Whatever Happened To Cultural Diplomacy?

FYI - I am working on a documentary project, titled CAMP UNITY, about a really amazing cultural diplomacy project that American Voices is implementing in Iraqi Kurdistan this summer. In July, 400 talented Iraqi youth will travel across their war-torn nation and converge upon peaceful and prosperous Kurdistan to study with eight American music, dance and drama teachers at the Unity Performing Arts Academy 2008.

Arabs and Kurds, Sunni and Shia, Christian and Muslim, will all participate in the 20-day educational event which will culminate in gala concerts held in Iraqi communities. The academy will offer intensive, high quality study opportunities to students and professional musicians, actors and dancers at all levels of advancement. Classical, symphonic, Jazz and popular styles of music, Hip Hop and Broadway dance and theater arts will be the primary subjects of the curriculum. Students will be provided opportunities and access through full scholarships covering travel, accommodation and tuition costs. Artists from all over Iraq will work together, respect their differences and collaborate with the American Staff to create a unified performance piece.

The CAMP UNITY film project will document the events of the Unity Academy 2008 with the aim of raising international awareness of music, dance, and theater's ability to bring hope to nations isolated by current conflicts and work as a catalyst for peace, unification, and cultural understanding. To find out more about the documentary, and ways you can support the production, please go to: http://www.indiegogo.com/CAMPUNITY
Or check out the Soulbird Music Project website: http://www.soulbird.org/

You are on target - once again - with your comments on the USIA and the Bush Administration State Department. As a news broadcaster with the Voice of America (which used to be part of USIA), I have witnessed close up the damage done by the elimination of the USIA and to my own agency. It started with the ill-advised Clinton move ("reinventing government") and accelerated with the ideologically-motivated Bushes. Cultural diplomacy is gone, USIA is gone and is the Voice of America as the world has known it, is nearly gone. And people scratch their heads and wonder why America is getting kicked in the teeth at every turn by the rest of the world. It's not hard to figure out.