28 January 2002
Byliner: Robert Reilly on Winning the War of Ideas
(Op-ed column from The Washington Times 01/28/02) (1030)
(This byliner by Robert Reilly, the Director of the Voice of America,
first appeared in The Washington Times on January 28, 2002 and is in
the public domain. No republication restrictions.)
Winning the War of Ideas
by Robert Reilly
Nabibullah Rabbani, a recently dispossessed officer of the Taliban's
Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, said
earlier this month that "people understand we are the righteous ones
and they know we could come back to power soon." Welcome to the war of
ideas.
Coming from a member of an organization that has just been militarily
crushed, Mr. Rabbani's remark may seem startling, but it points to the
true nature of the struggle -- one of moral legitimacy in the hearts
and minds of people, not of military power. Wars are fought, and won
or lost, in the minds of men long before they reach their conclusion
on some distant battlefield.
The Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda portray the United States
as morally illegitimate and, even worse, as the source of all evil in
the world. Thus, they say, the United States must be destroyed. As bin
Laden pronounced in his latest video, "Our terrorism against America
is commendable. It seeks to make the unjust stop making injustice."
As we engage in this struggle, we need to keep in mind that today's
war of ideas is not new. On our side, it has its provenance in the
American Founding, at which time our Founding Fathers explicitly
declared the source of our moral legitimacy -- a set of universal and
self-evident truths valid at all times and for everyone.
Since 1776, the nature of the war of ideas has changed because of
changes in the character of the enemy opposing these truths. For a
large part of the 20th century, totalitarian ideologies dehumanized
people either because of their race or their class. Now, this process
is being continued through a perverted deformation of a great
religion, Islam.
As we engage this new totalitarian challenge, we need to recall that
it is the same self-evident truths that have upheld this nation that
remain our greatest weapons against this latest hateful lie about
humanity.
Everything we do in U.S. public diplomacy -- the effort to speak
directly to the peoples of other nations -- is simply an elaboration
of this great pronouncement.
For instance, the Voice of America (VOA), one of the U.S. government's
radio and TV broadcasting arms, is an outgrowth of the Declaration of
Independence in its continuing effort to address the world concerning
the moral legitimacy of America's cause. In VOA's global broadcasts to
nearly 100 million listeners, we are addressing people who have these
rights no less than we, and that is why we speak to them with respect
and without condescension.
I like to think that President Bush was referring to VOA's mission
when he said in his inaugural address, "Our democratic faith is more
than a creed of our country. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking
root in many nations." The wind of which the president spoke is the
airwaves on which we broadcast in 53 languages. The content of our
programs is the seed. The message is one of hope and freedom. That is
the true Voice of America.
This message has inspired and given hope to millions of people around
the world. But those who hate the United States understand it as well
and deeply fear it. The last thing tyrants wish their subjects to hear
is that they, too, possess these same God-given, inalienable rights
and ought to have the free exercise thereof. The enemies of freedom
find this truth to be the most dangerous weapon we employ.
The VOA deploys this weapon in a variety of ways in its over 1,000
hours of weekly radio and TV broadcasts. Sometimes, we explicitly
state the principles upon which this great country stands, but more
often we try to show them through features of American institutions,
rather than tell about them.
One of our key responsibilities is to promote and provide the free
flow of information by broadcasting comprehensive, objective and
balanced news. Why should we do this when commercial and other
international networks offer much the same service? Because it is
critically important that the people of the world see that the U.S.
government is capable of presenting this kind of news. By so doing,
VOA inevitably provokes its listeners to ask: "What kind of people is
this that even its government will tell the truth when it might not
appear to be to its temporary advantage to do so?"
But delivering the news is not enough. And that is why the VOA was
never envisaged as simply a news organization. We also have the duty
to reveal the character of the American people in such a way that the
underlying principles of American life are revealed. We owe it to our
listeners to show them how free people live -- and to correct the
image of the United States that our own popular culture has sometimes
created in their minds, a false image that has often helped fuel
anti-Americanism.
And equally important, we present and explain the policies of the U.S.
government through what is, in effect, our "editorial page." Such
editorials and programming offer the most direct means we have to
ensure that both America's friends and America's enemies know
precisely what our government is doing and why.
Sixty years ago, at the time of its first broadcast, VOA's announcer
told his audience that "the news may be good. The news may be bad. We
shall tell the truth." That may not sound like what some people think
of as public diplomacy. But in fact, it has proved to be the very best
kind -- something America's friends and America's enemies are
discovering again now.
(Robert Reilly is the Director of the Voice of America.)
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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