WhirledView

Blind Buddhas and Incendiary Cartoons

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Santa Fe is full of Buddhists, but no one has erupted with religious rage since this image (a sculpture by David Kimble Anderson) was placed on display in the atrium of a building that housed an art gallery and other business enterprises.  As anyone with the least facility in reading symbols will immediately have grasped,  there are innumerable ways of interpreting this work of art.  Since many possible interpretations are decidedly negative, I found my recalling the violent  reactions to the now infamous Danish cartoons, which were condemned by many believers as an affront to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.  The result?  Riots in several countries.  Some people unfortunately died.

Multiple Interpretations

Let’s consider some ways in which the Anderson piece might be understood.  The gold surface could be an indictment of materialism on the part of traditional Buddhist temple builders or on the part of current practitioners whose lives verge, hypocritically perhaps, on the sumptuous.  Of course, many traditional images of the Buddha are also flamboyantly gilt, to symbolize the transcendent value of the teachings and to honor the one who enunciated them.

In this case, however, the figure appears to be bandaged.  It is, evidently, blind and essentially quadriplegic.  Unable to see.  Unable to act.  Impotent.  Useless.  Is this a statement about the futility and irrelevance of Buddhism? On the other hand, meditative insights are available to those who sit without moving,  looking inward.  Sometimes these insights have effects that are far more powerful than actions that are not guided by wisdom. 

Which, one wonders, did the sculptor have in mind?

Mummies, Too

I simply don’t know.  When I first saw this image, I was and still am totally ignorant of the sculptor’s intention, as ignorant as many of those who rioted over the Danish cartoons surely were.  Nor would many of those angry Muslims have cared in the least whether the cartoonists’ intentions were pure or not.  The cartoons, taken at face value, appear to insult the prophet.  Enough.

This past weekend I had an opportunity to show a photo of the blind Buddha to a very knowledgeable Buddhist teacher/scholar.  “Give me your first reaction,” I asked.  “How do you feel?  What are your unconsidered thoughts?”  I should have known better.  I did not get any unconsidered thoughts. 

But I did get some interesting information.  This scholar said that the image reminds him of the mummy of Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Cha’an (or Zen) Buddhism, who was born in AD 638 and is known for enunciating the revered Diamond Jewel Platform Sutra.  Evidently it was the custom to mummify great teachers back then in China.  The proper term, I just learned courtesy of Google, is “whole body relics.”  Mummies!  This seemed strange to me.  Buddhism supposedly teaches impermanence, while mummies are intended to make the physical remains last forever or as long as possible.  My bewildered personal reaction to Buddhist mummies notwithstanding, could Anderson’s work be an homage to Hui Neng?

And so the inquiry widens, opening my horizons, giving me pause to think.

Looks Like We’ve Given Up

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

For decades now the US has been closing its cultural centers and trying to whip up enthusiasiam for cheap substitutes which surveys have shown to be ineffectual.  The rationale for the cost cutting jag?  That old end of history canard.  Once the Cold War was over, there’d be no need to promote the American brand.  We’d won.  The future was us—the U.S.

The Greeks were so right about the need for self-knowledge and the dangers of hubris.  Our joy and relief when the Berlin Wall came down were so extreme that we thought the U.S. would be on top for ever—well, there were some level headed sorts who considered such thinking to be absurd, but they were pooh-poohed.  We cut back on our public diplomacy programs, and within ten years our public diplomacy agency went poof!  Gone.  In all fairness, I need to add that the Brits were cutting back on British Council expenditures, the French were less generous to their Alliance Française operations and the Germans were closing Goethe Centers, too.  The West, in general, was pretty smug about winning the Cold War and was determined to reap financial dividends.

But history, as it will, moved on.  Islam exploded, Russia refused to play the role of deferential poor provincial cousin, and if the 20st century was the American century, the competition for which country will dominate the 21st century seems to be constrained only by the never properly appreciated or understood efforts of India to deny the honor to the Chinese.  However, the Chinese are looking so good that the Russians, evidently, have decided to follow the Sino one-party-capitalism model to prosperity.

Where, Please, Are the American Media?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

I was watching the PBS Newhour tonight.  It was followed, as usual, by a half hour segment of the BBC news.  During the latter, I learned that the important debate we thought we were having about possible troop enhancements in Afghanistan is probably over.

Britain’s PM Gordon Brown is sending an extra 500 fighters to Afghanistan, evidently, but only because he can count on an American surge:  President Obama will likely be complying with General McCrystal’s request to beef up the American contingent.  And there’s more.  The numbers may exceed the 40,000 we ordinary American citizens were given to believe was the target number of the General's request. 

Why am learning this from a foreign news medium?  Do the American news media not know?  Have they decided—or been persuaded—that the U.S. public does not need to be informed of what our government is planning to do? 

