Burma – IPDGC Smart Power

In the past year, Myanmar has been hailed internationally for taking unprecedented steps towards democracy, but what it hopes to gain from democratization–increased investments, development aid, diplomatic relations, and national security–will only be fully realized if the Myanmar government incorporates public diplomacy as a central part of its transition strategy. Specifically, Myanmar officials should focus on creating a globally recognized national brand for Myanmar that is synonymous with ‘emerging democracy’, enhancing Myanmar’s regional role, and increasing English education by participating in English language programs.

Myanmar’s most pressing foreign policy goal is to convince Western nations to lift financial and travel sanctions, because they prevent the country from taking advantage of its plentiful natural resources, including offshore oil and gas deposits. The U.S. maintains that it will only remove all sanctions when it feels that Myanmar has demonstrated a serious commitment to democracy. To do this, Myanmar officials should brand the country as an emerging democracy through establishing one name by popular referendum, promoting the emerging term ‘Myanmar Model’ to describe the unique type of top-down democratization, and embracing Aung San Suu Kyi as the international face of democracy in Myanmar. To Western countries, Suu Kyi’s participation in Myanmar political life certifies and legitimizes it. President Thein Sein and his government must continue public dialogue with Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). The government should not be held captive by the NLD; rather, it is important that Suu Kyi feels included in the political process because Western policymakers look at her and the NLD to determine the success of Myanmar’s transition to democracy.

Myanmar should also use public diplomacy to demonstrate its strong investment climate, in order to attract foreign investors when sanctions have been lifted. Myanmar can position itself as a more prominent member of the regional and global community by hosting regional summits for organizations in which Myanmar is a member, giving officials the opportunity to set the touristic agenda for visiting diplomats and bureaucrats. Myanmar was recently named the 2014 host country of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and can use this opportunity to introduce the newly democratic country. Myanmar can also increase its desirability as an Western investment destination by participating in English language programs and scholarships such as the U.S. State Department’s English Access program, Fulbright Scholarship, and the British Council’s English Language program.

In the past year, Myanmar has sought to limit Chinese influence in its economy, and strong public diplomacy that results in Western investment will diversify Myanmar’s financial partners and improve its national security. This is a critical time to be practicing public diplomacy with Western countries–especially the U.S.– because many are beginning to shift their foreign policy focus towards containing China and gaining a foothold in the South China Sea, where Myanmar is located. Public diplomacy should be a central aspect, rather than an afterthought, of Myanmar’s transition strategy in order to tell the country’s remarkable story on its own terms.

Claire Ashcraft is a senior at George Washington University where she studies International Affairs with a Middle East concentration. She also studied Middle East politics and Arabic, and interned at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, at the American University of Beirut. This summer she is interning at the U.S. Embassy in Doha, Qatar.

US, Suu Kyi agree Myanmar reforms fragile (wtvm.com)
Citizen Media Trend in Myanmar (mmnetizens.wordpress.com)
Suu Kyi to give Nobel lecture during Norway visit (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Obama says world will try for Burma reform (rawstory.com)
ASEAN: Myanmar forges ahead with Democratic Reforms (dinmerican.wordpress.com)

“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.

Tag: Burma

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