Monday, September 24, 2012

September 24



"I find it incredibly interesting that we all know what it is, but have trouble expressing it verbally."

--Blake, a participant in the Public Diplomacy Bootcamp, SI Newhouse School of Public Communications, July 2007, writing a propos of public diplomacy; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Future of the U.S. - Muslim Relations? U.S.-Muslim Relations: The Second Coming? - Mohsin Mohi-ud din, Huffington Post: "In the aftermath of the tragic attack of the US Embassy in Libya that claimed several US diplomats' lives, American flags burn across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, in over 12 countries. Many non-Muslim Americans are asking themselves: 'why are they so enraged about an amateur film? [']; or, 'why do they hate us?' The protests are no longer about the film. Increasingly, the public displays of anti-Americanism today reflect the state of affairs between the US and the 'Muslim world'. Of the non-Muslims in the West, 58% consider Muslims fanatical and a median of 50% believe Muslims are violent. According to Pew Research surveys from 2011, median percentages of Muslims who identify the U.S. and Europe as violent, greedy, or immoral, is above 50%. On these facts, the ideological divide between the Muslim and Western world is a matter of concern to both U.S. public diplomacy and for the emerging democracies of the Middle East and North Africa. With regards to the current crisis sweeping the Middle East and boxing with America's diplomacy, there are four important concepts to keep in mind. First, the violent attacks on US embassies are promoted by, if not entirely designed by, extremist networks seeking to weaken the momentum of Arab civil society, who have bravely lead the calls for change across the region. ... Second, already there is chatter that the US government will scale back programs in support of public diplomacy for security and financial reason. Yet, it is in these times that the


US government should dedicate itself to expanding robust US led programs for cultural exchange and education with the 'the other.' ... Third, the sporadic, yet, widespread reactions are symptomatic of a two-level theory to Islamophobia. The first level is represented by anti-Islam networks in the US, representing a tiny minority of the population active on social media. ... The second level to Islamophobia deals with internal fissures in some communities across Middle East and South Asia, and is led by political and religious elites who colonize spaces for spiritual evolution, independent interpretation, and pluralism. ... Lastly, for the minority of Muslims protesting around the world today, it is worth exploring Islamic history and asking, 'how does the reactive behavior of a few today stand up to the founding principles of Islamic civilization and the teachings of Muhammad?' ... Additionally, while political polices may sometimes be flawed double games, the myth that 'Americans are out to dominate Islam and demean the Prophet' is in direct contrast to the available evidence of US assistance to those in need in Muslim majority countries. Since January 2011, $100 million in grants have been provided by USAID to support job creation, humanitarian assistance, and poverty alleviation in Egypt. ... Diplomacy and cultural exchange will prevail. The best of us need passionate intensity for public diplomacy, the kind that Ambassador Stevens exuded, as well as, those still serving our country in consulates and classrooms across the world." The author is 'United Nations AOC Fellow, Fulbright Fellow and Academic on Muslim-Western Relations and Governance- South Asia, MENA.' Image from

How Technology Is Redefining Diplomacy - globalwireonline.org: "Up until recently the State Department had been accused of being late to adapting to social media.  But with the inauguration of the 'first Internet President' Barack Obama, it seems like US diplomats are forging a new digital frontier. According to Victoria Esser, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs for Digital Strategy at the State Department, the Department has 300 Twitter profiles and 400 Facebook pages.  Esser also said the Department recently began using Google Hangout and hosted an event in Persian for Iranian journalists and bloggers as a way to reach out to a country the United States doesn’t have a diplomatic relationship with currently. 'Social media is an integral part of how we’re conducting our diplomacy around the world,' Esser said. 'To me, it’s about creating virtuous circles online and offline — nothing will replace face-to-face diplomacy, but social media is an important way to connect with people and cut away time, distance and diplomatic rank barriers and have a real conversation.' However, recent riots in the Islamic world attributed to the Innocence of Muslims YouTube video has put e-diplomacy in a poor light. Specifically, a tweet from the US embassy in Cairo may have further instigated the deadly chaos. Former State Department spokesman James Glassman says this incident shouldn’t deter other diplomats from using social media, but rather be more mindful of what they are saying in the future."

