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Analysis: Public Diplomacy
Talk of the Nation: August 26, 2004
Fighting Terrorism with Diplomacy
NEAL CONAN, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
In testimony to a House subcommittee earlier this week, 9-11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean argued that the fight against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda is in large part a war of ideas.
Former Governor THOMAS KEAN (Republican, New Jersey; Chairman, 9-11 Commission): Reflecting on bin Laden's success in reach Muslim audiences, Richard Holbrooke wondered: How can a man in a cave outcommunicate the world's leading communication society? Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, `Worried to us that Americas have been exporting our fears and our anger, not our vision of opportunity and hope.' Just as we did in the Cold War, we need to defend our ideals aboard and we've got defend them vigorously. America does stand for values, and at our best, we always have stood up for those values. If the United States does not act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world, the extremists are going to define us instead.
CONAN: The report of the 9-11 Commission concludes that public diplomacy is a critical tool in helping the US defeat an ideology rather than just a group of people, and the report recommends that the United States must reach out to Arab and Islamic young people with messages of freedom, tolerance, opportunity and promise, that broad message of hope. But opinion polls show that regard and support for the United States has plummeted since 9/11. And last week, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice conceded that, `We are obviously not very well organized for the side of public diplomacy. There is more that the government should do.'
Later in the program, a human rights viewpoint on the Abu Ghraib reports and many of the veteran stars of women soccer play their last international match today, a gold medal game at the Athens Olympics.
But now the second in our series on the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission, a look at public diplomacy. How important is this war of ideas? How much money should we spend on it? And what's the best way to move ahead? Our number here in Washington is (800) 989-8255. That's (800) 989-TALK, and the e-mail address is totn@npr.org.
Joining us now is Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the 9-11 Commission, formerly a Democratic congressman, and he joins us by phone from his office here in Washington.
And it's good to have you back on TALK OF THE NATION.
Former Representative LEE HAMILTON (Democrat, Indiana; Vice Chairman, 9-11 Commission): Thank you. Very good to be with you and NPR.
CONAN: First, could you define what we're talking about? When we say public diplomacy, what do we mean?
Mr. HAMILTON: Public diplomacy is part, of course, of our foreign policy diplomacy in general. It means getting the message of the United States and its policy out into the world in an accurate manner. It's more, however, than just a matter of mechanism. The content of the message itself is important, but it is an effort to persuade people across the world to American ideas and values.
CONAN: The comparison always drawn as to the public diplomacy campaigns during the Cold War.
Mr. HAMILTON: Yes. And I think we had a very active and eventually successful public diplomacy program during the Cold War. It had a lot of elements to it--libraries and exchanges and public messages of all kinds and descriptions. And it took a while to penetrate, but eventually I think it was successful.
CONAN: The Cold War also--well, I guess a lot of people certainly remember the broadcasts of Radio Liberty and Voice of America that were beamed into the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe. Obviously, similar kinds of things are happening now in the Middle East.
Mr. HAMILTON: Yes, they are, but we have a very difficult setting I think for our public diplomacy. You have a large number of adult Arabs who are illiterate. You have many hundreds of thousands, millions of people living on a few dollars a day. You have only a very small percentage. I think it's less than 2 or 3 percent who have access to the Internet. You have a large number of these folks who are angry at the United States. I think you referred to that just a moment ago. So it's not an easy setting or environment for our public diplomacy.
CONAN: And the resentment, isn't that a reflection of US foreign policy?
Mr. HAMILTON: I think it is in part, but I don't think that's the whole answer by any means. I think you're dealing with societies that have a very high degree of frustration and hopelessness. We've all seen the very high figures of unemployment for adults, particularly adult males and adult women, too. There's a lot of dissatisfaction and anger with their own governments that are very repressive, and oftentimes, the leaders of these countries redirect the resentment and the hostilities that exist in the society, not towards their own governments, of course, but towards the United States. But you're also correct. There are a number of American policies that do not sit well with the Arab world, with the Islamic world, and those policies are a hurdle, if you would, an obstacle to overcome if we're going to have an effective, successful public diplomacy.
