I found this article on The Huffington Post quite interesting. It outlines what needs to be done in order for the U.S. to rebuild its relationship with Egypt. This is intriguing because still in recent memory is the June 4, 2009 Cairo speech that Obama gave which promised a “new beginning” and there was much hope brought by his inspiring words not only to Egypt but to the Muslim world. Mutual respect and understanding were major points and there was promise that we were on the brink of a major breakthrough. However, this was not entirely case. Some strides have been made in improving the relationship but one sore spot was never addressed until the revolution, the fact that we had continued to support Mubarak in spite of his actions of oppressing his fellow Egyptians. This was a major contradiction between our words and our actions; the U.S. did not live up to their promises, which has put us in a harsh light.
U.S. PD in Egypt is having a credibility crisis because we have not followed through on our words, which makes our PD efforts ineffective, as the article states, “But it cannot do so as long as much of U.S. public diplomacy is seen by the rest of the world as self-serving propaganda”. This is a huge problem and it invalidates our PD efforts, we must be sincere and credible because without those aspects our PD will accomplish nothing. The article states that, “the philosophy of U.S. public diplomacy should be altered to put greater emphasis on service to the individuals around the world”. The U.S. must realign their PD efforts to match our promises because credibility makes all the difference.
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