Three articles and a story

• - 19 July 2010: Nancy Birdsall, Molly Kinder and Wren Elhai wrote about “Building, not buying trust in Pakistan” on http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/19/building_not_buying_trust_in_pakistan;
• - 25 July 2010: the Guardian wrote “Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-military-leaks);
• - 20 October 2010: the Guardian Development Network, in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, asked “Can US aid change minds in Pakistan?” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2010/oct/20/us-aid-humanitarian-pakistan-winning-hearts-minds).

The three articles listed above have at least one thing in common: they are very skeptical on the significance of the United States’ public diplomacy nowadays.

[A quick reminder on what is commonly intended with the term “public diplomacy”:

‘Official government efforts to shape the communications environment overseas in which American foreign policy is played out, in order to reduce the degree to which misperceptions and misunderstandings complicate relations between the U.S. and other nations’,

see http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/1.htm for further definitions]

One could argue that public diplomacy is wonderful. I agree, to the extent that it is transparent as it promises and that it avoids propagandistic power games. The problem arises when it isn’t wholly sincere, when you find out that the information made public doesn’t quite correspond to some other hidden information that was labelled as ‘unsuitable’ to the sensitive minds of the public.

Like those bloody questionable hundreds of “errors” at civilian expense by American and British troops in Afghanistan, recently made available to every online reader in the so-called Afghanistan War Logs on WikiLeaks.

According to the article, the White House stated that their secrecy was necessary in order not to ‘threaten the national security’.

Or like the US intention to “win hearts and minds” in Pakistan. In a part of the world that is not ready yet to trust the Americans, their clumsy attempts to flood the country with aid to quietly obtain a positive return on their image just could not work. As reported by a journalist for the Guardian Development Network,

the more the US seeks out a public relations boost from its aid, the less likely it is that this will materialise [...] A Pakistani journalist recently captured this sentiment rather bluntly. After I reported on the large relief pledge of the US, he said to me: "Yes, but isn't it all just too contrived?"

As pointed out by Birdsall, Kinder and Elhai, the US are (in)famous in Pakistan for abandoning their aid commitments as soon as ‘diplomatic imperatives’ vanish, regardless of the needs of the Pakistani people. American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reassuring speech in the country on 19^th July is not enough for the US to meet Pakistan’s favours, unless the States start to seriously stick to the promises they make and to achieve them under the public eye, forgetting once and for all their back-up games behind the scenes. Same goes, of course, for the American military effort in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, it is amazing what a single American citizen can do to improve the perception of his country abroad, without even meaning it. Greg Mortenson, 51, has arguably achieved more in terms of American public image among the Afghani and Pakistani people than the government itself. Author of best-selling book Three Cups of Tea (http://www.threecupsoftea.com/)

and of its sequel Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, Mortenson has established over 90 schools in rural regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 34,000 children, including 24,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before. He started his work in 1993 in a small village close to the K2 and has recently received the honorifical prize of the “Star of Pakistan” (https://www.ikat.org/2009/03/24/bdc-3-24-09/) for his achievements in the country, which include publishing workbooks and grammar books in local languages, building libraries and playgrounds, initiating women’s development projects, clean drinking-water projects and scholarship programmes. All of this, he did thanks to generous grants from private benefactors, to lots of hard work and determination, and with the help of dozens local co-operators. Now it might be asked, how is this relevant to public diplomacy?

Greg Mortenson represents the best of America. He’s my hero. And after you read Three Cups of Tea , he’ll be your hero, too.” -U.S. Representative Mary Bono (R-Calif.)

I read Mortenson’s book. It is truly awesome. It tells a beautiful story, that of thousands people who live in remote areas and used not to know anything about the rest of the world; people who cherished the first American person they ever met as a family friend, because he did something concrete for them, which now allows them to have a better and better life style; people who now love the whole of the United States, just because that’s where Greg Mortenson, their ‘angel’, comes from. How inspiring to read that, in spite of religious, cultural and –especially- political challenges, Good can still triumph if it comes from a genuine desire to help others. How heart-warming to think that there real ‘public diplomats’ like Mortenson around.