Daily Times

Pakistan was born as ‘security-conscious state’ owing to the violent partition and its non-cordial relations with its geographical neighboring states since the independence. It has always struggled to maintain the power balance in the region of South Asia. From conventional power to nuclear power, it has attempted and attained all but there’s one dimension which has always been looked over – the soft power. Not only Pakistan lags behind in soft aspects of power but due to the negligence, Pakistan has been stereotyped as ‘fundamentalist and extremism society’ having soft corner for terrorists resulting in negative image of the society as well as of the state in the foreign lands.’ It’s therefore a soft security issue in the age of information warfare.

Among the various ways to counter this problems, a very recent and prominent approach is to effectively work on Cultural Diplomacy (CD). CD is at the heart of many state’s foreign policy in our days. It’s an ancient concept and practice but a relatively new diplomatic and academic field and therefore, is the most underestimated diplomatic area as compared to strategic or economic diplomacy areas. It’s also misunderstood as attending of cultural events by diplomats only.

Before moving forward with the concept, I would define it for the readers as: Cultural Diplomacy is a part of Public Diplomacy. As it’s relatively new academic phenomenon, it has several definitions. The Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, Berlin defines it as: “Cultural Diplomacy may best be described as a course of actions, which are based on and utilize the exchange of ideas, values, traditions and other aspects of culture or identity, whether to strengthen relationships, enhance socio-cultural cooperation, promote national interests and beyond; Cultural diplomacy can be practiced by either the public sector, private sector or civil society.” M. C. Cummings, emphasizing CD’s main goal as fostering mutual understanding, defined it as: “the exchange of ideas, information, art and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples in order to foster mutual understandings”.

For this piece of writing I would define CD as: the use of cultural aspects, both material and non-material, to promote national identity, strengthen relations, enhance economic and socio-cultural cooperation, further national interests and persuade foreign audiences – in short, ‘to win hearts and minds of foreign audiences’. CD has been used historically. Examples include USA’s Jazz Ambassadors to USSR during the Cold War, France’s The Alliance Française (for promotion of French language), the Great Britain’s British Council. The aforementioned states have gained enormous influence in the shape of soft power. Currently, besides these states, India and China are also actively engaged in the practice of CD. In fact, Yoga has become India’s greatest cultural export and Gandhi is India’s best example of India’s soft power.

Whereas, Pakistan, despite its Herculean efforts to combat and have defeated the terrorism inside the territory, is still seen through suspicious eyes. This is where Cultural Diplomacy can become Pakistan’s tool to counter certain narratives. Furthermore, not only it counterbalances misunderstanding, hatred, and terrorism-related narratives, but it helps to create “a foundation of trust” with other peoples, which policy makers can build on to reach political, economic, and military agreements. It demonstrates our values of peace, harmony and tolerance, and our interest in values, and combats the stereotypical notions. It creates relationships with peoples, which endure beyond changes in government. It can reach influential members of foreign societies, who cannot be reached through traditional embassy functions.

Parkash Sarangani, originally from Tharparkar, Pakistan, currently, a graduate student of International Relations and Cultural Diplomacy at Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, Berlin, Germany

Our eastern neighbour, India, has a dedicated ministry namely, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) established as early as in 1950, which deals with Cultural Diplomacy nationally as well as internationally. China has a worldwide network of Confucius Institutes, cultural institutions used for Cultural Diplomacy by China. Whereas, Pakistan neither has a separate ministry dedicated to Cultural Diplomacy with other states nor the current ministry’s, namely Ministry of Information, Broadcasting, National History and Literary Heritage’s mission statement deals with promotion of national culture abroad for diplomatic purpose.

Not only the state governments, the agents of a Cultural Diplomacy effort can be a nongovernmental organization, a group from civil society, an independent individual, etc. There are several ready-made platforms available to conduct CD. Examples include Embassies, Consulates, Cultural Institutions abroad, Cinema Industry, Literature Festivals, Cultural events and festivals and sports events and so on. Pakistan’s Cinema Industry is a ready-made platform to conduct our CD efforts. Lollywood has potential to achieve what Bollywood achieved for India and what Hollywood has achieved for the West.

Pakistan, being the sole inheritor of an civilization – Indus Valley Civilization – and having huge cultural capital, can also use its cultural aspects to not only improve its global image by promoting its national identity and changing the opinions of foreign audiences, but to make economic gains in areas such as tourism, selling cultural products, Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) in long run. Moreover, Pakistan is abundant with natural scenic beauty especially in the northern areas. Besides, our cultural products/assets include rich history, heritage conservation (museums, galleries, libraries), creative industries (including media, movie industry and recording), arts (performing, visual and architecture). Additionally, Pakistan’s diverse cultural values and norms, folklore and folktale and much more.

Realizing the growing importance of Cultural Diplomacy in today’s world, Pakistan needs to broader its vision to engage foreign audiences through national culture. First, there’s a dire need of policy mechanism at state level. The government should come up with a cultural diplomacy policy. Involving people from academia and civil society in devising the policy would help the government in policy directions. The governments have worked on increasing the tourism industry in recent years but a holistic approach is the need of the time which includes all members of the society to play their part in it and it must start from the top. An effective cultural diplomacy strategy will not only further the national identity abroad but it will also focus on bridging the gaps domestically.

Second, Pakistan must use all the aforementioned platforms to their full potential. For instance, Lollywood’s revival will not only ensure livelihood of many working in the industry, but also the promotion of national identity and cultural values to the viewer across the globe. Following UK’s DCMS (Department for Digital, Culture, Media &Sport ), Pakistan can create a separate ministry for this purpose, which can solely focus on the CD strategy or the ministry for Interprovincial coordination should be assigned this task to focus on the internal dimension of the CD strategy.

Third, besides existing platforms, Pakistan must create a new institutions to implement its CD policy. Like China’s Confucius Institutes, Pakistan may build independent cultural institutes in foreign lands promoting positive image of the society by displaying our national cultural heritage, history and values. Using all the cultural assets, Pakistan can not only build a strong case of tourism to Pakistan but it would be able to fight the negative narratives existing in the foreign lands. If done well, it can help Pakistan in breaking the negative stereotypes and in portraying itself as a peace-loving society.

The writer is Studying International Relations and Cultural Diplomacy at Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, Berlin, Germany