Posted By Nadia Bilbassy-Charters Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 6:36 PM
Who said
that capturing hearts and minds in the Muslim world is mission impossible? It's
just that the United States
hasn't figured out the right way to do it. Sometimes, it seems the U.S. government still thinks that public diplomacy
is exchange students and a few diplomats who can speak Arabic and struggle on
satellite television in the region to explain U.S. foreign policy.
Welcome to
the power of the stars! I am not talking about the ones in the sky, but rather
a handful of good-looking blond and dark Turkish movie stars who are taking the
Arab world by storm. Four-hundred years after a nasty occupation of Arab land
by the forefathers of these young Turks, the Arab world is embracing Turkey, opening its living rooms and flocking
around their television sets to watch over 140 episodes of second-rate Turkish
soap operas that don't even do well in Turkey itself.
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