Cultural Diplomacy – Page 5 – IPDGC Smart Power

How Does Cultural Diplomacy Communicate? Let Me Count the Ways

February 7, 2013Cultural Diplomacy, Global Communication, in the field, public diplomacy1 Comment

U.S. senior diplomat Robert Jackson and Casablanca high school research team at Rabat Environment Eair, 2010 — Opportunities to Engage: U.S. senior diplomat Robert Jackson with Casablanca high school research team members (Morocco’s Earth Day Network Fair, 2010)

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine, who delivered the annual Walter Roberts Lecture at George Washington University last Thursday, comes from a serious press and media background. She is the recipient of 10 News Emmy Awards and other awards in journalism for broadcast programs on domestic and international issues. She has also worked as strategic communications adviser to Internews and the International Women’s Media Foundation, among a number of other international organizations.

So it was all the more striking how prominently cultural diplomacy featured in her comments last Thursday, just as it does in many of her other communications — including the U.S. public diplomacy highlights she publishes every few weeks.

This is a reminder that the Under Secretary recognizes and embraces the fact that cultural programming IS communication. It is an essential diplomatic tool that enables the U.S. to persuade influential people to listen to us with an open mind; allows us to share knowledge and skills with potential international partners and allies; and helps us attract positive attention via mass media and digital media.

As Harvard scholar Joeph Nye has noted, the scarcest information resource in the 21st Century is likely to be the audience’s attention span. Here in the U.S., despite the plethora of contemporary media distractions, most citizens still pay some attention to what our own government says, because we know it might affect us directly, and also because we conceive of every citizen having a watchdog role. Certainly U.S. journalists see scrutiny of government as an obligation.

cross cultural iceberg — THE ICEBERG MODEL This graphic shows why direct messaging – via print or audio-visual media – can so easily fail to reach its target.

But it would be a mistake to think that official U.S. statements and policy explanations get even the modest automatic hearing abroad that they do at home. People are certainly interested in what the U.S. is up to, but they have a host of non-U.S. sources for that information that are more familiar to them, more trusted, and frequently more accommodating to their preconceptions.

Overseas, it takes creativity and insight to increase the chances that people will listen to U.S. officials with an open mind, and be prepared to respond accordingly.

This is why public diplomacy practitioners know that cultural programming is increasingly vital to the achievement of foreign policy goals. Some cultural programs serve as the proverbial “picture worth a thousand words,” projecting the essence of American policies, principles, and values via local mass media and fast-growing new digital media. Some cultural programming works as a powerful teaching tool to help influential people abroad understand (if not necessarily accept) both U.S. foreign affairs priorities and fundamental American principles.

More fundamentally, cultural programming fosters relationships and understanding between foreign officials and U.S. diplomats who will be called on, sooner or later, to work on contentious issues across the table from one other. It helps sustain generalized affinities even as individuals come and go in the diplomatic service. And it helps connect the real global communicators of the 21st century: journalists, activists, scholars, researchers, teachers, writers, artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs, as well as young people just joining the conversation.

The following recent U.S. public diplomacy highlights show the variety of ways in which cultural programming communicates. These highlights, published in January by the Office of the Under Secretary, are here sorted into three categories: Talking, Teaching, and Spreading the Word.

1) Talking — recognizing the people who are (or are likely to become) influential, and bringing them together across borders for focused and purposeful exchange of ideas.

Alumnus Hassen Ould Ahmed was recently appointed Deputy Director of Mauritania’s Cabinet. Ahmed was a 2008-2009 Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at Penn State University. Meanwhile, Armenian political magazine De Facto named Edmon Marukyan, an alumnus of the Hubert H. Humphrey Program 2010 and previously the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), “Member of Parliament of the Year.” Marukyan was elected to parliament in spring 2012.

Public Affairs Section Jerusalem hosted Oberlin College Professor of History Dr. Gary Kornblith, who spoke on American democracy at An-Najah University, Birzeit University, and Al Quds Open University. Dr. Kornblith also discussed the possibility of establishing an American Studies Program at the universities, meeting with university staff and academics at an Embassy reception designed to nurture cultural dialogue and advance the pursuit of American Studies.

At Rich Mix, East London (U.K.), playwright Wajahat Ali participated in an evening monologue and discussion with members of the Muslim arts community. The event attracted artists, writers, students and community leaders, including many women. An accomplished Muslim-American writer and an engaging speaker, Mr. Ali is comfortable with both his American and his Muslim identities, and there was much discussion about the contrast between American and British Muslims on that topic.

On January 5-6, while India and Pakistan faced each other on the cricket pitch, teams of exchange program alumni from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh engaged in the xBorder Games. Using social media tools like Google+, Storify, and Twitter, two teams comprised of alumni from each country competed in a digital scavenger hunt. The xBorder Games connected 45 alumni separated by geographic, cultural, and linguistic lines, created new friendships, and increased cross-cultural understanding. U.S. Embassies Islamabad, New Delhi and Dhaka organized the event.

Paralympian and Fulbright Scholar Yevgeniy Tetyukhin spoke about disability policy to an audience of special education teachers and administrators at the University of Guam. A professor, two-time Paralympian, and lifelong disability advocate, Tetyukhin is spending a year at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Center on Disability Studies, researching disability policy in the context of globalization and multicultural diversity.

Unconventional artists and activists narrate their own stories on a new VOA program that seeks to connect underground communities in Iran and the rest of the world. The twice-monthly TV and web program called ZirZameen is produced by Voice of America’s Persian Service and is available in both English and Farsi editions. The show, hosted by Mehrnoush Karimian, premiered in December and is available on social media sites, the VOA Persian satellite stream and on Livestation, a 24/7 Internet streaming platform.

The U.S. Ambassador to Korea hosted a New Year’s party for the Embassy’s online friends. Out of 35,000 people who follow the post’s various social media accounts, a diverse group of 20 were invited based on their online activity. The Ambassador blogged about the party, and the Embassy will post an “Ask the Ambassador” YouTube video highlighting the event. The Ambassador will continue this type of online-offline engagement with innovative netizens in the future.

2) Teaching — transferring knowledge and skills that are essential in civic life, political life, and international relations. Cultural programming promotes retention and “useability” of new knowledge through dialogue, debate, and learning-by-doing. Two-way knowledge transfer and “paying know-how forward” are frequent outcomes of cultural programming.

Pilarani Phiri from Zodiak Broadcasting radio station in Malawi – a participant in the State Department Foreign Press Center’s (FPC) 2012 Elections program for visiting journalists – reported that he secured the first live phone interview with a Malawian president as a result of his U.S. program experience. In his words: “one thing I learned while covering the elections is that the American President is always scrutinized by the public. Immediately I arrived home I got in touch with our ‘White House’ to have the President answer questions from the public. I am proud to announce that on December 31, I was the first Malawian journalist to have a live phone interview with the President where people posed questions to [him], a thing that has never happened before in my country.”

For four months, hundreds of Indonesian English teachers gathered every Saturday morning to take part in the series “Shaping the Way We Teach English,” taught by the [U.S. Embassy] Regional English Language Officer and English Language Fellows. The teachers came to @america [the high-tech American Center] in Jakarta or participated via digital link from the Consulate in Medan and the American Corner in Yogyakarta.

U.S. Embassy Kampala’s Information Officer gave a presentation at the “Writing Our World” (WOW) workshop at Makerere University, coaching participants on using social media to broadcast their voices and market their writing. Facebook, Twitter, and blogging were introduced as tools to expand the young writers’ network and increase attention to their work. The Embassy has also given grants to facilitate the activities of Writing Our World through readers and writers clubs in 10 schools. WOW’s leader is a member of the Embassy’s Youth Council.

Jerusalem: The board game Monopoly has proven a potent tool in fostering the entrepreneurial spirit among Palestinian youth, while simultaneously introducing a mainstay of American culture. American Corner Salfeet hosted 20 undergraduate students from Al Quds Open University for a discussion about business plans, barriers to entry, and board games with a visiting U.S. diplomat.

