Jena and Mahmoud: Two examples of public relations failures
By John David Powell (09/26/07)
Two unconnected events this week left no doubt of the failure of the people of the United States to hold our own in the arena of international public relations - in other words, the winning of hearts and minds in the Muslim world. Those in the Muslim world, at least the ones with access to some form of medium, must have watched in amazed amusement and disgust at the civil-rights field trips to Jena, La., and at the over-the-top protestations against the speech by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a private university.
“You want us to be like you, the Land of the Free,” they must have said. “Yet you falsely imprison your black children and you try to muzzle the freely elected leader of a great and ancient nation.”
Indeed.
We in this country, at least those of us with access to some form of medium, can explore the backstory to these front-page events, and then decide for ourselves what to believe and how to respond. Others around the world, particularly folks in the Middle East, see the same pictures but hear a different narration. They do not have the opportunity to decide what to believe or how to respond.
The New York Times ran a story in October 2001 with the prophetic headline: “U.S. appears to be losing public relations war so far.” The inability of the Bush administration to convince doubters at the time that the war in Afghanistan was justified and that U.S. Middle East policy is evenhanded was the gist of the story. A Western diplomat pointed out that talking heads cannot compete with the powerful images of wounded Afghan children and Israeli tanks rolling into Palestinian villages.
The war on terror, the story explained, has an image problem outside of these United States, in part because no sense of immediacy exists in those countries, not like here. Stories of anthrax attacks and the hunt for Osama bin Laden led our newscasts, while Middle Eastern news outlets repeatedly aired images of bombed-out buildings and the funerals of children and grandparents. Images provided by Western news agencies.
The message they receive, not necessarily the message we send, is that our righteous indignation over the death of innocent civilians does not extend beyond our borders, and particularly does not apply to Muslims.
And so it is with Jena and Mahmoud.
While we condemn the treatment of Muslim women and abhor the violence between members of different Islamic sects, the Muslim world sees images of massive protests in a small Louisiana town described by some as the example of the rampant racism that plagues our nation.
Middle Eastern media do not explain that well-intentioned souls and publicity-addicted agitators may have overplayed a debatably racial situation. In fact, not until the buses unloaded their well-meaning passengers hoping to relive the heady days of Selma and Birmingham did the mainstream media report the backstory of this sordid affair: white youths sent to an alternative school for almost a month and given in-school suspensions for two weeks, instead of the minor three-day suspension as earlier reported; an all-white jury that resulted from African-Americans refusing to report for jury duty and not from the machinations of a racist judicial system; nooses hung from an old shade tree that was not the exclusive shelter for white students as frequently described; and black students playing with the nooses instead of running from them in fear and trepidation.
Then there was the brilliantly played public-relations hand of Ahmadinejad. U.S. media told their audiences that the president of Columbia University invited the Iranian president to speak during his visit to the United States in a move that appeared to be an ill-conceived attempt to capitalize on the moment. The reality, however, as described after the fact by Newsweek magazine, is that Ahmadinejad was invited to speak last year by a former Columbia dean. Security concerns prevented that appearance.
A few weeks ago, according to Newsweek, the new Iranian ambassador to the United Nations asked if Columbia still wanted Ahmadinejad to speak, under certain ground rules.
These things do not happen overnight, especially at a university. The accusatorial and, as some would say, rude introduction of Ahmadinejad by Columbia president Lee Bollinger was worked out in advance, according to Newsweek. Nothing was left to chance by Ahmadinejad and the Iranians, who used our righteous indignation against us by making Ahmadinejad appear to the folks back home as the innocent victim of another American outrage.
“How dare you invite someone to your house, then insult him and the people he represents,” they said.
Indeed, the chancellors of six Iranian universities and academic centers sent a protest letter to Bollinger. The first of the ten questions they asked was why did the university and the U.S. media violate Ahmadinejad’s freedom of expression, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution. We, in this country, know Ahmadinejad received more than his share of face time with the American public, but the folks back home saw only the poorly conceived attempts to restrict his message to the American people.
It boggles the mind that a nation that can sell millions of disposable diapers and bright, shiny diamonds, which do not contribute to the advancement of civilization or to peace in any region of the world, cannot sell the simple concept of a friendly and helpful Uncle Sam.
Mundus vult decipi
John David Powell
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