January 16

"Israeli hasbara is a joke."

--Melanie Phillips, author of Londonistan, in an interview on Israeli television; on hasbara, see; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Metro Madness: atamerica - Simon Pitchforth, thejakartaglobe.com: "Jakarta is home to a lively selection of foreign cultural institutes such as the French Cultural Center, ErasmusHuis and the Goethe Institute, which all put on classical music concerts, lectures, exhibitions, film festivals and the like. Now though, Uncle Sam has also got in on the act and has come out all guns blazing by setting up the incredibly high-tech @america center, the first of its kind in the world, down in the suitably high-tech surroundings of the Pacific Place mall. The propagandist platitudes of the Voice of America are no longer deemed adequate in these ideologically charged times, and so a glitzy, technological wonderland has been constructed, which more closely resembles the Epcot Center or even the bridge of the Starship Enterprise than any of the city’s other cultural centers.



The mission of @america is to boldly go where no US embassy has gone before and disseminate an ideology of truth, justice and the American way to eager visiting school kids. That is, before Obama is ignominiously booted from office two years hence and the center is replaced by a branch of Starbucks. First things first, though: In order to penetrate into the digitally wired inner sanctum of Pax Americana central, I first had to breach the Fort Knoxesque security detail, which included an x-ray scanner, a full body frisk (my socks came under particular scrutiny for some reason) and the storage of my bag in a clear, Perspex locker. One could perhaps forgive the Guantanamo-style vigilance, however, as there are no doubt many in Indonesia who would wish to see @america blown to rubble. I entered the main @america auditorium and was simply staggered by the technology on display. There was multicolored lighting, an iPad lending centre, interactive touchscreens on stands, a DJ and a huge six-screen surround Google Earth to try. I felt like an ant that had accidentally crawled through the USB port of a high-end smartphone. ... While @america may not be the most intellectual of environments, perhaps it offers some insight into the schools of the future. There is an increasing mismatch between the traditional, analogue classroom, in which the teacher stands at the front and drones on and on, and the new tech-savvy, touchscreen-jabbing younger generation, who are having their central nervous systems rewired and accelerated by interactive digital technologies. In this regard, perhaps @america is a glimpse into the future. Image from article, with caption: The incredibly high-tech @america center in Jakarta, the first of its kind in the world, is very impressive. See also.

Michelle Kwan Visits Singapore as US Public Diplomacy Envoy - ‎Julie Maggiacomo Carrera, Suite101.com: "Kwan has been traveling with the State Department for the past four years, hoping to continue on that path when she graduates from Tufts University's Fletcher School in May where she will receive her master's degree in international affairs.


While in Singapore, she visited the Republic Polytechnic and other schools. She also conducted a skating clinic for children at the Kallang Ice Rink. Back in December of 2010, Kwan opened and performed at the Marina Bay Sands Skating Rink." Image from article: Michelle Kwan Answering a Student's Question at the Singapore American School.

In survey, residents of Qatar rate Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Alhurra, and BBC Arabic as objective - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

VOL. VII NO. 1, January 1- January 13, 2010 - The Layalina Review on Public Diplomacy and Arab Media:
Egypt’s Religious Strife Reveal Greater Divides After a car bombing killed more than 20 Copts in Alexandria, religious and media figures speak out about the incident and analyze the event in the context of religious coexistence in the MENA region.
Quashing WikiLeaks Conspiracy Theory Some Arab publications have accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of striking a deal with Israeli authorities in exchange of withholding documents containing knowledge, which may embarrass the Jewish state. Both Arab and Jewish sides respond to the allegations.
No Permit, No Blogging in Saudi Arabia As Al-Jazeera TV sets up shop in Riyadh, Saudi Arabi's Minsitry of Culture and Information launches a set of regulations requiring e-journalists and bloggers to apply for a license. Although press freedom organizations are protesting against the decision, some media figures believe that such regulations will restore journalistic integrity.