Seven officials from Zambia’s Ministry of Tourism traveled to the U.S. in January on an IVLP program to enhance their planning of the 20th session of the United Nations World Tourism Organization General Assembly, which will take place in Zambia in August 2013. During the program the officials examined how to plan a world conference, including best practices, leveraging partnerships, and capitalizing on them for longer-term benefit beyond the conference.

3) Spreading the word – via local media coverage or on digital media. While the previous two genres of cultural programming are designed to make a significant impact on the immediate participants, the purpose of this third type is to spark positive interest among the many.

U.S. Embassy Caracas held its annual “Baseball Visa Day” during which Venezuelan players in the U.S. major leagues and their family members obtain visas for the upcoming season. This year some 40 major leaguers and their families visited the Consular Section for their visas, and afterwards participated in a brief ceremony and reception with coverage by multiple print and television media outlets. Chargé d’Affaires (CDA) James Derham reminded those present that baseball is just one of many historic and cultural ties uniting Venezuela and the United States, and congratulated the players for an unprecedented season in which one Venezuelan won the batting Triple Crown, one pitched a no-hitter, another pitched a perfect game, and nine played in the World Series. During this event, Embassy Caracas took the opportunity to promote its youth outreach program “Béisbol y Amistad” (Baseball and Friendship), now in its seventh season.

In the lead-up to the U.S. Presidential Inauguration, Consulate Hong Kong began a social media project that included photos, videos and travelling cardboard cutouts of President Obama and the First Lady. Consulate Hong Kong Facebook posts of “President Obama” riding the Mid-Levels Escalator and standing in a Mass Transit Railway (MTR) station generated 42 comments, and 213 likes. Public Affairs Section Hong Kong will complete the project on January 21, 2013 with a video montage of the cutout President’s “tour” of Hong Kong.

The Innovation Generation Facebook page of State Department’s IIP Bureau hosted Monica Dodi, co-founder of MTV Europe and The Women’s Venture Capital Fund, on its “Ask the Entrepreneur” series, which features accomplished American entrepreneurs. The discussion sparked questions from around the globe including from India, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico, and Pakistan.

The U.S. Consul General in Munich spoke to students and faculty of “Berufsschule 4,” an off-the-beaten-track school in Nuremberg. He addressed U.S.-German relations, the U.S. presence in Bavaria, and economic and commercial ties, and tackled tough questions about car emissions, Guantanamo, gun control, and social media topics. The MeetUS speaker program is a core part of Mission Germany’s youth outreach, and the discussion was live Tweeted to highlight the event to a broader audience.

Bosnian Brooklyn Nets Player Interview Makes Front Page: The State Department’s New York Foreign Press Center assisted the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo in securing an interview with Brooklyn Nets player Mirza Teletovic – a Bosnian basketball star who has recently joined the NBA – in Dnevni Avaz (Daily Voice), the leading Bosnian newspaper and news website.

In January, [State Department] hosted 20 Youth Ambassadors from Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Panama for a reception and meeting with the Acting Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA), which promoted the event on social media along with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the relevant U.S. Embassies; Embassy San José alone received nearly 6,000 Facebook page views and 300 likes.

All the above constitute just a few of the highlights shared by the Under Secretary’s office for January alone. January’s highlights in turn constitute a tiny sliver of the cultural programming that takes place week in, week out at every U.S. Embassy and Consulate around the world. Most of it is targeted to advance specific foreign policy goals, and just about all of it is conceptualized strategically.

Each example is also a reminder that cultural diplomacy IS communication. The U.S. can only benefit from greater use of cultural programming to advance U.S. foreign affairs priorities.

21st Century Visual Culture, NGOs, and Public Diplomacy

December 20, 2012Cultural Diplomacy, Global Communication, public diplomacy1 Comment

An early Christmas present arrived in the mail today – a new book called Sensible Politics: The Visual Culture of Nongovernmental Activism (Meg McLagan and Yates McKee, eds., Zone Books, 2012.)

The “visual culture of nongovernmental activism” seems like an important topic for U.S. public diplomacy practitioners to consider. Even though public diplomacy isn’t exactly nongovernmental, neither does it represent the prevailing governing power of the countries in which public diplomats work. And in “making the case for America” in those foreign lands, we are very much activist, vying for attention along with non-governmental (and other-governmental) efforts of every stripe. We may ally ourselves enthusiastically with some causes, for example women’s empowerment. We may argue against others, for example restrictions on free speech deemed blasphemous. But we are always one voice among many, without the authority (however defined or felt) that a government body carries in its own country.

And of course, one of public diplomacy’s key resources is visual culture. From the first great expansion of U.S. public diplomacy during the Cold War period, the U.S. looked for ways to make visual our ideas, our values, our culture. Jazz Ambassadors did not tour just so people could hear their music; these mega-stars were sent abroad so that their photos would be on the front page of every newspaper, perhaps shaking the hand of a prime minister or jamming with local musicians. Jeeps and trucks carried USIS officers to remote areas with movies and portable generator-run projectors. Every month USIS distributed glossy color-photo magazines in Russian, Arabic, Spanish, French, and other languages. U.S. cultural centers were and are full of posters, photographs – even décor – supporting our particular “cause,” i.e., America itself. With the advent of satellite television in the 1980’s, USIA under Charles Wick eagerly embraced the opportunity to engage via this new medium. Interestingly, the first and most prominent use of USIA’s “Worldnet” television was to bring together multi-country audiences in mutual discussion and debate.

In the past couple of decades, non-governmental and civil society organizations have proliferated across the globe. In wealthier countries, philanthropy and sometimes government grants provided support. In the developing world, international donors channeled development assistance funds to and through such groups. Even before the Internet became widely accessible, NGOs expressed their activism visually, via photography, posters, videos, theater. Some development agencies ventured deep into visual culture territory, funding local NGO partners to produce films and television programs designed to promote positive actions such as conflict resolution or combating HIV/AIDS. Non-governmental organizations around the world became sophisticated in working with visual culture. Under-funded public diplomacy organizations have felt the pressure.

Today, we all continue to be amazed at the impact and promise of digital media. Digital and social media most certainly multiply our ability to communicate, but they expand the opportunity exponentially to those who may not have much in the way of funds, but who do have the passion, energy, and creativity to produce powerful images that draw us to their message. In this significantly more crowded visual-culture landscape, the U.S. will likely continue to focus on innovative ways to maintain our profile and to partner with other visual-culture organizations to tell America’s story. But this new book is a reminder that in the 21st century, communicating “who we are” is losing ground to communicating “what must change” — with real implications for public diplomacy.

In any case, it’s exciting when a book provokes so much thought via the title alone. And now I see that already on p. 14 there’s a discussion of Walter Benjamin on the “’aestheticizing of politics’ by fascism” in the 1930’s, which somehow got me thinking about the global reach of U.S. consumer culture and how this also shapes the landscape in which we public diplomacy practitioners work. Sounds like a topic for a future blog post!

Partnering with the Smithsonian: Seriously Amazing

October 21, 2012Cultural Diplomacy, Global Communication, public diplomacyLeave a Comment

While many State Department officers have worked closely with Smithsonian experts over the years, the creation of a detail assignment for a Foreign Service Officer at the Smithsonian Institution has opened new opportunities for both organizations.

As the world’s largest museum and research complex, the Smithsonian is increasingly engaging with broader world audiences, particularly non-elites and youths. The State Department, meanwhile, is eager to use the Smithsonian’s expertise and collections in art, culture, history and science to enhance its own engagement with overseas individuals and institutions, and increase dissemination of information about the United States abroad.