Either possibility is unnerving.

I saw the BBC videocast at 6:30 pm mountain time.  It is now 10:30 pm mountain time.  A quick look at Google news shows CNN reporting only the proposed British buildup, while the  NYT is opting for process, not substance, a truly unhelpful trend in news reporting.  The Washington Post does mention the British assertions, but the story rests on the well-worn official statement that the President hasn’t made up his mind and won’t for a number of weeks yet.  Of the major US media, only the LA Times seems to be truly interested in the BBC report.  It reproduces a transcript of a press conference with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who ridicules the notion of getting Obama news from the BBC, not him.  So—do we believe the President’s man or the BBC? 

Yes.  Who are we to believe?  Once it was easy.  I trusted the American press to dig and pry and muckrake.     However, considering the derelictions of main stream media in recent years, especially the tendency to feed us unquestioned official versions of anything delicate, I’m inclined to go with the BBC version.  They’re not likely to go out on a limb without good reason.

All of which makes me sad and angry.   There are many among us who assert that we can no longer count on the U.S. press to keep us fearlessly well informed about our government and those we have chosen to lead us.  I've been slow to resign myself to this possibility, and maybe my doubts will turn out to be ill founded.  But the mere fact that I am doubting is the crux of the matter.

The Field: Where Foreign Policy Succeeds or Fails

Public Diplomacy Today

Part 4

By Patricia H. Kushlis and Patricia Lee Sharpe

Foreign policy needs and goals are defined in Washington, but foreign policy succeeds or fails in the field.  Attention is sought.  Criticism is met.  Competing influences are neutralized or co-opted. Friends are made. Alliances are built.  Goals are achieved—or not.   It helps hugely when policy is intrinsically attractive.  Being militarily strong helps, too, up to a point. Overwhelming strength is often resented.  It becomes, paradoxically, a disadvantage to be adroitly overcome, since no other country wants to appear to have been coerced.  But raw power flaunted or sheathed, even the U.S. can’t go it alone in today’s world.  Public diplomacy’s role is to move governments by inspiring their citizens to see American goals as good for them, too.

The Trifecta:  Information, Culture, Education

Public Diplomacy in the field, at post, works both directly and indirectly.  It aims simultaneously for immediate and longer term impact, the two time lines corresponding roughly to the two branches of traditional PD work: information and culture.  Sometimes the information function is confused with the manipulations better known today as propaganda, although PD’s need for reliability and credibility makes it more akin to journalism.  Cultural programs are often dismissed as frills, expensive indulgences whose impact is difficult to measure, which is true, but only because conventional polling is at its weakest when assessing qualitative phenomena and complex interactions. Straddling the two, though not customarily administered as such, are the educational programs which involve knowledgeable Americans interacting with foreign audiences, short trips to the U.S. for promising mid-career foreign citizens, youth exchanges, academic exchanges like the Fulbright program and even, until recently, university linkages. 

Informational, educational, cultural—these are the co-equal mutually-supportive elements of an effective PD program.  Properly orchestrated, they enhance the overall American image, making the U.S. better understood and more attractive as an ally.  They create lasting links between individuals and institutions, which keeps doors open and ensures a hearing when tough or sensitive issues need support.   They provide, via all media platforms, relevant, accurate and timely information to foreign publics whose mobilization is critical if American foreign policy goals are to be met.

Planning for Success

Because every country is different—even Canada and the United States differ in ways that would call for modulated communications strategies—a Washington-dictated, one-way, one-size-fits-all approach to public diplomacy, however tempting it might seem to bean counters, doesn’t work. Therefore, once Washington establishes policy priorities, experienced, skilled, perceptive  and imaginative field officers must be trusted to devise ways to sell it. 

In the past, USIA posts were required to submit an annual country plan assessing the state of the bilateral relationship, describing (in cooperation with the entire mission) how the post proposed to nourish the relationship while promoting, according to carefully specified strategies, Washington’s policy priorities and, last but not least, requesting the financial, human and material resources to do so.  Expectations for evaluation and feedback were built in.   Naturally big posts in big countries enjoyed more staff and bigger budgets.  But all posts in all countries were guaranteed sufficient resources—Public Affairs Officer plus American and/or locally-hired personnel; a vast range of highly-responsive, Washington-based backup services; firewalled budgetary authority; the wherewithal to run a full service American Center; an appropriate inventory of up-to-date equipment; and, last but not least, PD-controlled vehicles—to offer a high-quality, well-balanced, year-round program that could and would put America in the best possible light.  

