Why America?

Marketing nations

Of course, the big news this week was England’s glorious and heroic triumph in the World Cup of Rugby.

There were other key events too. For starters, there was a “velvet revolution” in Georgia where President Eduard Shevardnadze, the “silver fox”, was forced from office.

Perhaps you heard about it.

But the Diary wants to ask a bigger question: why has the United States of America been the world’s economic and cultural powerhouse for the last sixty-plus years?

The Boston Globe ran a story this week under the title “MLB, China unite to push national pastime with the masses.” The dream, said the article, is to get “baseball, pure old-fashioned American baseball, barnstorming its way across the land of Mao.”

Sounds perfectly wise to the Diary. After all, Asia is producing a stock of fine players for the diamonds of America: Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui lit up the Major Leagues last season.

Like other businesses, baseball is moving east, and, as the Globe says, “there’s no international market larger than China”. Rupert Murdoch, Reebok, Apple, Real Madrid, all figure the same. China, as the Diary keeps repeating, is a businessman’s dream wrapped in the communist flag. Just don’t mention democracy or human rights.

The plan to “promote baseball in every corner of the communist nation”, is, says the Globe, “both romantic and lucrative”. It’s all a far cry from Mao, who “would have considered baseball a bourgeois distraction”. But in recent years, baseball has achieved greater renown, “partially because a fashion accessory for young Chinese is a New York Yankees cap not for the baseball team, necessarily, but because it’s a readily available distillation of Americanness.”

Ah, yes – Americanness. This got the Diary thinking.

The intersected NY of the Yankees is the most lucrative emblem in the world (which is darn annoying to non-Yankee fans). The same day, an article appeared in the business section of the New York Times about an agency called Placebrands which has “one clear goal: to help countries develop themselves as brands, with a carefully managed international identity, as recognizable as any consumer product.” Placebrands has already worked with Germany, Britain, New Zealand, Croatia and Slovenia, “and is now in negotiations with Mongolia.”

Last year, the Diary reported on how the White House was hiring Madison Avenue executives like Charlotte Beers to improve America’s image in the Arab and Muslim world. But what if all economic and cultural power is based primarily on image? What if American power is rooted in Babe Ruth, John Wayne, Elvis, James Dean, Harley Davidson – all of which are themselves rooted in the Wild West, the spirit of freedom and the frontier, and therefore, ultimately, in the romance of the United States constitution?

What if America is just well-marketed? “Marketing is at the heart of what makes countries rich,” says Simon Anholt, the branding expert who founded Placebrands, and “spent a career developing international campaigns for Coca-Cola and Nestlé.”

OK, so this is not an original idea, but Placebrands believes that political influence is based on a strong brand identity which attracts foreign investors and tourists. The fact that it is being so openly stated now, makes the Diary wonder if it has always been this way.

And what does this mean for the future? Well, keep your eyes on Finland, folks. The NYT says “Finland will start a campaign to enhance its image as a center of high-tech innovation.” And you thought it was all mountains and Sibelius!

According to Erich Joachimsthaler of Vivaldi Partners, branding “won’t work if the country sends out lies or hype”. Working with Germany was tough, says Joachumsthaler, as Germans “wanted to portray themselves as a passionate, emotional, flexible people, an image that ... was “a whole bunch of baloney.””

In a line of historic value, the NYT writes, “Working with countries can be exasperating.”

Just ask Kofi Annan.

But where does all this leave China, the Diary wonders? On Monday, the NYT ran a story about basketball which began “China has gone hoops crazy.” A point not missed on David Stern, Commissioner of the NBA, who enthused that China is “our fastest growing global market”. In no small part, this is fuelled by 7 foot 5 inch (2.2 metre) Houston Rockets superstar Yao Ming, who, the NYT says, has “smashed the stereotype of the small, submissive Chinese.”

Sounds like a giant rebranding.

“Today, as China wades into the global market economy,” the NYT enthuses, “what sweeter dream of ascendancy than the NBA, that brand of brands, that glittering symbol of US hegemony and hipness and the good life?”

“America’s global economic dominance, like its military power, actually reached its zenith more than 50 years ago,” wrote Anatole Kaletsky in the London Times last week. Since then, he argued, the real source of American global dominance has been “the “soft power” of economics and culture.” The brand.

