12 June 2002
US Department of State
International Information Programs
Washington File
_________________________________
11 June 2002
(Beers, Pattiz testify before supportive Foreign Relations panel) (950) By Ralph Dannheisser Washington File Congressional Correspondent Washington -- The United States must do a better job of defining itself to the world, the official in charge of State Department public diplomacy efforts told a supportive Senate Foreign Relations Committee June 11. "This is our mission in the post-September 11th world, and it is a mission that must succeed," said Charlotte Beers, undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs. In this effort, priority attention must be paid to expanding communication with "the mainstream of young adults" so as "to give them, ultimately, a new world view," Beers said. "The young will lead us," she declared. Beers and Norman Pattiz, representing the independent Broadcasting Board of Governors, who testified with her, focused heavily on the need for new and expanded broadcast initiatives as the committee considered the issue of "America's Global Dialogue: Sharing American Values and the Way Ahead for Public Diplomacy." Pattiz, who also is chairman of Westwood One, the largest U.S. radio network, pointed to the Broadcasting Board's newly launched Middle East Radio Network -- also called Radio Sawa (the Arabic word for "together") -- as a model for further successful communication efforts. He said Radio Sawa broadcasting was inaugurated this past March, after travel in the Middle East had convinced him that "there's a media war going on and the weapons of that war include disinformation, incitement to violence, hate radio, government censorship and journalistic self-censorship, and the United States didn't have a horse in this race." The station's format, he said, is targeted at listeners 30 and under, who make up well over 60 percent of the region's population. Programming "is music-driven, with five- and 10- minute newscasts every hour, 24 hours a day," Pattiz added. He played a short tape that sampled a longer Sawa program -- in what Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (Democrat, Delaware) joked marked the historic first intrusion of rock and roll and Britney Spears into a Foreign Relations hearing -- and won plaudits for the broadcast effort from Biden and other committee members. Committee support for an increased emphasis on public diplomacy was signaled in the opening statements given by Biden and Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the senior Republican member, and repeated throughout. Lugar proposed to use the hearing "as the basis for the construction of a bill to revitalize American public diplomacy," adding, "I know many members of this committee have been giving a lot of thought to this issue and its time to get to work." His comments prompted Biden to respond, "I couldn't agree with you more, senator." Without giving his own view on the proposal directly, Lugar observed that "one of the most interesting suggestions calls for reorganizing the public diplomacy apparatus by placing resources, budgets, personnel and staff under the direct control of Undersecretary Beers." Lugar, along with Senator Edward Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts) and a bipartisan group of 11 other senators, introduced in May the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002, which would sharply increase funding for student and other exchanges between Americans and participants from Islamic nations, and also create a new high school exchange program for students from the Islamic world. Citing the value of such exchanges, Beers said Congress and the administration must find a way to "magnify the 25,000 (annual) exchanges into 10 times that number." Asked by Biden about plans for getting more heavily into television broadcasting to advance the U.S. position, Beers expressed the cautious view that extensive research and preparation must be done before jumping into such an effort if it is to be successful. "For me it comes down to allocation of resources," Beers said. And those resources for public diplomacy have been reduced to a "shocking" degree over the years, she declared. Once again voicing support, Biden responded, "I, for one, think we're going to have to significantly increase the resources we devote to this." He was backed up by Senator Chuck Hagel (Republican, Nebraska), who told Beers, "We will work here to provide the kind of resources that you need." One of the few hints of disagreement at the hearing surfaced when Lugar asked the witnesses their view as to who should be in charge of expanded broadcast undertakings. Pattiz made clear his view that it should be the Broadcasting Board of Governors, because the agency's independent status gives its journalists an aura of objectivity and credibility. "If you don't have credibility, you're lost," he said. Beers, for her part, declared the State Department to be "clearly responsible for every iteration of editorial policy." Appearing on a second panel of witnesses before the committee, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich asserted that "the ultimate scale of resources needed to defeat the extremist fanatic wing of Islam will resemble the resources we used to defeat communism." "Creating a stable, safe world requires a public information capability and a public diplomacy capability far beyond anything we have developed to date," Gingrich -- now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute -- said in his prepared testimony. "The new emerging information age has new requirements for tactical information on a daily basis and complex requirements for the Internet, cell phones, satellite television, radio and long-term educational efforts," Gingrich said. While these activities can often be implemented by non-governmental organizations, he argued, "the resourcing and the general strategies and systems implementation require government leadership." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
11 June 2002