Every week brings new possibilities for greater interaction. Whether advising museums in Oman or promoting interest in tree banding by students around the world, the Smithsonian’s international work helps put a face on the State Department’s commitment to education, culture, the environment and scientific cooperation. For instance, the two institutions’ collaborative planning for International Jazz Day in April offered U.S. Embassies access to the Smithsonian’s extensive jazz collections, recordings, websites and activities.

Estonia American space — American Space in Talinn, Estonia

Recent cooperative ventures include Smithsonian help in designing American Spaces, the “Amazing Ocean” mobile app using National Museum of Natural History content, and a poster show based on a photography exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Meanwhile, Smithsonian experts traveling internationally have served as speakers at events organized by U.S. missions. For example, students at a science center in the West Bank met with a National Air and Space Museum historian while, in Chile, the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Science spoke with students at the embassy’s science-focused American Corner.

In another collaboration, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv partnered with the National Museum of American History’s Lemelson Center for Invention and Innovation to create a Spark!Lab at the Ukranian Art Arsenal in Kyiv during the month of September 2012 (mentioned in Take Five’s recent piece on building relationships in public diplomacy.) With the success of this Kyiv pilot, the Lemelson Center hopes the project will be a model for future international collaborations promoting interactive science learning.

In a March 22 ceremony to sign a Memorandum of Understanding making the State Department’s partnership with the Smithsonian Institution official, Under Secretary of the Smithsonian for History, Art and Culture Richard Kurin noted the benefits of having a senior State Department foreign service officer at the Smithsonian. “After the earthquake in Haiti when we wanted to provide our expertise to help with cultural relief and recovery, we were very grateful to have the recently appointed State Department liaison on our staff as we worked with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and other partners to preserve Haiti’s rich cultural heritage,” he said. “Since then, the advice, expertise and contacts provided by each of these officers have helped us develop closer collaboration here in Washington and better access to embassy resources overseas.”

Science and technology projects offer additional areas for cooperation, with Smithsonian research, facilities and programs under way in nearly 100 countries. A great deal of this research is in developing nations, with projects in countries such as Gabon, Papua New Guinea, and Peru. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, headquartered in Panama, conducts research on biodiversity around the world. The State Department’s Bureau of Oceans, Environmental and Science Affairs regularly partners with the Smithsonian on projects such as the Global Tiger Initiative, while the National Zoo’s pandas are a matter of high-level diplomatic and public interest. Embassy officers and locally employed staff in environment, science, technology and health (ESTH) positions overseas usually spend a half day at the National Museum of Natural History as part of their training, going behind the scenes to view some of the museum’s 127 million objects.

As Senior Advisor for International Affairs to the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture, I work in the complex linking the Freer and Sackler Galleries and National Museum of African Art. This location within the suite housing the Smithsonian’s Office of International Relations provides access to people who know the Department well from years of hosting participants in the International Visitor Leadership Program, cooperating on cultural heritage issues, briefing Foreign Service Institute classes and assisting foreign embassies. The office’s director, Francine Berkowitz, is known to generations of Department cultural officers who have turned to her for assistance through the years.

After serving as consul general in Shanghai and at posts in Thailand, Hungary and Sweden, the Smithsonian assignment is a new experience for me; with a season pass to one of America’s greatest treasures, I can apply my public diplomacy experience to help posts take advantage of an institution that is highly regarded by foreign visitors, embassies, scientists, museums, educators and tourists. The Smithsonian is, in the words of Secretary Wayne Clough, “a lens on the world for America, and a lens on America for the world.” The detail makes the Smithsonian’s amazing resources more accessible to the Department while supporting the Smithsonian’s goal of engaging a greater percentage of the world.

New Wine in Old Bottles: Relationships in Public Diplomacy

October 12, 2012Cultural Diplomacy, in the field, public diplomacy1 Comment

Consulates Karachi and Lahore host groundbreaking Pakistan-India Bloggers Conference — Participants at Ground-breaking Pakistan-India Bloggers’ Conference Hosted by U.S. Consulates in Karachi and Lahore

Take Five’s blog post series on Public Diplomacy in the Field — Part Two

Background: As a State Department Fellow at GWU’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication (IPDGC), I’ve observed that a frequently missing piece of the academic puzzle is concrete discussion and analysis of what public diplomats actually do in the field. And considering that U.S. public diplomacy remains significantly field-driven, this feels like a major gap.

Thus a blog series is born.

As noted last week, the series showcases current field reporting highlights in U.S. public diplomacy work – through the lens of key PD principles and themes. Today’s theme is Building Relationships. Last week’s was Opinion Leaders. Future topics will include: Messaging Creatively; Crisis Zones; Arts as Communication; and more.

As always, readers, I welcome your interest and feedback.

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New Wine in Old Bottles: Relationships in Public Diplomacy

Academic proponents of the “new public diplomacy” emphasize relationship building over the one-way messaging approach perceived to have dominated public diplomacy in the past. “The new public diplomacy moves away from — to put it crudely — peddling information to foreigners and keeping the foreign press at bay, towards engaging with foreign audiences” notes Jan Melissen (p. 13). RS Zaharna, in “Mapping Out a Spectrum of Public Diplomacy Initiatives” (here, p. xx) argues that “within [a] relationship framework, education and cultural exchange programs, cultural institutes and cultural relations represent a category of initiatives that use culture as a vehicle for building relationships.”

Meanwhile, Mette Lending (Section I) takes the broad view that “cultural exchange is not only ‘art’ and ‘culture’ but also communicating a country’s thinking, research, journalism and national debate,” and “the traditional areas of cultural exchange become part of a new type of international communication and the growth of ‘public diplomacy’ becomes a reaction to the close connection between cultural, press and information activities, as a result of new social, economic and political realities.” Finally, from Melissen again (p 22), “…the new emphasis on public diplomacy confirms the fact that the familiar divide between cultural and information activities is being eradicated.”

There is much to consider in the above concepts, and even more so in the detailed elaboration of these ideas that all three scholars and many others have brought to discussions of the “new” public diplomacy.

One caveat, however, is that these ideas are presented as new prescriptions for action, whereas the U.S. — perhaps unlike most European states — has long intermeshed its international information programs with cultural diplomacy, its messaging efforts with relationship building, and its arts exchanges with an emphasis on civil society development. Thus, at least to this veteran PD officer, the “new public diplomacy” seems perhaps more like a fully-developed ‘Platonic Ideal’ of what we have long practiced, rather than something qualitatively new.

Nevertheless, it is certainly true that the 21^st Century has intensified the importance of bringing a relational, interactive, mutually productive approach to international affairs, and specifically to public diplomacy. As Joseph Nye explains in his seminal 2004 work Soft Power (p. 4-5), “[On the level of] transnational issues like terrorism, international crime, climate change, and the spread of infectious diseases, power is widely distributed and chaotically organized among state and nonstate actors. … [This is the set of issues that is now intruding into the world of grand strategy.” And Brian Hocking (in Melissen 1999, p 31) had previously characterized the “growing symbiosis between state and non-state activities as ‘catalytic diplomacy’ in which political entities act in coalitions rather than relying on their individual resources.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also cites such developments, noting that “we are living in what I call the Age of Participation. Economic, political, and technological changes have empowered people everywhere to shape their own destinies in ways previous generations could never have imagined.” And the State Department’s 21^st Century Statecraft plan elaborates, explaining that “the U.S. is responding to shifts in international relations by … complementing traditional foreign policy tools with newly innovated and adapted instruments of statecraft that fully leverage the networks, technologies, and demographics of our interconnected world.”

It is in this context that Take Five continues our series on U.S. public diplomacy in the field, with the following examples from recent months – highlights distributed by the Office of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine (noted with *).

They are grouped according to specific concepts drawn from the scholarly works mentioned above, with the goal not only of showing how “new public diplomacy” principles are already being put into practice, but also of generating thinking on how PD could be even better informed by academia’s powerful and insightful ideas.