CONAN: One of the lessons of the Cold War that the 9-11 Commission report concludes is that short-term gains of cooperation with repressive governments often outweighed the long-term goals that America was trying to communicate.
Mr. HAMILTON: Well, that's correct, but it's easy for us on the commission to say that.
CONAN: Well...
Mr. HAMILTON: The short-term gains are terribly important.
CONAN: ...President Bush said it just a couple of months ago.
Mr. HAMILTON: Well, that's correct, but the short-term gains are very important. Let's take the war on terrorism in Pakistan. The ultimate nightmare of terrorism is that an Islamic radical government controls nuclear weapons, and that could happen in a country like Pakistan. So there's a short-term gain, of course, for US policy to try to keep in power, if you would, a President Musharraf who often speaks of moderation in the Islamic world. So that's a short-term gain.
It's terribly, terribly important and you just can't give up on these short-term goals of American foreign policy because of their importance, but you do have to try to keep in mind at the same time that the United States has certain values and those values we want to try and promote and project.
CONAN: Our number if you'd like to join our conversation is (800) 989-8255; (800) 989-TALK. Our e-mail address is totn@npr.org. Our guest is Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the 9-11 Commission, and we're talking about one of the recommendations, part of our series on the recommendations, of the 9-11 Commission today: public diplomacy. Let's take a call from Alex. Alex is on the line from Miami, Florida.
ALEX (Caller): Yes. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Mr. Hamilton, with all due respect, I think you are misguided and you have missed the point. Just so I can frame this for you. I am an Arab but I've been here 20 years. I'm married to an American and my children are born here. So I'm not some Taliban/al-Qaeda supporter and I have to tell you, I have been so disappointed and so frustrated by American foreign policy towards the Middle East. And if there was no Islamic terrorism, there would be some other--whatever kind, a Marxist, a Socialist--upheaval in the Middle East because of American foreign policy.
And I believe that part of the problem is not just Islamic fundamentalism as you claim but also Judeo-Christian fundamentalism. I think that what you need to do is, instead of wasting all that money on trying to brainwash Middle Easterners, over one billion Muslims, I think what you need to do is probably look at the 70 million fundamentalists in this country and the 5.5 million Jews in this country who have the idea, for example--this is just an example--that Israel, the land of Palestine, belongs to Jewish people only. This is one example. I would like to hear your comment on that.
CONAN: Well, just a reminder that Lee Hamilton is a former congressman, and even at that was not a policy-maker, but go ahead, Lee Hamilton.
Mr. HAMILTON: Well, I don't think I missed the point. I just said a moment ago that there are a lot of grievances against American foreign policy that contribute to this attitude towards the United States today. And certainly the posture of the United States vis-a-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of them, not the only one. American foreign policy often supports regimes that are very far from being democratic, often can be characterized as repressive. The fact that we occupy Iraq today is certainly a very difficult point for American foreign policy. So I don't believe the 9-11 Commission report missed any of those things. We also said that there are other factors involved, but these are very, very difficult matters. No question about it the callers right about that.
CONAN: Should the goal of American public diplomacy be to try to persuade the jihadists, the al-Qaeda members or to try to persuade the vast numbers of Arabs and Muslims?
Mr. HAMILTON: Well, we make a sharp distinction. If you look at the Osama bin Laden types, the people who are very close to him, al-Qaeda and its various networks, I don't think it's very realistic to assume that we can convert those folks to a very peaceful point of view. They are dug in. They've made it very clear they want to kill us, they want to kill as many as they possibly can. They want to hit American targets wherever they can, and, of course, they advocate violence as a way of doing it. We do not think that that is typical of the Islamic point of view generally, but we do think that the non-al-Qaeda group, the non-radical group, the group that does not support violence is by far the largest group. It's spread across the world from Morocco to Indonesia.
