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“First Person” article for “Stateline,” a publication of the Council of State Governments, Midwestern Office, and the Midwestern Legislative Conference
“Iowa Celebrates 50 Years
of Citizen Diplomacy”
By Senator Daryl Beall
Iowa
Iowa has long been a leader in citizen-to-citizen diplomacy. Ironically this concept of ordinary citizens strengthening global awareness and international understanding by their direct involvement emerged during the height of the Cold War when, in 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed people-to-people exchanges.
President Eisenhower’s vision led to the creation of Sister Cities, the International Visitors Program and other forums for citizen diplomacy, including student exchanges. President Kennedy expanded the concept by creating the Peace Corps and President Carter formed the Friendship Force.
The Iowa landscape is dotted with ethnic towns and communities. Although mainly western and northern European, Slavic and Syrian communities emerged well. The first mosque west of Chicago was built in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by Syrian immigrants. Iowa is home of national ethnic museums and centers, including Norwegian (founded in Decorah in 1877, it is one of the oldest and largest immigrant museums in the United States), Czech-Slovak, Danish and African-American. The Czech town of Spillville was the brief home of “New World Symphony” composer Anton Dvorak.
Identifiable Dutch, Luxembourg, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, Danish, Czech, Croatian, Bohemian and Syrian villages and communities still maintain their national heritage juxtaposed with their American patriotism in what former United Nations ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young described America, not as a melting pot, but rather as “stew,” with identifiable ingredients, but together making the whole.
Iowa has produced several leaders with international vision, many following their agricultural roots. Ten years before he was elected president, Herbert Hoover directed the American Relief Administration that fed 350 million people in 21 European countries following World War I. Dr. Norman Borlaug, “Father of the Green Revolution,” earned the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to help feed a hungry Third World. Botanist George Washington Carver discovered many uses for the peanut and other agricultural products. Internationalist Henry A. Wallace developed hybrid seed corn before he served as New Deal secretary of agriculture and vice president. And Iowa-born Mamie Doud Eisenhower was First Lady when her husband envisioned and proclaimed citizen diplomacy.
Perhaps it is not surprising that Iowa farmers shipped a jet loaded with hogs to the typhoon-struck Yamanashi Prefecture of Japan and Iowans responded generously to the recent tsunami relief. Iowans welcomed thousands of Southeast Asian “Boat People” and helped them resettle in our midst.
With this backdrop, five other state senators and I – three Republicans and three Democrats – sponsored Senate Resolution 10 that was adopted during the 2005 session of the Iowa General Assembly. The resolution recognizes the importance of citizen diplomacy.
Senate Resolution 10 states that “citizen diplomacy is exemplified by the participation of unofficial ambassadors in a range of activities, such as youth, educational, cultural, professional, and institutional exchanges, that bring people together across national boundaries to cultivate ideas that promote living in harmony with one another.”
The resolution cites the important role people-to-people programs can play in international understanding. “Americans involved in citizen diplomacy supplement diplomacy by public officials in a critical way by providing an effective opportunity for outreach to and interaction with the world that enables Americans to understand the rest of the world and the rest of the world to understand America.”
The third “Whereas” speaks to the need for global literacy and direct citizen involvement in international relations. “The international social, economic, and political circumstances of the 21st century, including national and global security, demand citizen diplomacy to a far greater extent than currently exists to replace misunderstanding and misperception with mutual understanding and respect.”
I can personally attest to the role citizen diplomacy can play in international relations. In 1993, I was in Russia establishing a Sister City relationship. After riding the Moscow subway “Metro” trains with my host Sasha we came to a large stairway going underground. For the record, Sasha speaks little English and I speak little Russian. I simply pointed to the stairway and asked, “Metro station?” Sasha replied, “No, no,” and gestured skyward. “American bombs,” he said, “boom boom.” I realized that Russians, afraid of a U.S. nuclear attack, had built bomb shelters, just as I recalled we had done in America, as if somehow miraculously we could survive nuclear holocaust.
It was then that Sasha and I, in our limited knowledge of each other’s language, but keenly aware of the role we as individuals were playing in fostering global understanding, collectively defined the need for citizen diplomacy: “Sometimes our governments get in the way of what we, the people, want.” This exchange would probably not have taken place just a few years earlier, before Glasnost and Perestroika. Those initiatives by Gorbachev were themselves the result of citizen involvement.
Senate Resolution 10 notes the upcoming Citizen Diplomacy Summit that will be held in Des Moines September 24, 2005. Similar summits will be held in 60 locations throughout the United States and will culminate with a National Summit on Citizen Diplomacy in Washington, D.C., July 12 – 14, 2006. These forums are part of a national campaign led by the Coalition for Citizen Diplomacy, based in Washington in honor of the 50th anniversary of President Eisenhower’s leadership in promoting the important role of citizen diplomacy in America’s relations with the world. .
The resolution also calls for establishing a National Center for Citizen Diplomacy in Iowa. This proposed center would provide “a nationally centralized base for the active engagement of individuals in citizen diplomacy.” Iowa is a natural home for the Center for Citizen Diplomacy, based on Iowa’s eight Sister State relationships (Japan, China, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, Malaysia and Taiwan), numerous Sister City linkages, Friendship Force successes, hosting dozens of guests through the International Visitors Program, and various other examples of Iowa’s long history in and commitment to global literacy and citizen diplomacy.
The Iowa Citizen Diplomacy Summit will feature former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who led our nation’s formal international diplomacy 1997 - 2001. The theme is “Future Solutions Now” and will feature a bipartisan program. Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, a member of the House International Relations Committee. United States Senators Charles Grassley and Tom Harkin and Congressman Leonard Boswell will participate. Governor Tom Vilsack and former Iowa Governors Robert Ray and Terry Branstad will make presentations.
Several break-out sessions will address such issues as how reaction to the 9/11 attack has impacted our ability to engage in citizen diplomacy, what steps can be taken to ensure positive citizen diplomacy for the long term, the future of citizen diplomacy and other relevant issues. These working sessions will be charged develop a series of recommendations which will be combined in a formal Iowa report to the national summit in 2006. All other local and state summits throughout the country will do the same.
In addition to local, state and federal officials, representatives of numerous groups will participate. They include business, corporate and professional associations, faith-based organizations, education and agricultural entities and non-profit organizations.
For more information on the Iowa Citizen Diplomacy Summit, please contact me via e-mail at daryl.beall@legis.state.ia.us or at 1928 North 22nd Street, Fort Dodge, IA 50501. My telephone number is 515-573-7889. |
