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October 03, 2005
Karen Hughes Mid-East Tour: A Failure of Public Diplomacy
A number of papers are carrying stories related to Karen Hughes’, the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, recently concluded tour of the Middle East. She stopped in Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia where she met with groups screened to be as receptive as possible to her pro-America, pro-Bush message. Even under these carefully massaged conditions, the trip has caused more harm than good for the image of the US in the Middle East. While the Egyptian leg of the trip, by all accounts, went over passably well, even the Bush-loyalist Weekly Standard acknowledged that her attempt to stand up for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia backfired:
Student after student stepped to the microphones in the hall. Peering out from behind their abayas, they denounced the portrayal in the American news media of Saudi women as powerless and abused.
"We are not oppressed. We are not prisoners in our own homes," said one student. "We are all pretty happy." She demanded to know why Americans have such a negative view of the way Saudi women are treated.
The Washington Post reports that her stop in Turkey likewise failed to impress – there she was met with condemnation for the Iraq occupation:
"This war is really, really bringing your positive efforts to the level of zero," said Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal, an activist with the Capital City Women's Forum. She said it was difficult to talk about cooperation between women in the United States and Turkey as long as Iraq was under occupation.
Slate’s Fred Kaplan suggests that the whole trip may have been as badly conceived as it was badly executed, beginning with the selection of Hughes as an envoy. Illustrating his point, he comes up with a Muslim version of her:
Put the shoe on the other foot. Let's say some Muslim leader wanted to improve Americans' image of Islam. It's doubtful that he would send as his emissary a woman in a black chador who had spent no time in the United States, possessed no knowledge of our history or movies or pop music, and spoke no English beyond a heavily accented "Good morning."
He goes on to point out that while Middle Eastern audiences raise substantive issues relating to American policy (the war in Iraq, for instance), Hughes is reduced to mouthing sugary slogans, emphasizing her motherhood and love of children. This whole approach of public diplomacy embraces the idea that what is necessary to repair the image of America in the Muslim world is not a revision of policy, but a better marketing campaign. If that’s the case, as dubious as it seems, the US should start looking for a better PR hack.
Posted October 3, 2005 11:49 PM
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