BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN AMERICA AND ARABIA

The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations: 1996-2001

A Report

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DEVELOPING TOMORROW’S LEADERS

The National Council has no more compelling a challenge than to discover, educate, train, and develop the leadership skills of those who will manage the U.S.-Arab relationship in the future. The reason is simple. In no other way can one hope to produce what is urgently needed: American leaders who are adequately prepared to build and sustain a stronger Arab-U.S. relationship in the years ahead. To this end, the Council endeavors to offer the best and brightest among the nation’s youth a unique education and the benefits of practical leadership experience as a stepping-stone to their careers.

Context

A generation ago, there were only a handful of American academic institutions that one could attend in hopes of obtaining a solid grounding in Arab and Islamic studies pursuant to a career in U.S.-Arab relations.

Now, thanks to those who have supported the National Council, its several sister organizations, and federal as well as corporate and individual contributions to select universities, there are more opportunities than ever before for young Americans to enroll in Arabic language and area studies centers, and programs at the undergraduate level, in preparation for a possible career in U.S.-Arab relations.

Even so, the number of graduates entering the field is grossly inadequate if compared to the national need. This is in light of what the United States has at stake among the 22 Arab countries and 280 million Arabs. Given that the U.S. population exceeds 275 million, the number of truly first-rate centers of academic excellence and non-profit, non-governmental organizations that provide exceptional educational and training opportunities in this field, at fewer than a dozen all totaled, remains insufficient to what is required.

The Challenge

In order to help place America’s relationships with the region on a solid footing, much more needs to be done. Particularly lacking all across American academia are programs and activities that, from a practical and empirical perspective, focus broadly and in-depth on the Arab world as opposed to the much larger Mideast and Islamic areas.

The National Council, at its core, exists in large measure to change this. In cooperation with many others, the Council has brought to fruition several programs and activities aimed at preparing the future generation of America’s Arabists. The methodologies it uses build upon proven techniques of the past. A key additional feature is the emphasis on grounding future Arabists in the empirical realities of the region long before the field of U.S.-Arab relations becomes their career.

One supporter observed the process in action and summed it up this way. “The National Council,” he said, “is in the business of planting olive trees, not apple trees. It’s digging its roots deep. It’s nourishing its Arabist seedlings in a way that, resources permitting, should last a very long time. If it can only continue, it has the prospect of producing much good while causing no harm.”

MODEL ARAB LEAGUES

The National Council’s Model Arab League Program, its acclaimed annual high school and collegiate academic debate conferences held in conjunction with host institutions across the United States, is its flagship educational and leadership development activity.

Like nothing else, the Models are the Council’s and America’s premier means of introducing American undergraduate and high school students to Arab and Islamic culture, economics, society, and international relations. The ideal method of educating young Americans effectively about the region and the U.S.-Arab relationship would of course be to place students metaphorically in the middle of the U.S.-Arab relationship on the ground inside the region.

Hands-On Learning

Whenever possible, the Council does this. However, short of being able to do so for large numbers, the next best approach has been to enroll students in the Model Arab Leagues. This has repeatedly proven to be an effective way to instill in young Americans an abiding appreciation of how important the Arab world is to the United States, and how important it also is that Americans improve, strengthen and expand the U.S.-Arab relationship for the benefit of Americans and Arabs alike.

The Models introduce young Americans to the kinds of leadership skills that will stand them well all their lives. This is true whether the student participant enters the field of U.S.-Arab relations or virtually any other walk of life. The Models reflect and build upon a truism: in almost any area of leadership that relates to the formulation of sound public policy, little can be accomplished without the leaders themselves having a firm grasp of the issues.

Equally true is that one can at best expect only modest results in the absence of an impressive work ethic, strong communications skills, and a commitment to teamwork and coalition-building. In addition to these attributes, a mastery of parliamentary procedure and the art of compromise are perennial values and attributes held in high regard by practically all leaders. The Models are a means of instilling all these skills, character traits, and much more of value within an aspiring leader.

Educational Assessment

As a National Council Malone Faculty Fellow commented, “Nothing can replace direct experience. Enabling our students, through the Model Arab League, to experience what it is like to be a leader, and, through the Models, for them to get to participate in Arab world study-abroad opportunities, as well as to work as interns at the National Council, makes all the difference in the world.”

The Models vary from events that last from one and a half days (High School Models) to three and a half-days (University Models). In content and process, they simulate an actual Arab League summit. The summits’ agenda is an approximation of the issues that are addressed by the real League of Arab States’ heads of state and Arab foreign minister summits.

Skill-Building

Students first research the broad foreign policy issues and objectives of the Arab country they choose to represent. Then, in competition with students representing as many of the 22 Arab countries as possible, they act out in role-play fashion – in speeches, committee meetings, resolution-writing, coalition-building, and voting – what these countries’ true-to-life diplomats would likely do in an actual summit. The students perform in front of the watchful eyes of adult judges who are seasoned professionals with firsthand knowledge of the Arab world.

