mother as we lived in 7 different countries around the world and I attended 8 schools during 12 years, speaking four languages and learning about the religions of the world through social studies and not ‘religion’ class.

My father was a politician and I hated politics – and still do. It’s not a strategic, conscious choice about being this or that, it’s who I am and what I am as a result of my life. And that may not be good news for your angle on Palestinian identity issue/unity/origins/rights, but it is my reality and works for me, end of story.

On film, you mention that I’m probably attracted to being Jordanian and not Palestinian from my professional perspective due to the pioneering position/entrepreneurial/being first – in truth, I could care less about all that. I’m so much more concerned about continuity and raising the bar and delivering outputs and maintaining perpetual movement. Being the first is nice for about two seconds, but it’s nothing and deserves no glory if it doesn’t become part of an industry that grows forward – and for me, that is the creative industry that happens to be in Jordan and will hopefully have a vast horizon.

Why film you ask? I’ve always loved the movies. I enjoyed my school video club, home movies, and over time I wanted to make films that entertain in a way that reflect things in my life or the life I can relate to. Most of my entertainment was American and some European and I couldn’t relate to some of it although I was always entertained by it and would seek it out. On the other hand, I’ve been bombarded with crappy Arab productions that are insulting and far from entertaining on one end (with a handful of exceptions of course), and on the other end there’s a barrage of ‘preaching’/cause related films/docs most of which I find repel more than they engage; or they are simply ‘good to know’ and didn’t push me to any kind of activism. So all I’ve had was foreign audiovisual which was extremely entertaining but did feel borrowed at times.

In 1990 I interned at a Jordanian production house. Back then they were successfully producing series for TV (and still are), most of which I could not identify with. I had no means to produce independently, so I started making TV commercials at that company. I liked the idea of creating little stories for products, I also made some corp docs to train myself and for the money (which paid very well). I started getting interesting assignments just because I spoke English, could present and pitch and develop creative concepts – stories. A couple years later I got offered a great job both in scope of work and salary at a regional ad agency which I took and worked with full-time for 4 years, making TVCs and creating stories for commercial clients, one of whom wanted to put a real-estate newsletter online in 95, and so I did that with Khaldoon Tabaza (founder of Arabia Online, which does not exist anymore, and is current chairman of Riyada Ventures) and got a taste for this little Arab digital city he was creating with a wonderful small group that was years ahead of the community around them as they built Arabia Online.

That year we were hacking test accounts to connect to the web, or dialing long distance to the UK or Israel, using a free ISP account to connect to the web. The agency client paid JD5,000 to put online 12 newsletter issues which for a few months in Jordan he could only access thru that expensive convoluted long distance way before the ISPs launched in Jordan. I was immediately hooked on the online world and tried to get the agency to embrace it, but it was too early and they shrugged it off. I got restless, and left, and dabbled with Arabia. At first the thrill of building the portal was great and I soon realized the ‘cool’ content that could be created freely, away from censorship and the hassle of the industry status quo and how it was reaching a wider audience, anywhere. At Arabia I often struggled to find or help create new original content and after we built the monster I started realizing that it won’t happen by force as people are not used to ‘creating’ and it just had to evolve gradually.

While in Dubai I felt the time was right to start making content, I considered staying in Dubai and producing, and did the rounds with some production companies, but they were mostly doing TVCs and programming for pre-sold television and I didn’t see myself there again at all. I’ve been a huge fan of mobile – in 97 I was roaming on my very expensive Fastlink line on the first Nokia Communicator/the brick, checking my Arabia mail and looking at the few portal pages on a small B&W screen – paying hundreds of dinars monthly to do that. And no, there were no sites formatted for mobile or small screens then.

So consuming media on my mobile and laptop in small format is innate and attractive to me. I figured it would be easier to start something from scratch in Jordan. So I came back and was actually looking into making snackable media for small screens, because I believed people would want to consume entertainment and information quickly and on the go. In 2003 I spent an entire dinner talking with an investment banker friend about making entertainment for small screens, and he mocked it all night saying there could not be a business model as people would never be willing to consume media that way.