(Charlotte Beers outlines three approaches) (2100) The United States faces a critical challenge to communicate its policies and values in the world more effectively, and especially in Muslim majority regions such as the Middle East and South Asia, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Charlotte Beers said June 11. "In these places it is imperative that we reach out, inform, educate, and persuade populations that we are a society that is based on certain shared values, values that resonate within the Muslim world, values such as peace, acceptance, faith, and love of family," Beers said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. To that end, Beers said the United States has developed three strategic themes to shape its activities and efforts: -- The first theme is shared values; -- The second is the opportunity for democratization; and -- The third is education through an initiative called "Partnership for Learning." Following is a text of Beers' prepared remarks: (begin text) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE THE HONORABLE CHARLOTTE BEERS UNDER SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS HEARING ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE JUNE 11, 2002 Chairman Biden and distinguished members of the committee, Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. As you are well aware, today is the nine-month anniversary of September 11th, a day that opened all our eyes to the horrific consequences of hatred that some groups have for our country; a hatred bred in ignorance, misperception and misrepresentation. There are many lessons that we are still learning from that day, and certainly one of the most important is that we can and should do more to educate, and influence the attitudes of, foreign audiences toward our country. No longer is it acceptable to let others define America, our beliefs, tenets, and values. It is in our collective national security interest that we do a better job defining ourselves to the world. This is our mission in the post-September 11th world, and it is a mission that must succeed. In late February, Gallup released a poll of almost 10,000 people in nine predominantly Muslim countries and found that, by a margin of 2-to-1, residents of these nations had an unfavorable opinion of the United States. Some of the specific results of the poll were not surprising in places like Iran, but in Kuwait, for instance, only 28 percent of those residents polled had a favorable opinion of the United States. This in a country that was liberated by the U.S. and our allies only a decade ago. In Morocco the favorable number was only 22 percent, and in Saudi Arabia, one of our strongest allies in the region, only 18 percent expressed a favorable opinion of the U.S. These numbers are roughly consistent with other external and internal polling of the region. They illuminate the challenge we have before us, a challenge to communicate our policies and values to the world more effectively. In some regions, such as Muslim-majority areas in the Middle East and South Asia for example, the challenge is obviously greater. In these places it is imperative that we reach out, inform, educate, and persuade populations that we are a society that is based on certain shared values, values that resonate within the Muslim world, values such as peace, acceptance, faith, and love of family. To do this, we must continue our traditional public diplomacy programs, such as international information activities and educational and cultural exchanges, as well as international broadcasting. However, we need to focus these activities on broader and younger populations, while simultaneously enhancing them to reach our desired audiences more rapidly and effectively. Since September 11th, and since my confirmation in October, we have striven to do just that. This is evident in such initiatives as The Network of Terrorism, a publication that has become the most widely disseminated public diplomacy document ever produced by the U.S. Government. The publication features dramatic visuals, including a map showing the 81 countries that lost citizens in the World Trade Center. Since its release last November, Network has been translated into 36 languages, and we've published over 1.3 million copies. We had Network distributed as an insert in the Arabic edition of Newsweek, and major excerpts appeared in other Arab and world publications. Since publication, we have maintained a constantly updated Internet version as well. In addition to the Network publication, we have had success with our Television Co-operatives, in which we sponsor the visits of foreign production teams to the U.S. There have been 21 television programs since September 11th dealing with the Islamic community in America, as well as the campaign against terrorism. Our exhibit of the stunning photographs of Joel Meyerowitz, capturing the human and material dimensions of Ground Zero, has now opened in 32 different countries and will be presented in an additional 10 countries by the end of the year, reaching audiences in the hundreds of thousands. Our web sites dealing with the Middle East have consistently topped Internet search engines since 9/11, and, thanks to our multilingual advertisements, our Rewards for Justice program has received some 30,000 pieces of information since the attacks. We have produced "This is Islam in America," a publication that was distributed to 500 Middle Eastern Imams at an April conference, as well as Islam in America, which was distributed through our American Corners network throughout Russia, and through our embassies in Almaty, Ashgabat, Baku, Bishkek, Dushanbe, and Tashkent. These initiatives highlight some of our successes, but there is clearly room for us to improve, to do more, much more. Right now, the Middle East and the greater Islamic world are awash with new media and new ideas and ideologies. We must compete on a crowded playing field for the attention of these audiences. I will defer to Governor Norm Pattiz to talk about the success of Radio Sawa, but it is evident that we have work to do to make our television services effective and relevant. Television is the medium of today and the future, as is evident in the growth and influence of Middle East television satellite and regular television broadcasting. Existing channels are hungry for programming, and we need to direct resources to production, acquisition, and