|
WASHINGTON--As
the United States continues its aerial
assault on military targets in Afghanistan,
a second front is quickly emerging in the
war against terrorism--the fight for the
hearts and minds of Muslims around the
world.
Protests
have spread throughout the Islamic world since
the attacks began, bringing with them inflammatory
anti-US rhetoric and indictments of US foreign
policy and culture. In response, the Bush administration
-- along with some members of Congress -- has
called for renewed efforts to restore America's
maligned image in the Islamic world.
Speaking from the East Room of the White House
in his first prime-time press conference, President
Bush said the United States is losing the propaganda
war to Islamic extremists, allowing false notions
about America to take hold in Muslim countries.
"I'm amazed that there's such misunderstanding
of what our country is about that people would
hate us," the president said. "We've
got to do a better job of making our case."
The president's words echo a theme that has
already drawn support on Capitol Hill in recent
days. Some members of Congress say the United
States needs a more effective public relations
strategy to deal with what they see as a dangerous
misunderstanding of American values and motives.
"How is it that the country that invented
Hollywood and Madison Avenue has such trouble
promoting a positive image of itself overseas?" said
Representative Henry Hyde, Republican of Illinois,
and chairman of the House International Relations
Committee.
Many officials say it needs to be clearer
to Muslims around the world that the United
States is not fighting a holy war against Islam
-- and that, in fact, the United States has
gone to great lengths to defend Muslims in
its foreign policy. The last three American
military conflicts have involved defense of
Muslims -- in Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
According to
Marc Nathanson, a spokesman for the Broadcasting
Board of Governors, the entity
that oversees the nation's international public
broadcasting operations, media -- especially
public media - -has a special role to play
in America's war. "As the US seeks to
build coalitions to combat terror, people need
to know what we are doing and why," Nathanson
said. "They need to know that this country
is not the enemy of Islam, but will not tolerate
terrorism."
Some experts
and politicians on Capitol Hill say shortsighted
US policies in the past offer
some explanation for the hatred of America
that many are struggling to understand. During
the cold war the United States generated resentment
in countries like Pakistan and Indonesia by
propping up governments that had little popular
support. "There are some major policy
decisions America has made that have not made
us any friends," said Representative Dana
Rohrabacher, Republican of California, and
a member of the House International Relations
Committee.
In some ways,
the effort to improve America's image abroad
is already underway. According
to Assistant Secretary of State for Public
Affairs Charlotte Beers, the State Department
is constantly monitoring news about the US
in the Middle East and fashioning appropriate
responses. Beers said she is working with executives
at Ad Council, a non-profit organization that
designs communications campaigns on issues
of public concern, to develop pubic service
announcements to be aired internationally that
can "distill the values and virtues of
American democracy and the many good things
we have achieved on the international front."
Voice of America
(VOA) has dramatically increased its broadcasts
in Arabic, Dari, Pashto, Farsi,
and Urdu, and it has spent more than 5,000
hours on the air since September 11th. But
despite these efforts, VOA has had difficult
reaching crucial elements of the Arab population
in the Middle East. "We have almost no
youthful audience under the age of 25 in the
Arab world and we are concerned that...this
important segment of the population has enormous
distrust of the United States," Nathanson
said.
Some experts say focusing on pro-American
media campaigns alone will not solve the underlying
problems responsible for America's image crisis.
A broader approach to public diplomacy and
two-way dialogue is required, including more
cultural exchange programs, more innovative
communications work at US embassies, and a
willingness to engage the credible elements
of the Arab media in discussion and debate.
According to Lee Mcknight, Director of the
Edward R. Murrow Center at Tufts University's
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, instead
of seeking to limit or alter the coverage of
Arab media outlets like the Al Jazeera television
network, our leaders should be influencing
the coverage directly by participating in it,
through interviews and panel discussions.
Similarly,
McKnight says if the government is serious
about eradicating the causes of
anti-US fervor, it will have to address and
resolve the underlying policy disputes that
have spawned it, such as the continued presence
of American forces in the Persian Gulf and
the Arab-Israeli conflict. "No amount
of media management will matter if the US is
not also seen - and actually working on - ways
to resolve some of the intractable conflicts
which have served to feed fanaticism and anti-US
sentiment throughout many Arabic and Islamic
nations," McKnight said.
Craig Lamay,
a professor at Northwestern University's
Medill School of Journalism, agrees that
propaganda
alone will not bolster the US image in the
region, since the root of the problem lies
in the "gross social and political inequalities
that characterize all these countries and that
lead to social unrest."
The single
biggest reason for America's sinking image,
according to McKnight, is the belief
in the Arab world that the Bush administration
is not making efforts to understand the Arab
point of view and engage the other side through
the media and other fora. "We can't convince
anyone we're right if we don't understand their
point of view," he said.
But the president's
publicly expressed inability to understand
why America has drawn the ire
of the Arab world, evidenced by his remarks
at Thursday's press conference, is a troubling
sign, McKnight says. "He did not understand
and could not believe that people in other
nations really did not like us. He said they
must misunderstand us. Wrong answer."
|
