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Washington --- The White House's latest effort to boost America's image abroad includes the nation's movies and music, as well as other art forms.
First lady Laura Bush on Monday announced the State Department's "Global Cultural Initiative," a public-private partnership that involves expanded cultural exchanges with other nations.
"One of the best ways we can deepen our friendships with the people of all countries is for us to better understand each other's cultures by enjoying each other's literature, music, films and visual arts," Bush said in an East Room ceremony.
She said the Cold War was softened by "a common interest in jazz" in the United States and the Soviet Union. "Today, art has the same power to reduce tensions and to strengthen alliances," she said.
The multifaceted initiative will include an American Film Institute program that will bring foreign films and filmmakers to the AFI Fest in Los Angeles in November. And the National Endowment for the Humanities will bring foreign teachers to the United States to visit historic sites.
Other programs will foster exchanges of museum directors, artists, musicians, dancers, teachers and journalists, said Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.
Hughes noted that the State Department this year dipped into hip-hop diplomacy for the first time by sending a hip-hop quartet to Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines with a theme of "peace and overcoming life's obstacles without violence."
Reginald Dale, a former foreign correspondent serving as a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the new program, handled properly, can be part of a successful effort to improve world opinion about the United States. He expressed confidence that the people running the program will be sensitive about what to share with whom.
"The sort of films people see around the world made in Hollywood are not necessarily good for America's image," Dale said, adding, "and you obviously can't send the same things everywhere. One might find enthusiastic audiences for 'Brokeback Mountain' in the Netherlands and Germany, but it wouldn't be a good idea to send it to Turkmenistan or other cultures where they totally disapprove of homosexuality."
The new program comes as the world image of the United States continues to be a concern. A Pew Research Center survey last month showed that 65 percent of Americans believe the country is less respected around the world than it had been in the past.
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
