Recently in Cultural Diplomacy Category

Too little is known in the US about the history of Afghanistan. History is something Americans tend to ignore, often to our detriment. We forget our history and ignore the history of others. Precedence is, in the American mind, reserved only for the law and not to the shaping perceptions or forming public opinion. This is a defect in our approach to global affairs. Such is the case with Afghanistan, where we failed to grasp (and ignored sage advice on) the impact of history on modern events.

Enter The Great Game: Afghanistan, an epic 3-part play (nine hours total) from the UK’s Tricycle Theatre, which explores the “culture and history of Afghanistan since Western involvement in 1842 to the present day.” This play begins its US tour in Washington, DC, next month. It then goes to Minneapolis, San Francisco, and New York. (Why no Los Angeles date? SF does not count.) Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, the US tour is sponsored by the British Council in an example of cultural diplomacy.

Written by Lisa Retterath of the Alliance for International Education and Cultural Exchange, where this post originally appeared.

In a recent Huffington Post article, 17-year old Maad Sharaf shares his thoughts about how a year abroad in the United States through the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program has changed his life. Originally from Aden in the Republic of Yemen, Sharaf came to Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, where he quickly learned that the image he had gotten about the United States, based mainly on media coverage in Yemen, did not correspond to reality:

"I thought America was all about huge buildings, exciting places, drunken people everywhere and going to war with every country. That was what we saw every day on television and in American movies. Unfortunately, we never saw the nice things about it or the very respectful people."

Sharaf also had to learn that many Americans had negative images of Yemen and the Muslim world in general that they, too, ascribed to the media. When realizing this, he felt he had to become active:

"It was then that I decided I was responsible for teaching the American people in my community who we (Muslims) are as real people, and showing them that we are not the bad people they see in the news. I felt like I was not only representing Yemen, but also the Middle East and all the Islamic countries in the world."

As Sharaf explains, he never got over the culture shock entirely but nevertheless considers his travel to the U.S. to have changed his life for the better. He discovered "that the best way to reflect a good image of your country, your family and your religion to people who don't have any idea about where you are coming from is to be who you really are, wherever you are."

Earlier this year, the British Council co-hosted an event in Brussels with Security Defence Agenda and NATO to discuss how "cultural" projects facilitate dialogue between groups, play a part in preventing conflict, healing post-conflict wounds, and potentially avoid conflicts based on misunderstand or mistrust. The video below are the highlights from this conference that I attended. It includes a post-event interview with British Council Chief Executive Martin Davidson.

I strongly recommend it to those interested in creating and supporting culture-based engagement pathways that to some may be "alternative" but are ultimately fundamental. One cannot hope to successfully engage in a struggle of minds and wills if one does not understand or empower the actors or their solutions to their circumstances.

See also:

• The Role of Cultural Relations in Conflict Prevention and Resolution from 24 March 2010.

Josh Rogin posts at The Cable that the Smith-Mundt Act came up in the Tuesday public affairs briefing at the State Department. Josh's summary is a better read than the transcript:

From November 14, 2009, in The Washington Post by Maija Palmer and Amy-Kazmin: “A rush to learn English by cell: More than 300,000 Bangladeshis sign up for new phone service”

By Nick Cull

This originally appeared on Huffington Post. It is gladly cross-posted here at Nick's request.

Recent years have seen a welcome resurgence in U.S. Cultural Diplomacy, which after honorable service in the Cold War, sailed into the doldrums in the mid-1990s. Today, the State Department is reaching out to foreign publics in partnership with major private sector partners including Jazz at the Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music as well as maintaining its own program of visits, exhibitions and tours. While the new initiatives began under the administration of George W. Bush as a 'soft power' response to the challenges of the Global War on Terror, they seem an ideal fit for the priorities of the Obama administration, with its emphasis on 'engagement' and rebooting the global perception of the United States. At such a moment it is perhaps well to take stock and consider the nature of cultural diplomacy and how best to harness its strengths to advance America's international priorities.

