Americana in Arabic Library
There has been a wonderful public response to my plea for contributions to the Global Americana Institute and our hopes to get the works of Ben Franklin, Thomas jefferson, and others into Arabic.
The interest has been so great that I thought I would tip readers to two important web sites on public diplomacy.
One is the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
The other is The Public Diplomacy Web Site of the United States Information Agency Alumni Association.
I am arguing that US government-backed public diplomacy is just not getting the job done, and that we have to move to a new model of civil society organizations and grass roots support for it.
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/18/2006 12:24:00 AM
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2 Comments:
- Juan,
You say that “US government-backed public diplomacy is just not getting the job done”…and that’s an understatement, for this war was not only badly planned and poorly executed but abysmally “marketed” to Arab masses by Ms Charlotte Beers the hapless Texan “advertising guru”, who was later replaced by another semiliterate Texan lady (Karen Hughes) whose major feat in life is to be the daughter of General Harold Parfitt, the former US Governor of Panama- a leading expert in ruling “brownie rebels” with a colonialist iron fist…
You’re right to say that nothing seems to stop the dismal litany of bad news coming from Iraq and the Middle-East.
Three years after the conquest of Baghdad, the situation looks rather bleak, as radical Islamic fundamentalism seems stronger than ever with heinous mobs burning churches (not to mention Christians and women) in Cairo, Jakarta and Islamabad, and with potentially explosive Sunni vs. Shiite sectarian tensions now spreading to Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and the entire Gulf region.
I guess that’s what Neocon Neros such as Mike Ledeen call “creative chaos” whatever that means... “Chaotic cretinism” would be a more fitting appellation for the highly incoherent foreign policy of President Bush and his incompetent Neocon handlers!
Narrow-minded Marxist ideologues be they communists or “neo-conservatives” have always despised the “internal contradictions” of traditional Western rationality (rooted in Europe´s Christian and secular Classical traditions) which they believe to be “old-fashioned” and “formal” (sic). Just like their role model comrade Lenin, these sophisticated thugs prefer the joys “dialectical creativity” even when this means pursuing high policies over the dead bodies of hundreds of thousands of disposable Arab and Muslim peasants… as another Neocon Israeli idol once said: “you simply can’t cook a good omelet without cracking a few eggs”!
But, to use their own vocab of choice, the Neocons themselves are now faced with the “internal contradictions” of their misguided Mideast policy based on a blind belief in accelerated democratization at gunpoint coupled with a systematic scorn of Arab and Islamic public opinion…
Like him or not, Saddam Hussein was a truly modernist, Westernized Arab head of state who protected women’s rights and enforced affirmative action programs in favor of Iraq’s tiny Christian minority. President Reagan and “Old Europe’s” foreign policy establishment both viewed the Iraqi Baath party essentially as a strong secular bulwark against both Persian-Khomeinist fundamentalism and Wahhabi-Afghan terrorism.
The Israelis and Washington’s Neocons thought otherwise: now US marines and Israeli civilians have to deal with the rise of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which their own governments have deliberately brought to power…
Glad to have discovered this blog thanks to the Co-Lead group in Washington. I have just posted some comments about my work in cultural diplomacy in the Middle East and Central Asia.See URL below. My organization, American Voices, recently did the first jazz concerts in Afghanistan in over 25 years and are quite active throughout the region since the early 90s. It is obvious the government is unable to envision and finance a creative and effective public diplomacy so the next step seems to be to be to turn to the enrgy of the private sector and not-for-profit community for a way out of this mess. Great to hear of the plans to translate important historical documents into Arabic! http://americanculturaldiplomacy.blogspot.com
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