In other words, how the “new wine” of relational thinking can fill up the “old bottles” of long-valued program tools to create 21^st Century public diplomacy with an exceptional bouquet.

1) “Public diplomacy builds on trust and credibility, and it often works best with a long horizon. It is, however, realistic to aspire to influencing the milieu factors that constitute the psychological and political environment in which attitudes and policies towards other countries are debated.” (Melissen 2007, p. 15)

* Ambassador Eisen Marches in Prague Pride Parade and Delivers Remarks: Ambassador Eisen and a group from the U.S. Embassy marched in the 2nd annual Pride Parade in Prague on August 18, 2012. Parade participants walked from Wenceslas Square to Střelecký Island accompanied by floats with music and dancers. This event supported Embassy Prague’s goals to promote tolerance and protection of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights. Ambassador Eisen took the opportunity to emphasize that “one of the many reasons why relations between the Czech Republic and the United States have flourished over the past century is because of our countries’ shared values regarding human rights.”

* Historic Encounter between Indigenous Peoples of the USA and Paraguay: Public Affairs Section Asuncion hosted a Native American dance group from Arizona, the Yellow Bird Apache Dance Productions. The group met with Study of the U.S. Institute (SUSI) alumni and their indigenous communities in Paraguay. In partnership with the Ministry of Education’s Indigenous Schools Department, the group traveled across Paraguay to meet, sing and dance with the Enxlet, Nivacle, Western Guarani and Pai-Tavytera communities. They also met with the governors of two provinces who welcomed their presence and encouraged more outreach to their indigenous populations. The visit provided some moving encounters between the Original Peoples of North and South America that broke down barriers, built bridges and encouraged development initiatives.

* Art Without Artificial Boundaries: Embassy Celebrates Freedom of Artistic Expression: More than 300 musicians, filmmakers, photographers, artists, designers, actors and other guests gathered at the U.S. Embassy in Minsk on July 11 to celebrate freedom of artistic expression. This annual Embassy music festival provides talented Belarusian musicians an opportunity to perform despite restrictions imposed due to their political views or social activism. This year’s event featured, in addition to musical groups of various genres, several artistic exhibitions and showcased a documentary about the challenges that Belarusian musicians and other artistic personalities continue to face. Such restrictions are “incomprehensible for a country in the center of Europe in the third millennium,” noted Chargé d’Affaires Michael Scanlan.

* Positive Coverage of Cairo ‘Open Mic’ Event: At least five television stations and newspapers covered an ‘Open Mic’ sexual harassment awareness event at the U.S. Embassy Information Resource Center in Egypt last week. More than 80 people from different backgrounds and ages discussed harassment on Cairo’s streets and at the work place, as well as solutions. Both women and men spoke courageously, giving personal context to the growing problem and demonstrating the need for change. Participants expressed an interest in future cooperation with the embassy on the issue, and the Facebook event page became a discussion board on which the dialogue continued.

2) An intermediate-advanced “second tier” approach involves programs that “encompass social groupings such as institutions, communities, or societies. … The benefit of integrating foreign participants at this level is that not only do they take partial ownership of the program, but they can provide valuable cultural knowledge and indigenous connections.” (Zaharna, p. 94)

* Smithsonian Spark!Lab Opens in Ukraine: On September 5 Ambassador John T. Tefft opened the Smithsonian-Lemelson Center’s Spark!Lab, a month-long exhibit at the Art Arsenal Museum (Mystetskyi Arsenal) in Kyiv supported by a Public Affairs Section grant. Smithsonian-Lemelson Center Deputy Director Jeff Brody and Ukrainian Ombudsman for Children’s Rights Yuri Pavlenko also participated in the opening. This is the first international exhibit of Spark!Lab, which encourages kids to conceive, design, build and develop their inventions in an interactive laboratory. Over 200 educators, students and young volunteers were on hand for the opening, which was covered by major television stations. Thousands of students are expected to visit the exhibit, which is staffed by volunteers from local universities who are trained by Lemelson Center education specialists. Spark! Lab is the Public Diplomacy contribution to the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership Commission’s Science and Technology Working Group.

* Consulate Istanbul Hosts Iftar for the Neighborhood: Approximately 500 people joined the U.S. Consul General, the Sarıyer Mayor, several Sarıyer City Council members, neighborhood muftis and imams, and American Consulate families for an Iftar on August 15. The dinner received praise in local media and by Mission Turkey leadership as one of its best public diplomacy events, demonstrating U.S. respect for Turkish culture and thanks to the Consulate’s neighbors.

* Ambassador and American Rabbi Meet Young Muslims in Cameroon: Ambassador Jackson addressed members of the Cameroon Muslim Students Union (CAMSU), the most influential Muslim youth organization in the country, at their annual conference in Douala. … [T]he Embassy has had relations with CAMSU for over a decade and its president is a recent International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) alum. The Embassy also supported the visit of Rabbi Abraham Ingber, Founding Director of Interfaith Community Engagement at Xavier University in Cincinnati, as a speaker at the conference. Rabbi Ingber was invited to the conference by CAMSU president Ismail Boyomo, who met Ingber during his participation in the 2012 IVLP program on Religious Tolerance and Interfaith Dialogue.

3) “[C]ulture does not appear to be the only vehicle nor do cultural programs constitute the most sophisticated relationship-building strategies.” (Zaharna, p. 86)

* TechWomen Mentorship Program Commences in San Francisco: From across the Middle East and North Africa, 41 women leaders in technology arrived in California on September 5, to begin a five-week professional mentorship program with their American counterparts. Professional mentors come from over thirty technology companies in Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco area including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Oracle, which hosted an orientation for the group.

* TechCamp Launches in Senegal: Embassy Dakar Public Affairs and Economic Sections helped launch the first-ever global TechCamp in Africa. After an opening reception with remarks by Ambassador Lukens and tech guru Marieme Jamme, TechCamp took off for two packed days of interactive sessions around mobile agriculture, or “mAgriculture.” Participants interacted with 71 different agricultural non-governmental organizations (NGO) and learned from 20 “technologists,” including 10 international trainers. Agriculture is crucial to Senegal’s development. 87% of the population owns a mobile device, while only 20% have direct access to the Internet. Getting the NGOs to learn about and engage in mAgriculture can propel Senegal’s agricultural development. TechCamp gave the Public Affairs Section the opportunity to engage with new groups of young entrepreneurs and to showcase Senegal as a leading partner with the U.S. in high tech solutions to economic development.

* U.S. Embassy Brings Google Scientists to Brasilia: Proving that science is the international language of cool, young computer scientists from Google pulled in a crowd of 400 students at Brasilia’s Marista High School for an interactive presentation entitled “You Can Do Computer Science!” U.S. Embassy Brasilia and its IIP-supported Information Resource Center sponsored both programs. Just a few years out of college themselves, the Google scientists provided students with a great example of opportunities available to youth while demonstrating the role science can play in public diplomacy outreach. The scientists also spoke at the Brasilia Science Corner, a joint project between U.S. Embassy Brasilia and the Brazilian National Council for Technological and Scientific Development.

4) Such programs also include “non-political networking schemes” — in which “PD officers in essence become network weavers. Non-political networking schemes build relationships between like-minded individuals or institutions working on a variety of areas such as science, health, environment, or literacy promotion.” (Zaharna, p. 95)

* Jerusalem Conference Connects Israeli Musicians with American Experts: Embassy Tel Aviv connected Israeli musicians to the dynamic U.S. music market by bringing U.S. music industry experts to participate in various panels at the multi-day Jerusalem Music Conference. Local and foreign professionals and artists enjoyed an interactive panel on the U.S. music industry and trends moderated by Cultural Affairs Officer Michele Dastin-van Rijn. The conference, modeled on Austin’s SXSW, created a unique platform for networking and collaboration between Jewish and Arab musicians.