By Amb. Cynthia P. Schneider

"This is the most extraordinary place I have ever seen," exclaimed Sid Ganis, film producer and past President of the Academy of Motion Pictures, about the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the modern day reincarnation of the famous Library of Alexandria. Ganis was in Alexandria to participate in a conference organized by the Library commemorating the one year anniversary of President Obama's Cairo speech. The brainchild of the Bibliotheca's founding Director, Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Initiatives in Education, Science and Culture Towards Enhanced US-Muslim Countries Collaborations, aimed to focus on concrete projects and initiatives in those three areas, and not on divisive political issues such the Israeli-Palestine conflict and Iraq.

In a July 2010 issue of Layalina Productions' Perspectives, British Council officer Martin Rose argues for the West, particularly Europe, to be more "culturally literate" and refurbish its approach to cultural relations. Rose discusses the social and cultural marginalization of immigrant minorities in Europe, who recently have been lumped into the category of "Muslims" to the detriment of their national identities. He argues the need for Europe to be more open-minded and accepting of the "huge multiplicity of rivers that flow into our sea." Urging non-Muslim Europeans to break the "Us vs. Them" mentality when approaching cultural differences, Rose advocates building trust, understanding and personal relationships to "live well in the 21st century and beyond."

Rose also says:

• To focus myopically on our own story as we are used to hearing it told is childish, a yearning for the warm security of the nursery.
• Our inability to construct a larger Us is damaging and deforming: by its very nature it renders impossible a subtle, nuanced and relatively objective understanding of human culture and human society.

USA just won its group in the World Cup! Despite more bad referring! USA advances to the next round to play a team to be determined later this morning. Matt Ygelsias unbelievably jokes this is a result of the “failure of Obama public diplomacy” soon before Twitter’s fail whale appears.

Right, and England advances from Group C as well.

In other news:

• General McChrystal and his staff ironically fail to grasp true and full nature of the information war they are in as they roll their stones into new careers (excluding the oft-repeated highlights, the Rolling Stone article isn’t bad).
• Psychological Operations gets a necessary name change to Military Information (or possibly Military Information Support… but not Military Information Support Operations as I tweeted on Monday). Perhaps now we can have the necessary shift in Public Affairs to take on some of the proactive and preactive tactics, techniques, and procedures of Military Information Support (MIS) / PSYOP that are required in today’s environment.  
• And Ann Stock is confirmed as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs while the nominees for the Broadcasting Board of Governors are not.

Posting will remain sporadic as I am still in Hawaii. Next week I’ll be at the European IO Conference presenting on Now Media with attention on Wikileaks. The following week I’ll be in DC to conduct a seminar on Now Media with presentations from Duncan MacInnes, acting Coordinator of the Bureau of International Information Programs (just announced: 2010 Democracy Video Challenge winners), Adam Pearson, and others.

Below is an excerpt from a must-read post at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy by Cynthia Schneider and Hailey Woldt on America's "contribution" to the World Expo now underway in China.

Let's begin with the positive: the United States is present at the World Expo in Shanghai. The Secretary of State deserves praise for making this possible, by launching an eleventh hour fundraising drive, after the previous administration had done virtually nothing (besides rejecting a proposal that included Frank Gehry as architect). The Chinese cared enough about the U.S. presence to have contributed both public and private funds to guarantee that the U.S. showed up for Expo Shanghai 2010.

In this age of globalization and social networking, a World Expo might seem a quaint throwback to a bygone era. But for many countries, including, notably, China, it offers a global platform to present strengths and salient characteristics to the world. For example, Japan, known for its technology, powers its "green" pavilion partly from the footsteps of visitors who are treated to violin-playing robots, a single-person prototype car by Toyota, as well as a historical exhibition on Japan's envoys to China. In its pavilion, Indonesia highlights cultural diversity; the United Arab Emirates emphasizes sustainability, a key focus of the country, with a recyclable dune shaped pavilion. Almost without exception the pavilions dazzle with innovative architecture, and with unusual shapes, colors, and lighting, as in the case of the United Kingdom's pavilion-- a futuristic display of 60,000 transparent fiberglass rods with different seeds enclosed at the ends, designed by British artist Thomas Heatherwick.