Helping the Truth Put On Its Shoes: Public Diplomacy and the post-Arab Spring - Mary Jeffers, takefiveblog.org: "Like many others, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks absorbed by Middle East events and wrestling with the many complex and difficult questions raised by journalists, analysts, and scholars: How much of the tragic violence in Benghazi and elsewhere was a genuine reaction to that now-notorious anti-Muslim video, and how much is being promoted by specific actors for their own political aims? Were Embassy walls breached in Cairo, Tunisia and elsewhere because the protests were uniquely powerful and emotional, or because some host-country governments, newly brought to power by the Arab Spring, hadn’t yet fully assumed


the responsibility of protecting them? As a public diplomacy practitioner, I’ve also been thinking about the people in the Muslim world who are most genuinely and deeply disturbed by the perceived insult — and am wondering, yet again, how best we can try to bridge the apparently yawning gap between their perceptions and those of Americans, for whom the positive value of free speech self-evidently outweighs the risks from insult. ... Edward R. Murrow  ...  famously said, 'It has always seemed to me the real art in this business is not so much moving information or guidance or policy five or 10,000 miles. That is an electronic problem. The real art is to move it the last three feet in face to face conversation.' It is in this last three feet that a big portion of the public diplomacy toolkit is usefully and productively employed." Image from entry, with caption: U.S. Fulbright Scholar Dr. Ana Gil-Garcia and members of the Fulbright Alumni Teacher’s Circle in Cairo

The Morsi Visit and New Guideposts for U.S. Public Diplomacy - Philip Seib, PD News – CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, is visiting the United States for the first time since taking office, and in an interview with the New York Times shortly before departing Cairo, he provided insights not only about his style of leadership but also about how Egypt has changed since the 2011 revolution that marked the end of Hosni Mubarak’s lengthy rule. As Egypt and the larger Arab world evolve, so too must U.S. public diplomacy change to conform to the region’s new realities.  ...  Given Americans’ high self-regard in terms of their professed commitment to lofty moral standards, respecting the more visible dedication to the tenets of Islam in the Arab world should not be difficult to accept. In his interview, Morsi cited his days as a doctoral student at the University of Southern California and noted his discomfort with the sexual behavior and street violence he encountered in Los Angeles. That he takes such matters seriously presumably mirrors sentiments of many other Arabs, and this sends a signal to American public diplomats that they must calibrate their efforts accordingly."

Technology as a Disruptive - and Positive - Force for Development - Priya Bapat, blog.humanitasglobal.com: "Today [9/22/2012] was the kickoff of the 3rd Annual Social Good Summit hosted by Mashable, the UN Foundation, Ericcson, the United Nations Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The opening day featured a number of presentations from both established and emerging leaders in global development and technology, including an opening address from Secretary Hillary Clinton. Throughout the day, panelists discussed how mobile technology and social media have made significant contributions to fields such as global health, environmental conservation and public diplomacy."

Hillary Enlists Indian Chef in Aid of Diplomacy - "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has added a culinary dimension to the exercise of 'smart power' by enlisting 80 top chefs including an Indian-American in the aid of diplomacy. Mumbai native


Vikram Sunderam, executive chef at Rasika, a top end Indian restaurant in Washington, is part of the State Department’s new Diplomatic Culinary Partnership initiative. It was he, who introduced local schoolchildren to 'A Taste of India' at a cultural exchange at Blair House, the presidential guest house, during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s state visit in Nov 2009. 'Food isn’t traditionally thought of as a diplomatic tool, but sharing a meal can help people transcend boundaries and build bridges in a way that nothing else can,' Clinton said in a video message on the launch of her new initiative. 'Some of the most meaningful conversations I’ve had with my counterparts around the world have taken place over lunch and dinner,' recalled America’s top diplomat dilating on the idea of 'culinary engagement.' The newly formed 'American Chef Corps' will help the State Department in preparing meals for foreign leaders, and will participate in public diplomacy programmes that engage foreign audiences abroad as well as those visiting the United States. Those anointed State Chefs also get a navy jacket with the American flag and their names embroidered in gold." Vikram Sunderam image from article.

Culinary Diplomacy on the web – Paul Rockower, Levantine: "My friend Sam Chapple-Sokol has a new site up on culinary diplomacy, have a read as he posts about such delicious diplomacy: http://culinarydiplomacy.wordpress.com/"

RELATED ITEMS

U.S. drone strike in Pakistan kills 5 militants - Zarar Khan, Washington Times: Missiles from an American drone killed five militants in their hideout in a northwestern Pakistan tribal area, two Pakistani intelligence officials said Monday. The two missiles, fired from the unmanned spy aircraft, slammed into the village of Dawar Musaki in the North Waziristan region, said the officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the media.


They said that some of the dead were believed to be foreign fighters but they did not know how many or where they were from. The CIA’s drone program is extremely controversial in Pakistan, where residents view it as an affront to their sovereignty and contend it often results in civilian deaths, which the U.S. denies. Washington says the program is vital to combating militants that threaten the United States. Image from article, with caption: A U.S. Predator drone

The failure of #Muslimrage - Marc Lynch, Foreign Policy: The fizzling of the protest wave and the Benghazi counter-demonstration suggests better questions than the popular choices such as "why do they hate us" or "why are Muslims so angry" or "how badly has Obama failed." Obama's outreach to the Muslim world hasn't actually been the dismal failure declared in a thousand (oddly similar) opeds after all.