* South Asian Alumni Discuss Climate Change: On August 29, Embassy Islamabad hosted a multi-country digital video conference for alumni of U.S. government exchange programs in order to engage across borders on environmental issues. Alumni from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nepal discussed drought, solid waste, and potable drinking water. There was a consensus that the younger generation should promote regional cooperation on environmental problems, and that alumni should work to raise awareness among youth. Other suggestions included sharing data and technology, updating regional cooperation documents, increased dialogue among environmental professionals, the mobilization of civil society, promoting policy on climate change, and the participation of Afghanistan as a full member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation rather than in an observer capacity.

* Making a Difference for Women Entrepreneurs: When IIP recently promoted non-governmental organization Ashoka’s “She Will Innovate” competition, a small business owner in Colombia connected with an Ecuadorian university’s entrepreneur club, which offered its web design and social media expertise for free. Now the owner will soon have a website, thanks to IIP’s Spanish-language Facebook community for aspiring entrepreneurs, Iniciativa Emprende.

* YAL Alumnus Spreads the Word on Youth Entrepreneurship: Zimbabwean Young African Leader (YAL) Limbikani Makani, who participated in the recent Innovation Summit in Washington, D.C., led a region-wide CO.NX-facilitated discussion on July 18. Makani, Founder and managing editor of TechZim, shared what he learned from his Mentoring Partnership with BlueKai, and urged African youth on-line to become leaders and leverage their innovative skills to boost the region’s economies. More than 240 online viewers from 17 countries tuned in to the live program. Embassies Accra and Zimbabwe and Information Resources Center Abidjan hosted viewing parties.

5) “[C]ultural relations as a wider concept now also include new priorities, such as the promotion of human rights and the spread of democratic values, notions such as good governance, and the role of the media in civil society.” (Melissen p. 22)

* Embassy Sana’a brings “In Happy Yemen” Cartoon Series to Thousands of Children: Embassy Sana’a finalized plans with the Yemeni children’s rights non-governmental organization the Shawthab Foundation for the distribution of 50,000 DVD copies of the cartoon series “In Happy Yemen” to schools and youth groups throughout Yemen, and for broadcast on Yemeni TV. The series focuses on civic education themes including resolving conflict through peaceful means, with the objective of enabling vulnerable youth in Yemen to make informed, practical, and positive life choices. Public Affairs Section Sana’a is also working with Shawthab to distribute Embassy-donated backpacks and school supplies to needy children.

* Building a Network of Change-makers in Nepal: More than 40 young leaders participated in “Generation Change” programs sponsored by the Office of the Special Representative for Muslim Communities in Kathmandu and Nepalgunj (once the hub of the Maoist insurgency). The program unites a global network of young Muslims working on community-based service projects, building bridges between people of different backgrounds and faiths, and countering extremist narratives. Pakistani-American trainer Wajahat Ali guided participants in developing leadership, public speaking, goal-setting, and teamwork skills. Participants developed ideas to combat educational inequity, pollution and climate change, drug abuse, corruption, and unemployment. Selected participants will receive Public Affairs Section grants to make their projects a reality.

* Consulate General Jerusalem’s “Wise Leader Summer Camp” Graduates 24 Youth: On July 24, Public Affairs Section Jerusalem held a graduation ceremony for 24 participants in “The Wise Leader Summer Camp.” The camp guided participants through the process of creating a youth government, writing a youth-based constitution, and representing the needs of young people without being directly involved in any party. The concept of the camp was developed by ACCESS [English language] and Yes [youth exchange] Program alumnus Abdallah Khalifah, who presented his idea at the Alumni Networking and Engagement Seminar in Jericho last April. The Royal Industrial Trading Company in Hebron hosted the ceremony.

* Caucasus Youth Council Seeks to Influence Policy Debate: An ECA alumni grant enabled forty Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX) alumni and young leaders from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to gather in Bazaleti, Georgia for a four-day workshop. The alumni established the Caucasus Youth Council (CYC) to lay the foundation for future cooperation based on the principles of democracy, rule of law, and human rights. The resolutions adopted at the CYC General Assembly will be sent to the South Caucasus governments to be considered when developing policy.

* ECA Arts Envoy Encourages Women’s Empowerment in Nepal: Arts Envoy and mural artist James Burns of the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program visited Kathmandu, from August 5-14, and conducted workshops and lectures on mural-making for over 200 local artists. Also, 80-plus local residents participated in two days of “open painting” to help complete a public mural connected to Tewa, a philanthropic organization dedicated to empowering young Nepali women.

* ECA’s Institute for Women’s Leadership Broadens Horizons: Nineteen undergraduate women from Egypt, India, Morocco, Pakistan, and Sudan shared their impressions of the United States and the role of women in a democracy with Assistant Secretary Stock on July 27. The women just concluded five weeks in the U.S as part of a Study in the U.S. Institute on women’s leadership. The students outlined their plans to become leaders in their communities after they return home.

* Study of the U.S. Institutes for Student Leaders Feature New Media in Journalism: On July 20, Assistant Secretary Ann Stock addressed student leader participants in the Study of the U.S. Institute (SUSI) on New Media in Journalism. These student leaders came from Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Palestinian Territories, and Yemen, and participated in a program at Washington State University. SUSI programs span 5-6 weeks and include academic study, leaderships development, and community engagement.

Opinion Leaders: Still the Most Important PD Audience.

October 4, 2012Cultural Diplomacy, Global Communication, in the field, public diplomacyLeave a Comment

Diplomatic Tweetup event in Morocco — Diplomeet Tweetup co-sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Morocco and the Social Media Club of Casablanca.

Note: First in a new Take Five blog post series

The Office of U.S. Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine began several months ago to distribute summary PD activity highlights to interested members of the U.S. public. In a series of blog posts starting today, I’d like to showcase some of these highlights, and use them to illustrate key facets of ongoing U.S. public diplomacy work.

Last year, after diving into the world of public diplomacy scholarship as a Fellow at GWU’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication (IPDGC), I began to realize that a frequently missing piece of the academic puzzle is concrete discussion and analysis of what public diplomats actually do in the field. And considering that U.S. public diplomacy remains significantly field-driven, this feels like a major gap. Thus a blog series is born.

Each piece will begin with a few thoughts on what the selected programs and activities have in common, and what is significant about that common theme. The highlights speak for themselves.

Today’s theme is Opinion Leaders. Future topics will include: Not Always Setting the Agenda; Messaging Creatively; Arts Programs as Communication; and more. As always, readers, I welcome your interest, your feedback, and your additional thoughts.

Focus: Opinion Leaders

Over the years, debates have raged within U.S. Public Diplomacy about how much energy and resources to direct towards “opinion leaders” (journalists, professors, artists, political and social movement leaders) and how much towards the broad general public (e.g. via youth outreach.)

Rhetoric in these debates tended to confuse “opinion leaders” and “elites.” Practically no one objected to the idea of going far beyond elites, but most public diplomacy practitioners recognized that opinion leaders come in all shapes, sizes, ages, classes, genders, and income levels. Acutely aware that there were only so many PD dollars to go around, they hesitated to abandon working with opinion leaders (sometimes termed audience multipliers) in order to concentrate on engaging ordinary citizens directly.

Fortunately, among the many benefits of digital technology and social media are two that have helped lay to rest the elites vs. opinion leader debate. First, digital media has expanded the communication power and resources of non-elites to the point where no one any longer can doubt their ability to shape public opinion; and second, digital communication means field diplomats can now reach the general public (in a more interactive and targeted way than broadcasting allows) with much less expenditure of funds and time resources.

The following recent State Department highlights are selected to showcase the variety of ways that U.S. public diplomacy continues to work with opinion leaders — journalists, teachers, professors, NGO leaders, entrepreneurs, and selected youth leaders, and to communicate – through them – with their own respective networks and audiences. (Text from State Department highlights is marked with *)

Journalists are opinion leaders par excellence.