For half a century, economic growth has belonged to Europe and Japan. But the future is Chinese. America’s debt to China is “over $500 billion and rising at the rate of $150 billion a year”. Goldman Sachs estimates that by 2015, China will be the world’s second biggest economy. By 2020, taken together, China, India, Russia and Brazil, will have overtaken America.

Now all they have to do is get their image sorted.

Hoovering up dissent

“The FBI is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in nothing more than lawful protest and dissent. The line between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred, and I have a serious concern about whether we’re going back to the days of [J. Edgar] Hoover.”

So says Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. His words follow the leak of an FBI memorandum sent to local law enforcement agencies last month before antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco.

The FBI has been given sweeping new powers by Attorney General John Ashcroft, many of which were removed after the abuses of the Hoover years. Civil rights advocates say their first amendment rights are being threatened. The FBI says “We’re not concerned with individuals who are exercising their constitutional rights.”

The leaked memo, said the New York Times, was “the first corroboration of a coordinated, nationwide effort to collect intelligence regarding demonstrations.” However, the FBI acknowledged that “most protests are peaceful events” and one official was quoted as asking, “What would the public say if we didn’t look for criminal activity at these events?”

The memo talked of protestor’s “innovative strategies”, citing the “use [of] the internet to recruit, raise funds and coordinate their activities prior to demonstrations.” “Activists may also make use of training camps to rehearse tactics and counter-strategies for dealing with the police and to resolve any logistical issues,” it said.

America is in conversation with itself.

Apologise for what?

And so is Chile.

Last Sunday, La Nacion published details of how, between 1974 and 1978, the bodies of at least 400 political prisoners were thrown from Puma helicopters into the Pacific Ocean.

A day later, Channel 22 in Miami broadcast an interview with General Augusto Pinochet, ex-dictator of Chile. Asked if he should apologise for the actions of his government, Pinochet said, “Apologise for what? They [the “Marxists, Communists”] should be asking for a pardon from me.”

Pinochet insisted he had “always acted in a democratic way” and that he “never aspired to be a dictator because ... I considered that to be a dictator would end badly.”

The 88-year-old General has escaped prosecution on the grounds of mental ill-health. Lorena Pizarro, president of the Relatives of the Disappeared campaign group, said Pinochet was clearly “neither mad nor a senile old man, as he tries to appear before the public”.

Chilean Interior Minister Jose Miguel Insulza called Pinochet an “angel of death”.

(Source: BBC Online)

Croatian change

Meanwhile, there were parliamentary elections in Croatia this week – the fourth since independence in 1991.

Victory went to the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) who ousted prime minister Ivica Racan’s Social Democrats. The HDZ is the party of the late Franjo Tudjman, perhaps remembered best for his authoritarian and nationalist rule. But moderate president Ivo Sanader insisted “The party has been reformed under my leadership and the election outcome is the result of that.”

Croatia is set to start negotiations on European Union membership next year. The HDZ promises full cooperation with the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.

“The voters showed that this government was a bad experiment. Now it is up to us to restore faith in the government, the way we restored faith in our party,” Sanader said.

“For the first time, Croatia voted like other countries in transition in these elections,” said the state-owned Vjesnik newspaper.

Explosive diplomacy

Finally, spare a thought for the security officer in Sydney airport who this week pulled Helen Clark, prime minister of New Zealand, out of a queue and frisked her for explosives, not knowing who she was.

The results from a new explosives detection device were sent to a lab for tests.

The prime minister chose not to file a complaint. “We are all equals when it comes to security. No-one is exempt,” said Mike Munro, Clark’s senior advisor, somewhat cordially.

“Had John Howard [Australian prime minister] been subjected to this,” said Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party foreign affairs spokesman, “he would have had a pink fit.”

Quotes of the week

“I’m going home now.”
The resignation speech of Georgian president, Eduard Shevardnadze.

“We had a lot of mutual grievances.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s message to Mikhail Saakashvili and the Georgian opposition poised to take power.

“Is it an option to overthrow the state Georgia-style? It is certainly not an option for us. We are absolutely committed to the constitutional and democratic path.”
Paul Themba Nyathi, spokesman for Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC.

“I think you will find a more decentralized system, I think you will find more people will have a bigger say in governing. I don’t think we have an option, we need to go in that direction to ensure social stability.”
Prince Bandar ibn Khalid of Saudi Arabia.

“The greatest threat to life on this planet.”
London Mayor Ken Livingstone on George W. Bush.

Contact the Diary: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net