[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 48 (Monday, December 4, 2000)]
[Pages 2934-2939]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy

November 28, 2000

    The President. Well, thank you very much, and welcome. I want to, 
first of all, say how honored we are to have all of you here. This is a 
remarkable assemblage, and I want to thank Hillary and Secretary 
Albright and all the others who have worked

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so hard to put this meeting together today. And I thank those of you who 
have come from around America and from around the world to be here. And 
I thank, especially, Senator Leahy and Representative Leach and the 
members of the diplomatic community who have come.
    This is a topic that I care a lot about. I think I should begin by 
saying that Secretary Albright just spoke to you eloquently, wearing a 
bolo from the Navajo Nation. I spent--I was just not very long ago on a 
Navajo reservation in northern New Mexico. But it represents a very 
distinctive and important part of America's culture, the first 
Americans.
    This conference, I think, comes at a rather pivotal time in human 
history, because we all think we know what we mean when we talk about 
cultural diplomacy. You know, you send your artists to us; we send our 
musicians to you; we all make nice; and everybody feels better. But the 
truth is that the world is also full of conflict. Indeed, I was seeing 
Mr. Lithgow out there, and he may have thought that in the last 2 weeks 
he has returned to the ``Third Rock From the Sun.'' [Laughter]
    Let me say what I mean by this. The end of the cold-war, bipolar 
world and the emergence of a global information society have given rise 
to two apparently contradictory forces. And what we came here to talk 
about sort of falls in the middle.
    First, you see, as we all get to find our own way at the end of the 
cold war, the emergence of a huge number of different racial, religious, 
ethnic, and tribal conflicts within and across national lines that might 
commonly be called culture wars, if you use culture in a broader sense 
and not just the sense that most of us use the word.
    And secondly, you see how, if they're having a crisis in Russia or 
an earthquake in China, immediately we all know about it, all around the 
world, because we live in a global information society. And that means 
that our musicians, our artists, our movies--particularly here in 
America, which has been an entertainment capital of the world--go across 
the world rapidly. And other countries worry about whether we're going 
to blur all the distinctions between our various cultures and render 
them meaningless so that they won't have independent power to inform, to 
enlighten, to enrich our own societies and those around the world. Now, 
these are not exactly new questions, but they are being felt with 
increasing force because of the end of the bipolar cold-war world and 
the emergence of the most globalized society the Earth has ever known.
    You can put me, as usual, in the optimistic camp. I still believe 
that the role of culture in the sense that brings us here today will be 
fundamentally positive, because it will teach us to understand our 
differences and affirm our common humanity. And that is, after all, the 
great trick in the world today. Since we don't, you know, have to draw 
sort of a line in the dust and say you're on one side or the other, the 
way we did for 40 years after the end of World War II, it is very 
important that we understand and appreciate our differences and then 
recognize that, as important as they are, somehow we have to find a way 
to elevate our common humanity.
    That's where cultural diplomacy comes in. And I have certainly 
benefited from it in terms of my life as President, probably more than 
any person who ever held this office, in no small measure because of the 
time in which I was privileged to serve. But I can think of, just in my 
lifetime, a few examples I might mention that I think are important.
    I think it's not an exaggeration to say that Glenn Miller and other 
American jazz bands had a pivotal effect on the morale of our European 
Allies in World War II. I think it's probably not wrong to say that 
Elvis Presley did more to win the cold war when his music was smuggled 
into the former Soviet Union than he did as a GI serving in Germany. 
[Laughter] I think it's worth noting that on the morning of Poland's 
first free election in 1989, voters woke up to find their whole country 
plastered with posters of my favorite movie, depicting Gary Cooper in 
``High Noon,'' with a Solidarity pin where his sheriff's badge should 
have been. [Laughter] And the gun in his holster airbrushed out. One 
look and the people knew that the time had come to stand for freedom, 
nonviolently.
    When I was on my state visit to the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel 
took me to the jazz club where he used to gather and plot the Velvet 
Revolution. And I played with some

