Tag: Politician

Social Media Musings, Southeast Asian Edition

Post author By
Post date 21/01/2011
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3172471924_4b9cc6bddc — Foreign policy: Still behind walls or more open to the people? photo: tbSMITH/flickr

As the highly contested treasure trove of the State Department WikiLeak just keeps giving and giving, an interesting and under reported cable came to light earlier this week. It had to do, quite unexpectedly, with the social media strategy of the US State Department and specifically, the US Embassy’s social media efforts in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Jakarta? You ask. Yes, interestingly enough the US mission in the growing Southeast Asian archipelago nation is the most active of all in this ‘new’ and rapidly evolving field of public diplomacy. With more than 300,000 ‘Likers’ on Facebook at present and an impressive presence on Twitter and Youtube, the US mission in Jakarta was in a push to get a significantly bigger budget for its social media outreach in advance of President Obama’s November 2010 visit, the leaked cable reveals. Although the cable reveals nothing particularly controversial, it gives interesting insights into the growing importance of social media in America’s outreach efforts in highly connected developing countries, particularly in Asia. It also provides insights into the growing, albeit not openly publicized, funding involved in spreading the message about the US, its leadership and about its policies in the region by directly and interactively reaching out to a younger generation, active on Facebook and other social media channels. And the strategy seems to be working- in less than a year, the number of Likers on their Facebook page has grown six-fold, from 50,000 to 300,000 and the number of Twitter followers from 1,000 to more than 16,000, with regular interaction from fans of both services.

This development begs a lot of interesting questions about the future of public diplomacy:

Are other diplomatic missions, even just other US missions around the world, taking note of the Jakarta Embassy’s success?

Is there something unique and special about the Indonesian environment where social media-focused outreach efforts find particularly fertile ground beyond Obama’s personal connection to the country?

Is the ‘soft power’ message that they are getting out uniquely suited to the kind of informal, multisensory interactivity that services such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube represent and do these provide a highly fertile new ground for such ‘persuasive’ activities and the building of soft power across the world?

Is social media changing the landscape of public diplomacy drastically and for good and what might its long-term effects be?

Does this finally bring foreign relations closer to the people and their concerns or is it simply a veil behind which business-as-usual continues (the highly fortified US embassy in Jakarta, seen above, is a powerful reminder of this metaphorical paradox)?

For more information on this fascinating topic, check out our recent ISN Insights package on E-Diplomacy and look out for an article coming up in February on the specific impact that social media is having on foreign relations.

Tags Diplomacy, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Internet, Public Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Social Media, Politician

Yemen’s AQAP Dilemma

Since the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) crisis erupted in Yemen, the country has suddenly been thrown into the international spotlight. While numerous think tanks and experts have been warning for years of the critical challenges that Yemen faced (the southern secession movement, the Houthi rebellion, AQAP) most governments only really started to take note after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab set his pants on fire and tried to bring down Northwest Airlines flight 253 in what was dubbed the “Christmas Day plot” in 2009.

The international attention given to Yemen has, not surprisingly, since then focused on the terrorism threat. In President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s calculations AQAP was long seen as a nuisance, not as a substantial threat to his presidency or the unity of the country. The southern secession movement and the Houthi rebellion in the North were perceived as far more dangerous and potentially consequential, particularly for President Saleh.

After the attack on USS Cole in 2000 and again after the incident involving Umar Abdulmutallab the US has made it abundantly clear that it expects President Saleh to reign in AQAP. Development aid flows as well as military assistance have been closely tied to Yemen’s cooperation with regards to fighting al-Qaida.

US aid flows have been varying greatly in the last decade, depending on the current threat perception. In 2000 Yemen got a relatively meager $400,000 in food aid from the US. In 2001, after the attack on the USS Cole, the US administration deliberated an aid and loan forgiveness package of around $400 million. In 2006, when the terrorism threat was thought to be over, the US cut aid again to $18.7 million. Since then US aid to Yemen has steadily increased every year, reaching $58.4 million in 2010. This is a threefold increase in only four years. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) the administration has requested a staggering $106.6 million for 2011.

Tags Politician, Intelligence, International Relations, Security, Yemen, Armed non-state actors, Counterterrorism, Military aid

The Death of “Multikulti”?