And the war on terrorism has to be won, I think, in appealing to those people. They're good people. They may have a sympathy for Osama bin Laden and some of his goals. They may have a number of objections as the previous caller did to American foreign policy, but they do not advocate violence as a way of solving these problems. And so our public diplomacy has to be aimed at this second group. We probably cannot succeed in converting the first group.
CONAN: Let's take a call now from Drew who's on the line from Wichita, Kansas.
DREW (Caller): You gentlemen have done an excellent job in framing, I think, the issue that not only do we have with just this particular topic but with our entire society today, and you've just a second ago, sir, said exactly the crux of this whole conflict. When the president said this is going to be a war unlike any other, he was absolutely correct more than he knew because this is a war about information. Right now our society I think is struggling to go ahead and fight a fight not just here and overseas I think even domestically of being able to say, `Who has the most believable, who has the most trustworthy information?' And sometimes you can fight that fight.
You just pointed it out that when you're talking government vs. government, civil position vs. civil position, those are things where we can actually go ahead, converse, discuss, find out some kind of a general truth. But when you're talking to folks who their truth is coming from their religion which you can't argue faith, that's where you're going to lose that fight and you're very perceptive in noting that.
I think that where we're going to win the battle, if we can win the battle, is by going ahead and as you said promoting American values, not of capitalism, not of some of the more, oh, minor things, but the idea of freedom--and we've got to make sure that we promote that idea with our own people giving us the freedom as well as trying to ensure and promote that freedom across the seas.
CONAN: Congressman Hamilton, if you could give us a reply in 20 seconds, we'd appreciate it.
Mr. HAMILTON: Well, I think the caller's on the mark. We have to present to the Muslim world an agenda for opportunity, a vision for a better life. We need to let those people know that we want for them a better life and more opportunity, and that means education. It means better health care. It means an opportunity to participate in their society.
CONAN: Congressman Hamilton, thank you very much for being with us today. Drew, thanks for the call.
We'll be back with the undersecretary for Public Diplomacy after a break. This is NPR News.
SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC
CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
Today, we're talking about public diplomacy. It's part of our series on the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. What is the US doing well when it comes to engaging in the struggle of ideas in the Arab and Muslim world? What more needs to be done? If you'd like to join the conversation, call us, (800) 989-8255; (800) 989-TALK. Our e-mail address is totn@npr.org.
In a few minutes, we'll be talking with Congressman Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey who's engaged in these issues, but right now joining us is Patricia Harrison, the acting undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. She's with us by phone from her office here in Washington.
Thanks very much for being with us today.
Ms. PATRICIA HARRISON (Acting Undersecretary, Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs): My pleasure.
CONAN: In your testimony before Congressman Smith's committee on Monday, you said that the findings and recommendations of the 9-11 Commission report present challenges for all of us. What's the challenge for you and what needs to be done now to improve public diplomacy?
Ms. HARRISON: Well, I think there are many challenges, but I think the first challenge is how we think about public diplomacy. And so many references have been made to the success of public diplomacy during those Cold War years, but basically what happened is people looking at that period of time saying, `This is what worked,' are not really looking at what went into that investment. In other words, you have to make a long-term commitment beyond even good headline times through bad headline times to say that we're going to be communicating with, engaging with, trying to inform increasing numbers, new generations who may not have a memory of what our values are or that we do want to communicate a message of hope and opportunity. So to sum this up in a sense, we have to make a commitment for the long, long term and never really declare victory and close down libraries and go home.
CONAN: The budget for the State Department's Public Diplomacy programs worldwide, this year, if I'm correct, is $685 million. The majority of that does not go to the Muslim world. What kind of money are we talking about? What kind of long-term investment would you like to see?
