A new US magazine aiming to build bridges with young Arabs is slammed by critics and ignored by readers. Gihan Shahine sifts through the magazine for reasons In an attempt to find answers for the most widely-asked question since 9/11 -- "Why do they hate us?" -- the US government has been pouring millions of dollars into a media campaign geared towards winning the "hearts and minds" of Arab and Islamic societies. The campaign -- including media ads, radio and television channels, and other means of cultural exchange -- is aimed at polishing the US's image in the region, and counterbalancing rising anti-American sentiments, which have reached an unprecedented peak since the US war on Iraq. Hi magazine, a glossy monthly that hit the newsstands of 14 Arab countries in July, was intended as a step in that direction. The US State Department produced the magazine, with an annual budget of about $4.2 million, to create a dialogue with young adults in the Arab world. "Since 9/11, we've been seeing polls indicating that there was a certain amount of hostility towards the US," Ambassador Christopher Ross, the State Department's special advisor on public diplomacy, who was part of the team that launched Hi, told Al-Ahram Weekly in a telephone interview. "It was for this and other reasons that we wanted to strengthen our dialogue with people in the Arab world and increase understanding of the US. Hi magazine is one element of that broad effort." The magazine is produced in Arabic and sells for LE5 in Egypt and nine Riyals in Saudi Arabia. Despite that relatively cheap price, the magazine's trendy layout and high quality photography have not done much to attract its targeted readers -- young adults between the ages of 18 and 35. Ross said that 50,000 copies of the first issues were printed, but that distributors had yet to provide feedback on how many copies have actually been sold in various countries. "But there has been a good response," Ross told the Weekly. "I've seen the magazine on newsstands and in the hands of readers. Up till now we've received comments that span the range from great enthusiasm to severe criticism. It's too early to draw a conclusion, but the feedback suggests that at least some young adults find the magazine useful." According to newsstand dealers' accounts, however, Ross's statement is overly optimistic. The magazine is not widely available, and newspaper vendors say Hi hardly sells. "Only a few students have bought the first issues of the magazine," said a newspaper vendor standing in front of the American University in Cairo (AUC), as he pointed to the dusty stacks of unsold copies of Hi. Another dealer said that, "nobody is interested in buying the American magazine." "You can take the whole pile if you want," the vendor joked. "Nobody wants to buy it, anyway." Layla El-Rifai, a high school student at the Narmer American school who bought one issue, said that neither she nor her friends "will ever buy the magazine again". El-Rifai described Hi as being "too heavy". She said she would rather read other "fluffy, yet entertaining, magazines, than go for such silly US publicity like Hi, which does not have any credibility". El-Rifai scoffed at the magazine's claim that "America is the melting pot for different cultures -- what is that supposed to mean to us? It's too naive. We already know much more about the US lifestyle than this magazine shows, but it seems like the US does not understand our culture and mentality." Hi magazine has drawn the same kind of criticism generated by Radio Sawa, a pop music station featuring news from a US perspective aimed at countering what the US perceives as biases in Arab media. Sawa, which started in 2002, was similarly launched as part of the US campaign to create dialogue with young Arabs. Just like Sawa, critics see Hi as "soft-sell propaganda", the apolitical content of which fails to bridge any gaps with Arabs. Amongst the magazine's offerings thus far have been lengthy features portraying the United States as a haven for Arab students, who have been able to enjoy freedom of thought and gain valuable scientific experience. The magazine has also highlighted the ways in which the US has been a springboard to fame for Arab sportsmen, comedians and musicians, who present their first-person account of how they managed to capture the American market. Yemeni Khaled Isa'aq, for example, told the magazine that he found "Americans to be very tolerant and accepting of religious and ethnic differences." Lebanese student Zahra Al-Habashi described her experience with the international feminist community, "where she exchanged views with women from 40 different countries". Roni Saqalli, a Lebanese basketball player, discussed how he rose to fame in Miami and New York. The magazine has also attempted to win over its desired audience by covering subjects like matchmaking Web sites, and providing tips on how to deal with in-laws. At the end of each feature, readers are encouraged to provide their own feedback. "The magazine's wilfully ingenuous tone and mostly fluffy content make it tempting to dismiss," wrote Chris Toensing, the editor of the Washington-based Middle East Report, in an opinion piece in Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper. "Do editors really imagine the average Egyptian will spend five pounds to read about