U.S. public diplomacy in the Muslim world

Muhamad Ali, Jakarta

This is a constructive criticism of how, until recently, U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy have failed to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. U.S. politicians and diplomats, generally, have done nothing of significance that they should have been doing since September 11, 2001. Instead, they have contributed to the increased sense of threat of U.S. hegemony among 1.2 billion people in the Muslim world.

Muslims, like other people in the world, expressed horror and sympathy at what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. Indonesian leaders were among the first to express that sympathy. Middle Easterners were no exception in mourning the victims and blaming the evildoers. Soon, a "war on terrorism" was waged, but continued to be handled badly and ineffectively.

U.S. leaders indicate self-denial of American "imperialism". President George W. Bush keeps denying that the attack in Iraq was driven by imperialist motives. He denied the war was like the U.S. war in Vietnam. But people in the Muslim world could not easily place their trust in what the U.S. elite had to say. Action speaks louder than words. The U.S. attacked the wrong target -- Iraq.

And now, Moqtada al-Sadr, the young cleric who had nothing to do with the U.S. before, became involved in what he has called a "holy war against the invaders". Not religious bigotry, but a sense of anticolonialism, the nature of which was not that different to conventional anticolonialism, has emerged. While many hope that no more wars will occur in Iraq given the infrastructural damage and thousands of innocent victims, the implications of such wars in Iraq are hardly positive in the minds of the majority in the world.

War images in Baghdad, Najaf and other cities are viewed and perceived by Muslims in schools, mosques and streets as an attack on their Muslim brothers and sisters. What Americans see as a war on terrorism, many Muslims perceive as a war on Islam and Muslims. Such images and perception still prevail strongly, but U.S. public diplomacy has not coped with this effectively.

A number of concrete programs can be proposed that might improve such poor U.S. public diplomacy.

First, because Americans are overwhelmingly Christian and are perceived by others as a Christian nation (despite its internal religious pluralism), interfaith dialog within the U.S. and abroad should be the first priority in U.S. public diplomacy. As Samuel Huntington recently argued in his recent book, Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity (2004), American national identity is religiously Christian. Thus, I would argue, American religious leaders should take the initiative to further interfaith dialog within and outside the U.S.

Second, there should be much more educational and cultural interchange without a political impulse to tell others what to believe and what to do. Education and cultural exchange are the heart of public diplomacy. But the principle should be intercultural learning in equality, not indoctrination and imposition of American national values. Americans have the right and obligation to promote the image and democratic values of the U.S. around the world, but this should involve and respect the values of others.

Humankind, by its very nature, has self-dignity, and is nationalistic, has ethnic ties or is religious. People normally feel deeply committed to their indigenous culture, tradition and institutions and hence often resist efforts to change them by outsiders from alien cultures.

Therefore, rather than emphasizing the promotion of "freedom and democracy" abroad, two abstract values that can be interpreted differently by different people, the U.S. should promote intercultural dialog within the context of dynamic global multiculturalism. Besides, as Huntington pointed out, whatever the goals of the U.S. elite, the American public has consistently ranked the promotion of democracy abroad as a low-priority foreign policy goal.

According to Huntington, there are three broad concepts of the U.S. in relation to the rest of the world. The U.S. can embrace the world, that is, open the country to other peoples and cultures (the cosmopolitan, universalist view), or it can try to reshape other peoples and cultures in terms of American values (the imperialist view), or maintain a society and culture distinct from those of other peoples (the nationalist view).

Cosmopolitanism and imperialism attempt to reduce or to eliminate the social, political and cultural differences between the U.S. and other societies, but neither the universalist nor the imperialist impulse will work well in the world of the early 21st century.

Third, public diplomacy requires resources. There should be an increase in budget to finance educational and cultural programs. As reported by the Washington Post (Aug. 19, 2004), the U.S. has redirected funds and designed a wide range of political, economic, educational and aid programs to improve lives, achieve press reform and burnish the image of the U.S. as an ally to Muslims in more than 50 countries. Yet, these efforts are underfunded. Only US$79 million goes to education and cultural exchanges and the number of people reached directly by key U.S. programs is extremely small.

Fourth, given all the mistakes, the U.S. should end its occupation in Iraq as soon as possible. The U.S. presence there has further divided Iraqis, rather than unify them. The longer U.S. troops stay there the worse the damage will be for the Iraqi people and the more difficult for the U.S. to convince the world of its goodwill.

Also, in the long run, the U.S. should support a peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. The U.S. should serve as mediator-facilitator rather than a close ally of one side. However familiar it may be, this is still the bottom-line issue in U.S.-Muslim world relations. If this is not dealt with properly, other attempts at public diplomacy are more likely to fail.

How can the U.S. undertake the task of winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim world? Well, everybody knows the U.S. has all the necessary resources: goodwill, capital and smart people.

The writer is a lecturer at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN), Jakarta. He is pursuing a PhD in history at the University of Hawaii. He can be reached at Muhali74@hotmail.com