* VOA Program Connects US and Pakistan: Viewers in Pakistan can now experience a slice of life in America, with the premiere of a dynamic new VOA program called “Sana, A Pakistani,” that follows show host Sana Mirza — one of Pakistan’s most popular television newscasters — as she gets to know this country. “I just moved here, so I’m seeing things with fresh eyes,” says Sana. “I want the program to a picture of what life is really like in the United States.” The first program focused on Washington D.C. and included a visit to a mosque, the White House, and an aid organization that provides free meals to the homeless. Sana says she plans to travel around the country so she can show viewers how people really live, including the many Pakistani-Americans that have moved to the United States.

* Alumna’s Recognition Marks Fulbright’s 20th Anniversary in Vietnam: July’s State Alumni Member of the Month is Do Minh Thuy, a Fulbright Program alumna from Vietnam dedicated to raising the professional and ethical standards of Vietnamese journalism. The honor coincided with Fulbright’s 20th anniversary in Vietnam.

* Embassy Seoul Hosts Student Journalism Seminar: In a first-ever collaboration with the Korea
Association of International Educators (KAIE), Embassy Seoul arranged the 2012 Student Journalism Seminar, inviting 34 top student journalists from 17 university newspapers and broadcasting stations across eight cities in Korea. Under the theme of “Journalism and the Changing Media Environment,” participants enjoyed remarks from U.S. Ambassador Sung Kim, journalism workshops, visits to major media outlets, and meetings with U.S. and Korean journalists.

* Partnering with VOA in South Sudan: Voice of America’s (VOA) South Sudan Project held a reporting training workshop in Juba, South Sudan for 19 journalists, including reporters from VOA’s radio program, South Sudan in Focus, as well as reporters and announcers from the Voice of the People, Radio Miraya, and South Sudan Radio.

* IIP’s eLibraryUSA Wows Influential Ghana TV Station: The Accra Information Resource Center (IRC) hosted staff from one of Ghana’s most influential TV stations; showing them how to locate documentaries and books, podcasts, videos, articles and reference sources via the collection of 30 commercial databases available to audiences worldwide. Following the two hour session, TV3’s lead producer said they would extend training invitations to the most prominent people in Ghana’s media landscape.

But media influence is no longer just the domain of journalists.

* Libyan Civil Society Organizations Produce First Public Service Announcements: Four civil society organizations from the cities of Misrata, Tripoli, and Sebha completed technical training in video production and public messaging with a grant from the State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). The organizations produced twelve public service announcements (PSAs) on electoral education, voter participation, rule of law, and mine risk awareness.

People listen to business leaders too (even those not profiled in major newspapers!)

*Russian Business Leader Credits FLEX Year in the United States for Success: Leading Russian businesswoman Marina Malykhina was featured in a July 27 article in The Moscow Times, where she attributed much of her success to the entrepreneurial values learned as a teenager on ECA’s Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program. Malykhina is the cofounder and CEO of one of Russia’s largest market research firms.

* Fortune Alum Pays it Forward with Mentoring Challenge in Nigeria: Consulate General Lagos partnered with Idea Builders Initiative, a non-governmental organization run by an alumna of the Fortune/State Department Mentoring program, to conduct a three-day orientation and training program for 35 young women. These 35 women accepted a “Mentoring Challenge” to reach out to 100 female students in area high schools over the next 12 months. They learned about public speaking, confidence building, goal setting, conflict resolution, money and time management, career planning, and handling peer pressure.

* Coca-Cola Scholars: The State Department’s Bureau of Near East / North African Affairs hosted 100 young leaders from the region on July 13 to mark the completion of their month-long entrepreneurship education program sponsored by the State Department and the Coca-Cola Company in partnership with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University (IU.) The young leaders showcased community-based initiative proposals they developed during their program at IU. Under Secretary Sonenshine and White House Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes addressed the scholars and NEA Spokesperson Aaron Snipe took extensive questions from the group.

All posts aspire to engage future government and political leaders:

* ECA Alumni To Play Key Role in Yemen Transition: Yemen’s President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi has appointed five ECA alumni (from International Visitor Leadership Program and Fulbright) to serve on the Preparatory Committee for the National Dialogue. Committee outcomes will set the stage for the anticipated constitution-drafting process.

* First Mongolian Fulbrighter Joins Parliament: Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, a Fulbright and Eisenhower program alumna and a board member of the Embassy Alumni Association, was recently elected to the Mongolian parliament. She is the first Fulbright and the third Eisenhower alumna to become a Mongolian parliament member. She is one of only nine women parliamentarians serving alongside 67 men.

At the local government level, ensuring that at least one or two people know the U.S. can have a big impact:

* International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) Transforms Iraqi Views of Muslim Life in America: A member of the Anbar (Iraq) Provincial Council shared his views of Muslim life in America, after participating in the “Transparency in Federal, State, and Local Government” IVLP. He said his colleagues thought it was “impossible to be a Muslim in the United States, since the Americans all hate Muslims and kick them out of the country.” He said, “I immediately corrected my friends’ misunderstanding and told them about the vibrant community of Muslims that I met in Miami. I knew what they were saying was wrong, and I couldn’t stay silent.”

Teachers and scholars spread knowledge and shape opinions for a living.

* A Record Number of Fulbrighters Prepare for Departure: 180 new Fulbright Masters and PhD scholars from every province in Pakistan, the largest group of Pakistani Fulbrighters ever, prepared in June / July to head off for universities throughout the United States.

Exchange and public affairs reach current and future influential Americans too:

* ECA Teacher Alumnus Is Connecticut Teacher of the Year: ECA’s Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) alumnus David Bosso was honored by President Obama as the 2012 Connecticut State Teacher of the Year for his passion for learning and teaching about the world. The TEA program provides outstanding secondary school teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), social studies, math and science with unique opportunities to develop expertise in their subject areas. One student wrote: “Mr. Bosso has taken what he has learned from classrooms across the globe and shared his insights with us. When he learns something new, so do we.”

* USUN Panel on Media in a Changing World: Nearly 100 [U.S.] students interning at news outlets in New York City came to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations (USUN) on July 23 to discuss “Media in a Changing World” with peers and media veterans. The program began with a panel, moderated by Deputy Spokesperson Kurtis Cooper, featuring Richard Roth of CNN, Marcelle Hopkins of Al-Jazeera, Sylvan Solloway from the New York University Curtis Institute of Journalism, and Koda Mike Wang of the Huffington Post. The convergence of media and tech, social media, changing business models for news outlets, and many other aspects of covering international affairs were part of a lively discussion.

African-Americans in Africa in the 1960’s: an early example of the New Public Diplomacy

April 23, 2012Africa, Cultural Diplomacy, public diplomacy1 Comment

Searching online for details about the life of Dr. Marie Gadsden, a ground-breaking African-American internationalist who was my husband’s dear friend and mentor, we discovered intriguing threads linking her to a complex and deeply fascinating story: the story of African-American political and cultural engagement with newly independent Africa in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

It is also a story, I would argue, about two-way, collaborative, non-assymetrical dialogue — with and without government support — of the kind that today is the elusive prescription for successful public diplomacy as described by scholars such as Jan Melisson, Rhonda Zaharna, Kathy Fitzpatrick, and others. (If you have another view on this, Take Five welcomes your contributions and insights.)

To return to the story: Marie Gadsden was one of the first African-Americans awarded a Fulbright fellowship, which in 1953 took her to Oxford University in the UK. There, chance put her with roommate Sarah Ntiro, a future icon of Ugandan women’s rights, a pairing that added impetus to Marie’s growing interest in strengthening U.S.- African ties.

1959 found Dr. Gadsden teaching English to government cabinet members and to English teachers in newly-independent Guinea, as a response to President Sékou Touré’s first request of the first U.S. Ambassador to that country. In 1960, Dorothy Height, who was president of the influential National Council of Negro Women and who would go on to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal for her work in the Civil Rights movement, recalled joining in a women’s labor march with Marie Gadsden in the Guinean capital of Conakry.