sand-boarding, when he could buy good American cigarettes instead?" Prominent Al-Ahram columnist Salama Ahmed Salama described Hi magazine as being -- just like Sawa, -- "useless, since they [both] fail to answer important questions regarding the US presence in Iraq and the US's Israeli-biased policies". Salama said the magazine "is too naive and superficial to bridge any gaps, not even cultural ones". According to Salama, Hi is "similar to dozens of other Arab magazines presenting trivial material on pop stars for unpoliticised youths". Adel Hammouda, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly Sawt Al-Umma newspaper, agreed with Salama that, "Hi magazine is already off point since Egyptians are already widely exposed to American culture via different media channels." Hammouda said, "Arab youths already like American culture but are seriously at odds with US foreign policy." He said the US underestimated Arab minds when it "naively thought it would win over young adults by presenting them with pop music and a magazine typical of communist propaganda that one usually discards without even opening". Although "Egyptian youths may not be politically well-read," Hammouda argued, "they have formed views regarding US Middle East policy," which he said was reflected in the massive participation of young people in recent anti-war protests. "The whole US media campaign shows the American inability to understand Arab culture and mentality -- in the same way the US failure to manage post-war Iraq," reveals this as well, Hammouda said. Hi's editors, however, were unapologetic about the apolitical content of the magazine, although, according to Ross, they "encourage feedback, which they take very seriously, and will make adjustments accordingly". Ross said he was not sure whether "the young Arab man in the street is interested in politics, but if we find heavy demand for issues on US policy, we will certainly take it into consideration". Having said that, Ross insisted that, "there are many other channels discussing policy issues in the media." Although conceding that almost none of the US media channels discussing policy issues are specifically geared to Arabs, Ross argued that "Arabs can still get the US perspective on political issues through the Arab media coverage of press conferences with the president or the US secretary of state." "Not every single thing that comes out of the US must talk about those issues," Ross told the Weekly. "Plenty is there to help create a dialogue on policy. Hi was deliberately designed to supplement that policy dialogue by going into issues that other media ventures never talk about." In an introductory paragraph to the magazine's first edition, Hi's editors explained that Arabs usually perceive American lifestyle via popular stars like Michael Jordan and Madonna, who present only a fraction of the large, diverse, multi-race social fabric of the United States. By presenting the real stories of "other Americans who live an ordinary simple life away from the lights of Hollywood", the editors hoped to "introduce the real face of America". Ross said that, "anyone watching American movies and thinking that America is nothing but violence and sex is wrong. And so we thought of explaining American life in a more accurate way, indicating points of common ground where the American experience might be useful to young people in the Arab world." That, Ross insisted, does not necessarily mean Hi is all about "US propaganda". According to Ross, "we're trying to show a more balanced picture by accentuating the positive in the face of all the negative that appears on television and in the movies. We leave it up to the individual to form their own balances of the good and the bad, by getting exposed to all different kinds of mass media. But we also don't shy away from discussing bad sides as well as good ones." Although many critics think the magazine is too naive to "be anything other then an exercise in brainwashing", Toensing would not dismiss the magazine as "simply mindless happy talk", Salama agreed, saying, "the US media campaign may still be premature but the Americans are not giving up. Knowing that the campaign is geared towards immature youngsters, we have to at least study the effects of that campaign before we let the US mess with the minds of our youths." Ross had previously been quoted in the Washington Post as saying that Hi was "a long-term way to build a relationship with people who will be the future leaders of the Arab world", and that "it's good to get them in a dialogue while their opinions are not fully formed on matters large and small." By saying this, Toensing said, "Ross has unscrambled the inner voice of Hi." According to Toensing, "it is that of an adult setting the ground rules for an adolescent. The Hi editors are saying 'Why have a dialogue on such issues as US Middle East policy, which, after all, is not up for discussion? We've had plenty of dialogue with Arabs about the subject, anyway. Learn to accept what you cannot change.'" This "subtext beneath a smiling face" is why Toensing speculated that Hi magazine would not be successful in the Middle East. According to Toensing, "only the State Department could have [come up with] a magazine so purportedly apolitical, and yet whose message is so essentially political" at the same time.
