The battle for hearts and minds

Nov 8th 2001
From The Economist Global Agenda

In its war against terrorism, America has been slow to engage Muslim
opinion, and is even losing ground with the public in Europe. Now, with a
flurry of diplomatic activity and high-profile speeches, it is attempting to
relaunch the propaganda war

IN TERMS of both diplomacy and “public diplomacy” (which is what Americans
call propaganda), this week has been the busiest since the immediate
aftermath of the September attacks. An orderly queue of visiting dignitaries
formed outside the White House, the president shaking hands with the leaders
or foreign ministers of Britain, France, Pakistan, India and Algeria. And
the effort to counter Osama bin Laden’s tirades, maintain global support for
its war against terrorism, and explain why it has to keep bombing
Afghanistan, will make the next few days even busier. On Thursday November
8th, Mr Bush is scheduled to address the nation. On Saturday still more
world leaders gather for a meeting of the UN General Assembly, where
American leaders will be busy putting their case. Early next week, Mr Bush
will host a summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The main topic of their
discussion is supposed to be arms control and missile defence, but the war
in Afghanistan is bound to loom large as well.

This flurry of diplomatic activity is designed to rally support for the war.
The administration aims to increase pressure on allies to offer more than
sympathy, while reassuring Americans that the administration knows what it
is doing. The public does need reassuring, even in the United States. There,
concern focuses not on the war but on the confused official reaction to the
anthrax outbreak. Support for military action remains sky-high. Beyond its
own shores, however, America is losing the battle for hearts and minds. In
Europe, support for the war is slipping. In the Middle East, opposition
appears to be mounting.

Even in Britain, America’s most reliable ally, support for war has fallen
from around three-quarters to two-thirds, despite the hyperactivity of Tony
Blair, the British prime minister, who has travelled thousands of miles in
the past few weeks putting the case for the war. Some polls say four out of
ten British Muslims think al-Qaeda’s attacks are in some way justified; a
handful have actually volunteered to fight with the Taliban. In France,
support has dropped from two-thirds to half. In both Germany and Italy, well
over half the population wants the attacks on Afghanistan to end. Beyond
these numbers lies a qualitative change. Among those who support war, “Yes”
(we support it) has become “Yes, but” (what about innocent civilians,
humanitarian aid, Ramadan?).

In the Middle East, matters are worse because there are fewer doubts. Public
opinion might be (generously) characterised as “No, but” (we oppose the war
but disapprove of Osama bin Laden). Unlike in Europe, where opinion has been
changing only recently, Arab opinion hardened early on. But the passage of
time has led to a subtle and worrying development. The burden of proof has
shifted: America is being asked to prove it is not waging war against Islam.
The longer that charge is left to stand, the harder it will be to refute.
“It is being perceived in the whole world as if this were a war against the
poor, miserable and innocent people of Afghanistan,” said General Pervez
Musharraf, Pakistan's president, on a stopover in Paris. General Musharraf
is on his way to meet Mr Bush, whom he will press to halt the bombing
campaign for Ramadan. Mr Bush has already rejected this idea, but he will
have to give at least a sympathetic ear to General Musharraf's concerns. The
general's views not only reflect opinion in many Muslim countries, he has
also taken enormous political risks at home to side with America.

Some of the opposition in the Muslin world was no doubt inevitable. And yet
America must itself carry some of the blame for growing opposition and
declining support. It has been unable to engage Islamic countries in a
serious debate about how Mr bin Laden has abused the Koran for his own ends.
It has not sent any Muslim Americans or Afghan-Americans to make its case.
This is partly because groups close to the administration, such as the
American Muslim Council and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)
have been far more concerned about American criticism of Muslims than about
acts of terror in the name of Islam (CAIR’s founder said the trial of those
found guilty of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre was a “travesty of
justice”).

The administration’s broadcasts in Afghanistan have often been tone-deaf.
“Attention Taliban. You are condemned. Did you know that?” American planes
have dropped leaflets declaring “We are watching!” and portraying both
Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and his alleged licence plate in
cross-hairs. Hardly compelling.

America’s cuts in its “public diplomacy” programme—it shut the United States
Information Agency as a separate department—now seem unwise. America has
almost no “cultural” organisations in the Middle East and its main
broadcasting arm, Voice of America, has an audience share of 2% in the
region. (VOA had closed most of its services in Afghan languages and only
recently started them again.)

Above all, America’s difficulties with the propaganda campaign cast doubt on
its conduct of the war. Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, told a news
conference in India this week that the war would not take years. The week
before, at a briefing in the Pentagon, he had compared the bombing of
Afghanistan to that of Japan in the second world war, the point being that
the latter had taken more than three years.
Does it matter?
If contradictions like that reflect real strategic uncertainties, the
problem is not just one of ineffective propaganda. But if the underlying
strategy is clear, does muddled presentation matter? After decades of
official anti-American propaganda in the Arab states, the administration is
unlikely to change Muslim opinion quickly, if at all. America will have to
live with the hostility. And you might argue that the best, perhaps only,
way of dealing with the resentment is to speak in the only language
tyrannies understand: force. On this view, if America can overthrow the
Taliban, capture Mr bin Laden and close down al-Qaeda’s headquarters in
Afghanistan, some of the bitterness might go out of the anti-American
denunciations.

Also, when it comes to willingness to provide real military assistance,
popular criticism has not yet proved an obstacle. Two-thirds of Germans want
to stop the war, but Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s coalition has agreed to
contribute 4,000 troops—the first such deployment since 1945. Italy has
offered 3,000 troops.

These pragmatic arguments seem persuasive—for now. But America is not
dealing with a fixed amount of popular Arab hostility: the level is rising
fast. And though scepticism in Europe has not blocked the promise of troops
up to now, elected governments will be swayed by popular opposition if it
grows much more. America needs to make its case better.

It is belatedly starting to. For the first few weeks of the war, the Bush
administration ignored the most important regional Arabic broadcasting
system, Al Jazeera. Things began to improve when the national security
adviser, defence secretary and chairman of the joint chiefs finally agreed
to appear on the network. During their interviews—conducted in English, of
course—they gave standard expositions of the line, barely engaging with Arab
accusations. The real change came last weekend, when, in response to a new
video broadside from Mr bin Laden, Christopher Ross, a former ambassador to
Syria, immediately went on Al Jazeera to respond, this time in Arabic.

There were two other improvements. Mr Ross’s appearance was the first
evidence that new “instant response” communications offices were at work.
America has set these up in Washington and London; within a week or so, it
will have one in Islamabad too. These offices may or may not change minds,
but their aim is right—to ensure that accusations against America do not go
unanswered. The administration needs to mobilise hitherto-silent Muslim
Americans to make its case.

For the first time, clear and specific rebuttals have been forthcoming from
Arabs of Mr bin Laden’s views, as well as of his actions. The general
secretary of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, said, “Bin Laden does not speak in
the name of Arabs and Muslims.” And Egypt’s foreign minister, Ahmad Maher,
said, “There is war between bin Laden and the whole world.” You could say
that, like America’s efforts to change minds, this is too little and too
late. But it is at least a start.




With the very best of good wishes,
Musa Amadu Pembo
Glasgow,
Scotland
UK.
[log in to unmask]
May Allah,Subhana Wa Ta'Ala,guide us all to His Sirat Al-Mustaqim (Righteous
Path).May He protect us from the evils of this life and the hereafter.May
Allah,Subhana Wa Ta'Ala,grant us entrance to paradise .. Ameen

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