[allAfrica.com]  [allAfrica.com_Sports]


Greater U.S. Public Diplomacy Effort Urged in Horn of Africa

United States Department of State (Washington, DC)
NEWS
December 20, 2004
Posted to the web December 21, 2004

By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington, DC
Ambassador Shinn wants more language training, radio broadcasts
In a war on terror that reaches all corners of the world, the United States
needs to mount a greater effort to communicate with the 125-million majority
Muslim population of the Horn of Africa and Red Sea region, where religious and
ethnic conflict have found a fertile breeding ground, says former U.S.
Ambassador to Ethiopia David Shinn.
"It is well known that the way Muslims view the U.S. has become significantly
more negative in recent years," he explained. "Much of this is due to
differences with American policy in the Middle East. Only more effective policy
will significantly improve the situation. But there are some things that can be
done even if the policy is unpopular."
Speaking to faculty and students at the American University of Beirut December
20 on "Islam and Conflict in the Horn of Africa," Shinn said it is vital to
reorient U.S. approaches to the region, including greater public diplomacy
(people-to-people) efforts and radio broadcasts in more languages that will
reach a wider audience.
Although "good public diplomacy can seldom convince persons opposed to certain
policies to accept them," Shinn pointed out, "it can, if done effectively, make
clear to detractors why the U.S. is following those policies," thereby
lessening tensions and undercutting terrorist networks like al-Qaida that
exploit them.
In a speech made available to the Washington File, the George Washington
University professor of political science reviewed the history of Islam in the
Horn region, noting, "There are many causes for the numerous conflicts that
have occurred in the region over the past 50 years."
Tension between "Muslim and non-Muslim peoples and disagreements among Islamic
groups are only one of the explanations for the struggles that confront these
countries," he said.
As a backdrop to religious militancy in the Horn, Shinn said, "an Islamic
revival has been under way in the region for at least two centuries, [and]
contemporary Islamic militancy is just a continuation of this trend." The
danger is that the two external schools of fundamentalist thought that have had
a particular impact on the Horn -- Egyptian-inspired jihadism and "puritanical
and reformist" Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia -- could become more militant and
even violent under the influence of terror networks like al-Qaida.
To respond to this dynamic, the United States needs personnel who are
thoroughly familiar with the region, Shinn said, "who not only understand the
culture, history and, ideally, one of the key languages of the area, but have a
good understanding of Islam and what it means to the region. [But] my
experience in the Horn suggests that the U.S. rarely achieves this goal."
Therefore, "it is high time to devote more resources to training. Grass-roots
public diplomacy using personnel who know the issues, region and perhaps the
local language will be more effective in making [America's] case. This again
puts a premium on more language and area training for public diplomacy
personnel."
While expanding language training in Arabic and Amharic, Shinn suggested, the
State Department should "consider offering training in Oromo and Somali, once
the United States reopens a mission [embassy] in Somalia. The Oromo, about 55
percent of whom are Muslim, constitute the largest ethnic group in the Horn of
Africa."
The scholar also said he believed the United States "could improve its
interaction with communities and governments in the Horn of Africa, especially
Muslim communities, by channeling more broadcasting resources into the region."
With Arabic the principal language in Sudan and spoken widely along the Red Sea
and Indian Ocean coasts, Shinn said, "it is inexplicable" that the U.S.
government's principal overseas radio broadcaster, the Voice of America (VOA),
no longer broadcasts in the language. Instead, VOA's Arabic language service
has been supplanted by "Radio Sawa," a VOA commercial enterprise that "focuses
on the Middle East and reportedly does not even reach the Horn of Africa," he
explained.
Given the interests of the United States in dealing with terrorism in the
region, Shinn said, "it is equally inexplicable that the Voice of America has
not yet established a service in Somali, a language spoken throughout Somalia/
Somaliland and parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti."
Although VOA offers limited programming in Amharic, Oromo and Tigrinya, Shinn
said, the services should be expanded, and he commented, "As the world's only
superpower, one would think that the U.S. could [also] afford to broadcast in a
language like Afar that has listeners in Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea."
The American University in Beirut (AUB), where Shinn was speaking, was founded
in 1866 and chartered in New York State as a private, nonsectarian institution
for the Middle East. Its 6,900 students pursue a rigorous English-language
curriculum in the American liberal arts tradition on a picturesque campus
overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Its medical school is renowned worldwide.
Since 1995 the U.S. government has assisted AUB with grants to its science and
agricultural research departments. In 2001, the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) provided approximately $6.5 million for such programs as
well as funding for environmental activities. In 2004, U.S. Ambassador Vincent
Battle and USAID Mission Director Raouf Youseff presented AUB with scholarship
grants totaling $1,200,000.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information
Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

   

  =============================================================================
   Copyright © 2004 United States Department of State. All rights reserved.
             Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
  =============================================================================