Many pundits have argued that the Bush administration squandered the global goodwill expressed toward the U.S. in the months following September 11, 2001 by countering international opinion and invading the sovereign nation of Iraq. In what is viewed by many as an effort to rekindle this goodwill, First Lady Laura Bush recently announced a Global Cultural Initiative to “enhance and expand America’s Cultural Diplomacy efforts.”
The initiative is the work of the U.S. State Department, which is teaming with both public and private organizations to coordinate, enhance, and expand cultural outreach efforts.
Spearheaded by Ambassador Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the Department of State, “the Department will build upon the vital work of government agencies and the broader cultural arts community to emphasize the importance of the arts as a platform for international engagement and dialogue.”
As the conservative Heritage Foundation points out, “America’s security can’t rely exclusively on guns and fences. Cultural exchanges are part of our first line of defense, helping to bridge ideological gaps and policy disagreements with person-to-person contact and close-up views of the United States. Such programs helped end the Cold War and could have reduced costly complications for America in the global war on terror.”
In fact, this latest push for cultural diplomacy has its origins in an earlier Cold War program, the Arts America Bureau, which was composed of twenty-four people in the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). But that program and the U.S. Information Agency itself were both closed in 1999, considered by many to be “Cold War relics.”
While addressing an audience at the launch of the Global Cultural Initiative, Mrs. Laura Bush said, “We saw art diplomacy during the Cold War, when even as the Soviet Union and the United States were on the brink of conflict, the people of these two countries found a common interest in jazz. Behind the Iron Curtain, Willis Conover, the Voice of America, [a] disk jockey who announced “Music USA Jazz Hour” each week, was a hero to Soviet citizens. His broadcasts are said to have done more to improve U.S.-Soviet relations than any official negotiations could [have at the time].”
“Today,” Mrs. Bush said, “art has the same power to reduce tensions and to strengthen alliances.”
Ambassador Hughes, who has been called the U.S.’s PR czar by some, agrees, stating at the press briefing that, “Public diplomacy isn’t just the work of government. … Every American who travels abroad or welcomes a foreign visitor can be an ambassador for America.”
To this end, the goals of the initiative are to “connect foreign audiences with American artists and art forms, share American expertise in arts management and performance, and educate young people and adults in the United States and abroad about the arts and cultures of other countries.”
To achieve this goal of better understanding, the Kennedy Center will send U.S. performance artists to various countries, including Pakistan; the American Film Institute will present both U.S. and foreign filmmakers at various festivals; the National Endowment for the Arts will arrange literary exchanges between the U.S. and Pakistan, Russia, and other countries; and the National Endowment for the Humanities will recruit foreign teachers for U.S. seminars.
But is it all too little, too late?
By recruiting foreign teachers for U.S. seminars, sending U.S. performance artists overseas, etc. — and given the language of First Lady Laura Bush’s speech in The East Room of The White House on September 25, 2006, it seems that the aim of the initiative is disproportionately geared to exporting American Culture, rather than importing works from other countries.
The U.S. will have to overcome a historically incongruous cultural import/export ratio. Recent attempts to transfer international actors to the American incarnations of pre-existing, international theatrical productions, for example, have been repeatedly met by U.S. union officials with non-negotiable refusals. In short, the policy has been and remains to be one of all American actors, all the time.
And how much of a difference can the proposed cultural exchange, however well-intentioned, make? To paraphrase the old, somewhat cynical adage, even under the best circumstances, poetry has never stopped a tank.
It has, however, provided meaning and a glimmer of humanity in the wake of such travesties, and such illumination can, admittedly, go a long way in forming alliances between cultures.
To this end, Mrs. Bush may, indeed, be correct. Assuming an equitable exchange is in place— art might well have the power to reduce tensions and to strengthen international alliances.
And the U.S. can certainly use a few more positive global alliances. Not to mention, the rest of the world might have valuable insight into our own culture.