It's true that his Cairo speech and subsequent policies have not granted him enduring popularity or magically generated universal love for America. But that was never really the expectation or the point. Image from article

The White House Goes Mum on Free Speech: While France stands up for a basic right, the Obama administration sits on its hands - Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal: Hillary Clinton's State Department's response to a movie trailer tied to Islamic mob violence and organized terrorism has been censorship and a global apology campaign.

America’s Inevitable Retreat From the Middle East - Pankaj Mishra, New York Times: The case for a strategic American retreat from the Middle East and Afghanistan has rarely been more compelling. It’s especially strong as growing energy independence reduces America’s burden for policing the region, and its supposed ally, Israel, shows alarming signs of turning into a loose cannon. All will not be lost if America scales back its politically volatile presence in the Muslim world. It could one day return, as it has with its former enemy, Vietnam, to a relationship of mutually assured dignity.

CBS Studios International Celebrates Ten Years of the Global Sensation NCIS at MIPCOM - Press Release, cbscorporation.com: CBS Studios International will celebrate ten outstanding years of one of the world’s most-watched television franchises, NCIS, at MIPCOM with show star Michael Weatherly and Executive Producer Gary Glasberg. NCIS is the number one scripted series in the U.S. and was recently named Europe’s top imported drama show in 2011 by Digital TV Research, Madigan Cluff and Essential Television Statistics. The show ranks among the top ten U.S. series on its channel in Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK in 2012 through August, and the show is frequently a tent-pole series on schedules in many markets. NCIS is also the number one series telecast on M6 in France, the home of the MIPCOM annual market. Via KAI

Playtime Propaganda - Julie V. Lovine, Wall Street Journal: "Century of the Child" is a sprawling exhibition, at the Museum of Modern Art, that is not about your childhood. It is about design. More specifically, it is a vast international survey of the most forward-looking design of the past 100 years and how it worked its way—with a variety of not-so-subtle messages—through the stuff of childhood. From toddler-size Japanese kimonos in the 1930s patterned with bomber planes to Soviet-era wooden toy trucks loaded with only female work crews, the subject of childhood turns out to be anything but innocent.


Indoctrination rather than imagination appears to have had the stronger guiding hand in shaping young minds throughout much of the century. The most riveting, and chilling, oddities on display—include a miniature aluminum Graf Zeppelin from J.C. Penney and a German board game in the shape of a swastika. From the Sons of the Wolf—an Italian youth group with the motto "Believe, obey, fight!"—to the art-therapy classes conducted in the showcase concentration camp Theresienstadt by Czech kindergarten teacher Friedl Dicker "to free and broaden such sources of energy as creativity and independence" (ending when pupils and teacher were shipped to the Auschwitz gas chambers), the show might have stayed with this period and been more powerful for being focused. Image from article, with caption: The board game 'Gioco delle 3 oche' ('Game of the 3 Geese') by an unknown Italian designer.

MORE QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

[I]n America, happiness is work. ... There is something joyless about the whole shindig."

--British writer and documentary filmmaker Ruth Whippman, currently living in California

"It’s time to retire the American Dream."

--Washington Post Columnist Robert J. Samuelson

THE PRESS AND THE STATE DEPARTMENT (VIA PVB)

Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Reporter To “Fuck Off” And “Have A Good Life”: As the State Department's story about what happened in Benghazi crumbles, Clinton's personal spokesperson, Philippe Reines, loses his temper. “Have a good day. And by good day I mean Fuck Off.” - buzzfeed.com


Excerpts from the exchange:

_____________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:
Why do you bother to ask questions you've already decided you know the answers to?
______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 12:50 PM

To: Reines, Philippe I 
Cc: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Request for comment 


Why don't you give answers that aren't bullshit for a change?
______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:

I now understand why the official investigation by the Department of the Defense as reported by The Army Times The Washington Post concluded beyond a doubt that you're an unmitigated asshole.
How's that for a non-bullshit response?
Now that we've gotten that out of our systems, have a good day.
And by good day, I mean Fuck Off
______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 01:40 PM

To: Reines, Philippe I 
Cc: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Request for comment
Hah--I now understand what women say about you, too! Any new complaints against you lately?
______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:48 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:
Talk about bullshit - answer me this: Do you only traffic in lies, or are you on the ground floor of creating them? And since Fuck Off wasn't clear enough, I'm done with you. Inside of 5 minutes when I can log into my desktop, you'll be designated as Junk Mail. Have a good life Michael.
______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings 

Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:50 PM

Subject: Re: Request for comment
To: "Reines, Philippe I" 
Cc: "Nuland, Victoria J"

I'll take that as a non-denial denial. All the best, Michael

Image from entry, with caption: Clinton and Reines in China in 2010.

IMAGE


Via JG on Facebook

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