I enjoyed John Brown's visit to our class and some of the ideas he put forth on cultural diplomacy from his time spent as a cultural affairs officer in Russia. His experiences were great to hear, and, unfortunately, telling, I think, about the lack of weight given to cultural affairs by the USG. Brown says he lacked a budget to do much of anything, and had to beg and bribe (with meals) visiting American artists to give performances while in the country.
He also lamented the closing of American cultural centers, and in one of his blogs he also mentions the way embassies are being made like fortresses outside of capitals. So--how in the world are we making real connections with the people from other countries? How are we making opportunities for human contact, and sharing our art, music, and literature?
My own experiences line up with his pessimism about cultural diplomacy ever really catching on or being understood in the U.S. When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali in 1991, my students had helped stage a coup d'etat, and helped push Moussa Traore, a longtime dictator, out of power. My colleagues and I were looking for ways to put the violence in context, and reflect the ways in which societal change comes about through the literature we were teaching, and any other art forms we could find. I got hold of a copy of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," so I went to the American cultural center in Bamako and asked to have a showing for my students. The folks there at that time said, sure! and helped me set it up. My students enjoyed the film, and we had a great discussion about it afterward.
Fast forward to 2004, when I was working in Guinea. I met a wonderful Guinean woman in Mamou, in the interior of the country, who told me her son Tonton spoke English. I met him, and sure enough, even while growing up in Mamou, he had always had an interest in American culture, and had some friends from Sierra Leone, and so had taught himself to speak English. When Tonton moved to Conakry, the capital city, he wanted to improve his English through reading books and magazines, so I accompanied him to the American cultural center to try to get him a library card. The center was all but deserted, but they wouldn't give one to him, saying that he had to either be a government official, or in a university program of study. Tonton had eight brothers and sisters, and his family was much too poor to be able to send him to a university, so he didn't qualify. What a shame! What an opportunity lost. I was embarrassed, and didn't really know what to say to him about such a closed-door reception.
While the American cultural center in Conakry was completely underutilized, just blocks away in the same part of town was the French cultural center, which kept its doors open for reading, study and making social contacts between a weekly program of performances and exhibits. I took my children there often to see dance and music concerts, art exhibitions, and basically to enjoy a night out. Conakry also has a high rate of unemployment and underemployment, and so a lot of young people (like Tonton) would make their way there; it was a good, constructive way for youth to spend their time.
France has found a way to open its doors and invite people in around the world, with a brilliant phrase, la francophonie, that implies a shared language but diverse cultures, which completely ignores the whole issue of the legacy of colonialism and emphasizes something much better, diverse and dynamic.
C'est chouette. Ca marche. Talk about winning hearts and minds.
As someone with a background in the arts, I could sympathize with Brown's perspective. However, I don't agree with his blanket statement about Russians being defined by their culture and Americans by their ideas. We define ourselves. As one who has studied a number of art forms as well as American literature, you can't tell me the U.S. doesn't have high art--all kinds of art, for that matter. We put out what we choose to put out, and we finance and privilage certain cultural "products" (everything from so-called high culture to low or pop culture) over others for export.
There will always be markets for bad American films overseas. Peter van Ham says in Social Power in International Politics that Larry Hagman, the actor who played JP in Dallas, thought that the series was partly responsible for the fall of the Soviet empire (van Ham, 52). All I know is that during my time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali I was constantly correcting the stereotypes people had about me as an American because they had seen the series, trying to explain that no, I didn't come from Dallas, Texas, and no, not everyone lives in a fancy house with a swimming pool like JR.
Maybe Dallas and JR did create a fantasy world that people thought was a reality in the west. Maybe such cultural products do help further political ends. Maybe. Sometimes. All I can tell you is that they give people a lot of false ideas about America and Americans. I don't know, is that our aim? Is that really in our best interests?
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