AMERICAN ambassadors in Islamabad are usually known to call on people like the president, the chief executive, or the prime minister if there is one, the chief of army staff, or political leaders, for “strengthening” bilateral relations. When they dole out monies, they usually pump in aid in the millions, and would sometimes offer military equipment and spare parts too.

Last Friday, the American ambassador began a new public relations exercise. Wendy Chamberlin called on the minister of minorities and culture, Col S.K. Tressler, to discuss ways and means to strengthen bilateral relations. She also presented two cheques for the preservation and improvement of Taxila and Peshawar museums. It was not so much the amount of the cheques, only $18,000 and $10,000, respectively, but the gesture itself that was notable.

In a more obvious public relations exercise on the same day, the ambassador spoke to a group of journalists in an interview and through them sought to restore public confidence in America by reassuring the Pakistani public that it is looking to build up a long-term relationship with the country.

Over in the Arab world, the United States is conducting a public confidence restoration exercise too. It has appointed a lady experienced in sales and marketing to head a campaign to sell a “good image” of America across the Arab world through the holding of seminars, discussions, meetings, talks, etc. It is the first time since anti-American sentiments started becoming evident decades ago that the American administration has admitted that the problem has become a serious one and it needs to be countered.

This is because for the first time the American public is asking the question: why are they so hated in the world? It has taken that long for the American public to realize this because their leaders had not been informing them through the media about the realities on the ground in the Muslim Arab world.

The fear of annoying the Israeli lobby by criticizing Israeli policies and actions is a phobia that has long afflicted both the American administration and media. News about the sufferings and human rights violations in the Arab world caused directly or indirectly by American policies, e.g., the continual bombing of Iraq and the denial of a homeland for the Palestinians, has also been deliberately blocked out in the American media. It had to take a disaster on the scale of Sept 11 to raise for the first time among the American public the question why this hatred against America.

But it will take much more than a public relations campaign to turn the tables around for the Americans. The exercise would work only if accompanied by a sincere and real effort to address the issues and policies that have earned the Americans so much ignominy in the Muslim world.

Dropping biscuit packets while at the same time raining missiles and cluster bombs onto drought-stricken Afghanistan and its starving people is hardly the kind of public relations exercise that would salvage America’s image in the eyes of the Muslim public. This might work for America’s domestic public, but certainly not in the Muslim world.

Amre Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League and former Egyptian foreign minister from 1991-2001, in his reaction to America’s public relations campaign in the Arab world, said over CNN that this was well and fine. However, he added, the Arabs would eventually be looking for some concrete change in America’s pro-Israeli policies that was reflected on the ground, specially with regard to the Palestinian issue.

As far as the Pakistan public is concerned, neither biscuits nor millions of dollars in aid and loans are going to change the outlook of the general public about the United States. Pakistanis have felt let down by America on numerous occasions, specially vis-a-vis India on the Kashmir and the nuclear issues. A recent incident was the simultaneous lifting of sanctions on both Pakistan and India that were imposed after the nuclear blasts.

Pakistanis felt slighted that India had the sanctions lifted without working for it, whereas their country had sacrificed a great deal in helping the Americans in their current campaign in Afghanistan: it is a frontline state facing serious problems of a massive refugee inflow, a debt-ridden economy, and the risk of internal upheaval. To remove the distrust for the Americans and their policies from the hearts of the Pakistan public, the Americans will have to disprove that they have more than a soft corner for India on the nuclear and Kashmir issues.

The other factor that has badly affected America’s respect and image the world over is its arrogant and bullying attitude in dictating its conditions on countries. Demanding submission at gunpoint just about sums up the United States’ dealing with many governments. This kind of attitude has given rise to strong feelings in many countries that their sovereignty is being challenged if not violated. This behaviour of the American administration has repelled many a government and people rather than endear it to America.

The United States has striven hard to make countries the world over look up to it as a global power, but its outlook and policies have proven to be far from global. They are myopically American. It may have succeeded in dictating its policies on many governments, but it has failed to win the hearts and minds of the public in many a Muslim country.