NBC news carried an interesting story last week highlighting a decision by the U.S. Department of State to return a million-dollar cultural artifact to Iran that had been seized by U.S. Customs a decade ago. The return of the Persian Griffin, long sought by Iranian officials, may not seem like a big deal against the backdrop of the recent exchange of letters and phone conversation between President Obama and Iranian President Rouhani. I have no idea whether this particular gesture will resonate in Iran, but we should not underestimate the significance of such cultural heritage for people around the world.
Some of the most undervalued tools in the public diplomacy toolkit explicitly recognize the fact that more often than not, a nation’s sense of self is closely connected to its cultural heritage. The value of a particular cultural monument, an example of historic architecture, or a specific artifact in a museum goes well beyond its retail or tourism value, but instead is truly priceless in the eyes of those who consider it a part of their national identity. There are well-known examples of how disputes over ownership of such culture, including the Elgin Marbles or the Preah Vihear Temple, have led to tense international relations and even armed conflict. Few are aware, however, of how we routinely use cultural heritage to our advantage in public diplomacy.
One of the best such tools is the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation administered by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau for Education and Cultural Affairs. Under this program, public diplomacy officers at U.S. embassies and consulates all over the world work with local partners to identify worthy cultural heritage preservation projects and submit proposals for review and approval in Washington. Each year a few dozen of the best proposals are funded at a total cost of about $7 or 8 million. In terms of bang-for-your-buck, it is hard to find a better investment of public diplomacy resources. Perhaps every day somewhere in the world, a U.S. Ambassador is visiting an archaeological site, a museum, or some other cultural venue to cut a ribbon or otherwise celebrate a project that tangibly demonstrates U.S. respect for local culture and traditions. In my experience, these events are widely covered by the local media and generally resonate with the local population in a way that signing ceremonies or diplomatic speeches can never hope to match.
I will cite just one example from my own personal experience. In East Timor, a newly-independent country in Southeast Asia, traditional “sacred” houses all across the country were destroyed during the Indonesian occupation of that territory up until the late 1990s. Several years ago, the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation approved a U.S. Embassy project to work with the new Timorese Ministry of Culture and local villages to rebuild several of these houses. Over the course of a few years at numerous nationally-televised groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting events, the U.S. Ambassador and the Timorese Secretary of State for Culture celebrated the “rebuilding” not only of these cultural landmarks, but also the Timorese nation itself. At the cost of a tiny fraction of other more expensive development initiatives, this simple project showed all of the Timorese people that we respected them and their culture and were working to help them rebuild their country.
As the U.S. Department of State fact sheet last week on the decision to return the Persian Griffin stated — “The return of the artifact reflects the strong respect the United States has for cultural heritage property — in this case cultural heritage property that was likely looted from Iran and is important to the patrimony of the Iranian people. It also reflects the strong respect the United States has for the Iranian people.” The return of that artifact, of course, does not appear to have been the result of a particular preservation program or even particularly costly, but it makes good public diplomacy and policy sense. As for our other public diplomacy programs, like the Ambassador’s Fund, even in an era of limited resources, let’s not be penny wise and pound foolish! We would do well to continue to invest in such programs that help us build the mutual understanding and respect that we depend on to advance our policy goals around the world.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the State Department or the U.S. Government. The author is a State Department officer specializing in public diplomacy, currently detailed to the IPDGC to teach and work on various Institute projects.
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 
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.”
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. 
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. 
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
Darden and Mylonas recommend doing just the opposite, in two respects. First, the focus should be on building loyalty through cultural institutions, especially schools and religious organizations. “Coercive” institutions such as the police should come last. Second, external powers need to be willing to commit to a long-term, generational effort rather than looking for ways to extricate themselves as quickly as possible. Hence, they argue, nation-building comes before state-building, not vice versa.
Given this, the insurgent propaganda needs to be met head on and effectively. This is, principally, the government’s job rather than the media’s. Let’s say, hypothetically, that the insurgents are wrong and in fact the government is doing a good job, or at least an increasingly effective job, of improving services, security, and infrastructure. How will the people know? One important way would be through government spokespeople and other officials communicating this progress to the local population. But this is impossible if government spokespeople aren’t trained to be effective communicators, if the communication bureaucracy is not well-established, or if there are not proper channels of communication.
But another important determinant of government credibility can be a professional and independent media. I say “professional” because people in any society can spot amateurish journalism. Sensationalist and partisan or sectarian media are the prime offenders here, and they alienate audiences. (These concerns have always been the primary ones raised by government officials and journalists alike during the trainings I’ve led in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last few years.)
To return to Darden and Mylonas, who emphasize schools as a cog in nation-building, a key long-term approach to strengthening local communication systems is getting beyond Beltway Bandit approaches that simply pay NGOs (and professors) lots of money (well, not to the professors…) to do short-term trainings. Instead, those resources should be put into helping universities (and secondary schools when appropriate) develop journalism and public affairs curricula and programs. Too often, even when these projects are funded it is only on the journalism side. But many of the same skills that make one a good journalist make one an effective spokesperson: Both are, at the end of the day, about communicating effectively to the people.
