Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

Public Diplomacy

China’s “Public Diplomacy” in China

By

Chinese – Sudanese oil, arms, and political protection deals are sustaining the 2nd African genocide of our generation. But that is just the starting point. China has been using the Sudan as a test bed, proving and improving the beta version of mass market neo-colonialism.

It is a terrific success. No real detractors. The UN rolled over and played as dead as a Darfur baby trampled under janjaweed hooves. Oh, the US muttered a bit but then decided best not to piss off their Chinese bankers. All is going as the Chinese had hoped and now its time to go into production with a continent-wide roll out. If you liked Darfur get ready Angola. Heads up DR Congo. The good times they are just startin’ ta roll.

Click here for the story as reported in today’s NY TIMES:

More than 80% of African heads of state are lining up in Beijing to cut their own deals on the Sudanese pattern. They will get the small arms they need to oppress their domestic populations and they’ll get the buy off cash to pass around amongst themselves and argue over in civil gang fights. China will get the oil iron and cotton it needs and— as a bonus– a market for the cheaper trinkets of Chinese low paid labour. But wait, there’s more. If the Africans sign up now there is a premium to be had in the UN market place. It is a fantastic market–the UN. A place where- to quote Catch 22’s Milo Minderbinder,–everybody has a share. Well, every government has a share. Well a vote, then. What those governments do to their populations is up to them. China will see to that.

Mutual UN backscratching under the ultimate protection of China’s Security Counsel seat/veto. What a deal. Easy money for corrupt governments in exchange for rights to rape environments and plunder raw materials. It is a sweet one.

Nobody gonna mess with this.

Hey,where the fuck’s Bob Geldolf?

The Irony of Arab Public Diplomacy

By

The United States has reduced its public diplomacy effort to a shadow of its former self – major reductions in surrogate radio broadcasting into Iran, Iraq and Russia matched with increased broadcasts of Western pop music and a tilt towards programs that trumpet the glories of U.S foreign policy.

While this has been going on the Arab TV network Al Jazeera has been preparing to initiate an English language TV network that would present the news of the Arab world with an Arab point of view. This should not be confused with a blind propaganda effort – given the quality of some of its Western hires it would appear to be designed to be less so than the Fox network which presents the news through the prism of personalities like Bill O’Reilly. What we have then is Arab public diplomacy directed to the West, particularly the United States, at a time when the U.S. continues to reduce its public diplomacy efforts to a defense of policies which are not even an easy sell to its own citizens let alone the rest of the world.

Winning Islamic Hearts and Minds?

By

See the front page story in today’s Boston Globe – the third in a series, “Exporting Faith,” – for a comprehensive look at a result of Bush’s funding of ‘faith-based initiatives.’

It describes a Christian hospital (run by a Christian group called World Witness) in Sahiwal, Pakistan, where its U.S. government assisted funding is described as visible all over the institution (e.g., a USAID sticker on the “top-of-the-line medical equipment”including “the X-ray machine, the blood bank refrigerator, the auditorium for medical lectures, and the radiology computer…”). The story goes on to say that the neediest Pakistani patients can’t afford the services. So, there exists a hospital, identified as Christian, sporting clear U.S. government support, which the locals can’t afford. Doesn’t go far to ‘winning hearts and minds’, does it?

Software Being Developed to Monitor Opinions of U.S.

By

See NY Times

This comment from our Kiwi Correspondent:
Foreign journalists will be particularly charmed to learn that their sentiments about the US are being computer-synthesized into simple positive or negative digitized conclusions. A thing observed is a thing changed, as the axiom has it. The thing in this case is infinitesimal : high opinion of America. It is likely to be changed. Negatively.

Admitting at the outset that this initiative —if focused on the US press— would be of questionable legality and unquestioned impropriety, the project’s leaders have announced that it is only the foreign media that will be monitored. The demeaning arrogance in that may be lost only on those doing the study. The rest of the world
will be understandably offended. Might not that offense reasonably be expected to adversely affect the opinions held of the US?

But, ok, say the project produces a sort of relief map of global regard for America, what does the existence of that mapping data imply? One implication of quantifying and locating low opinion is that corrective action could be targeted. If that meant Congress and US politicians responded by considering the substance and rationale
behind the opinion, then maybe some positive response could be fashioned. US policy could be informed and shaped to take account of other potentially useful perspectives. Alternatively the way policies were being presented could be adjusted to address perceived
short comings. By design, however, this project appears to eliminate those possibilities by cutting out of the equation any rationale supporting the opinion. The initiative is structured only to measure opinion not substance, conclusion not argument. So what sort of “corrective action” will flow from the compilation of that data?

As it creates data that identifies and claims to quantify “a problem “it will also create pressures to “solve” that alleged problem. The methodology of the initiative actually precludes development of internal solutions and thereby makes “external” solutions more likely. Fashioning external solutions here means finding ways of silencing critics rather than refuting them. Defeating them rather than considering them. Reacting rather than listening.

The foreseeable result of this un-needed, self-defeating, and divisive initiative will include pressures for disinformation campaigns, for buying off corruptible journalists and interdicting a free press in the very places we are urging policies of enlightened democratic transformation.