Ms. HARRISON: Well, I think if you look at those numbers, and you can get trapped in numbers, I think it's more of a long-term commitment of engagement. No matter what, I mean, people bring up, `We can't possibly communicate because there is resistance to policy.' That's really, I think, a very short-sided approach. The 600-plus million doesn't reflect, of course, what AID is doing, where we are in other areas in terms of countries that have high Muslim majority populations, but also it doesn't take into account that after September 11th, in terms of looking at this region--someone pointed out that right before September 11th, our polls were, you know, not as low in terms of how much do you hate the United States. They were if not positive at least on a benign level and September 11th still happened. What September 11th tells us is this is a job and it is a mission. It's an initiative for generations.
CONAN: One of the most effective programs people say--and, again, it's a long-term program--is the program that brings in students from around the world to live with American-Muslim families and go to high school or college here. And I gather the goal next year is a thousand, but in contrast, about 5,000 exchanges were organized from the former Soviet republics the first year after the fall of the Soviet Union, after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Ms. HARRISON: Yes. Yes. In fact, you know, the old canard, `When is the best time to plant an oak tree?' And the answer is, `Twenty-five years ago.' `Well, when is the second-best time?' And the answer is, `Now.' Well, we're planting these oak trees now, and we don't have to wait 25 years for the ultimate payoff or return on investment because as we bring these young kids here, boys and girls from the region--and this is the first-ever government-sponsored exchange for high-school kids in the Arab and Muslim world--we are hearing from them immediately and they are saying, `My goodness, we have been welcomed by the community. When we go home to our country,' you know, wherever community they're in, they're going back very excited and they are credible because we don't tell them what to think or what to say. And if you look at that 1,000 number and multiply that by their parents, by their communities and then by alumni of our programs--there are over 700,000 who will be there for them to continue the benefits of the exchange--I think the bottom line is the exchange process really works.
CONAN: Wouldn't a bigger bottom line, though, make it work better than 5,000?
Ms. HARRISON: Of course.
CONAN: Yeah.
Ms. HARRISON: Of course. You can do more with more, and I think the need and the focus coming together on what is required. But in terms of exchange programs, we can't bring everyone here to this country, of course, and so we have to use all the tools of technology. We have school-to-school programs. We have an increase in our regional English language officers. We have a program that's been in place just since September 11th called Partnerships for Learning and I think it's based on a premise that is incredibly important right now that people of goodwill, whatever their religion, want the best for their child, and their best is not looking at a future of underemployment or undereducation. It's getting a real education, not choosing between your religion or education, but certainly getting an education that leads then to a culture of prosperity.
CONAN: Let's get a caller on the line. Bart joins us from Raleigh, North Carolina.
BART (Caller): Yes. I was just wondering how much any public policy change is going to really affect the attitude of the Arab nations without a substantive change in our public policy, like support for Sadat, support for the Sadr regime, support for Israel? If that doesn't change, what will be the effect of public policy?
Ms. HARRISON: That's a very good question, and here is one point of view. One cannot do or shouldn't do anything in terms of public diplomacy until there is a hundred percent positive response to our foreign policy. Now I don't know of anyone who believes that. We have to engage now. This is our time now.
The last chapter has not been written on Iraq, and right now if you look at the polls, which are becoming pretty much of a cottage industry, even when you get through those first four or five questions that are negative in terms of, `How do you feel about the United States?' we go back to what the 9-11 Commission affirmed, that our values of personal freedom, of opportunity for the individual, wherever he or she comes from, these are values that resonate. From my position as assistant secretary for Education and Cultural Affairs, I get to meet the people who come to our country from Iraq, from Afghanistan, and the first thing they say is not, `We don't like your foreign policy.' It's, `Thank you.'
CONAN: Bart, thanks very much for the call.
BART: Thank you.
CONAN: And, Patricia Harrison, we thank you for your time today.
Ms. HARRISON: My pleasure.
CONAN: Patricia Harrison is acting undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and she joined us by phone from her office here in Washington, DC.
And joining us now here in Studio 3A to talk about how Congress is working to address the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission is Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, vice chairman of the House International Relations Committee which heard from Ms. Harrison and from the 9-11 Commission earlier this week.
