There’s probably no such thing as soft power any longer
Over the past five years, the West has worried that India is losing its values, by which it means that India is not trying to imitate the West. Even despots are wondering what is up with India. Every country wants other countries to have Western values. India does not seem to care about its image in general, but in some regards, it clearly does. So, now and then, it contemplates using something called ‘soft power.’
A nation’s soft power is usually a bit of weird overrated food, and a bit of song-anddance by mediocre artists who are close to the establishment, all in the hope that the display would make the world think highly of the nation. The concept of soft power presumes that people in Belfast would eat some
biryani and think India is wonderful. There is indeed such a thing as soft power. Just that I don’t think governments have much to do with it. For instance, according to my taxi-driver journalism in the Maldives, people there seem to have no affection at all for India, politically, except when they speak of the Chinese. But many of them love Hindi films. I’ve not even heard of some of the films they go on about. I do not believe that they have developed any affection for India because of their love for Bollywood. The Indian film star is distinct from the Indian government. Hindi film stars may even be popular in many Asian countries precisely because they are not from the government.
A few weeks ago, news broke that eight Indian Navy vets were facing the death penalty in Qatar on espionage charges. When they were released, there was a rumour that India had requested Shah Rukh Khan to persuade Qatar to spare their lives. He vehemently denied this, but when I first heard it, it struck me as probable. Even so, I do not believe that the popularity of Shah Rukh Khan or Bollywood has enhanced India’s image. Bollywood cannot sell India. In Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time
in Hollywood, Bruce Lee is portrayed as a garrulous clown. Unable to bear him a Caucasian man picks up Bruce Lee and flings him against a car. In response to this disrespect, China banned the film. Never has China shown so much love for an American. For that was what Bruce Lee was; born in America, an American and a citizen of British Hong Kong. The world loved Bruce Lee thinking he was Chinese. The world loved him without loving China.
When organic popular culture can’t make a nation endearing, what chance does government-issue soft power have? Soft power has altered global perceptions of only two nations. Britain and the US. But even that was a long time ago; such things not happen today.
Britain not only befriended the regions it plundered, it also somehow made them read its playwrights, novelists and insufferable philosophers.
It even inspired people to use the term ‘British humour’ and pretend they know what it is.
All this created the foundation of a powerful idea that the West is a moral force, and that it is deeply sorry for all the colonizing it did. In reality, the West is a way of speaking, of articulating the right things, which has infected the elites in most nations. The Western moral compass was highly influential in the previous generation, but it was a bit too noble to survive the democratization of opinion.
For many decades now, Britain has been replaced by the US as the largest exporter of culture, even though, like Britain, it doesn’t have a half-decent cuisine. Hollywood, pop culture, black sugary drinks and buns that can kill humans made America endearing. Probably because the American government was not directly involved. It is probable that the Central Intelligence Agency did use culture to fight its battles by triggering moral agitations in other countries or by translating, publicizing and canonizing Russian writers who made Russia look horrible.
The most influential soft power of America and Britain was their independent news media. It was influential because the morality of American journalism mostly matched the propaganda of the US government. So America never needed ‘state media,’ unlike Russia or China.
In a world that is not so naive anymore, even Western soft power does not work. Yet, many governments have torturous programmes to promote their middling culture with the hope that the world will hold inaccurate and flattering views of them. There is a widely perceived success story, though.
There is much talk about how the South Korean government promoted its ‘soft power’ by amplifying K-pop and soap operas. This compliment is odd, because K-pop is an imitation of Western pop. And Asians and Latin Americans probably know that melodramatic Korean TV series are not unique to Korea. Even if it is true that South Korea manipulated millions of foreigners into enjoying Western culture masquerading as Korean, how has it improved perceptions of Korea? If anything, Western interest in Korea attracted foreign journalists who inevitably did those ‘underbelly’ stories. The globalization of ‘Korean culture’ also inspired a film called which may seem Korean to foreigners but was meant for a ‘global’ audience. And ‘global’ we know usually does not include Ethiopia or Sri Lanka. was designed for the West that had got curious about Korea and it showed South Korea in very poor light.
The reason why culture is unremarkable PR for a nation is that all cultures are fascinating in moderation, and people can only take foreign culture in moderation. Actually, people can barely tolerate their own culture.
It was anyway a mistaken notion for the most part but its very existence in recent times has been in doubt