Delegations comprised of five to fourteen students per country have at least one delegate serve on each of seven committees. These committees are in the image of the real League of Arab States, which is headquartered in Cairo: Joint Defense, Interior Ministers, Environmental Affairs, Palestinian Affairs, and Social Affairs. Additionally, micro-summits of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Arab Economic Unity Council take place. The committees discuss and adopt their agendas using parliamentary procedures to advance their goals.

The student delegates, in the process, learn the skills of being an effective reporter and summarizer of proceedings. They sharpen their talents as keen listeners with an eye for nuance and factual accuracy, and have a chance to practice and observe the power of language, both oral and written. Just as happens in the real life of policymakers, the delegates draft resolutions, hold caucuses, and conduct debates. They build coalitions with other delegations in support of their positions. On dozens of occasions, in committee and plenary sessions, they must exercise good judgment in casting votes that are in character with how a real-life diplomat representing that country would be likely to vote on the issue under deliberation.

Recognition and Reward

At the end of a Model Arab League summit, awards are presented to outstanding delegations and delegates that have excelled in terms of a variety of criteria, most especially leadership, the degree to which they represented their country accurately, and the extent to which they demonstrated proficiency in parliamentary procedure. Among the most outstanding delegates, up to 80 become eligible for the National Council’s study programs in select Arab countries.

These educational visits enable participants in the Models and other students to further their quest for proficiency in Arab and Islamic studies in a structured academic and cultural setting in Kuwait, Morocco, Syria, or Yemen. In alternative summers, the students enrich their exposure to the issues further through service as interns at the National Council and other Arab-U.S. affairs organizations in the nation’s capital.

In these ways, by the time they graduate from university at the average age of 22, these exceptional young Americans are better prepared to serve their country and the cause of furthering the Arab-U.S. relationship than any comparable number of earlier generation Americans. They will have completed four years of practical leadership development, work experience, and academic as well as empirical exposure to the richness of Arab and Islamic culture. And they will have become familiar on a first-hand basis with the bilateral, regional, and international importance to the United States of as many as four quite different Arab countries.

The coordinators for the Model Arab League Program are Ms. Melissa Matthews and Mr. Geoff Stiltz, both of whom are alumni of the Models.

Malone Fellows in Arab and Islamic Studies

Since 1984, the National Council, through its Malone Program has provided Americans in academia, government, and business what the participants call “Exhilarating,” “Life-changing,” and “Eye-opening” experiences in select Arab countries. The Malone Fellowship is a powerful antidote to the lack of knowledge and many misunderstandings about the Arab and Islamic worlds that permeate America’s media, film industry, and halls of learning. This unparalleled experience, consisting of study visits to an Arab country lasting two weeks or more, has been building bridges of U.S.-Arab friendship, cooperation, and communication for almost two decades.

The Malone Fellowship Program is not endowed and derives its funding from foundations, individual donors, program fees, and contributions of former Fellows. The program is named in honor of Dr. Joseph J. Malone, who devoted his life to promoting better understanding between Americans and Arabs. The Fellowship provides an exceptional first-time immersion in an important Arab country, introductions to host-country academics and scholars, and the opportunity to discuss Arab world issues and Arab-U.S. relations with American and Arab scholars, policymakers, and other specialists.

The meetings and the visits to sites of cultural, historical, and developmental significance are of a caliber, so participants and hosts alike tell us, that is unequalled by any other program. As one professor who participated in the National Council’s programs in Saudi Arabia in 1997 said, “If I had any doubts about the value of personally experiencing another culture, this study visit buried them forever.”

Priority consideration in awarding the Malone Fellowship is given to applicants that have previously enabled their institutions and students to benefit from participation in the Model Arab League Program (see above). Beyond enhancement of knowledge and the U.S.-Arab relationship, the single most important value of the Fellowship is the opportunity it provides Fellows, in ongoing association with the Models, to ensure that their students – whenever possible in cooperation with the student’s school or university, and the local community’s civic, religious, and business as well as professional organizations – benefit from a similar exposure to Arab and Islamic culture.

As one of the Malone Fellows who has participated with his students in the Model Arab Leagues for a decade and a half remarked, “No academic course can teach students about the Arab world as effectively as their participation in the Model Arab League.”   As three others who participated in the Council’s programs in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia, said, “The Model Arab League stimulates interest in the Arab world as no course, however well-designed, can do. Students get into their roles and look at international issues from a completely different point of view.”

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

In addition to the programs and activities discussed above, the National Council has succeeded in developing several other opportunities to further the U.S.-Arab relationship. Each is especially adapted to particular needs of U.S. university faculty keen to see their students benefit from an Arab world study experience or an internship at the National Council before they graduate. Among the more popular of these programs are the following.

Summer in Syria Program

For more than a decade, the National Council has been privileged to conduct a seven-week Arab and Islamic Studies Program at the University of Aleppo. Led by Drs. Muhammad Ali Hourieh, Elias Samo, and Ghias Barakat, the program, in addition to emphasizing Arabic language training, provides an unparallel introduction to an Arab country with one of the oldest, richest, and most diversified cultures to be found anywhere in the world.