Thanks very much for coming in.
Representative CHRIS SMITH (Republican, New Jersey; Vice Chairman, House International Relations Committee): Neal, thank you very much for having me on.
CONAN: So Congress' role in public diplomacy, some people say, is to fund it better.
Rep. SMITH: Well, we have funded it, and I think funded it very well over the years. Matter of face, this year under the Commerce, Justice and State bill, which is authored by Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia, there's a $601 million appropriated for public diplomacy for the broadcasting board of governors and their work, and that's not all. There's other money in there for other, as the undersecretary pointed out, a...
CONAN: This is Radio Sawa and...
Rep. SMITH: Exactly. It's for those kinds of broadcasting. And that's a significant increase. 65 million of that will go toward Middle Eastern broadcasting, and I think it's a very, very good commitment. But that's not what it's all about. That's just part of the equation. We need more dialogue and discussion with not just the governments but the parliamentarians. One of the ideas that I've been promoting very aggressively is that--I chair the Helsinki Commission, the OSCE, and we deal with the 55 countries that make up Europe, Central, South, Eastern Europe, to make--bottom line is there are Mediterranean partners that are part of this effort, including Egypt, Jordan--Egypt is a part of it. And we have had contact with their parliamentarians, and when you sit down and you discuss and find a venue, a non-threatening venue when you can discuss these issues, you can begin working out those issues. We need more permanent ties, this idea of bringing the Helsinki process to the Middle East.
CONAN: OSCE is the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Rep. SMITH: That's right.
CONAN: It was a Cold War institution that allowed people from both sides of the divide to get together and talk about issues and...
Rep. SMITH: To meet and discuss, and we had three major initiatives: security, trade and human rights, and on all three, major, significant progress was made beginning in 1975 when the act was signed, because you had foreign ministers and members of various governments meeting on a regular basis. And you need to regularize those meetings. If they're just meeting occasionally in Washington or some other venue, that's not enough. You need to have a process. The Helsinki process will avail, I think, the peace process in the Middle East.
CONAN: It is about more than money, but money is important.
Rep. SMITH: Without a doubt.
CONAN: In a report to Congress in October, the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy said that cultural exchanges and similar efforts with Muslims were, quote, "absurdly and dangerously underfunded."
Rep. SMITH: Well, we've got to take their point, because I'm one of those, I chaired the International Office of Human Rights committee for six years and aggressively promoted the idea that exchanges, especially among young people--if you want to break the cycle of hate, the earlier you start with young people the better. And, you know, one of the things we need to do as part of these exchanges is to make sure that when people go back to their respective countries, they look at the elementary school level textbooks. You know, one of the things that has concerned me deeply in the Middle East, particularly the Palestinian, under what's known as the UN Works Relief Agency, UNWRA, the textbooks that are frequently used by the youngsters, the Palestinian youngsters, are filled with anti-Semitism. If that doesn't read the kind of hate that manifests in suicide bombers, I don't know what does.
You need to start at the earliest levels. Exchanges are extremely important. We need to do more. The more contact they have, the more they will see that the caricature that has been created of the United States--we have our flaws. We don't doubt that. But we have institutions of government, a judiciary that's independent, we have people who are elected and unelected, they're thrown out of office. It's all part of a process. We can make whole a situation. Unfortunately, they get a caricature painted of the US that is borderline demagoguery and demonizing, and it's not a reflection of reality.
I have met with many of those students over the years. They say, when you meet with them, especially after they've been here for a while, `It's not what I thought.' Well, more of those exchanges certainly will help to bring enlightenment, and especially when they go back to their respective countries.
CONAN: Let's get a caller on the line. Mazyar(ph) is on with us from Columbia, Maryland.
MAZYAR (Caller): Hello.
CONAN: Hi.
MAZYAR: Thank you for taking my call.
CONAN: Sure.
