Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 4 - 2005
Arabs Respond to Policy, Not PR by Stan Crock 
AFFAIRS OF STATE By Stan Crock Business Week Online, 9 March 2005 Arabs Respond to Policy, Not PR U.S. ads in the Mideast didn't boost America's image, but pictures of Iraqis voting and Lebanese clamoring for change did The State Dept. hasn't had a permanent Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs since June, 2004. Yet with Iraqi and Palestinian voters standing in lines for hours to cast ballots and Lebanese erecting tent cities to protest the presence of Syrian troops, America's image in the Middle East is on the upswing. Is there a lesson here? Maybe, just maybe, what's happening in the region is more important than what's said in slick ad campaigns ginned up in Washington. Advertisement The Bush Administration has filled the Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs position with people who know how to sell image -- at least in the U.S. There was Charlotte Beers, the Madison Avenue whiz who once headed advertising giants Ogilvy & Mather and J. Walter Thompson. Beers left Foggy Bottom in the spring of 2003 after a year and a half in office. Her successor was Margaret Tutwiler, a State Dept. veteran who helped former Secretary of State James Baker with his estimable public relations. HEALTH FOOD VS. ARSENIC. Their goal was to win the hearts and minds of the Islamic crescent and to counter propaganda from the likes of Osama bin Laden with facts about U.S. attitudes toward Islam. They bought TV, newspaper, and radio ads in media that reached countries from Egypt to Malaysia. Some of the ads showed that American Muslims were free to practice their religion and thrive in the U.S. The department also put out a magazine called Muslim Life in America, and the Administration launched Radio Sawa, an Arab-language service. While listeners apparently like Radio Sawa's music, many don't see its news as totally reliable. After all, until recently, American officials were in the position of trying to peddle U.S. foreign policy as health food when the Islamic world viewed it as arsenic. On Al Jazeera, pictures of the World Trade Center collapsing and bin Laden overshadowed the liberation of Kabul and had enormous impact in the Arab world. Then came the unpopular invasion of Iraq, and the initial euphoria that followed Saddam Hussein's toppling was quickly forgotten in the wake of stories and images of insurrection terror and the atrocities of Abu Ghraib. The Undersecretary slot is now occupied on an acting basis by Patricia Harrison, an entrepreneur and former co-chairperson of the Republican National Committee, whose one-time PR partner, E. Bruce Harrison, represented companies in fights against environmentalists. She has had a far lower profile in this job than her predecessors. And though she has been in her position since June -- while keeping her title as Assistant Secretary for Educational & Cultural Affairs -- there's no indication she will be nominated for the slot on a permanent basis. LIMITS OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY. It's hardly hurting U.S. interests to leave it unfilled. Uncle Sam's image is thriving in the region. Arab TV is filling screens from Algeria to Afghanistan with images of those Iraqi and Palestinian voters as well as anti-Syria protests in Lebanon. "That has an effect on people," says a senior Bush Administration official. "Just by showing these pictures, they become a force for change. People start to ask, 'Why not me?'" They also see pictures of Hezbollah's pro-Syria demonstrations, of course, so this battle has hardly been won. But like Syria, Hezbollah might be overplaying its hand by opposing strong nationalistic sentiment in Lebanon for Syria's ouster. The current footage could play into U.S. hands as well. What all this suggests is that the impact of public diplomacy may in fact be rather limited. What matters is the policy, not PR. The facts, not the faxes. READY FOR CHANGE. And in this case, the messenger seems to be as important as the message. That's why it makes sense to have a public-diplomacy operation that focuses on quietly pressuring governments to moderate hate-filled sermons at mosques, as the Palestinian Authority seems to be doing, and to get rid of venomous textbooks. Indigenous sources of information affect the way people think and feel far more effectively than splashy ads or pamphlets from abroad. Similarly, when Arabs vote, they're making a powerful statement about democracy that carries far more weight with their brethren than President Bush's lectures do. It's another painful lesson in humility for the U.S. But no progress at all would have been made if there had been no readiness in the region to start accepting different forms of government. The winds of change are blowing not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but also in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. It's not a matter of the U.S. winning hearts and minds, since such influence is limited. Let's hope that America's patience isn't as well. |