Tunisia’s Turmoil: The Zeitgeist of the Middle East As Mohamed Bouazizi's suicide attempt sparks protests throughout Tunisia, experts discuss the concerns of unemployment and the shift in the nation's political scene as a population empowered by education calls for political reform.
The Internet Is No Panacea Contrarily to what has been assumed by some, the Internet may not represent the ultimate panacea against government oppression. In fact, it appears that social networking instead provides false hope for those trying to make a difference.
The Holy Grail: Peace in the Middle East The United States frequently finds that the Middle East represents a quagmire of confusion when it comes to implementing fair and effective policy. These articles reveal some of the latest assessments of the progress and pitfalls in this arena.
Middle East-US Relations in Need of Surgery Recent events, such as SOMETHING, reveal that all is not well in the US and the Middle East. The tricky part entails trying to figure out what to do next. Image from

Re-setting India's public diplomacy: Indian diplomacy needs to target non-official agents who shape public opinion, such as think tanks, media, academic inst, civil society and business - Kishan S Rana, business-standard.com: "In 2010, MEA [Indian Minstry of External Affairs] has commenced use of social media tools of Web 2.0, and now features on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the like, with a modest but growing following; most probably, it is the first Indian ministry to step into these waters. This is all to the good, part of our learning experience with modern outreach. But we seem to hesitate in taking the logical follow-up; for instance, we are not yet decided on whether to permit officials to blog. ... The other key activity that is missing in India is a sustained way of looking at image, and ‘managing’ this through a broad national public-private partnership with the many agencies that determine the way our country is perceived overseas. ... What India needs is a ‘public diplomacy board’,


along the lines of what exists in France and the UK, where foreign ministries bring together independent agencies that deal with image issues in their regular work remit. For India this would include agencies handling tourism promotion, the official and private media, business and industry promotion, the public and private education sectors, and others, to work out a shared broad strategy and possible harmonised actions. Of course, this will not be easy, but on the plus side we have a foreign secretary who understands well the importance of the media and image, and is committed to advancing PD. Establishing such a regular discussion forum would also bring to MEA the perspectives of these partners in working out effective PD activities, and expose MEA to the rich experiences of non-state actors." See also. Image from

Turkey’s greatest threat - Andrew Finkel, todayszaman.com: "[P]ublic opinion surveys in Turkey have the ability to produce some pretty astonishing results. Asked whom they think is the nation’s friend and who is its bitterest foe, respondents tend to name Turkish traditional allies as the baddies and dismisses the threat posed by Iran’s rush to develop nuclear capability. The latest survey to do so was one conducted by the respected MetroPOLL organization. They discovered that 43 percent of those polled regarded the US as the greatest threat and less than 5 percent had dark feelings about Iran. ... [T]he pollsters’ results do not make logical or indeed intuitive sense. ... Fed up with the high prices of İstanbul night life, Turkey’s movers and shakers take their holidays in New York and Miami. People watch American series on television, access Twitter or Facebook via US manufactured Pentium chips and cheer Turkish players as they weave around professional US basketball courts. ... Turkey may not be changing its axis but it is becoming culturally more conservative.


And yet people feel that asserting this new identity will expose them to some sort of danger. The most notorious and long-established example of this is the assertion by Turkish ultranationalism that the whole world hates them and that, to cite the maxim, 'Turks have no friends but themselves. ... The foreign minister recently held seminars for his senior ambassadors on public diplomacy, i.e., how Turkey can make its case in the world. It could begin with making a better case for the world before its own public." Image from

RT Ridiculousness... Again - Yelena Osipova, Global Chaos: "Russia Today TV seems to have an insatiable appetite for more than just ridiculous 'stories'. Sometimes I truly wonder if they ever consider their main target audience. I really hope that this [Question by Itar-Tass journalist to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs re the Tucson tragedy] (whatever it is.. I'm afraid I can't even find proper words to describe it) is not really the 'active and effective public diplomacy' envisioned by Kremlin."

Initiative of the Greek ambassador in U.S. - gurforum.org: [Google translation] "The Greek ambassador to the U.S. Bill Kaskarelis recently recommended a 'Academic Advisory Committee' by Greek or Greek-American academics in management positions of American universities. This weekend has invited the rectors of Greek universities (at the expense of the Onassis Foundation) in Washington for a meeting with the committee. The program is as follows: ... Three paradigms: Christos Yiannopoulos, C. Koliatsos, James Alatis Koliatsos, James Alatis Government-sponsored scholarships and graduate fellowships Study abroad and exchange programs, Regional programs, Building partnerships in areas such as: climate change, energy, environment, Health Care, Cultural and Public Diplomacy, Information technology, Media, Urban Development, International Business, Classical/Modern Greek Studies, Other Study abroad and exchange programs, Regional programs."

This review is from: Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media (Hardcover) - William Podmore, Amazon:


"The [British] government has 1,500 press officers, issues 20,000 press releases a year, and also spends millions more of our money on PR firms. The Foreign Office spends £600 million a year on 'public diplomacy'." Image from article

Diplomacy in Theory and Praxis - Minna, The New Diplomacy D: A reflective group blog by some of the students on The New Diplomacy module at London Metropolitan University: "The module opened my mind and allowed me to watch the news on television and read beyond the mere words and actions displayed. In this way, it was striking to witness the extent to which public diplomacy, branding one’s nation through presenting a certain image, is prominent and indeed practiced without the audience necessarily realising, as was arguably the case with the Chilean miners. In this way, I have also been made aware of the thin line which separates public diplomacy and propaganda."

