Improving US and Arab World Relations: An Interview with Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser Conducted by Michael Shank International Herald Tribune/Daily News[WEBSITE VERSION] March 15, 2007
Michael Kaiser is the President of the John F. Kennedy Center and is the organizer of the 2007 Arab Arts Symposium scheduled for Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, and the 2009 Arab Arts Festival scheduled for the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. The Arab Arts Symposium will bring together 150 arts leaders from over 16 countries to discuss best practices in arts management. The Arab Arts Festival will bring Arab artists to Washington DC to exhibit and raise awareness about Arab art, music and culture.
Michael Shank sat down with Mr. Kaiser to discuss US-Arab world relations and the critical role arts and culture can play in improving relations.
Shank: What inspired you to organize an Arab arts symposium and festival?
Kaiser: I start with the belief that Americans know very little about a lot of different kinds of people around the world. We read an awful lot in our newspapers about politics and politicians but we don’t read an awful lot about societies and people and how they think…their education, their cultures.
My belief is that it is very, very important to understand these things if you’re going to get along with other people and make peace. You have to understand them as people, not just as political entities. I believe that our role at the Kennedy Center, as the national cultural center, in part, is to explain and to educate people in this country about other people.
For example, a year and a half ago we had a very large festival about China and Chinese arts. We had 900 performers here from China for one month. I think there was a lot that was learned — that goes beyond what we read in the newspaper on the economic situations or the political situations — about what Chinese people are like and what they find beautiful or what they care about. I believe this is part of what we need to do.
The Arab Festival that we’re planning for 2009 speaks directly to my belief that there’s a tremendous lack of knowledge about Arab people, their level of education, their level of culture, their history and their interests. Again, we only read politics, so the focus of the festival is on sharing with the public an understanding about the beauty and passion and importance of Arab Culture — and the fact that there isn’t one Arab culture the same way that there isn’t just one Arab.
I think we tend to lump a whole group of people together. Moroccan culture is very different from Jordanian culture which is very different from Somali culture. And that will come across in this festival. That is where the festival comes from.
Shank: Is it new for the Arab League to be involved in cultural issues?
Kaiser: I think so. I believe that this has rarely been done at all in the Arab world, let alone at the Arab League. I went to four Arab countries last fall: Cairo, Riyadh, Amman and Damascus. And the reception I received from arts leaders and from government leaders was uniformly excellent. People were excited by [the Arts Symposium] because they feel a real need.
For me, having a healthy Arab arts environment is a very important thing. One example of this, that was very poignant for me, is when we brought the Iraqi symphony to the Kennedy Center three years ago to play with our symphony. The most common response was “we didn’t know Iraq had a symphony,” because Americans know absolutely nothing about Iraq except for the war. They don’t know anything about the people, the level of education.
When I was there I met six university presidents who were very erudite and very knowledgeable about educational theory. They had a country that was highly educated and highly cultured. We don’t really understand that in this country and it is very important that we do so that we can understand motivations and understand how people think and not ascribe some stereotypical views about other people.
Shank: Why do you think there has been such a culture gap for so many years between the United States and the Arab world?
Kaiser: I think it exists with many countries. I don’t think it’s uniquely with the Arab world. Physically we are isolated from a lot of other cultures; we’re not next to them. And I think that America is a country that’s very focused on its own achievement and its own success and may be less knowledgeable about other people. For example, if you look at all the studies about how little Americans know about geography and how little they know about languages. These are all indications that we’re a country that’s focused on our own activities and not as much on studying the rest of the world. I think that is something that we have to remediate.
Shank: How has culture impacted the way conflict is being dealt with between the US and Arab world?
Kaiser: We haven’t spent very much time understanding each other. What Arabs see of Americans is mostly our TV shows and movies, which hardly present an accurate picture of what Americans are like. And I think they lead to some stereotypes on their side, the same way what we read in the newspaper leads to stereotypes on our side.
I always use the example of the arts playing a very potent role by citing the work in South Africa of the Market Theater. They were the place where all the anti-apartheid theater was created and they exported that theater around the world. They had a dramatic effect on the way Americans and Europeans viewed South Africa because the only direct information we had about apartheid came from these works. They educated the world and they communicated to the world and played a vital role in changing the world. And that’s the power the arts can have.
The arts have the power to inform and to educate and to do more than just have a fun evening out. And I believe that’s what we need to foster, all arts organizations need to worry about that, but certainly the national cultural center has to worry about that.
Shank: Do you think if you can increase the level of awareness and appreciation of Arab culture, that there will be a correlational diminishing of negative attitudes that might exist in the US?
Kaiser: I think absolutely so. I don’t think it happens from one performance or even from one festival. But I think as you start to appreciate the education level, the beauty of creation, the passion that exists among a large number of people, it changes your view of them. If all you’re reading about is conflict, suicide bombers, wars and political strife, you get a different view, a skewed view, of what people are like in any country. And I’m sure they have a skewed view of Americans as well. And I believe we can help to address that.
My interest is more in affecting how people view people, rather than how politicians view people. And I hate to think of this as a didactic thing. I don’t want people to come to an Arab Arts Festival, or any other performance, and feel like they’re at school. But I think you absorb and you learn from being exposed. I believe the book The Kite Runner changed a gazillion people’s view of Afghanistan; people who had never been there, hadn’t thought about it, or only read the newspaper were saying “wow, these are people and they have concerns like I have concerns”. I think this is a crucial part of what we can do in the arts.
Michael Shank is the Government Relations Officer for George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.