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of the Czech musicians who had been allies of his in that great 
struggle.
    A few years ago in Bosnia, we needed to find a way to teach children 
how to avoid landmines, so we choose the universal medium of Superman 
comics. During the darkest days of that war, when books were burned and 
libraries were shelled, American artists, authors, and performers like 
the conductor Charles Ansbacher, who is in our audience, traveled to 
Sarajevo to show their Bosnian colleagues that they were not forgotten.
    Even then, cultural diplomacy was a giant step ahead of traditional 
diplomacy. In 1992, when the time finally came that we could reach out 
to a democratic South Africa, our path there was forged by the Dance 
Theater of Harlem.
    So cultural diplomacy does have the power to penetrate our common 
humanity. And I say that not just in terms of the stars but in terms of 
the way people generally feel. And I was recently on our trip to 
Nigeria; the First Lady of Nigeria dragged me out onto the dance floor 
to dance to Nigerian music. And when I was in India, I went to a little 
village in Rajasthan--Nayla--and the village women got me in the middle 
of their dancing, and they showered me with thousands of petals of 
flowers. And I understood, in a way that I never could have read from a 
book, how they related to the world and what role music and the arts had 
in their lives.
    So I think this is very important. I also don't buy the fact that we 
know more about each other's culture means that we're all going to be 
diluted. I think that American culture has been enriched by the rest of 
the world, and hopefully we've been a positive force on the rest of the 
world.
    In our country, we have the architecture of I.M. Pei or the plays of 
David Hwang, who is with us today and who reminds us that American art, 
in many ways, is the art of the rest of the world. Doctor Sam-Ang Sam 
and his wife, Chan Moly Sam, have also joined us today. They escaped 
from Cambodia during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and brought to America 
the gift of Cambodian court dance. It was threatened in the land of its 
birth, and it is now part of our culture, as well. With the support of 
foundations like Rockefeller, Ford, and the NEA, they are now returning 
home to introduce a new generation of Cambodians to their old culture.
    I say this to point out that our country really does benefit from 
this sort of cultural interchange, and I think we can benefit others if, 
from time to time, we provide a safe haven for cultural preservation. I 
think this is more important now than it was in the past because of the 
way the world works, as I have said. I know there are some people who 
believe that our culture has become too pervasive in the rest of the 
world. I've encountered this anxiety in every part of the world, from 
people who don't share our political system's views to those who just 
worry about the trade impact of American movies or records or other 
kinds of--or CD's. Many people are absolutely sure that because of 
globalization, pretty soon their children will be speaking American 
English, every television will be tuned to MTV, and every French movie 
will have a happy ending. [Laughter]
    And in some parts of the world, these kind of fears have fueled a 
lot of bitterness about the process of globalization. But we can't turn 
this globalization off. You know, people want to know more about each 
other. And now they have the means to do it. The Internet is the most 
powerful means of communication in all of human history.
    And I think that globalization, in the end, will be a force for 
diversity, not uniformity. A week ago I was in Vietnam, where many 
people are wondering how to open their doors while protecting their 
traditions. I pointed out that globalization is not just bringing the 
world into Vietnam, but it also is bringing Vietnam to the rest of the 
world. Films about life in Vietnam are winning awards over the globe. 
Paintings by Vietnamese artists command fortunes at international art 
shows. Fortunately, we were able to find some wonderful ones in Vietnam 
that don't yet require a fortune to buy. [Laughter] Old Vietnamese poems 
are published in America in English, Vietnamese, and in an ancient 
script that never before has come off a printing press.
    Consider the Nobel Prize in literature, for those who think the 
world is becoming homogenized. Of the first 80 prizes given out

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after 1900, only 5 went to authors outside Europe and North America. 
Seven of the last 20 prizes have gone to Asian, Latin American, and 
African authors, including our panelist Wole Soyinka, not simply because 
the good people of the Nobel Committee are trying to cast a wider net 
but because we actually do know more about one another than ever before.
    And what about this business about language being homogenized? Well, 
if you get on the Internet, you will find people all over the world 
chatting in Welsh, downloading fonts in Bengali, ordering courses in 
intensive Cherokee. With advances in translation and voice recognition 
technology, before long it will be possible for people to communicate 
instantaneously on the Internet or even on the telephone in their own 
languages. Thanks to the Internet, people with similar interests and 
outlooks can now be dispersed around the world and still form a 
community.
    I tell somebody all the time, I've got a cousin in Arkansas who 
regularly plays chess with a man in Australia. I don't know how they 
work out the time change, but this is the kind of thing that is 
happening. And it will open the avenues for more cultural, even 
subcultural, diplomacy.
    Now, we have some obligations here. We have to do more to close the 
digital divide so that the poor of the world can participate more 
readily in this sort of cultural interchange, and we are working very 
hard on that. We also have to work hard in America to make sure that our 
contributions reflect the diversity of our culture. We have supported 
public/private partnerships in recent years, for example, that have sent 
Andy Warhol exhibits to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Navajo textiles 
to Latin America--and the art exchange between regional museums in 
America and France that Elizabeth Rohatyn has recently organized.
    And I do want to support the legislation that has been introduced by 
Representative Leach, who is here, and Senator Biden to create an 
endowment to support State Department cultural exchange programs, on top 
of the funds we're already providing. This will become more and more 
important.
    So I've already said more than I meant to, but I care a lot about 
this subject. I think you should see this for what it is. It's an 
opportunity for us to learn more about each other, to understand each 
other better, to reaffirm our common humanity, and in so doing, not to 
blur the cultural lines but to highlight them in a way that promote 
peace and reconciliation and, therefore, put a real roadblock in the 
path of those who would like a 21st century dominated by culture wars, 
instead of cultural celebrations.
    Thank you very much.
    Hillary has to go, and we're giving her a cultural excused absence. 
She's going to sign copies of her new book. [Laughter]