Syria, with its extraordinary number of ancient historical sites, its mix of ethnic and religious minorities, and the close connection between many of its people and their kinfolk living in the United States, provides as unique an introduction to the Arab world as one will find anywhere. Participants in the National Council’s Syria programs invariably return to the United States with a deep appreciation for a country and a people with a nuanced array of attributes - at once ancient and modern, urban and rural, mountain and valley, desert and sown - that seldom cease to impress the visitor.

Kuwait Studies Program

Since even before the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, the National Council explored with Kuwaiti educators the prospects for educational cooperation with public and private sector leaders. For nearly a decade, the Council has been able to offer annually up to two all-expenses-paid scholarships for American undergraduates seeking to further their Arabic language training at Kuwait University.

The University, moreover, has hosted close to 200 professors and students for study visits that introduce the participants to Kuwaiti culture and society. A common refrain from some of the professors who have participated has been, “In 1990-91, when Iraq invaded Kuwait and we proposed to liberate it by the use of force, I was one of the many who demonstrated with signs that said, ‘No blood for oil.’  Not until I came here did I realize how ignorant and arrogant I was. I will never be the same.”

Passage to Morocco Program

The National Council’s Programs in Morocco date from the mid-1990s, when the seeds were planted in association with the Moroccan offices of AMIDEAST. Although the initial program featured and was designed for faculty in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, the two Council programs that subsequently took root and subsequently flowered were quite different. One is a student program in Fes, one of the best examples of Islamic architectural preservation and urban planning to be found anywhere in the Islamic world. The other is a program for Members of Congress and select congressional staff.

Over a two year-period, the National Council took more than 70 Members of Congress and staff to Morocco. Beginning in 1996, and continuing until the present, the Council has enrolled nearly 100 American students in Arab and Islamic studies in Morocco. Of these, many have elected to continue their studies in graduate school. Legislators and students alike return to the United States with a rounded view of the rich Moroccan tapestry of what is at once an Arab, Islamic, African, Mediterranean, and Atlantic Ocean country that also happens to be America’s first and oldest Arab ally.

Washington Student Internship Program

For 15 years, the National Council has provided close to 150 internships for young Americans considering the possibility of a career in U.S.-Arab relations. The participants are placed in a variety of international affairs associations in the nation’s capital. The purpose is to expose them to the realities of real-life work in organizations dedicated to improving America’s relations with the region.

In addition to being provided a practical work experience and the chance to further develop their professional skills, the interns are exposed to numerous foreign affairs specialists who, in addition to briefing them on their responsibilities, provide counseling as to how best to pursue employment opportunities in the field.

MEDIA AND PUBLICATIONS

The National Council has long provided a range of services to the American, Arab, and other international media. Its leaders have been quoted in innumerable magazines and newspapers. Examples are: the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Arab News, Emirates News, Gulf News, Arab Times, Kuwait Times, Gulf Daily Mirror, Oman Observer, and the Times of Oman, among many others.

The National Council’s leaders have also appeared on virtually every major American television network and numerous other TV networks in the Arab world and elsewhere, including Voice of America, British Broadcasting Corporation, CNN, C-Span, Fox News, Middle East Broadcasting, Abu Dhabi TV, Bahrain TV, Oman Television, Qatar TV, Saudi TV, Tunisia TV, and Yemen TV, through which their analysis and commentary has reached millions all over the world.

The National Council has also always had a modest but highly regarded publications program. These vary from monographs, conference proceedings, country reports, and issue briefs. More recently, by far the most popular Council publication, in terms of its achieving an average of eight new subscribers every day, is GulfWire, a free weekly e-mailed newsletter.

GulfWire, or GW, is a service of (1) Ryan and Associates, headed by Patrick W. Ryan, formerly a National Council Vice-President as well as a Malone Fellow, and (2) Dr. Anthony, the Council’s President and CEO, who is the publisher of record and a frequent author of analyses that appear in GW.

GW is co-produced and distributed in association with the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee. For several years, GW has provided fast-breaking news, analysis, and hard-to-come-by context and perspective on issues, events, and trends in the GCC region, the Gulf as a whole, and the broader Arab, Mideast, and Islamic world areas.

Among GulfWire’s nearly 3,000 regular subscribers, who share it with as many as four times that number among their colleagues, are U.S. Administration and Congressional leaders, corporate strategists, academics, and an array of foreign affairs specialists and practitioners in research and public policy institutes throughout the United States and abroad.

For the past two years, Director of Communications Neal Lendenmann and specialists in the public and private sector have teamed with Dr. Anthony and, especially, Mr. Ryan and Ms. Connie Trisdale, to produce a steady stream of Council’s publications designed to contribute to the national dialogue on the U.S.-Arab relationship.

Among the many accolades received by GulfWire on a regular basis, there is this one from a World Bank official: “GulfWire is worthy many thousands of dollars to subscribers.”  From another, “What GulfWire carries would be hard to find anywhere else.”  And another: “Each issue is packed with very useful information for us ‘regional watchers’ outside the Washington, D.C. Beltway. Keep up the good work!”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Note: In a subsequent update of this Report, the National Council will list its contributors during the period under review.

IN MEMORIAM

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