A report prepared by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) which quotes figures provided by the American government says that Muslim countries have collectively spent only $173 million on lobbying and public relations activities in the period from January 1997 to December 2002. The spending saw a substantial increase following Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, the money spent immediately after Sept. 11, 2001 made up 27 percent of the entire amount spent by Muslim countries in six years preceding the attacks.
No doubt, lobbying and public relations are two areas of extreme importance for Arab and Muslims. They should be pursued vigorously in order to present our just causes and convey our points of view to the American public. Doing so will also help counter Israeli propaganda which seeks to distort our image and paint a bad picture of the Muslim world. More important than opening public relations departments and media offices and providing them with staff and money is the need to realize that people’s beliefs and convictions are not the final product of propaganda alone. Other factors count too — the least being the ability to convey the right message at the right time with the right tools.
An Arab writer once said that the inability of the Arabs to win the hearts and minds of Americans is not due simply to the Arabs’ failure to produce enough propaganda and public relations firepower or the failure of the American people to understand the Arabs. The problem, argued the writer, lies in the lack of a clear strategy and the proper means of implementing it.
What is of even greater importance for the Arabs is for them to change their way of life, both at the personal and institutional levels. When Arabs become more empowered and united they will be in a position to effectively address the American public who will be ready to listen. Crown Prince Abdullah was well aware of this when he put forward his initiative to improve the general Arab situation, an initiative which has since been adopted by Arab leaders at a summit.
The basic thing is that the Arab world must begin by putting its own house in order before expecting American opinion, or any other, to change and support Arab causes. People can only have an impact on others if they can convince others of the validity of what they support and believe in.
