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I would like to begin this evening with a quotation to set the stage for our discussion: As to our foreign policy, it is based, as you know, on certain fundamental principles which we have not deviated from. That is, we always take sides with rightness and justice. We should be fearless when communicating with different civilizations and cultures, and in exploring the accomplishments and developments in those communities. This is so that we may enhance our position in a world which no one doubts that, thanks to the latest scientific advancement, has become smaller, like a village, where no society can isolate itself without interacting and communicating with others, that is, if that society seeks to achieve prosperity and welfare for its citizens.

This was the case with our Omani ancestors who, throughout the ages, traveled to different parts of the world. They extended the hand of friendship to all and looked forward with optimism to the mutual exchange of interests with other communities without taking sides. This is what His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said al Said, the Sultan of Oman, said in his speech on October 12, 2004, when opening the annual session of the Council of Oman. This statement is one of the reasons I am visiting Oman today. Twenty years ago, the organization I currently lead, the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, founded a Sultan Qaboos Center at the Institute. The Center operated for a year or two but never really defined its role. And it gradually became inactive - until now. Our objective is to revive this center with a new vision and new mandate in partnership with the government of Oman and the Sultan Qaboos Center for Islamic Culture.

Our vision for the Center is built on the basic idea that fear of other societies, which breeds resentment and hostility, is the result of ignorance and stereotypes of differing cultures and traditions. By contrast, we believe that familiarity enriches both parties and creates mutual understanding and respect for one another. This leads to a more productive and lasting relationship. We believe that through the Center we have an opportunity to go beyond the usual dialogue on politics and economics to a deeper understanding of our societies and of our respective values.

Our mission will be to educate the people both in America and the region here about the breadth and richness of each of our cultures, to promote understanding between our peoples, and to educate a new generation of culturally sensitive and knowledgeable experts, scholars, diplomats and politicians in each society. We will seek to emphasize and demonstrate the interconnected nature of our societies, shared values, and the historic transmission of culture and education from the travels of early traders and explorers like the Omani merchant and navigator Abu Ubayda and the early explorer Ibn Batuta, who reported on Oman, up through the current explosion of information technology. Our focus will be on the Gulf region, which Americans know little about and understand even less. Out of the hundreds of programs in the Washington area alone on the Middle East, few focus on the Gulf region, and virtually none deal with the rich culture and history of the area.

Most Americans lump Arabs together and create a composite in their minds made up of unflattering and false images from films, commentators with an agenda, and exaggerated news clips. An acquaintance of mine came back from an Arab country to her home town in America and was telling her friends a story about how she had driven to a social event. “You mean women can drive?” the friends asked. Americans do not see the rich diversity among countries in the Arab world, and certainly not the diversity within countries.

Americans know very little about the poetry, art, dance, and customs of the region, and so we see Arabs as alien and frightening. “Arabs are terrorists.” “Arabs do not value human life the way we do.” “Arabs make slaves of their women.” “Arabs hate us.” These are some of the comments I hear from Americans. And for every stereotype we have of the Arab world, the Arab world has one of us.

My Institute did an extended study with the al Ahram Center in Cairo on attitudes in the Arab world and in the United States to identify the stereotypes we have formed about one another. Quoting from our report: For the most part, Americans are ignorant of the region and therefore tend to identify the complexity of the region in relatively simplistic terms which are accentuated by graphic examples in certain countries. Most Americans would describe Arab states as dictatorships; women’s rights as non-existent; corruption as pervasive; the legal and economic systems as unjust; and the leaderships incapable of or disinterested in change. According to our Arab participants, Americans are arrogant, paternalistic, decadent, unfair, cruel and uncaring, and driven by lust for power and wealth.

People in America ask why Arabs hate us. We have been told by some that it is because of our values. But every poll that has been done on Arab attitudes toward the basic values that we hold dear – family values, equal rights, civil rights, the rule of law, economic opportunity and so on - shows them to overwhelmingly support the same things we do. We are not so different, we only seem that way because we often do not see the humanity in each other.

I spent the morning listening to Omani music and watching Omani folk dancing. This afternoon, I knew a little more about you. I have a deeper appreciation of what delights you and what concerns you. Because I saw the complexity of your culture and history, I could no longer assign you to a little box constructed of stereotypes. Cultural education does lead to greater understanding.

In our Foreign Service, our ambassadors are sometimes accused by politicians in Washington of "going native." In fact, a really good ambassador should go native, if that means getting to know and understand the country, its culture, and the people. When you do that, it is inevitable that you are going to sympathize with the people more and interpret their actions and policies in a different way – a way that Washington may find difficult to understand. Our objective, therefore, must be to build this sympathetic understanding among our two peoples so that the politicians and governments will be forced to listen and will forge policies designed to unify and solve problems, not divide and create them.

We do not underestimate the difficulty of what we are trying to do. We face the problem of scale. How can we have an impact on a society as large as America or on a region as large as the Arab world? We have to find ways to reach into the heartland of America – the part of America that had such a profound impact on our recent elections. It is not enough to put on a few seminars or shows in Washington or New York. While such activities may be worthwhile, we have to find ways to amplify them and extend our reach. In this context, we will need to work with other organizations around the United States and in the region here to engage in the kind of cultural diplomacy we envision.

