Intermap

by Shawn Powers

This June’s Foreign Policy web edition included an article by Steven A Cook, entitled “The Myth of Moderate Islam”. I’m guessing that the title wasn’t his idea. The article caught my eye for a number of reasons, one of which was the importance that public diplomacy scholars and practitioners, particularly those located in the United States, place upon engaging moderate Muslims in public diplomacy efforts. Indeed, when recently confirmed Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman spoke earlier this month, he argued that public diplomacy was not about the popularity of the United States abroad, but rather about taking a side in the battle taking place within Islam itself: “We cannot step aside and simply watch Muslims slug it out among themselves.” If the ‘moderate Muslim’ is a non-existent Western construct, then it becomes unclear exactly what role public diplomacy can play in the current struggle to combat Islamist extremism.
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A recent excerpt from a speech about U.S. public diplomacy reminds me of the discursive terrain that continues to represent the commonly circulated descriptions and justifications for U.S. public diplomacy. Understanding these discursive limitations (in other words, attention to how we talk about what “we” should “do” in terms of P.D. policy) might point to why the public conversation continues to revolve around the same observations and criticisms that populate the parade of advisory reports and congressional testimony since 2001.

Consider the words of the new U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs – James Glassman, speaking to the Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum on July 8, 2008. Glassman comes out swinging to defend, by defining, the notion that his job relates to a ‘war of ideas.” Here are some excerpts:

“In fact, I am convinced that, unless we get the war of ideas right, we will never succeed in meeting the most significant threat of our time. Unless we get the war of ideas right, the safety of Americans and the future of America’s way of life will be in continuous peril.”
…
“But starting in the early 1990s, the United States, in bipartisan fashion, began to dismantle this arsenal of persuasion. It was an act the Djerejian Group, of which I was a member, called “a process of unilateral disarmament in the weapons of advocacy.” Beginning shortly after 9/11, the tide began to turn again but slowly. “
…
“So let me be specific. Our mission today in the war of ideas is highly focused. It is to use the tools of ideological engagement — words, deeds, and images — to create an environment hostile to violent extremism. We want to break the linkages between groups like al-Qaeda and their target audiences. “
…
“Our priority is not to promote our brand but to help destroy theirs.”

These are of course taken out of context. But I bring them up to highlight the prevalence of crisis and martial metaphors in framing the obligations and motivations behind public diplomacy. More to the point, does a public diplomacy presented as an instrument of dialogue facilitation and rational exchange of ideas or culture fit within what rhetoricians might term the consequences of our “termistic compulsions?” Put another way, is U.S. policy imagination constrained by thinking about (and talking about) public diplomacy within a strategic discourse, which in turn perpetuates its status as something to be criticized and endlessly re-defined? The standards of how to talk about and judge public diplomacy change with the discourse that regulates how we perceive it.

Of course some aspects of public diplomacy are not controversial; many across the political and policy spectrum argue that it is necessary. It becomes debatable within a political context when one attaches it to outcomes that reflect contemporary political decisions (like influencing audiences shaped by “experiencing” the business end of U.S. foreign policy; or reducing the threat from terrorism - the focus of the GWOT campaign).

Obviously, there is a lot more to say about this – the effects of message framing and policy rhetoric on the larger accepted policy imagination. The possibility of such rhetoric shaping the policy landscape has been discussed in great detail by rhetorical scholars like Robert Ivie, Martin Medhurst, Philip Wander, G. Thomas Goodnight, and Thomas Kane. Nevertheless, I wanted to get the notion out there to build upon in future blog posts.

So, here’s another re-post of an article posted over at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy website. We promise we’ll get something original to Intermap here shortly.

BRAVO, BURLINGTON: A SMALL VICTORY FOR AL-JAZEERA ENGLISH, A SYMBOLIC VICTORY FOR THE UNITED STATES
JUN 27, 2008 - 3:14PM PST
Posted by Shawn Powers

It is about time that the Al-Jazeera Network received some good news from America. Having been accused by the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of inciting terrorism and assisting Iraqi insurgents, and then allegedly considered as a potential target of a U.S.-led military strike, Al-Jazeera has not exactly felt welcome here in the United States since the beginning of the war in Iraq. When Americans hear the words “Al-Jazeera”, many immediately associate it with Osama bin Laden, the world’s most recognized face of terrorism. It is thus easy to see why Al-Jazeera English has had trouble finding room in the U.S. cable market.

The arguments levied against Al-Jazeera — most typically “that it is a mouthpiece for terrorists” — have carried significant weight in discussions in the U.S. A 2006 poll commissioned by Accuracy in Media (AIM) found that 53 percent of Americans were opposed to having the channel available via cable in the U.S., and that 38 percent were “adamantly against the channel.” Of course, AIM conducted the poll prior to the broadcaster’s launch, and thus none of the respondents had ever actually seen Al-Jazeera English’s award winning programming. What the poll does illustrate, however, is that there is a widely held bias against the Al-Jazeera brand, an organization whose image has been thoroughly denigrated in America.
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