Winning hearts and minds
The United States is launching a multi-million dollar campaign to improve its image in the Muslim world. Aziza Sami examines the tactics being employed
The White House believes it has found a way to help improve negative perceptions of America in the Muslim world.
US President George W Bush has created the White House Office for Global Communications, signing an executive order formalising the office on 20 January. The new office will coordinate the work of various US government agencies with that of the US State Department as well as with media outlets within the Arab world. One of the most importa nt will be the Qatari-based television channel Al-Jazeera.
The idea of an information campaign directed at the Muslim world took hold in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks on the US. The premise is that Muslim antagonism towards the US is born out of ignorance of America and the values which it embodies -- liberty, equity and pluralism. Subsequently, media campaigns giving America a better name were mounted over the past year in several Islamic countries, including Kuwait, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt and Jordan. They included television and newspaper advertisements showing how Muslims in America enjoy equal rights and live in an atmosphere of religious tolerance. Web sites and booklets distributed by US embassies have covered the same theme. An Arabic-language radio service, "Sawa" (Together) also started airing in several Arab countries.
The campaign appears to emanate from an egocentric world view which makes the American way of life the substance of its message despite the fact that, as most US observers who follow the Middle East acknowledge, this is not what the Arab or Muslim populations of the region take issue with. At the same time, the primary cause for the antagonism harboured in Arab and Islamic countries towards the US -- which is America's position on the Palestinian- Israeli conflict -- is deliberately skirted and ignored.
The campaign, moreover, chooses to address its audience as a nebulous and homogenised Muslim mass instead of specific peoples living within certain political contexts, be they Iraqis, Palestinians or Egyptians. As such, it does not formulate solutions or devise policies to redress any current grievances that they might entertain. The pattern makes sense when one views the current US media campaign for what it is: a form of "information warfare" that the Bush administration is working to incorporate as an integral part of its foreign policy. As such, it obscures issues and underscores others in a manner which is consistent with the administration's agenda.
In a 21 January interview broadcast on the PBS television programme "NewsHour, with Jim Lehrer", Charlotte Beers, the US State Department's undersecretary of public diplomacy and public affairs, who is in charge of the media campaign to win over the Muslim world, said: "I completely disagree with people that the number one issue is the Israeli-Palestinian issue although it is crucial." Beers instead spoke at length about the importance of containing "anti-American" sentiment within the Muslim world by means of sustained messages on how America embraces Muslims and how, contrary to "Muslims' beliefs", America does not embrace decadent lifestyles.
On a broader level, the media campaign relegates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to virtual oblivion while paying huge attention to a possible war with Iraq. Within this context, the new White House office, which has been operating unofficially for the past six months, has compiled a document on Saddam Hussein's presidency since 1991, portraying it as a regime of lies and deceit.
Two months after the 11 September attacks, in November 2001, the Pentagon suggested the formation of the now notorious Office of Strategic Influence which would have had licence to disseminate false information about America's adversaries such as Al-Qa'eda and the Taliban. The idea was dispensed with after Congress and government agencies and press associations strongly opposed it.
The White House Office for Global Communications was subsequently formed with assurances that it would not have recourse to the fabrication of facts. Still, there is reason to believe that the guiding principle that inspired the idea of the Office of Strategic Influence is not dead.
A statement issued in September by the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, which is affiliated to the State Department, appeared to suggest that control should be exercised in the manner in which Congress and media organisations express their views on foreign policy issues.
The commission's statement urged the formation of the White House Office for Global Communications and requested that "Congress [be integrated] into public diplomacy efforts [and] lawmakers [included] in public diplomacy planning and implementation at all stages". It warned as well that "members of Congress communicate, directly and indirectly, with foreign audiences in ways that can undermine public diplomacy messages".
Finally, the commission recommended that America's advertising, public relations and entertainment industries be integrated into this public policy effort, "in which they would render their insight, creative concepts and critical judgment". One month later, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld intimated to reporters that although the idea of an office of strategic influence might have been scrapped, the philosophy which inspired it is not.
His statements were posted on the Defence Department's official Web site.
"If you want to savage this thing," he said, referring to the now defunct idea, "fine, I'll give you the corpse. You can have the name. But I'm going to keep doing every single thing that needs to be done, and I have."
It is within such a context that the campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world may be judged.
