By PHK
I recently gave a talk on the U.S. image abroad and the importance of Americans connecting with foreign youth – and American youth connecting with the world. I hadn’t thought much about youth for some time, but the club I spoke to is committed to helping the younger generation so I keyed the latter half of my talk to that aspect of public diplomacy – what my experiences had been as a US Foreign Service Officer and what the US government is now doing – and not doing – to engage with the younger generation. As I thought about it afterwards, a lot of my career was – one way or another – helping America connect with younger generations of Europeans and Asians and assisting American youth become personally acquainted with the world.
As I also thought about the talk, I realized that I should have, but didn’t, point out my understanding that people’s political attitudes are primarily formed when they are in their teens. We also know that such attitudes, however, are not set in stone – as the post World War II German experience with democracy demonstrated but nevertheless, it remains far harder to change basic political attitudes and mind-sets of adults than those of teenagers.
This thought troubles me a great deal because the longer the international prestige of the United States remains in the cellar or - worse - continues the downward spiral as the polls indicate, the more difficult it will be to reverse directions when the nightmare of W’s presidency is over – that is if, and I fervently hope so, we find ourselves with a president with brains and sensible foreign policy judgment.
Ignoring the younger generation could be lethal
The kids who were 12 when the US invaded Iraq are now 15 going on 16 and by the time this administration is out of the White House they will be 18. 16 year olds will be 22 – and so on. Too often disenchanted, disaffected, sometimes undereducated, un- or under-employed youth are those the most attracted to the siren’s call of militant radicalism regardless of their religious creed. They are, after all, looking for meaning and direction in their lives but see none. If the population of a country as a whole is anti-American, I shudder to think how its disaffected young people must view us and how many of them may join the ranks of militant groups whose weapons are aimed against us.
Disapproval of U.S. foreign policies remains the primary cause of the seemingly ever-declining popularity of Uncle Sam. It has been this way since at least the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
This is underscored in the latest poll of over 26,000 people’s attitudes in 25 countries towards US foreign policy by Globescan and the University of Maryland for the BBC. The one bright side, however, is found in a recent Zogby poll of the Middle East that tells us that democracy, technology, science and culture are qualities foreigners still admire about the US.
A summary of the latest Globescan/PIPA poll findings
The recent Globescan/PIPA poll reported that 73 percent of the people surveyed disapproved of how the US government has dealt with Iraq. 68 percent believed that the US military presence in the Middle East provokes more conflict than it prevents and just 17 percent saw US troops as a stabilizing force. Of the 18 countries that had been surveyed the year before, the average percentage of the people who said that the US has a mainly positive influence in the world dropped seven points from a year ago – from 36-29 percent after having dropped from 40 percent the previous year. The poll included 1,000 Americans for the first time.
Of the people polled the most negative views of US foreign policy were found in Europe and the Middle East. The most positive were in Nigeria and Kenya (the two African countries included) and in the Philippines. Indonesia and Malaysia the Philippines’ two close Muslim majority neighbors, however, registered among the most negative.
The questions asked not only covered US policies in the Middle East but also global warming (56 percent disapproval) and North Korea’s nuclear program (54 percent disapproval). The Bush administration’s recent retreat from its previously counter-productive, neocon driven approach to North Korea may ultimately turn this one around, but time will be the judge.
It is unclear to me whether youth were included in this and other surveys – and if so, whether or how their opinions differed from the adults – but it seems to me teenagers also need to be surveyed and the results made public so that their views can also be understood and factored in to the policy debates now raging in this country. Meanwhile, our public diplomacy czarina Karen Hughes and secretary of state Condi Rice tell us how important connecting with foreign youth is for our country’s future well being – and also how important it is for American youth to become acquainted with the world.
I agree: they are right.
But Hughes and Rice need to convince the people who hold the purse-strings and sit in the driver’s seat, not me.
Where’s the money and the staff to make all this happen? How does the US reach these foreign youth or educate our own future generations about the world if the financial support and bureaucratic infrastructure barely exists?
Why is it that we can spend $7 billion per month on a militarily-driven Iraq policy which experts and citizens alike tell us is failing – but not commit a fraction of the amount on teaching our kids to speak a foreign language, learn basic world geography even something about American government – or to see the world beyond the US borders as a fascinating place to visit, live in or trade with - not to invade from the inside of an M1A1.
If it weren’t for the German Bundestag and its continued support for the US Congress-German Bundestag Youth Exchange program (which I helped put into operation shortly after its inception) which exchanges 400 American and 400 German youth per year, only 174 American teenagers would receive any federal funding for study abroad through the State Department – and this is for only two summer language programs in Arabic and Chinese.
Furthermore, US government support for foreign teenagers to come to the US to attend American high schools and live with American families peaked in 1996. This year the number is 3,000 and that includes the 400 German students on Congress-Bundestag.
Even a youth program called YES which was born in the aftermath of 9/11 to bring teenagers from predominately Muslim countries to the US has foundered. The number of students (675 from the entire Muslim world for academic year 2006-7) is tiny even compared with the US-German exchange. Funding and lack of Congressional support are the primary obstacles to making YES much more than an administration “feel-good” operation.
A school-to-school short-term classroom exchange of teachers and students between American and Chinese schools totals only 12 US high schools. The model’s good. It's been tested and refined over the years. But US government support for even this exchange is a drop in the bucket to what it could and should be. Meanwhile, the administration tells us that US-Chinese relations are crucial and that it is focusing more of its diplomatic resources on China.
The NSLI: not even a token gesture
The National Security Language Initiative which the administration described as crucial for our country’s future well-being just a year ago January remains on the drawing boards. It was a token gesture from the start because of the paucity of funding requested, but even the small program proposed has never been implemented in either State or Education Departments. Last year’s Republican Congress torpedoed – for some unknown reason - the administration’s modest request. Congress did, however, fund a piece under the Defense Department – primarily for grants to nine American universities to expand their language courses in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian and Russian.
$9 million for the State Department’s portion of the NSLI to help a few US high school students learn to speak a foreign language and understand another country’s culture shouldn’t have been all that hard to come by - not when we’re spending $7 billion per month on a failed policy in Iraq that has cost thousands of lives and lost millions of friends abroad to placate the oversized egos of W, Cheney, the Kagan father and sons trio and their AEI pals.
Sorry, I just don’t get it. The figures alone demonstrate that this administration views connecting with youth as foremost a publicity stunt, not a real priority. It could have long term lethal consequences.