Loud Actions That Speak Wrongly

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http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/04/09/loud_actions_that_speak_wrongly.php

Loud Actions That Speak Wrongly
John Brown
April 09, 2007

John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer and senior fellow at the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy, compiles the Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review .


“Propaganda of the deed,” a phrase attributed to the 19th century Italian revolutionary Carlo Pisacane, has long been associated with the tactics of terrorism. The Bush administration’s image czarina and No. 1 overseas spin-stress, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes, has now provided humankind with an updated version of Pisacane’s term: “diplomacy of deeds.”

In public statements, Hughes stresses that she sees carrying out deeded diplomacy as one of her most important functions. As she writes in the Washington Times on December 20, 2006:

Americans should know we are giving the gift of hope to thousands of people whose names we will never know. And I will continue to advocate we do even more, because the diplomacy of deeds serves our own national interests and the people of every nation.

Examples of the effectiveness of such diplomacy, she adds, are:

After the Navy hospital ship USS Mercy revisited areas of Southeast Asia ravaged by the tsunami last year, polls showed the favorable opinion of the U.S. rose to 87 percent in Bangladesh. When earthquakes devastated Pakistan, American military helicopters rushed emergency relief to thousands of people. The Chinook helicopter quickly became one of the most popular toys in Pakistan and favorable opinion of Americans doubled in polls.

But Hughes’ diplomacy of deeds has severe limitations. First, it cannot automatically be assumed that ostentatious public displays of what the Bush administration considers good deeds or charity (and Hughes’ handlers certainly make sure that her help-the-suffering-world actions are covered by the media) are always appreciated by the people for whom they are intended. A specialist in public diplomacy, R. S. Zaharna of American University, suggests this when she writes in Foreign Policy in Focus (June 2003) that the United States government tried to show how the war on terror was not a war on Islam by emphasizing U.S. efforts to help Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Emphasizing one’s good deeds is a coveted practice in U.S. public relations.

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