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Must Sept. 11 forever be remembered exclusively for the terrorist attacks of five years ago this Tuesday?
For contrast, reel the clock back to another Sept. 11 morning, in 1956, precisely 50 years ago this week:
President Dwight D. Eisenhower opens the first White House Conference on Citizen Diplomacy. Recognizing the budding sister city programs of U.S. communities reaching out to former enemies in Japan and Germany, Eisenhower starts the ball rolling for founding Sister Cities International and People-to-People International.
A half century later, Eisenhower’s legacy has flowered in thousands of Americans’ interactions and relationships with their sister citizens of the globe.
Today, in fact, 800 American communities are engaged in 2,200 sister city relationships, focused on cultural contacts and exchange visits, from high schoolers to chambers of commerce, with partners in 134 nations around the globe.
Why is “citizen diplomacy” important? Eisenhower had no doubt: “the most worthwhile purpose there is in the world: to help build the road to peace.”
All people basically yearn for peace, said Eisenhower -- an observation that’s still true of ordinary folks across the globe, notwithstanding the dark shadow of Islamic Jihadism.
The challenge, said Eisenhower, is “for people to get together and leap governments-- if necessary to evade governments -- to work out not one method but thousands of methods” by which people can gradually “dispel ignorance,” “strengthen friendships,” “learn from others.”
What a refreshing call, in a super-security age, back to the glowing, most hopeful side of the American experience!
And to hear, in the midst of our Iraqi misadventure, this admonition from our past Republican president and five-star General of the Army in World War II: “Every bomb we can manufacture, every plane, every ship, every gun, in the long run has no purpose other than the negative: to give us time to prevent the other fellow from starting a war, since we know we won’t.”
So why Sister Cities now? Succinctly, in the words of U.S. Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), because “the world needs to breathe hope instead of fear.” But they’re practical, immediate reasons too. One is to offset the dangerous levels of anti-American sentiment now rising across the world.
Plus, say supporters, people-to-people exchanges work to correct the disturbing ignorance of Americans about the world outside our borders. Most countries put high value on learning other languages, appreciating other world cultures -- “but we Americans too often treat them as fluff,” notes William Stafford, head of the Trade Alliance of Greater Seattle and a prime supporter of Seattle’s 21 global sister city relationships (from Chongqing, China to Haiphong, Vietnam, to Izmir, Turkey).
In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Sister Cities began an Islamic Peace and Friendship initiative, fighting upstream but resolutely against today’s waves of hostility and misunderstanding. Indeed, one of the most powerful moments at Sister Cities International’s 50th anniversary celebration in Washington in July came in remarks from Maya Alkateb, a 21-year old Syrian student who’d recently spent a year in the U.S. under the post-2001 Youth Study and Exchange Program.
Alkateb, in fluent English, explained how, at home, she’d been warned she wouldn’t be well received or safe in the U.S. But she found herself warmly greeted by her host family and community and forged strong relationships. She’d earlier planned to be a doctor, but on return to Syria she shifted to political science. Her goal: to be a major player in Syria in behalf of peace through the political process. And, she added, to delight of her listeners -- “I believe I can become the first woman president of Syria!”
It’s difficult, in today’s atmosphere, to multiply U.S.-Islamic ties, but the number of city-to-city relationships has risen from 42 to 64 since 2001, reports Tim Honey, Sister Cities executive director. When the south Lebanon city of Qana was bombed by Israel, killing at least 28 including children during the recent Mideast hostilities, an immediate expression of deep people-to-people concern came from Qana’s sister city of Dearborn, Mich. New ties with the Arab Towns Organization is in the offing.
On another track, Sister Cities has launched a “Network for Sustainable Development” to help cities around the world exchange ideas on such topics as air quality, clean water, renewable energy, affordable housing and town redevelopment. Global warming, says Honey, will be a major part of the agenda -- and fittingly so for the first challenge of history in which virtually every community on earth has a direct and compelling interest.
Sister Cities is a network of communities -- not an arm of the federal government. But shouldn’t Congress expand support dramatically beyond the token $400,000 -- less than a Pentagon budget rounding error -- the program now receives from the State Department? With regular diplomacy flailing and armed interventions ending in ashes, citizen diplomacy needs not a little but a big boost. Ike would like that.
Comments may be addressed to npeirce@citistates.com
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