John Brown's Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review: November 13

"Everybody's got to commute."

--Clarence H. Carter, director of Washington's Department of Human Service (DHS), regarding transporting homeless men every day from shelters to downtown Washington, reportedly spending about $1.8 million a year; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Obama Takes Asia by Sea - Robert Kaplan, New York Times:

"Washington has been making great strides on the public-diplomacy front: a principal benefit of having special envoys to Israel and the Palestinian territories and to Afghanistan and Pakistan is that it has freed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to make more high-profile trips to East and South Asia, where she has been, in effect, competing all the while with China on the public stage. The president’s trip is one culmination of this effort." See also. Image from

Obama’s Asia Visit: The Yogi and the Dragon - Patricia Lee Sharpe, Whirled View: "Whatever the details, it’s not surprising that national security concerns (plus G20-related trade and investment issues) should play a major or even a primary role in discussions between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Also extremely (and perhaps more) interesting is the starring role played by promoting and applying knowledge in their joint vision of the evolving U.S.-Indian relationship. On the applied side there are pledges to institutionalize mutuality in agriculture, medicine, nuclear security, clean energy and ultra high tech applications for economic growth and security. Also in the works: more educational cooperation, including the Singh-Obama 21st Century Knowledge Initiative and a summit to forge new collaborations in higher education, all this at a time when the Republicans, including the American Enterprise Institute, clamor to eliminate educational and other international exchanges from the American diplomatic quiver."

Secretary Clinton’s Interview With Steven Hoggard of National Geographic - Still4Hill: Hillary Clinton: Making Femininity Presidential!: "SECRETARY CLINTON: ... Well, I think there is an increasing appetite across the world for leaders to speak in terms that can be understood, number one; and content that is accurate and doesn’t skirt the issue or pretend it’s not there, and particularly when you’re doing public diplomacy between cultures and nations, to say, 'Well, this is how we see it.' And we are not saying we’re right and you’re wrong, but we would ask the same from you – see how we see it and don’t assume that you’re right and we’re wrong. And I think that give and take, which is what the internet is so good at doing – people go on the internet, they go into chat rooms, they go onto social networks, they exchange ideas all the time. And they should not be subjected to a political system, either in their own countries or internationally,

that delegitimizes such exchange, because that’s just not the way people, particularly young people, interact today. ... I believe so strongly in public diplomacy, so I don’t want just to talk to leaders. I want to talk to people. And that gives me the opportunity to get on the television shows from Indonesia to Thailand to Latin America and every place in between that people are actually watching. I mean, most people in the world don’t watch news programs, with all due respect. I mean, I’m a junkie; I watch them. But most people don’t. But they’ll watch their favorite morning show or their favorite variety show. And to have the Secretary of State of the United States sort of sitting there, answering questions, talking about issues that are important to them because they’re asking the questions, gives a whole different approach." Image from article

Religious Freedom In Egypt From The Heritage Foundation - posted at Twilight Of The American Empire And The Pax Americana: "To foster religious freedom in Egypt, the Obama Administration should: ... Actively promote religious freedom with all of the tools of U.S. public diplomacy, including the U.S. Embassy and Alhurra television network. In this regard, it is important to explain why religious freedom is not only a minority concern, but would benefit the Muslim majority as well. U.S. officials at all levels and in all departments should follow the same policy. Actively investigate cases of discrimination. A visit by a high-ranking U.S. Embassy official to the site of a banned church can sometimes perform miracles."

Modern art as CIA weapon - Nathalie, Pera-Pera: A class blog about international communication. Brought to you by the American University School of International Service: "A few weeks ago I came across this article in The Independent (UK) about the CIA's use of modern art as a 'weapon' during the Cold War. In brief, the CIA's covert public diplomacy activities (ie propaganda)

toward the Soviet block focused on putting out an image of the US as a free, creative society where artists, dissidents and counter-culture thinkers were free and encouraged to express themselves and participate in the social sphere - everything that the USSR was not. Unfortunately, American public life at the time featured a number of loud voices that contradicted this idea, notably Joe McCarthy, and the majority of Americans were quite conservative. So, the CIA decided to promote modern art as a way of marginalizing Mccarthysim. Thought the article doesn't explicitly make the connection, I think in many ways this 'long leash' policy was a precursor to present day public diplomacy in its recognition that in order to be compelling to international audiences, a country's image needed to be diverse and even contradictory, presenting a mosaic of viewpoints and forms of expression. Indeed, people and institutions in a position of authority gain more legitimacy from a robust opposition than they do from suppressing it, as my group discussed in our presentation on censorship and public diplomacy in China this week." Image from