At that same time I was also developing two production projects with friends, one was a docudrama about an ancient lost land, and the other was a sitcom script I started writing in English about a bunch of Arab friends living and working in Arab cities – the genesis of which was my life really. While in development, the intent was to pitch the doc to European funds. But at the same time the Film Commission in Jordan had just been announced and I knew some of the board and the exec commissioner, so I went to them to pitch my doc project hoping they had some money or resources to tap into. They had just started to build a team and were about to start exploring what to do, so after my presentation they asked me what I needed to take the project forward, I told them and they said they wished they had the means to do all that but don’t at that point.

A couple days later Samer Mouasher ( Commissioner at the Royal Film Commission, entrepreneur in ecotourism & film production) asked me to help put together a set up that would do just that so we could jump-start parts of the industry. It was a good opportunity for me to get to know the local market, and what better way to do something right than to structure it out of need. I told them I really wanted to produce and that the RFC job would be a temp thing I would help with thinking I could do it over a few months and then go out and produce. Well, nothing in this part of the world gets done that fast, so I stayed with the RFC 2+ years and developed some amazing capacity building programs that included multimedia literacy as well as the specialized filmmaking ones.

Then I was finally very ready to produce, and when I left, I walked out into a beautiful space that had various resources I could bring together. Finally I was ready and found a community around me that had kicked in. But the real tipping point was the access to the digital filmmaking tools that were becoming mainstream, allowing us to sidestep celluloid film, labs, specialized skills, etc – all of which did not exist in Jordan, and never had to. We could do digital production which made things easier, cheaper, braver, faster – allowing us to experiment and explore and do it our way – whatever that was going to be.

It’s been a totally organic progression, and now, with multiplatform distribution, I love the producing space at this point in time because it’s possible for me to pull into it everything I’ve always loved and all I’ve learned through my rich experiences.

You [the letter-writer] mention Elia Suleiman’s views on “Palestinian identity: the one which was born in the 70s based on human values, freedom and justice for all.”

Surely human values, freedom and justice for all belongs to Homo sapiens in general, not just Palestinians. It’s nice to say all that, and I get this view, but I don’t see how that differs from what any other nationality wants or aspires for. It’s the basic requirement and rights human beings seek anywhere, is it not?

The Palestinian/Israeli conflict is extremely unjust and outrageous and most of the time I find the events surreal. Maybe shame on me for moving on with my life, but in that same breath I say shame on the world that continues to enjoy its spectator status on this issue! But I also remember growing up thinking the same about the Native Americans when I learned about them in social studies while sitting in a multicultural class which included Israelis, and I thought the same of slavery in America, about South Africa, and the Maoris, and the Dalai Lama, and the Indian caste system, and, and, and…

I will not apologize for not fitting into the Palestinian mold while holding a name like Toukan, rooted in Nablus. I am proudly the product of the life, learning and cultural awareness that nourished me over the years as I lived around the world, and I cannot turn back time and don’t wish to either. When asked about my nationality, identity, where I’m from, the answer is Jordanian, without hesitation. I am fully aware that my roots/larger family is originally Palestinian, but to me that’s a detail of lineage that I don’t identify with in my present.

I was recently Facebooked by a young Toukan – a total stranger who messaged me because of our last names. When I asked him about himself, he said he was a twenty-something Lebanese.

You may find this tragic, but it’s a reality I embrace.”

More About Nadine Toukan: With an insatiable appetite for adventure, living in Tripoli, New Delhi, Beirut, Belgrade, Tehran, Rome, Muscat, Dubai, Washington and Amman while playing everywhere else was never about the air miles. It’s always been about the stories. Over the years, I’ve produced stories for advertising working with Horizon, FCB, for online communities working with Arabia Online, and for multiplatform with aspiring Arab filmmakers through my work setting up the Capacity Building Division at Jordan’s Royal Film Commission.

Today, as an independent producer based in Jordan and passionate about the convergence of artistic hearts, tools,storytelling and the power of collaboration, I’m working with filmmakers in the region to bring new entertaining stories from the middle of the east to interested audiences anywhere. Why? Because I believe that good, well made stories that entertain have and always will change our world. And because I believe that the industry of filmmaking and other arts enables us to engage in a wider progressive global dialog, transforming our attitudes and economies….and because I like the quality of my life when I’m creating with beautiful people.