Cultural Diplomacy

de Frans A. M. Alting von Geusau

The peaceful collapse of the Soviet totalitarian, communist system has been a watershed of historic proportions in Europe and the world. In 1989, unexpectedly, Communism and the Cold War were behind us, they were bad and should be forgotten. The immediate post-1989 world presented itself as a new era of organised forgetting, as neither East nor West were interested in examining the prolonged period of acquiescence in absurdities. The Berlin Wall, paramount symbol of absurdity, had to be erased from the face of the earth and the memory of the people. Only much later have we become aware how much the heritage of repression and division still dominates our thinking. The principal organisations of Western and European cooperation have been enlarged Eastward, but the fruits of peaceful, spiritual revolution have turned sour. Far too little has changed for the better and far too many old habits have survived.0For the question asked in this volume: Is bilateral cultural diplomacy waging war with other means? There still is no good answer. The surprise of 1989 has apparently paralyzed policies thereafter. Despite resounding declarations and non-binding resolutions on a new order, there was no vision, no strategy and no clear purpose. The basic approach was?more of the same?. Cultural diplomacy had no priority and budgets were cut in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.