MAZYAR: I have a short comment, and I'd like to hear a response to it. It seems that we feel or our actions show that public diplomacy seems to be a one-way street. We want others to learn our language. We want others to learn about our culture and our ideals and how wonderful they are, but it seems like internally, in a domestic level, we don't make the effort to learn about them, learn not just their language, but what their history is and where they come from. And so I think that in order for public diplomacy to truly work, it needs to be a two-way street. And besides the exchanges, besides the student exchanges, what other programs is being proposed for us domestically as a whole to learn more about the countries rather than just hearing about them when we bomb them, but know of their past history? And I'll take answer...
CONAN: Thanks for the call, Mazyar.
Rep. SMITH: Well, one of the nice things about having a free press and an unfettered access to information the way we do in America is that our networks in radio, NPR and various other outlets, do routinely provide Americans with very fine insights as to what's going on, in-depth analyses of news and events happening in the Middle East. Unfortunately, that's not a two-way street, and many of the journalists in the Middle East give a one-sided perspective, and I do read a number of English translation, of course, Muslim newspapers every day, and frankly, it disturbs me to see, again, the caricature that has been created about the United States and about the West in general.
CONAN: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
And our guest is Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey. We're talking about public diplomacy. And let's get another caller on the line. Joseph is with us from Dayton, Ohio.
JOSEPH (Caller): Hi. How are you?
CONAN: Very well, thanks.
JOSEPH: I've been listening to your show and I wanted to comment. I own a small company in the United States that takes American universities to Arab countries. We've been doing this for about 10 years. We help them recruit students coming back to the United States so they'll be on their campus. And the last lady--I forgot her name. I apologize.
CONAN: Patricia Harrison.
JOSEPH: Yes--had mentioned that they're giving a thousand--or they're gonna do a thousand students for exchanges this year. And I can tell you that when we take the universities to meet these--I set up a fair in the countries and this last May I went to Beirut, Kuwait, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dubayy, Saudi Arabia, and the American embassies have this attitude that they're rude to the students that are coming to apply for the visas to come into the United States. I mean, I can tell you in the last year, probably over two to 3,000 students have been denied visas to come to American universities from the United Arab Emirates, just that one country alone.
CONAN: Joseph is not alone in reporting these difficulties, Congressman.
Rep. SMITH: Well, frankly, while we want to facilitate to the greatest extent possible, you know, the kind of academic exchanges that will lead to a more saner and compassionate and hopefully fruitful dialogue between the Middle East, particularly the Arab countries and the US, the problem that arose, and the 9-11 Commission does focus on this, was that there have been real problems with travel documents. Matter of fact, they make the point in the 9-11 Commission that travel documents and/or the lack of the kind of controls that will weed out potential terrorists is as important as weapons. Because we know for a fact now that at Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia, we were giving out visas like candy, and there were people who got these visas who put on their applications, `Student, USA,' had very, very imprecise and really not very informative information, and these people were given visas.
Now we don't want to err too far on the side of now excluding bonafide students who ought to have the opportunity to come here, enjoy the American experience, and go back and bring back perhaps the insights they could gather from being here, but we at the same time are in a position where we don't want the student visa or any other visa being exploited by terrorists to infiltrate and to do damage to Americans and Arabs or anyone else who happens to be on an airplane or on a train or whatever means they use to kill people.
So there's a tension, a very important tension. There were consuls throughout the world, US consulars who really to follow the law faithfully. We have a presumption in our law that says that if you--the onus of burden is on you as an applicant to prove that you are going where you say you're going, you have a means of supporting yourself, and you have ample reason to return. If that presumption is not overcome, the visa is disqualified.
One of the things that I'm trying to promote and promote very hard, especially post our hearings that we held, the UN does not have an international convention on travel. There needs to be so there's transparency, reliability when it comes to passports, birth certificates and the like, so there's uniformity, so we know that so-and-so is who he or she says they are, and they mean to go and do this or that, maybe study abroad and not engage in something more nefarious like terrorism.
CONAN: Congressman Smith, thank you very much for being with us today.
Rep. SMITH: Thank you very much.