distribution of compelling, quality programs. I am hesitant to endorse the concept of a greatly expanded direct broadcasting capacity until a great deal more research on how best to approach this market has been done. This is particularly true given the experience of BBC's expensive experiment in Arabic TV broadcasting. There is room for dialogue and exchange, but the onus is on us to make our voice heard. There is common ground on which we can build the foundation for this dialogue. Let me illustrate this through the story of a young Arab woman. She is a composite of Arab women I met recently. I was overseas at an Arab capital, and this woman started telling me of the anger and frustration that she and others feel about our Middle East policy. She is a professor, but not at the American University, whose name she feels would taint her. Her anger was so great that, initially, she expressed doubt that bin Laden was the ringleader of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. As we spent more time together, she began to ask me about what she understood to be the bad treatment of Muslims in the United States. I was able to tell her that there are between three and six million Muslims in this country, where they are free to worship fully in over 1,200 mosques, and where their children can attend Muslim schools. I told her about the Nobel Prize winner who is Muslim, the soccer player, our basketball star whose father is an Imam, the schoolteachers, and even President Bush's new Director of the National Institutes of Health. As I did this, a door began to open between us. Eventually, she admitted that, while she believed bin Laden had masterminded the attacks of September 11th, she could not defend her conviction to her colleagues. By the end of our conversation, she had asked whether her university could add a U.S. studies program and even whether she could travel to the U.S. with a group of teachers to study science and technology. There is also the story of a Fulbright alumnus who is leader of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-largest Islamic organization, with 30-40 million members. He recently told the Jakarta Post that his educational experience in the United States had caused him to abandon the idea of establishing an Islamic state in Indonesia. He cited his degree in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago, as a tool that helped him gain a more accurate understanding of religious teachings. He also asserted that "fewer and fewer Muslims now want to establish an Islamic state." This is the kind of "share of mind" toward which we are working. Shared ideas and values are our building blocks to better understanding, better relationships, and good will with the Islamic world. To help focus our public diplomacy efforts and sharpen our ability to address the challenge before us, we have developed three strategic themes under which our activities and efforts will be shaped. Under President Bush and Secretary Powell's leadership, we are pursuing the following broad areas in our public diplomacy efforts: -- The first theme is shared values. In many countries, especially in Muslim majority states, people carry a distorted and negative view of U.S. values. They believe that we are a faithless and decadent country. To counter these false impressions, we are initially focusing on freedom of religion and tolerance as reflected in the experience of Muslims in America. We have already created a website and are developing video products and speakers' programs to disseminate this message overseas. -- The second theme is the opportunity for democratization. It is my belief that democracy is the best path toward lasting peace and prosperity. Where good governance and open opportunity exist, inspiring stories of entrepreneurial and free market successes abound. Many U.S. government and private-sector programs already address this objective, and we need to better highlight their efforts. We must also encourage those who seek more open societies, economic opportunity through open markets, and the chance to achieve prosperity in the unique context of their own cultural and historical experience. -- The third theme is education, through an initiative called "Partnership for Learning." One of the universal values is that we all love our children and want a better future for them. We also know that a lack of social and economic opportunity is one of the key factors driving the recruitment of terrorists. U.S. educational and other assistance programs already underway are working to provide children around the world with the tools needed for effective participation in modern life. This focus will allow us to create new partnerships with the private sector, here and abroad, dramatically increasing the resources devoted to the education of children in countries where these options are limited. These three themes create the backbone under which our public diplomacy programs and activities are taking shape thanks to the creative and dedicated efforts of the public diplomacy professionals in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Bureau of Public Affairs, and the Office of International Information Programs, as well as our regional and function bureaus and our officers in the field. We are also working to engage the private sector, which is our natural ally in this fight to inform and influence the hearts and minds of the people of the world. Those corporations with a large international presence, in many instances, have better outreach to certain countries and population segments than we do. We want to work with them to create partnerships that serve our mutual interests. For its part, the private sector stands at the ready as never before to aid our Public Diplomacy efforts. We must continue to actively garner its support for our overall strategies, harness its creative collective will, and ask it to organize for action. Now, more than ever, the spotlight is on public diplomacy, on our ability and aptitude in communicating with the people of the world. I thank the committee for its continued support of public diplomacy, and for allowing me to testify before you today. (end text) (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)