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Post date 19/10/2010
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discrimination — Is it really ‘us’ versus ‘them’? photo: Alejandro Angel Velásquez/flickr

When the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, spoke on Saturday about the “utter failure” of German attempts to foster a multicultural society, the move was widely seen as an attempt to bolster her position in a coalition increasingly focused on the issue of immigration.

In the aftermath of Thilo Sarrazin’s controversial book that accused Muslim migrants in particular of sapping the country of its intellectual vigor, her comments to young Christian Democratic Union (CDU) members seem particularly opportunistic.

Meanwhile, prominent members of Merkel’s coalition, chief among them the premier of Bavaria, Horst Seehofer, have called for a halt to migration from other cultural spheres. Claiming to reflect the popular will, Seehofer has chosen to frame a thorny, complex and multifaceted issue in starkly populist terms.

While clearly immigration is a problematic issue in many European countries that struggle with economic uncertainty and immigrant populations of varying degrees of integration (and facing a variety of challenges from entrenched unemployment, language barriers and discrimination), the increasing acceptability of xenophobic rhetoric is a deeply worrying phenomenon that is taking root beyond the geographical margins of Europe. In addition to the well-documented cases in Holland, Switzerland and most recently Sweden, German politics seem to be lurching in a similar direction.

Instead of debating the issue constructively, and engaging positively with those immigrants (whether Muslim or not) that seek to integrate- the public debate across Europe seems to be moving towards the blanket-stigmatization of immigrants. A sense of xenophobic dread and a wish to turn back the time on increasingly diverse and ethnically, socially and religiously diverse societies seems to underlie this trend.

Tags Religion, Human Rights, Immigration, Politician, Government, Europe, Multiculturalism, Islam, Germany

A Presidential Problem

Egyptian Presidential Palace, photo: Thomas/Picasa

Egypt is at a crossroads. Over thirty years since its political system was last tested – when President Anwar Sadat was assassinated and the little known Hosni Mubarak was thrust into office – the country is facing what, from some angles, might resemble a contest.

There is ample reason to believe that the September 2011 Presidential election will be different to the 2005 vote – when the opposition failed to live up to pre-election hype and, almost without exception, failed to dent the regime’s grip on power. This time there is one crucial difference – the state of the incumbent.

The revelations in the US press in July that outline the Hosni Mubarak’s alleged failing health, along with the unofficial propaganda campaign launched in recent weeks on behalf of Gamal (the President’s oldest son) seem to imply that a transfer of power is planned for next year’s election. However, recent events have challenged western assumptions that a dynastic succession is inevitable.

Local and international media have understandably focused on the campaign of Dr Mohammed ElBaradei, the Nobel Laureate and former head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, whose international profile has enabled him to harness public support and insulated him from the regime’s traditional means of oppression. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that ElBaradei will be able to translate the torrent of publicity into a movement capable of breaking through Egypt’s prohibitive election laws and competing for the presidency.

Alongside internal criticism of his own performance, ElBaradei has suffered from the perennial problem of uniting the opposition parties. This was brutally emphasized last week when the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s only true political opposition, rejected his plan to make a public show of strength by calling for a boycott of November’s parliamentary elections. While the group has helped ElBaradei raise close to a million signatures for his appeal against the regime, there are few countries who have democratized by petition.

The inevitably undemocratic nature of the election process means that internal opposition is likely to pose the greatest threat to the Mubarak dynasty. For this reason, serious attention should be paid to the recent launch of an anonymous poster campaign backing Egyptian Intelligence Chief General Omar Suleiman for the presidency, which saw the regime respond aggressively by forcing newspapers to destroy 30,000 late editions running the story.

These events expose the very real tensions that exist within the ruling National Democratic Party between the military establishment and the wealthy business elite over the father-son succession. The old guard’s wariness is driven by a desire to maintain the status quo (and the foreign aid that comes with it.) They focus on Gamal’s lack of military ties (he would be the first president without military experience,) his support of economic liberalization, and the challenge to law and order from increasing public opposition to succession.

This is where the real struggle for power will lie if Mubarak senior does not pursue another term in office.

Tags Government, Egypt, Elections, Politics, Politician