[At this point, Secretary of State Madeline Albright made brief 
remarks.]

    The President. Well, I think we should basically talk about the 
first issue that I mentioned, which is preserving diverse cultures in a 
global economy. I don't buy the argument that we're all going to become 
homogenized, but I do believe that nations and groups within nations 
have to work hard to protect their cultures. So I would like to ask you, 
Highness, to make a few remarks on this subject and thank you for your 
work.

[At this point, His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, Imam of the Shia 
Imami Ismaili Muslims, made brief remarks. The discussion then 
continued.]

    The President. If I could just follow up a little bit on the Middle 
East to illustrate your point. One of the most successful things that's 
been done in the Middle East in the last 10 years is this Seeds of Peace 
program, which brings together Israeli children with children from all 
the Arab societies surrounding it. And they do things together; they 
work together. And if you talk to these kids, you know, the sea change 
in their attitudes that have been affected about each other, and their 
understandings of one another because of the way they have lived and 
worked together, even for brief periods of time--often, I might add, in 
the United States; they come here a lot and spend time here--is really 
stunning.

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    And the flip side of that, to make a particular cultural point, is 
the profound alienation which occurs when people believe that their 
cultural symbols are off limits, one to the other, and when even 
sometimes--in the case of the Palestinian textbooks, what they say about 
the Israelis is almost designed to create a cultural divide that will 
maintain solidarity within the society but then makes it harder and 
harder to create peace and also maximizes misunderstanding.
    The one thing that I think ought to be thought about in view of all 
these cultural conflicts that I mentioned earlier around the world is 
that the most dangerous thing that can happen in trying to--if you're 
trying to preserve peace and get people to make progress--is when both 
sides feel like perfect victims, and therefore, every bad thing that 
happens they believe happened on purpose. They cannot ever admit the 
possibility of accidents. People do screw up in politics. So bad things 
sometimes happen not by design. But if you believe that--but if you see 
this, you realize how desperately we need some cultural coming together, 
some means of reaffirmation. And so anyway, the Middle East is a classic 
example, in both good and bad ways, of the point you just made.
    I'd like to call next on Rita Dove, who was our Poet Laureate a 
couple of years ago, and she was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany. She's 
lived in Israel; she's lived in Ireland and who knows where else--I 
think France. And I think she has a unique sort of perspective on this. 
So I wanted to give you a chance to say whatever is on your mind about 
the subject.

[At this point, Ms. Dove made brief remarks.]

    The President. I don't think I can improve on that. I would like to 
now ask Yo-Yo Ma to make a few remarks. But before I do, I want to say 
how much I personally appreciate all the times we've shared these last 8 
years and the fact that you have chosen, even though many people believe 
you're the greatest living classical musician, you have chosen to spend 
an enormous part of your life in the act of cultural diplomacy as a part 
of your work, playing with Chinese musicians, with Kalahari bush people 
or, something that I particularly appreciate, your work with Mark 
O'Connor on the ``Appalachian Suite,'' which I think is one of the most 
important pieces of American music in many, many years, uniting the 
strains of classical music with American hill country music from--which 
is an important part of my heritage. So you've actually, in a way, made 
a life of cultural diplomacy, without calling it that, and I'm very 
grateful to you.

[At this point, cellist Yo-Yo Ma made brief remarks. The discussion then 
continued.]