The State Department has a habit of bemoaning the lack of administrative skills among its high level officers—and yet, at every post, there was, for decades, a whole cadre of field-tested managers who were also Foreign Service Officers: the public diplomacy people.  Even fairly junior officers had managerial responsibilities, and anyone who wanted to be a Public Affairs Officer had to be an adroit CEO, a dollar-squeezing CFO, a supervisor with a knack for delegating, a program coordinator, a cultural impresario, a human resources geni, a master of media, a public relations whiz, a social psychologist, a linguist, a self-confident performer—and make it all look smooth and easy to the public, which is why, perhaps, the typical State Department officer found it so difficult to appreciate what those public diplomacy colleagues were doing.  Even today there are calls for outside hires to supply the State Department with managerial talent.  Meanwhile, the superb managers that State acquired when it absorbed USIA, were ignored or devalued.  Many, therefore, retired prematurely.  Although a very few prospered and even became Ambassadors, Deputy Chiefs of Mission or Consul Generals, most public diplomacy operational skills are in a state of disuse bordering on atrophy and will soon be lost, except as recorded in the memoirs of better times. Talk about squandering capital!

Pay for View the Murdoch Way: Money or Influence Which Is It?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Oh my gosh, right wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch announced earlier this summer that he plans to charge for access to online news content. Since I’m no fan of Murdoch productions – online, in print, or in any other form – that’s just hunky-dory with me. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think he should be encouraged to do so.

Let me explain.

Although there are a very few news organizations that have successfully succeeded in firewalling off their content to subscribers only, most have failed. And the few that have succeeded – The Financial Times and Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal – do so because in Jeff Jarvis’ (The Guardian) view their “readers . . . make money on the content, and pass the cost on to their employers.”

If Murdoch’s goal is foremost to increase his oversized fortune – I wish him the best of luck – but if NPR CEO Vivian Schiller is right, and she should know, he’d be financially more successful if he left his news operations alone.

Effective Public Diplomacy in India?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

WhirledView has taken a generally dim view of public diplomacy leadership in the State Department over the past few years.  Nor have we been impressed, so far, with the pronouncements of Judith McHale, who assumed the portfolio not so long ago.

However, a report by David J. Karl which appears on Asia Times Online says this of Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to India, noting importantly that the media in general confined itself to reporting agreements on nukes and disagreements about global warming.  Herd and horse race journalism!  All too alive and well!  Be that as it may, Karl has studied her schedule in detail, and he's impressed by the breadth and depth of her engagement with India:

Clinton was very attentive to the private-sector and societal linkages that are the foundation for the new era in US-India affairs. Headlines about nuclear cooperation, expanding military ties and convergent geopolitical interests obscure the critical role that these non-governmental connections play in building ties. [During her visit] Clinton spent a good part of her visit away from the Indian capital and made a conscious effort to engage a wider range of people than traveling secretaries of state usually do. For example, corporate chieftains, film stars, village artisans, educators, agricultural researchers, green technology enthusiasts and university students.

All in all, concludes Karl, the trip accentuated

the often-ignored factors that create an important stake in enduring ties, and which limit the risk that momentary political and diplomatic aggravations could disrupt the overall US-India partnership.

I couldn’t have made a better case for persistent, well-balanced public diplomacy myself.

Obviously the mission in New Delhi and its consulates did a good job for Clinton.  I hope she noticed and will work to rebuild PD on the Washington end so that field work can be properly supported.  Even when the boss isn’t around to be impressed.

Radio Wave Wars

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Why is it that America’s airwaves are consumed with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Savage, Mark Davis and others spouting the tired right wing Israeli government/AIPAC ultra-hard line on Iran while the US military is trying to figure out how to eliminate or at least reduce the influence of their Taliban talk show opposite numbers in places like Pakistan’s SWAT valley?

Yes, this question is important and the two issues are related because if civil strife in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to be quelled, the Iranians can be far more helpful than the Israelis ever could, and Iran is certainly not going to do so if either the US or the Israelis rain bombs down on their country or impose - or threaten to impose - a stepped up short-fused sanctions regime.

National security not appeasement issue

This is not an issue of appeasement – it is foremost an issue of US national security including the security of Americans – those in military uniform and those in Bermuda shorts – both at home and abroad. Countries must negotiate with their adversaries to settle differences; they less often need to do so with their friends. In this instance, the Israelis and their AIPAC enablers would do us all a favor by sitting down and keeping quiet for a change.

This is also just one reason the “attack Iran short-fuse policy” goes against the policies of the Obama administration. In truth, “attack Iran soon” also turned out not to be the policy of the previous administration despite the Iran-baiting ravings of its supporters in America’s ultra-right wing which – throughout W’s tenure - the US military kept at bay.

Rewriting military information operations

As the military rewrites its information operations manual for the first time since 2003 re-evaluating and restructuring the template of how it conducts its communications activities overseas particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the issue of how best to counter the “hundreds of radio programs, distribution of audio cassettes and deliverance of night letters” by the Taliban to cow the local population is of major concern.