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Program Overview
- Hosts: Ray Suarez and Deborah Amos
- Original Airdate: Feb 2008
Engaging foreign audiences has become a prime focus of the U.S. Department of State, but there seems to be a disconnect between the government’s message and its target audience. Ray Suarez and Deborah Amos report on Communication Breakdown: Losing the War of Ideas. Learn more about diplomatic efforts to fix this problem and learn about the history of U.S. and British public diplomacy.
In segment one, Ray Suarez reports on the impact of educational exchanges in Egypt, and we talk to former Undersecretary of Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy, Karen Hughes, and other proponents of educational exchange and English education programs.
In segment two, Deb Amos looks back at U.S. diplomatic history in the 20th Century.
In segment three, Ray Suarez analyzes American efforts to calm Europeans’ concerns about the deployment of missiles during the Carter and Reagan administrations.
Deborah Amos reports on Britain’s public diplomacy model and we talk to officials from the British Council, the BBC World Service, British Consul-General in Istanbul and the British Council Ankara in the final segment.
Guests on the program include:
Karen Hughes, former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
Enders Wimbush, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Director of Radio Liberty
Kamal El Fouly, Professor of English Teaching Methodology at Minya University in El Minya, Egypt
Hisham Kassem, publisher and rights activist in Cairo
Professor Nicholas Cull, Senior Faculty Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy
Richard Burt, former Director of Politico-Military Affairs at the State Department
David Abshire, former US Ambassador to NATO
Stan Burnett, Counselor of the US Embassy in Rome
Hans Tuch, former American Minister for Public Affairs in Bonn;
Dr. Angela Stent, Director of the CERES program at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service.
Nigel Chapman, Director of the BBC World Service;
Martin Davidson, Chief Executive of the British Council;
Dame Barbara Hay, British Consul-General to Istanbul;
Jeff Streeter, Director of the British Council Ankara.
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What People are Saying
What a delight to hear your report dealing with public diplomacy with the spotlight on Minya in Upper Egypt. As an anthropology graduate student, back in the last days of President Sadat, I lived in that charming little city and came to know and love its people, and especially its students and its then newly established university. The great wave of Islamist enthusiasm that was already at that time spreading through that region of Egypt, and later too often turned violent, was largely a product of absurd distortions in knowledge about the wider world, in combination with a great hunger for a better understanding these cultures and greater access to accurate information about them. As your report suggests and my own experience showed me, direct contact and personal engagement with those who represent a distant foreign power, known only through selective images and ideological echoes, almost always brings priceless opportunities for friendship and mutual appreciation. I only hope that the language of communication that enables such meetings is not always a matter of their learning English. Our commitment to learning their beautiful language of Arabic must also follow, especially as we meet them on their own native ground. Shukran ghaziron. Thanks much for bring these eager voices from that scarred but blessed Egyptian hinterland to the ears of your listeners.
, about 1 year ago