    The President. Well, first of all, I agree with what you said, and I 
think your remarks lead me naturally into the next question, which is, 
what is the responsibility of the United States, first of all, to 
promote our culture around the world and to help to deal with something 
that His Highness, the Aga Khan, mentioned in the beginning, which is 
that there are a lot of countries with which we might have cultural 
exchanges whose artists, whose musicians, whose craftspeople literally 
can't make a living doing what they do best. And that's something that I 
think I'm going to think a lot more about. There are no royal courts to 
support such people anymore--[laughter]--and not every country has an 
economy which will support them.
    So I would like to call now on Joan Spero to speak because she has 
had an unusual career. She was our Under Secretary of State in my first 
term. She's been a vice president of American Express and is now 
president of a major foundation and, I think, has a unique perspective 
on the roles that private foundations, big corporations, and the United 
States Government can and should play in this whole area.
    So, Joan, would you mind?

[At this point, Joan E. Spero, president, Doris Duke Charitable 
Foundation, made brief remarks.]

    The President. That was very good. Let me just say one sort of 
followup point on that. I really believe that our Government and our 
foundation community have an obligation to try to deal with this point 
that you made earlier about the capacity of people in developing 
countries to make a living at their art, whatever it is.

[[Page 2939]]

    And you mentioned that, but there are all kinds of things we can do 
to help people market their music, their acting skills, their crafts 
work, their whatever, in ways that get--first of all, bring them to the 
attention of a larger audience and, secondly, get more of whatever 
income can be generated from their activity back to them in their 
communities than would otherwise be the case if they were--we waited for 
traditional things to develop. And you know, I think this is very 
important.
    One of the things that I have learned because I've had the chance to 
be President and go to so many countries and listen to so many people is 
that most of us who get where we are are there in part by accident, and 
there is somebody else with a heck of a lot of talent somewhere else 
that never even gets noticed.
    And I think it's very, very important that we think of how we can 
use our money and organizational and media access capacities to bring 
the largest number of people possible to the attention of the larger 
world, because I think that has a very important diplomatic impact. I 
think that the more people from otherwise isolated groups and cultures 
are in contact in a positive way with the rest of the world, the less 
likely we are to have debilitating wars and conflicts and isolation. So 
that's something I want to think some more about.
    I wonder if any of you on the panel or maybe Congressman Leach, who 
is a sponsor of this bill, or Senator Leahy, if any of you have any 
specific--specific points you want to make about things we ought to be 
doing here before we wrap up this section? Anybody else? Wole?

[At this point, Wole Soyinka, recipient, 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, 
made brief remarks. The discussion then continued.]

    The President. Maybe I will just close by following up on what you 
said, Wole. I believe that this should definitely be a two-way street; 
we ought to be putting out and taking in here. And I don't have much 
else to say. I never learn anything when I'm talking, only when I'm 
listening. [Laughter] Once in a great while when you're talking, you 
learn something because you didn't really know what you thought until 
you brought it out, but not very--[laughter].
    I want to thank all of you for being here. This is quite a luminous 
group we have in the White House today, and we might have had any number 
of you also on this panel. And so I want to urge you to please fully 
participate in the remainder of events. Please make the most of it and 
try to come out of this with as many specific areas of concern as you 
can.
    I thank His Highness, the Aga Khan, for starting out, because he 
said, look, here are three things you need to really work at, and I 
think we need to be thinking about this. And I will do my best to put it 
in the position to be acted upon in the weeks and months ahead. And 
again I want to thank Senator Leahy and Representative Leach for being 
here, because they're--along with Senator Hillary--are our sort of lines 
of continuity to the future American Government. [Laughter]
    But this was very interesting to me and quite moving, and I think we 
ought to close by giving our panelists another hand. [Applause]
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to actor John Lithgow; President 
Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic; Charles A. Ansbacher, principal 
guest conductor of the Sarajevo Philharmonic and conductor laureate of 
the Colorado Springs Orchestra; Stella Obasanjo, wife of President 
Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria; Sam-Ang Sam, musician, and his wife, Chan 
Moly Sam, dancer, Apsara Ensemble; Elizabeth Rohatyn, cofounder, French 
Regional and American Museum Exchange; and violinist Mark O'Connor. The 
transcript made available by the Office of the Press Secretary also 
included the remarks of First Lady Hillary Clinton, Secretary Albright, 
Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, Mr. Soyinka, Ms. Dove, Mr. Ma, Ms. Spero, and 
Minister of Culture Giovanna Melandri of Italy.