By Patricia H. Kushlis
It seems to me the term narrative has become the latest buzz
word in the American journalistic lexicon.
Unfortunately, it is also being introduced into the US foreign
policy debate and employed by the political right ostensibly to bash the Obama
administration for its perceived short-comings as we move towards the mid-term
elections.
What does the term narrative mean? How politically powerful is it? Do stories really speak louder than actions?
As I understand it, a narrative refers to a collection of
stories that provide a certain way of looking at events that have happened, are
happening and will happen. It’s a story
line that weaves disparate events into a contextual, but not necessarily
factual, whole. Certain Native Americans
have narratives that trace their tribe’s origins to emergence from a hole in
the ground. Theirs is a powerful story –
but, in fact, not true. Abundant scientific
evidence – from examination of artifacts to DNA tests – indicates otherwise. Native
Americans came across the Bering Straits from Asia. End of story – but the myth lives on.
A missed narrative - maybe all for the good
In terms of American foreign policy – since I guess, they can’t
think of anything else – one missed narrative, according to the Republicans, is
that the Obama administration has done nothing to help the Iranian dissident
movement and that somehow it should concoct some kind of proactive narrative that
tars the Iranian government as the current “Evil Empire” and ups the volume of
US funded media beamed at Iran. I guess
that this is somehow supposed to make the walls of the former Persia come tumbling
down. And if they don’t, we can blame
the Iranian regime for jamming commercial satellite signals. Or maybe we can anyway.
I never thought that Ronald Reagan’s branding the Soviet Union in such simplistic and inflammatory terms
made any difference in that country’s demise eleven years later. It just didn’t happen that way. The economy was on the skids, the Afghan invasion
had brought nothing but trouble to an overstretched military and angst to a
poor and ever poorer society, while previously repressed nationalisms exploded on
their own accord - including among Russians themselves - when the lid of repression
was lifted even a little bit.
Lesson from the past: facts are fine but not rhetorical embellishment
History does not repeat itself but it is possible to learn
lessons from the past. And my “take away”
from having watched at close hand the Soviet Union
implode is that name calling and other forms of rhetorical embellishment from
afar had little, if any, effect on the ground.
It’s not like that much of the population didn’t already consider the
system a failure. They knew it and they did.
Reagan’s anti-Communist rhetoric didn’t change the course of
events in the Soviet Union although I do think his Evil Empire stick may have
helped galvanize the largely foreign affairs ignorant Christian Right here at
home.
Sure, VOA and BBC were listened to in Leningrad,
Moscow and
points east because these foreign broadcasters provided relatively unbiased
news and served as welcome counterpoints to the regime’s boring, long-winded
and one-sided propaganda that spewed forth from the domestic airwaves. And everyone, after all, loved VOA’s Willis Conover.
But did the radios cause the downfall? I
never saw evidence that they did.
Iran is
not the Soviet Union although Iran
also includes a number of ethnic minorities albeit within its far smaller
borders. It is not even Russia, a
country that is still the largest geographically in the world. Iran is – foremost - a mid-level regional
power largely hemmed in by neighbors. The
country has a proud history, but an aging ecclesiastical regime that propagates
a minority version of Islam propped up by the brute power of an organization of
paramilitary foot soldiers. None of this
meshes well with its long proud historical, social, cultural or political traditions.
Personally, I think the current American administration’s
policies and especially its carefully targeted economic sanctions towards Iran are
carefully calibrated and about right. I
think that even the Republican right – except for the real zanies – realizes that
sending in the Marines or unleashing the Netanyahu government will create, at a
minimum, an instability that will send world oil prices into the stratosphere. But what’s to make one think that inflammatory
rhetoric or narrative from the outside will change Iran’s domestic political equation?
I don’t buy it. Where else did it really make a
difference?