U.S. public diplomacy in the Muslim world

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