Our science-soaked and proudly rational U.S. government is unlikely to think of itself as functioning on fictions. And yet, when it comes to public diplomacy, the policy community explains the processes, programs and products that comprise its communications with foreign publics by relying on a bit of make-believe, a metaphor: the idea that countries are like people having a verbal exchange. The simple symbolic gesture seems to make so much sense that we rarely notice that we are in the realm of the literary: nation-states don’t literally “tell stories” or “listen” or “dialog” in the directly observable way that individuals do.
I like the metaphor and I like that our government officers use it to shape the strategic intent of public diplomacy. Jim Glassman, the current Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, wields these metaphors with ease when explaining how he thinks public diplomacy should and does work. At a recent ‘bloggers roundtable’ , one of several he is holding this fall to share the work of his office, Glassman mobilized the metaphor:
“…[O]ne of the things we've been thinking about now is also how the three broad categories in which we work under public diplomacy - how to distinguish those. So there is telling America's story, which is essentially what IIP [Bureau of International Information Programs] does explaining our policies and our principles to the world, talking about America. And that's really about us. That's mainly about us. It's about America. Then there is what ECA does, Education and Cultural exchanges and that's about us and them. Almost an equal measure. And then the third which is the war of ideas, which is mainly about them. Now in all of these functions clearly there is a dialog or even something that's even broader than a dialog, a conversation that's going on, but the main focus is - I think is differentiated in one of those three ways…”
I thought Glassman made great use of the idea that countries are like people talking to each other. We tell stories, we dialog, we converse, which implies that we also listen. Glassman also pointed out, if inadvertently, another generally unacknowledged fiction that does not serve so well. As in almost all conceptions of public diplomacy in recent years, this iteration encouraged the idea that there is one “us” and one “them.”
Not true. There is no one American story, no one Western story, no one Christian story. Same goes for the putative “them” –there is no one Eastern story, and no one Islamic story. If the 2-year election season we’ve just weathered proves anything, it is that there are multiple American narratives –about where we came from, who we are, and where we are headed—competing for dominance. When we vote for a candidate, we’re voting for a story. We vote for the one that offers us the most compelling next chapter. But even though only one candidate will win, the other stories won’t disappear. They simply won’t dominate official life for the next four years. But they will continue to be told, to intersect the dominant story, to surface and segue into the more major plotline.
The same is true of the larger pageant of world history where, for the sake of public diplomacy, it makes strategic sense to assume there is only one story – one story of all of us, one history of the West and Islam. There is only one history of relations, with multiple, sometimes competing, always interacting strands out of which dominant stories have evolved. Some of these stories are about the triumphant feats of free-market capitalism, and some try to thrill with a tale of purifying Islam cutting through corruption. But these are only two, and both are intersected and branch off everywhere with many others.
Bush’s confrontational throw down to a world presumed to be either “with us” or “with the terrorists” may be a fading memory at this point. But the conception of a world with only two visions, one “us” and one “them,” is a version of the same, if much softened. This plot line can only ever end up in one of two ways: in a global shouting match that perpetuates violence--whether symbolic or real, or with the dominance of one based on the suppression of the other.
The world has always been a multi-vocal place. Technology has amplified many of those voices. A strategic approach to communicating with foreign publics could start with the true story that in our currently austere moment, stories--visions of potential futures, of how to be modern, how to be democratic, and how to create plenty—can be found in abundance. Granted, it is the job of American public diplomacy to stake out the American version. And the Undersecretary's office currently sponsors a few projects that encourage multiple stories, including a global contest in which anyone can make a short film about their vision of democracy. But even these will not get far if the dominant perception that there is only one “us” and one “them" prevails in policy.