The New Diplomacy and I - Izzy, The New Diplomacy G: A reflective group blog by some of the students on The New Diplomacy module at London Metropolitan University: "I was intrigued by the discussion of propaganda vs public diplomacy

which helped me to understand a whole variety of issues such as why Obama went to the trouble of addressing the Iranian people personally in a video message or why the German government sees the need to spend so much money on the Goethe Institute to promote its image abroad." Image from

Diplomacy revised - Carolin, The New Diplomacy A: A reflective group blog by some of the students on The New Diplomacy module at London Metropolitan University: "Throughout the module I learned that 'high politics', in terms of power politics, have become less and less important due to high interdependence between countries especially within the developed world. Diplomats are now more concerned with 'low politics' issue areas such as trade diplomacy and public diplomacy. The attention countries give to the latter has been nicely highlighted during the visit of the Dutch embassy. Our host at the Dutch embassy, who actually was the Cultural & Public Diplomacy attaché if I remember it correctly, emphasised that Public Diplomacy and the promotion of Dutch values has become one of the paramount factors of their work. He explained that culture is the best way of building and fostering relationships with other countries, as it is less political but more about common values and norms. The Dutch embassy is therefore in constant contact with cultural organisations and takes part in a variety of education, arts and sports programmes."

RELATED ITEMS

China’s Winning Schools? - Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times: Americans think of China’s strategic challenge in terms of, say, the new Chinese stealth fighter aircraft. But the real challenge is the rise of China’s education system and the passion for learning that underlies it. We’re not going to become Confucians, but we can elevate education on our list of priorities without relinquishing creativity and independent thought.

Tunisian uprising and international broadcasting -- mostly Al Jazeera, with social media assist - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

New media were involved, but consensus is that Tunisian uprising was not a "Twitter revolution" - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Clinton's reform or else message: Many Mideast leaders won't heed Secretary of State Clinton's warning about the repercussions of the 'stagnant political order,' but the U.S. should continue to press the point - Editorial, latimes.com: A more democratic, more open and less corrupt Middle East is also in the interest of the United States.

N. Korea builds up online presence: expert - AFP, ottawacitizen.com: North Korea has recently revived the use of its Internet domain name .kp as part of a campaign by the communist state to increase its online presence, an expert said Friday. "North Korea appears to be waking up to the power of the Internet and wants its own place on the global network," Martyn Williams of IT research group IDG said in an email interview with AFP. The Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries has a site at http://www.friend.com.kp, and the state-run Korean Central News Agency is online at http://www.star.edu.kp


"It’s not a great expansion of propaganda online so far, but a .kp domain name does strengthen the national identity of the websites," Williams said. Image from article: Children of the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren's Palace attending extra facultative computer class after school on October 18, 2007 in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Pakistan army propaganda drama set for TV - Khurram Shahzad, AFP: Pakistan's Taliban-fighting soldiers are set for celebrity status with the launch of a multi-million-dollar glossy television drama hailing army victories over militants. emotive tales of 11 "brave Pakistanis" battling an Islamist insurgency that is plaguing Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, will air on the small screen in an army-funded drama that casts the anti-terror fight in a positive light.Television productions are one of the tools adopted by the military's publicity wing to polish its image and boost recruitment and morale at a key juncture in anti-Taliban efforts and with religious conservatism on the rise. Accused by US-based Human Rights Watch of carrying out collective punishments on relatives of militants since it re-established control over the Swat valley, the army knows the importance of securing local hearts and minds.

Bad news banned ahead of Chinese Spring Festival - TibetanReview.net: The Propaganda Department of the communist Party of China has issued a series of oral directives to the country’s journalists at a meeting held ahead of the Chinese New Year in February, barring them from a number of sensitive areas in their news coverage, said Paris-based Reporters without borders (RSF) Jan 13.


The group said the directives were state secrets and so note taking was not allowed during the meeting. The directives were said to mandate news blackout on social and economic problems with a view to “reassure” the people and defend the concept of fair growth. In order to ensure that the party’s line on a range of issues remains unchallenged, many issues have been rendered off-limits for news coverage. They are said to include the property market, rising prices, corruption, the demolition of housing and compulsory relocation, residence permits, the absence of social security, inadequate transport during the Chinese New Year and popular discontent that finds expression in anti-government demonstrations. Image from

Beyond Anarchism: Rejecting the Brand, Embracing a Philosophy of Social Change - infoshop.org: In the end, we should not be ashamed to sell what we believe and certainly not ashamed of what we are selling because we are not selling anything that requires people to sacrifice anything they value.