CONAN: Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, vice chairman of the House International Relations Committee, was with us here in Studio 3A.
When we come back from a short break, we'll continue this conversation. Join us. I'm Neal Conan. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
Tomorrow it's "Science Friday." Ira Flatow will be here with a discussion of the role of military doctors in prisoner abuse. Plus, a look ahead to California's climate 50 to 100 years from now. Could climate change mean the end of the wine industry? That's all tomorrow on TALK OF THE NATION/"Science Friday."
Coming up, we'll talk with a human rights watcher about the Abu Ghraib reports, and we'll take a look at the Olympic Games and today's fight for gold in women's soccer. We'll go join a viewing party.
But let's now return to our discussion of US public diplomacy. Joining us now is Shibley Telhami, a member of the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World. He's been a frequent guest on this program in his guise as Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. He's with us by phone from his office in Maryland.
Good to talk with you again.
Professor SHIBLEY TELHAMI (The Brookings Institution): Good to talk to you.
CONAN: You've been listening to both sides, to all this conversation, Lee Hamilton and Patricia Harrison and Representative Smith. If you had to prioritize, what would you say is the most important area to emphasize as we move ahead on public diplomacy?
Prof. TELHAMI: The first thing we must understand is that public diplomacy is not about a public relations campaign. It's not about gimmicks of let's tell people how good we are. It is about projection of empathy. It is about understanding the other side. And it is about essentially building trust in what you see, even if you have disagreements. It's not about appeasement. It's not about giving false acceptance of the other's position, but it is building a sense of trust. And I think if you look at the relations between the US and Muslim countries broadly over the past three years, I think you'd have to say there's been a collapse of trust. And I think what we're missing here is that each side is looking at the other through what I call the prism of pain. This isn't about what we say so much, but Americans inevitably now look at Arab and Muslim countries through the prism of the pain of 9/11, through the prism of terrorism associated with 9/11. And it's impossible, for example, to look at the Middle East and not look through that, even if that's in some ways a distorting prism.
Well, Arabs and Muslims have their own prism of pain through which they look at America, and those have to do with the events that are unfolding. It's the Iraq War. It's the Palestinian issue. It's all of those issues that characterize the relationship. And so we can, for example, go and tell them, `We stand for human rights, why don't you believe us?' and yet imprinted in their minds is the image of Abu Ghraib. And it's very difficult to dislodge that from the mind.
So I think we have to begin first of all by grasping the fact that this isn't about just good public relations. There is something more profound, and it has to do with policies and it has to do with understanding the issues that are priority issues, that are vital issues for each side.
CONAN: Yet a critical element is going to be funding. The report last year said this is dangerously underfunded.
Prof. TELHAMI: Yes. I mean, I think there are two parts that must be contemplated aside from policy. One part is building relations, building bridges and building understanding even to deal with issues that are issues of difference. I think you're not gonna have a coincidence of interest. The US has its own interests in the Middle East and sometimes those don't coincide with the interests of people in the Middle East or with countries in the Middle East. But I think you can't even deal with those if you don't have mechanisms of common language. And I think when you look at the priorities of public diplomacy programs over the years, the most successful ones have been ones that have been based on building bridges, exchanges, educational exchanges, media exchanges, business exchanges, language training, book translations, those sort of activities that are required to build at least some supporters on each side.
We hear, for example, we always accuse people who are learning Arabic as, quote, "Arab sympathizer." Well, there is some truth to that in a way, because obviously the minute you learn someone's culture, the minute you learn something about the subtlety, the minute you look beyond your own prism of pain, you come to sympathize a little bit more. Well, we need to have more English language teaching, more American literature books or science books--not propaganda books--that tell the story of America a little bit more than has been done so far.
CONAN: Shibley Telhami, as always, thanks very much for being with us.
Prof. TELHAMI: My pleasure.
CONAN: Shibley Telhami is a member of the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim world, also Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, and a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. He joined us by phone from Maryland.
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