The New Public Diplomacy - Cultural Diplomacy
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Cultural diplomacy reveals the soul of a nation, which may explain its complicated history in American political life: when our nation is at war, every tool in the diplomatic kit bag is employed, including the promotion of cultural activities. But when peace returns, culture gets short shrift, because of our traditional lack of public support for the arts. Now that we are at war again, interest in cultural diplomacy is on the rise. Perhaps this time we can create enduring structures within which to practice effective cultural diplomacy and articulate a sustaining vision of the role that culture can play in enhancing the security of this country. And if, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggests, Americas involvement in Iraq requires \"a generational commitment,\" then our cultural diplomacy efforts require a similar commitment of funds, expertise, courage, and time.
To increase funding and staffing for cultural diplomacy and, in a larger sense, for public diplomacy. To provide advanced training and professional development opportunities for FSOs, who are public affairs officers and have responsibility for public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy throughout their careers, with particular attention to research, polling, and the uses of new media. To create an independent clearinghouse, in the manner of the British Council, to promote the national interest; support missions in their efforts to bring the best artists, writers, and other cultural figures to their audiences; develop public-private partnerships; and raise funds, with separate housing from the embassies so that cultural events can attract wider audiences. To set aside funds for translation projects, into and out of English, of the most important literary, intellectual, philosophical, political, and spiritual works from this and other countries. To streamline visa issues, particularly for international students. To implement the recommendations issued by the Center for Arts and Culture in Cultural Diplomacy: Recommendations and Research (www.culturalpolicy.org). To revamp Al Hurra, the Arabic-language television station, in keeping with the highest traditions of American broadcasting. To expand international cultural exchange programs, inviting more Arab and Muslim artists, performers, and writers to the United States, and sending their American counterparts to the Islamic world.
Effective cultural diplomacy requires a long-term commitment to winning the hearts and minds of reasonable people everywhere. Now is the time to create a cultural diplomacy infrastructure and policy for the twenty-first century.
It is time for change: time to articulate a vision of cultural diplomacy congruent with our position as what former Secretary of State Madeline Albright called \"the indispensable nation,\" time to show how the values we preach in the political arena are embodied in our cultureand time to listen to what the cultures of the rest of world are saying about us.
Cultural diplomacy, which has been defined as \"the exchange of ideas, information, art, and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples in order to foster mutual understanding,\"2 is the linchpin of public diplomacy; for it is in cultural activities that a nations idea of itself is best represented. Indeed the ideals of the Founding Fathers, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Bill of Rights, take on new life in the vibrant traditions of American art, dance, film, jazz, and literature, which continue to inspire people the world over despite our political differences; the glories of our higher educational system, which remains the envy of the world despite the difficulties that foreign students face in securing visas to matriculate in this country, testify to the ingenuity, support (public and private), and solid intellectual foundations integral to the American experiment in democracy.
With the end of the Cold War and the subsequent abolishment of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in 1999, official American cultural presence abroad was significantly reduced; cultural programming was slashed even before the dispersal of USIA personnel through the U.S. Department of State (DOS) destroyed the institutional memory necessary for the maintenance of cultural ties. What remains is an ad hoc congeries of programs, administered largely through the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) at the DOS, with a reduced budget and staff, a diminished position in the hierarchy of diplomatic values, and a vision of cultural diplomacy incommensurate with American ideals and foreign policy objectives.
Cultural diplomacy is a two-way street: for every foreign artist inspired by an American work of art, there is an American waiting to be touched by the creative wonders of other traditions. Culture spreads from individual to individual, often by subterranean means; in exchange programs like Fulbright, Humphrey, and Muskie, in person-to-person contacts made possible by international visitor and student exchange programs, ideas that we hold dearof family, education, and faithcross borders, creating new ways of thinking.
Listening is central to this effort. To practice effective cultural diplomacy, we must first listen to our counterparts in other lands, seeking common ground with curators and writers, filmmakers and theater directors, choreographers and educatorsthat is, with those who are engaged in exploring the universal values of truth and freedom. The quest for meaning is shared by everyone, and every culture has its own way of seeking to understand our walk in the sun. We must not imagine that our attempts to describe reality hold for everyone. Indeed the history of art and literature is an essay in cross-fertilization. And American culture gains from its dialogue with the artistic and intellectual riches of other cultures. American artists who travel abroad, in official and unofficial capacities, are cultural diplomats who make incalculable contributions to the body politic. As Joan Channick notes: \"Artists engage in cross-cultural exchange not to proselytize about their own values but rather to understand different cultural traditions, to find new sources of imaginative inspiration, to discover new methods and ways of working and to exchange ideas with people whose worldviews differ from their own. They want to be influenced rather than to influence.\"3 Which is to say: they listen. And so they offset the impression that America is a monolithic society defined solely by its foreign policy.For what can be heard around the world, in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, and the controversy over the handling of detainees at Bagram and Guantnamo Bay, is that America is less a beacon of hope than a dangerous force to be countered. This assertion, repeated in newspaper columns, on radio and television broadcasts, and via the Internet, diminishes our ability to champion freedom, democracy, and individual dignityideas that continue to fuel hope for oppressed peoples everywhere. The erosion of our trust and credibility within the international community must be reversed if we hope to use more than our military and economic might in the shaping of world opinion. Culture matters.
Thus, if, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggests, Americas involvement in Iraq will require \"a generational commitment,\" then our cultural diplomacy efforts require a similar commitment of funds, expertise, courage, and time.
This report synthesizes the findings of several academic studies, independent task forces, and various commissions and committees on public and cultural diplomacy; incorporates insights gleaned by this committee on a fact-finding mission to Oman, Egypt, and the United Kingdom, in the summer of 2004, as well as from separate DOS-sponsored visits by one committee member to Greece, Malaysia, and Norway; interviews with artists, choreographers, cultural activists, educators, film makers, theater directors, and writers in this country and abroad; discussions with American diplomats, program officers at the DOS, and a range of foreign officials, journalists, and experts. A sense of crisis was everywhere apparent, first in the growing perception of the United States as a hostile force, then in the scale of the diplomatic problem that must be solved: bridges rebuilt and new links forged. Put simply, we have lost the goodwill of the world, without which it becomes ever more difficult to execute foreign policy. \"We Who Loved America,\" the title of a bitter panel discussion at an international literary festival in Molde, Norway, has in the last three years become a common sentiment around the world. The question, now, is how to regain that love, which was rooted in the promise of America.
Authorized by Congress and PL 107-228, the Advisory Committee on Cultural Diplomacy (ACCD) was appointed in March 2004. It was charged with advising the Secretary of State on programs and policies to advance the use of cultural diplomacy in U.S. foreign policy, paying particular attention to: 1) increasing the presentation abroad of Americas finest creative, visual, and performing artists; and 2) developing strategies for increasing public-private sector partnerships to sponsor cultural exchange programs that promote the national interest of the United States.
The first efforts in U.S. cultural diplomacy date from World War I, though it was not until 1938, in the face of Nazi Germanys cultural activities in Latin America, that a division of cultural relations was created in the DOS. The government agreed to support exchange programs for students and artists under the 1936 Convention for the Promotion of Inter-American Cultural Relationsthe model for the numerous exchange programs integral to public diplomacy during the Cold War. 59ce067264
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