Dr. Gadsden would likely have known of future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s travel to Kenya and the UK, also in 1960. And a few years later, in 1966, Dr. Gadsden crossed paths with famed American poet Langston Hughes in Nairobi, most likely during his USIA-sponsored trip to Uganda and Ghana.

So what were these and many other African-American icons doing in Africa? The essential answer is that they were sharing ideas, and receiving them. Sharing expertise, and gaining inspiration.

They were seeking support from Africans for American civil rights – human rights — and working hard to mobilize American support for Africa’s political and economic development. Traveling for U.S. public diplomacy, and traveling as private citizens, and merging the two as true citizen diplomats.

And also pressing the State Department in Washington to include more African-Americans among the ranks of U.S. diplomats, and to focus more effectively on relations with emerging African nations.

We are by now familiar with the Jazz Ambassadors of that era, a much-lauded Cold War initiative of U.S. public diplomacy that projected American culture and society through jazz greats from Louis Armstrong to Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and Dave Brubeck.

But fewer likely focus on the deeply emotional and polarizing backdrop of the early U.S. Civil Rights era, which saw, for example, Louis Armstrong temporarily refusing to tour for the U.S. in protest at President Eisenhower’s early handling of the Little Rock, AK, desegregation crisis. Such tensions are the focus of historian Penny von Eschen’s absorbing book Satchmo Blows Up the World.

So the heady era when a young America embraced post-WWII globalism (a zeitgeist intensified by visionary and inspiring initiatives of the Kennedy era such as the Peace Corps and rapid expansion of U.S. development assistance), was a stirring but also conflicted period for many African-Americans who saw the African quest for post-colonial independence as a mirror and metaphor for the horrifically daunting struggle for civil rights at home. In December 1960, Ebony magazine celebrated Africa’s emerging states as both the realization of a dream as well as a somewhat precarious, must-not-fail experiment that demanded the material and spiritual support of African-Americans as well as the official support of the United States.

Dr. Gadsden’s story, like those of many other African-American leaders whose threads were woven into it, brings that era to vivid life. The all-too-brief details that follow are offered as an introductory sample, a tantalizing glimpse, in the hope that you will follow our own footsteps in discovering the rich history of African-American and African public diplomacy in the early Civil Rights era.

Dorothy Height’s memoir Open Wide the Freedom Gates (2009), and especially her Chapter 14, “Citizen of the World,” highlights the immediate and compelling political relevance of Height’s own international experience and that of other Civil Rights leaders.

In 1960, Height traveled for several months in Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, and Guinea to study the training needs of women’s organizations. (It was on this trip that she met Marie Gadsden, then with the small and shrinking U.S. Embassy delegation in Conakry.) Meetings with grassroots women who had never before thought about their problems and goals in gender terms; being hosted by a new cabinet minister in Accra, and Nigeria’s new chief barrister in Lagos; gaining insights into the debilitating legacy of colonialism — all are vividly described.

On her return, Height helped form a senior policy advocacy group, the American Negro Leadership Conference on Africa (ANLCA), together with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, and other top Civil Rights leaders. A remarkable coalition of African-American religious, civil rights, fraternal, sorority, business, professional, educational, labor and social organizations supported ANLCA, including the American Committee on Africa, the Phelps-Stokes Fund, and even organizations whose primary commitment was clearly to grassroots Civil Rights organizing in the U.S. such as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

Height recalls that Chief Simeon Olaosebikan Adebo, newly arrived in New York as Nigeria’s ambassador to the UN, invited ANLCA leaders “to discuss how Africans felt about U.S. policy. …He wanted black Americans to think more precisely about how the U.S. was relating [not just to South Africa but] to other parts of the continent too. He urged us to be aware of policies that affected the utilization of raw materials throughout southern and central Africa… Above all, he wanted us to know how U.S. policy played into these complicated issues.”

Meanwhile, American poet Langston Hughes had spent much of the 1950’s putting together a highly ambitious anthology of African and diaspora writing, published in 1960 as An African Treasury. Daniel Won-gu Kim, in his excellent, insightful piece, We, Too, Rise with You: Recovering Langston Hughes’s African (Re)Turn 1954-1960 in An African Treasury, the Chicago Defender, and Black Orpheus (2007), describes how Hughes began the project in 1954, correponding with hundreds of writers and sifting and weighing thousands of potential contributions, many of them handwritten and “accompanied by letters … expressing their gratitude and admiration of Hughes as an elder black writer. “

Notes Kim, “the friendship and comradeship of this new generation of African writers could not have had a more meaningful influence on [Hughes]. … The anthology served as a kind of crash course, bringing him up to speed in the dizzying but inspiring pace of change in his ancestral homeland, feeding his own drive to rediscover–via African liberation–his role as a cultural fighter for the liberation of his people in the U.S.”

In 1962, on the heels of the anthology’s publication, Hughes made two trips to Africa sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) — his first since he was an impressionable young man working on a tramp steamer in the 1920’s. In June-July of ’62, Langston Hughes’ itinerary included a major conference of writers at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda, and the dedication of a new United States Information Service (USIS) Center and Library in Ghana.

The “M’bari Writers Conference” opened in Kampala with about 45 writers, editors, scholars and journalists from nine African countries, the U.S., UK, and Caribbean — including rising literary stars such as Chinua Achebe, future Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Bloke Modisane, and Cyprian Ekwensi. Langston Hughes already knew and admired many of these writers from his work on the anthology, and had also engaged in correspondence with the brilliant South African writer Bessie Head and others. His speech at the new USIS library in Ghana clearly drew inspiration from his experience at the Kampala conference: “[As] America comes to Africa, as through these library shelves, to offer an exchange of knowledge … [so] Black Africa today is sending rejuvenating currents of liberty over all the earth reaching even as far as Little Rock, Birmingham and Jackson, Mississippi.”

A modern awareness of this interweaving of literature, politics, culture, nationalism, and human rights echoes through “Langston Hughes in Paradise,” Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein’s beautiful and inspirational 2011 essay in Contrary. Lichtenstein, while teaching Langston Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son” (with its famous line “life for me ain’t been no crystal stair”) to students from the State University of Zanzibar, perceives this poem’s message of nationalism through the response it generates in her students.

Finally, there is the fascinating 1960 episode in which then-NAACP lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall served as an advisor to Kenyan nationalists during negotiations on a new constitution for Kenya, at the time a British colony. The story, outlined in Mary Dudziak’s Working toward Democracy: Thurgood Marshall and the Constitution of Kenya, describes an invitation to Marshall from Tom Mboya, a young nationalist leader from Kenya (who was assassinated a few years later, in 1967.) Marshall traveled first to Kenya, and then to London, while his offers of assistance were debated by both Kenyans and British. Interestingly, Marshall’s most substantial contribution to the Kenyan constitution was to strengthen protection for property rights, de facto those of land-owning white Kenyans. Dudziak’s insights into the nuances and apparent contradictions of Thurgood Marshall’s work on, and later views on, the Kenyan constitution are well worth a read.

In February 1960, Marshall quickly wrapped up his involvement and returned to the U.S. earlier than anticipated “after four African-American freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College held a sit-in at the segregated lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. The simple protest soon expanded into a widespread sit-in movement,” and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund set out to defend the students immediately. “The sit-ins posed a set of legal and practical dilemmas for civil rights lawyers,” among them the problem — felt strongly by Marshall in particular, echoing his property-rights concerns about the Kenyan constitution — that the students had violated “facially valid trespass laws, not facially vulnerable segregation laws.”

Meanwhile, Thurgood Marshall maintained ties with his Kenya colleagues, and his work on the draft Kenyan Bill of Rights continued to be influential. Marshall developed a deep affection for Jomo Kenyatta after his release in 1961. He traveled to Kenya on a U.S. State Department sponsored trip in July 1963, and was an honored guest of Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta at Kenya’s independence ceremonies in December 1963.