Wikipedia, the CIA and the Arts - Andrew Stergiou, Fuck You Blog: Lewis Hyde writes in his book The Gift (http://www.lewishyde.com/pub/gift.html) about CIA sponsorship of literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad during the 1950s and 60s—a sponsorship that was made famous in recent years after it became more well known that founding editor Peter Mathiesson used The Paris Review as a coverwhile working for the CIA: (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/books/review/Donadio-t.html)
As for “the organizations,” the most famous was the Congress of Cultural Freedom, which covertly sponsored a highbrow intellectual journal, Encounter;


paid the expenses of American and European intellectuals to attend international conferences; and supported the foreign distribution of American literary and cultural journals such as Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, Hudson Review, and Sewanee Review. In the early 1960s, when The Kenyon Review was edited by Robie Macauley, its circulation jumped from two thousand to six thousand. Macauley had actually worked for the CIA before he took over the Review from its founding editor, John Crowe Ransom, and was later to boast that he had “found ways of making money that Mr. Ransom had never thought of.” But Lewis Hyde’s writings seems to be based on the book “Who Paid the Piper?: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, by Frances Stonor Saunders), and “The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, by Frances Stonor Saunders. Image from article

Film as a tool for Propaganda: Manufacturing Truth - Gönderen Ali, Film and Genre: The North Star (1943) was a film produced by Samuel Goldwyn that was written by Lillian Hellman and directed by Lewis Milestone. It has been known as one of the most controversial movies in film history and apart from that, it is a great example of the power vested in cinema as a tool for propaganda.


Originally released in 1943, the film was intended to sympathize Americans with Soviet Russia by neglecting Stalin’s harsh ruling period and its effects on townsfolk and farmers of the countryside. It showed the daily lives of Soviet Russians as simple and pastoral lives on countryside, as if collective working was compulsory and the traces of communism on daily lives was nearly invisible. As political history suggests, the film was released at a time when U.S. and Soviets were allies. 2nd World War was a period of history when White House approached Hollywood film industry to “clarify” U.S. relations with Soviets and many films like Mission to Moscow (1943), Song of Russia (1944) or Days of Glory (1944) were produced by kind requests of president Franklin Roosevelt. Everything seemed so rational especially after Nazi Germany invaded Soviet territories and the war became even more brutal: U.S and Soviets were now brothers in arms (Damian Cannon, 2000). What could be more bona-fide than to praise Russian life, humanizing it, and to show its people as fellow victims of this violent war? The North Star was nominated for 6 Oscars, and everything changed when the war was over, and these two brothers in arms had now found themselves enemies-to-be for a long time to come with the cold war. Samuel Goldwyn was now called over by the House Un-American Activities Committee to respond for his “naïve” and pro-communist image of the Soviet Russia. This led to one of the most interesting and desperate moments in film history: The North Star was recut, and re-released with the name Armored Attack on 1957,


but this time, its cute details about soviet farmland life was removed, the location was changed from Russia to Hungary with the use of a voice over, and it became a movie about the Soviet Invasion of Hungary! An important thing to mention here is that the film was only recut, not re-filmed! Propaganda is socially determined; its success is determined by the factors that are present that particular context, time and environment. What the story tells has to make sense in front of an audience and this social context allows existence and success of propaganda. The state of mind in which society is, is of great importance for the accomplishment of discourses: fear, suspicion, enemies and monsters are usually “defined” concepts by the use of mass media and its instruments. As we can see, producing facts is possible and manufacturing truth is only a matter of perception. Images from article

Amazing propaganda artwork - Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: Steven Klinger’s Pastafarian Propaganda. "Amazing work – I can’t stop looking at this. I now badly want to market FSM beer."


AMERICANA



"You know when it came to that situation, it was actually based on espionage, and when it comes to the security of our nation, we have to focus on security first and then people's right to know, because it's so important that everybody who's in our borders is safe and so we can't let things like that happen, and they must be handled properly."

--Newly named Miss America, telling the audience that when it comes to the website Wikileaks, security should come before public access to government information; image from

MORE QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

"Streets inexplicably filled with water."

--What the American writer Alexander Woollcott, sent to Venice on assignment, is supposed to have cabled his editors

"[E]ducation is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire.”

--William Butler Yeats