The Smithsonian Institution will have an Omani pavilion - the first Arab pavilion ever - at the annual Smithsonian Folklore Festival in Washington this summer. Numerous universities and museums around America and in the region have programs which could be used to showcase our respective cultures and extend the education of our children. And, of course, we have the information age at hand. The media and the Internet can be profoundly important sources of transmission.

There are dangers in cultural diplomacy – dangers that we must be careful to avoid – and suspicions we have to overcome. Genuine cultural diplomacy has often been a weak cousin of more pernicious uses of culture in international relations. During the period of the Cold War and the superpower confrontation, the United States and the Soviet Union both engaged in cultural campaigns against one another. Culture was used as a weapon. We sought to use the seductive nature of American popular culture through Radio Free Europe and other vehicles like exchanges to undercut the Soviet regime with its own people and to build popular resistance against the regime. In contrast, by emphasizing the rich Russian culture of music and ballet, the Soviets tried to lower the American guard and undercut the efforts of successive US Administrations to demonize communism and the Soviet leadership. Neither of us were interested in building bridges so much as in weakening the enemy. This is not the kind of cultural diplomacy we are hoping to create through our efforts.

While culture continues to be used by America as a weapon - Iran and Cuba come to mind - a more prevalent use of cultural diplomacy today is to build a positive image of the United States by emphasizing the soft side of our culture. Some individuals, though, might call it propaganda or education, while others might characterize it as advertising. In the United States we took this approach to public diplomacy to heart when we appointed a Madison Avenue advertising executive to spearhead our program. She tried to use our culture to sell America the way we sell Coca-Cola or Pepsi. She failed.

In the region, people have told us that these public diplomacy efforts were doomed to failure because the problem was not one of image but of policy. That is certainly partly true but it is not the whole story. We suffer from stereotyping just as you do. And you cannot defeat deeply etched stereotypes without an extended and significant effort to inform, educate, and reprogram people’s prejudices over time.

The problem is that people are reluctant to believe what foreign governments tell them. Saddam Hussein always had an advantage over the United States when it came to informing the Iraqi people about the “facts.” A majority of people from any nationality will tend to believe their own government and leaders before they accept the word of a foreigner. We are all xenophobic to a certain degree.

In the background of the American attitude toward foreign government information programs is the belief, based on our consumer and advertising experience, that public opinion in America can be bought by a significant investment in advertising. True or not, this is the belief of our political parties that spend hundreds of millions of dollars to advertise their candidates. So when foreigners try to use the same system, red flags go up, nationalism comes to the forefront, and Americans react with hostility.

I am told there is considerable concern in the Middle East about the impact of American culture on local traditions and values. There seems to be a fear of American cultural imperialism which is no less powerful than the American fear of being bought. So, as we design approaches to each other, we have to be very careful not to trigger these nationalistic sentiments.

If we want to succeed in building bridges between our civilizations, then we have to take into account the natural suspicions that people have about one another and about the motivations of governments when they engage in cultural activities. One way to do this is to work through organizations like the Sultan Qaboos Center for Islamic Culture and the Middle East Institute.

Cultural diplomacy need not be -- indeed, should not be -- inherently hostile or self-promoting. Quite the contrary, culture, and particularly education and sports, have been used by many countries to keep open doors when politics demand that they be closed. The initial steps between China and the United States were not diplomatic – they were exchanges of ping-pong teams. At the highest points of tension between the United States and Russia, cultural and educational exchanges continued.

While cultural and educational exchanges are an effective tool of diplomacy, there are limiting factors imposed by time, distance, interest, and money. So as we build the programs of the Sultan Qaboos Center we will have to find ways to reduce the distances and costs while increasing interest and participation. To do this we will need to partner with universities, institutions like museums, the world of the arts, and the private sector.

We will need to look to the entertainment industry as one resource and the intellectual community as another. The virtual world of the Internet and the potentials of webcasting and video conferencing will have to be exploited. The tourism industry is a potential vehicle for education that has been inadequately exploited. Thousands of tourists go on study tours in remote locations of the world – how many educational tours come to the Gulf? Visiting professors can impact an entire university. His Majesty Sultan Qaboos has taken the lead in setting up dedicated chairs for professors in universities in a number of countries, including in Washington, DC. But chairs and visiting professorships are expensive investments. What if American or Omani professors could bring content from the other country directly into their classes and seminars long distance through video or web conferencing? You are sitting here listening to me in person. How much would it degrade your experience if I was a large screen television set and we were linked by video conference with the full give and take of questions and answers? At the Middle East Institute’s annual conference this year, we had one panel of three live people and a television set on the podium. The TV was for video-conferenced participation by a senior personality in California. The debate was just as heated and lively as if he had been in the room with us in the flesh. We have not begun to explore the potential of modern information technology or to exploit its use in diplomacy.

Whatever we do to build cultural bridges between us, we have to do together. There can be no unilateralism in effective cultural diplomacy. Unilateralism breeds nationalist resistance and creates a barrier to communication and understanding. This is why the partnership we are building with Oman and with the Sultan Qaboos Center for Islamic Culture is so important and why we have to make every effort to make this process work. We will never know peace in the region until we can begin to break down the barriers between us. We can negotiate treaties and agreements, but true peace depends on the attitudes of the people. Attitudes will not change so long as we are taught to hate one another or so long as the barriers between us are impervious to the tools we use to try to break them down. We need new tools. The Sultan Qaboos Center in Washington can be a big step in that direction.