Marie Gadsden herself, after more than a decade with the Peace Corps, went on to become a pioneer in connecting America’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU’s) with international development training and exchange programs funded by USAID, USIA, and the State Department. Her work on this effort through the Phelps-Stokes Fund and later through NAFEO brought her a level of respect in Washington that led to her being named the first African-American board chair of Oxfam-America, among many other recognitions.

Throughout her life, she maintained a deep commitment to developing America and developing Africa, to engaging young Americans and young Africans in service, both at home and abroad. She seamlessly worked for the U.S. Government, for private organizations, and to advance her own deeply held personal vision.

Hers was a life of public diplomacy.

From the Trenches

April 5, 2012Cultural Diplomacy, Middle East, public diplomacyLeave a Comment

“You are an unofficial representative of the American people.”

These were the words of Richard Gong, the head of the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. It was September 1997, and I had just started what I hoped would be an exciting year as a Fulbrighter. I’d been awarded a position as a Senior Scholar at the University of Indonesia, where I would be teaching in the graduate program of the American Studies department. You could also say that this was the start of my career in public diplomacy.

Guest lecturing to graduate political science graduate class at Cairo University — I guest lectured for graduate political science graduate class at Cairo University

During the next twelve months, I watched the fall of a dictator, the complete reorganization of a media system, and the beginnings of democracy in a majority Muslim country. I also learned Indonesian, re-focused my research to the study of journalism in Southeast Asia, and began to do work in public diplomacy that has since taken me all over the world. The lessons I learned in Indonesia have been useful not only in other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Burma, and Timor Leste, but also more recently in on a USG speaker-specialist trip to post-revolutionary Egypt.

My start in public diplomacy may have been somewhat accidental, but I’ve been engaged in it for the past fifteen years. I’ve been a speaker-specialist in ten countries, and although the topics and challenges have varied from post to post, I’ve never forgotten what Richard said.

I like that I’m “unofficial.” As someone who’s spent a lot of time around embassies, I can’t imagine anything more difficult than being a diplomat, and having to guard each and every word I say. I’ve met some great diplomats and some mediocre ones, but the best are those who truly engage with the countries in which they are posted, while never forgetting who it is they work for.

Narrative writing class at Alexandria University — My narrative writing class at Alexandria University

In my work, engagement means taking each country and its media system on its own terms. In Egypt, I spent a lot more time talking about the Indonesian press system than I did about what we have in the United States. There’s a lot that Egypt could learn from Indonesia, another country that emerged from over 30 years of authoritarian rule with a tightly controlled press. As I pointed out repeatedly, the man who in my opinion was Indonesia’s best and most democratic president, Abdurrahman Wahid, was not only a highly regarded Muslim scholar and one-time student at Al-Azhar, he was also the man who abolished the Ministry of Information. As any Indonesian can tell you, democracy, good journalism, and the values of Islam are not incompatible.

I also like that I don’t represent the American government, but rather the American people. In nearly all of the places I’ve been — during Democratic and Republican administrations alike — it’s a cliche to say “we like the American people, we just don’t like your government.” In Egypt, this meant that I was free to point out the weaknesses of both American and Egyptian media coverage of the handful of American NGO workers who were flown out of the country in apparent violation of the principle of an “independent judiciary.” It also meant that I was free to note the hypocrisy of those Egyptian commentators who ascribed all progressive reform to “foreign interference.”

Accidental or not, this is public diplomacy from the trenches, and it’s what I’ll be writing about during my upcoming sabbatical year. As I tell visiting journalist friends who come to the US and meet my classes, they may be the first Indonesian or Malaysian or Bangladeshi whom my American students have ever met. At a time in which “we are all Khaled Said” or “we are all Trayvon Martin,” we are all public diplomats as well. Like it or not, in this interconnected world, each one of us is engaged in public diplomacy.

Cultural Diplomacy in Multiple Dimensions

March 30, 2012Cultural Diplomacy, public diplomacy1 Comment

It’s been “all Public Diplomacy all the time” this week at George Washington University, with many exciting events surrounding the IPDGC’s Hip Hop Diplomacy: Connecting Through Culture conference on Tuesday afternoon, 3/27. (Note: here’s the conference final program; check the IPDGC website soon for the full conference video.)

Tara S at IPDGC conference — Tara Sonenshine

First, we are delighted to see that conference keynote speaker Tara Sonenshine, currently Executive Vice President at the U.S. Institute of Peace, has just been confirmed by the Senate as the new Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

Ms. Sonenshine spoke passionately at the IPDGC conference about the importance of addressing challenges to women. She emphasized the power of individuals, and the role of cultural exchange in inspiring individuals to action. She described public diplomacy as a key “inclusionary” strategy that can help put women together with powerful institutions of government and business. Getting women into such loci of power “is a national security issue for us, and for everyone,” Ms. Sonenshine noted.

Tiffany at IPDGC conference — Tiffany Roberts Sahaydak

After her remarks, a terrific panel took the conference floor to talk about their international public diplomacy experience sharing sports, music, and journalism skills with young women (and men) around the world. U.S. Soccer star Tiffany Roberts Sahaydak joined award-winning hip hop and R&B artist Toni Blackman, directors of the youth media training organization GlobalGirl Media (Therese Steiner and Tumi Mosadi), rising Moroccan hip hop star Soultana, and top Zimbabwean women’s basketball coach Belia Zibowa.

Toni B at IPDGC conference — Toni Blackman

Listening to this amazing panel, I recalled last week’s article by Dr. Philip Seib, reflecting on a recent cultural diplomacy conference in the U.K. Seib wrote, “Still needing to be better defined … is the state’s role vis-à-vis the cultural community and the individual artist in the course of these diplomatic ventures.” And in fact our conference was an unusual opportunity to hear vivid descriptions and powerful insights from these artists / experts, right alongside the essential policy overview provided by Ambassador Adam Ereli, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, and a valuable presentation on private sector support for international youth sports outreach from GWU professor Lisa Delpy Neirotti (rounded out by some thoughts of my own on the interrelationship of media and cultural exchange in public diplomacy.)

Adam Ereli at IPDGC conference — Amb. Adam Ereli

Meanwhile, all week IPDGC made the most of the DC presence of two of the conference’s international participants. Tumi Mosadi, who coordinates GlobalGirl Media’s project in Soweto, is today joining a field trip of Washington DC high school students to NBC studios as part of the Prime Movers Media journalism training program sponsored by GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA). Yesterday, Ms. Mosadi had the opportunity to shadow SMPA alum Coleen King at MSNBC’s Chris Matthews news program, and she met with SMPA alum Jayne Orenstein at the Washington Post on Wednesday to talk video-journalism.

Tumi and Therese of GGM at IPDGC conference — Tumi Mosadi and Therese Steiner

Also on Wednesday, Tumi and GlobalGirl Media President Therese Steiner screened a powerful GGM documentary film on the impact of HIV/AIDS on young women in Soweto at GWU’s Department of Global Health (School of Public Health), as well as at State Department’s Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator. IPDGC sends a big thank you to all our GWU colleagues for these collaborations.

Soultana at Marrakesh Lounge in Adams Morgan

And IPDGC provided night life as well: Moroccan hip hopper Soultanaperformed her work – including hit single Sawt Nssa (Voice of Women) – to lively audiences at DC venues Marrakesh Lounge and 19th Bar. (Just as a reminder of the power of international exchanges to connect and build, it was Kendra Salois, former U.S. Fulbright Student in Morocco and current Ph.D. candidate at U. Cal Berkeley, who connected the IPDGC team – not normally famed as music impresarios – with the performance organizers. Our thanks go to Kendra and to Darby Hickey for making the performances possible.)