Louder than bombs Sport and art were crudely deployed weapons in the cold war. It's time to mobilise western culture for the next great battle
By PETER ASPDEN
When the world was safely cocooned in the bipolar stand-off that was known as the cold war, it was easy to read culture: to know what it was trying to do, and which side it was on. The world was defined by a single schism, and all other divisions and spectrums of opinion were deemed subservient to it. The logic was crude, remorseless and produced occasionally startling results.
There was an improbable alliance of viewpoints, for example, between a tortured artist at the cutting edge of visual expression and a government agency devoted to safeguarding the mainstream values of corporate America. I doubt whether Jackson Pollock would have made much sense of the CIA's view of the world, but the agency found plenty it liked in Pollock's animalistic outpourings.
They represented nothing less than the triumph of the individual spirit. In cold war terms, Pollock was the ringing voice of the single man, who would not be shackled to any perceived greater good; and quite possibly a genius. He could not have existed in the Soviet orbit of influence because he, rather than his drips of paint, was too dangerous. Therefore, he was on our side. It didn't matter much that mainstream, corporate America might not have fully grasped the implications of abstract expressionism.
Many pieces of work were similarly filtered through the homilies of the cold war schism. By the time of the 1970s' post-Vietnam trauma, some of those judgments were turned on their heads. But the bipolar world was still the most important point of reference. Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter was denounced by the liberal establishment (yes, there was once such a thing) as reactionary for its crude and possibly mendacious portrayal of Vietcong torture techniques. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, by contrast, was adored for its memorable depiction of gung-ho US officers sniffing the napalm to the tune of rampaging Valkyries. It better fitted America's guilty mood. But discussion of both movies was dominated by ideology. Their finer points were barely noticed.
With the end of the cold war, everything got more complicated. There was no longer the reassuring template of "us versus them" against which to assess cultural happenings. In the past 15 years, the world has splintered in unpredictable and frequently bloody ways: the west alone comprises Europe and the US; old Europe and new Europe; big Europe and small Europe. Arab and Muslim worlds divide themselves between moderate and extremist; religious and secular; regimes against civil society. And then there are China, India, Brazil. Whose side are they on?
A new booklet published by the Foreign Policy Centre and the British Council* addresses this fundamental shift and its implications for Britain. It highlights the unlikely convergences of interest that had been masked by cold war bipolarity. France and Turkey are united, for example, in their commitment to secularism; religion plays a key role in both the Middle East and the US. In theory, this should have a liberating effect on culture. In a world that is becoming more democratic, more globalised, more reachable through mass communications, and more multilateral, the free, unfettered flow of ideas, art and cultural movements is less restricted than ever. The "shuffle" of random works and events, no discernible patterns or ideological thrusts, has become the new template for our age, brilliantly marketed and celebrated by the Apple iPod: cheap, atomised culture for an impatient generation.
But there is a paradox here: it is precisely at the time when the relationship between culture and broader values is at its vaguest that governments wishing to wield an influence in the world need culture. It is important for the US, if it is to win hearts and minds around the globe, to convince the world that its culture amounts to more than personal tours of Michael Jackson's grotesque home; yet guess which event is dominating the airwaves.
Britain, for its part, tried hard to control its cultural image in the 1990s, with the rebranding of Cool Britannia to reassure the world that we were no longer the nation, in the words of a Canadian newspaper, of "bad food, stultified, class-ridden society, stodgy, pasty people wasting away in council houses, and strikes." But anarchic, self-absorbed, amoral Cool Britannia (aka Liam Gallagher) bit back, not wishing to be the messenger-boy for over-savvy politicians.
It is not only the substantial divisions of the cold war that are today irrelevant; it is also the techniques used. The world is more knowing now; propaganda is frequently counter-productive. Messages need to be subtle; indeed it could be argued that there should be no messages. Those who believe in the efficacy of public diplomacy say listening has become more important than talking. If cultural exchanges are not mutual, they are worthless.
This is particularly important in the post-9/11 world, in which Britain has some work to do to persuade sceptics of its benign intentions. But, as Martin Rose, director of the British Council's cultural relations think-tank, puts it, that cliche about rebuilding trust will not do; for trust is not a commodity. It cannot be built, or rebuilt. It can only be earned, given, or frittered away. In the new world order, we can do little better than rely on candour and openness. It is not a bad place to start.
- "British Public Diplomacy in the 'Age of Schisms'" by Mark Leonard and Andrew Small with Martin Rose