A Last Chance for Public Diplomacy in China? - Silicon Hutong: Tech, Media, Innovation, Communications, China: "The hour is not too late, but there is no time to lose. The Chinese people have a growing influence on the conduct of Chinese foreign affairs, and the balance of power in domestic politics is and has always been the key driver of China’s foreign policy. Washington must understand that it is no longer playing to China’s Party elite. It is also playing to the masses, and thus far it has done a poor job."

How Hardliners Made Liu Xiaobo a Nobel Front-Runner - ‎ Ying Chan, China Media Project: "Conservative elements within the Chinese Communist Party are the most serious enemies to China’s interests and those of the Party.

I call them 'conservative elements' because I can’t believe that the higher levels of the CCP leadership are so completely devoid of people who understand the mechanisms of international politics, public diplomacy and foreign relations." Image from

Obama's cunning linguistics and other untranslatable words - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "[W]hy I respect the Canucks (in all seriousness). This article strikes me as great Canadian PD and nation-branding of Canadian tolerance."

Somalia: Puntland and TFG Cooperation in Jeopardy‎ - Garowe Online: "Puntland is ... extremely concerned the negative attitude that the TFG leadership assumes towards Puntland

progress in the arena of public diplomacy by threatening to dismiss the foreign diplomats originating from Puntland." Image from. On TFG, see.

ASU to Host a Variety of Events for International Education Week - EVLiving: "Arizona State University is kicking off this year’s International Education Week, Nov. 15-19, with a slew of events on all four campuses, including study abroad information sessions for students, lectures from guest speakers, cultural displays and performances. ... Rethinking Public Diplomacy: Religion Discourse in the Middle East Nov. 15 at 4:30 p.m. in West Hall, Room 135 on the Tempe campus[.] Evelyn Early of the University of Chicago is a cultural anthropologist who has worked for the U.S. State Department in countries across the Middle East and North Africa. Past scholarly work focused on Muslim women and everyday life in the Middle East, which is also the subject of two of her highly regarded books, Baladi Women of Cairo: Playing with an Egg and a Stone and Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East (with D.L. Bowen). Her current research focuses on Arab satellite television’s impact on religious and cultural discourse, and on a critique of Middle East political development theory."

RELATED ITEMS

US-Pak clash over national interest - ‎Syed M Tariq Pirzada, Pakistan Observer: The US propaganda has quarantined Pakistan with a global circle of infamy and hate,

one that is bound to stay long after the US ends its so called war against terror. Image from

Letter to the Editor: Why Unesco Matters: A Case Study in Iran - Phyllis R. Magrab, New York Times: The removal of Unesco support for Philosophy Day in Iran is a moment that should not go unnoticed as a marker of why Unesco matters, and especially to the United States. This action was led by our ambassador, David Killion. It affirms all that the late Representative Tom Lantos of California (a Democrat) and George W. Bush (a Republican) recognized as the underlying value of restoring our membership some seven years ago, thankfully: a bipartisan belief in freedom and human rights. The writer, a professor of pediatrics at Georgetown University, is a commissioner, United States National Commission for Unesco.

New Iran Embassy In London Stirs Controversy - Adam Clayton Powell III, Newswire – CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: LONDON ––Iran’s planned new post-modern embassy is stirring debate here, both for its design and for its location in an historic preservation area.

Stability wins in Iraq - Editorial, Washington Post: Ideally, Iraq eventually will become a democracy where elections are fought by parties divided by political program rather than sect or ethnic group identification.

But some European countries have not yet reached that point. For now the forging of a coalition deal is another welcome step toward a stable and peaceful state. Image from

ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

“The big difference between Canada and the U.S is that we don’t border Mexico.”