By Gregory L. Garland

Matt's blog has become a force to behold in the discussion about strategic communication, public diplomacy, and State/DOD relations. It has shined a light on what largely was a rarified, inside-the-beltway debate symptomatic of the old USIA's domestic blank spot. What has been lacking are stories from the field outside the U.S. - examples of PD as it actually is conducted by PD professionals. Here's one from my own experience that in many ways is typical.

I've run effective PD programs that didn't cost Uncle Sam anything except my own time. I've run next to useless PD programs so flush that I couldn't spend all the money Washington showered upon me. And I've run just about everything in between those extremes. As every experienced PAO knows, basic human grit, skill, and talent will go far in assembling a program, but a little bit of cash always helps. And it doesn't have to be much, especially when compared to what other agencies spend.

This forum will assess past and current efforts for improved dialogue and exchange and examine the possible roles for civil society. In this time of intensified diplomatic action, what are the opportunities and obstacles for strengthening a citizens’ dialogue and building exchanges and institutional linkages between Iran and America? What do Americans need to understand better about Iran, and vice-versa? What communication pathways and innovations in the digital era could better convey ideas and values and support long term relations? Can civil society here and abroad contribute to the protection of human rights in Iran without endangering Iranian citizens? Are there multi-lateral, as well as bilateral, avenues for contact that might prove more effective in the long run, or possibilities to explore long-term collaboration and institution building?

Wednesday, April 7, 2010
4:00 – 8:00 pm

Meridian International Center
Meridian House
1630 Crescent Place, NW
Washington, DC 20009

Culture is how people think, says Martin Davidson, CEO of the British Council. Thinking of culture in this way creates the necessary intellectual space to conceive of cultural relations and cultural diplomacy as something more than engagement that a payoff that is subtle and decades away. It is a way to create pathways that can be leveraged to prevent or resolve conflict in the short term.

On March 2, 2010, the British Council, with NATO and Security Defence Agenda, hosted a conference in Brussels at the Bibliothèque Solvay titled “Conflict Prevention and Resolution: the Role of Cultural Relations.” The purpose was to discuss the value of building dialogues between groups that can be non-linguistic – such as sport, art, or civic development – to create opportunities for engagement, understanding, with goal of, as the title said, preventing and resolving conflict.

Knowing how people think, how they relate to one another, and how they communicate is essential within and across cultures. Cultural activities may be expressed in terms of exchanges of teachers, students, sports, languages but there is more to it then exchanging art work. We take for granted the vocabulary and points of contact even as understanding culture is ingrained in our daily lives. In corporate America, for example, this can take the form of participating in office betting pools during college basketball finals to playing golf with the boss or clients.

What role does culture have in conflict prevention and resolution? Recently, the British Council organized an interesting and enlightened discussion on this very question. What made this even more interesting was the British Council’s partners in the venture: NATO and Security Defence Agenda, a European security and defense think tank.

At a time when public diplomats to psychological operators are coming to terms with their lack specific cultural capacities to understand and properly engage audiences, this was a timely discussion.

On 2 March 2010, I’ll be in Brussels at Conflict Prevention and Resolution: the Role for Cultural Relations, a discussion hosted by NATO, Security & Defense Agenda, and the British Council . The discussion will be in three parts: Why Culture Matters, Case Studies in Cultural Relations in Conflict, and Designing a Cultural Approach to Civil-Military Relations.

Event information, including registration and agenda, is available here. More on the event will appear at www.MountainRunner.us.

Ambassador Cynthia Schneider looks at two international "American Idol"-style shows - one in Afghanistan, and one in the United Arab Emirates - and shows the surprising effect that these reality-TV competitions are creating in their societies.

More required reading on cultural diplomacy from Cynthia:

• The Great Silencing: Intolerance and censorship in the Arab world
• New  Way Forward:  Encouraging Greater  Cultural  Engagement with Muslim Communities
• Cultural Diplomacy: It's the Culture, Stupid (subscription required)
• and this related RAND report, Barriers to the Broad Dissemination of Creative Works in the Arab World

Cynthia gets it. Public diplomacy is about more than direct engagement and building relationships. The tactical desire to focus on the immediate payback of our policies blinds us to the slow yet enduring benefits of indirect empowerment of others.

See also:

• Defining Public Diplomacy