Ethan Casey writes on the perception of Pakistan in the US and processes that friends of Pakistan in the US are exploring so that the West may see other faces of Pakistan.

This past weekend I flew across North America twice in three days, in order to be a panelist at an all-day workshop in New York. "Brand Pakistan: Developing & establishing a positive brand" was conceived and organised by the Association of Pakistani Professionals, a US-based group founded after the World Trade Centre attack to help foster more accurate and constructive coverage of Pakistan in the Western media.

The panel was moderated by Adil Najam, a journalist who is now a professor in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Panellists included Mahreen Khan, former host of the BBC World show "Question Time Pakistan" and now Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's media advisor, who flew from Islamabad to take part; Danny Schechter, executive editor of MediaChannel.org; and Robin Thompson, senior branding advisor at Landor Associates.

I was invited because my travel book Alive and Well in Pakistan aspires to humanise Pakistanis for a Western readership and to bridge the gulf in understanding and perspective between the West and the Muslim world -- as I also try to do weekly in this column. More than 100 Pakistani expatriates of all ages and walks of life attended and participated in the brand-building exercise in the afternoon.

To kick things off, each panelist was asked to speak for about five minutes. "We don't give ourselves enough credit for what's good in our country," said Mahreen Khan. "We need as a country to have a debate about how we want to be portrayed." She also recommended being assertive in complaining when media coverage is unfair. "Editors are human beings as well," she said. "They think twice next time (if they get letters)."

"We're not just up against hostility -- we're up against ignorance," said Danny Schechter. "Credible communication has to rest on a basis of understanding. It's about respect, ultimately."

Robin Thompson's comments were the ones that were most to the point of the workshop. "Part of the process of branding is to decide where you are and where you want to be," he said. "And you've got to accentuate the positive and reduce -- not necessarily hide -- the negative. Branding at a national level used to be very simple: you had a flag, you had an anthem, you had an airline. What's happened since then is that multiplicity of media has happened. There are literally thousands of ways of communicating. You have to decide: what is the 'brand platform' that you want to create and build upon? Branding is just about communicating. But it's one of the early things that you want to get right. What branding can do, if it's built correctly on the right platform, is really about the future. It's built on the basis of consultation, just as you're doing today."

Predictably, Mahreen Khan took some heat for representing the government of Pakistan, but she spoke eloquently and persuasively. "The reason I think you should do this largely on your own is that when governments get involved, politics gets involved," she said.

When the panelists were asked to name three things we would have people do to help Pakistan improve its brand, I stressed digital media -- the Web, email, podcasts -- as creative and inexpensive ways to bypass mainstream news outlets, and the importance of a "do-it-yourself" attitude; I urged Pakistanis to be assertive, like Indians, Jews and Cuban-Americans, rather than waiting to be covered fairly and only reacting and complaining; and to seek and seize opportunities to influence individual Americans face to face, one on one.

After lunch, we broke into smaller groups and did classic SWOT analyses -- strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats -- on the Pakistan brand, and each table appointed a spokesperson to report its brainstorms. Here are a few:

• An annual Pakistan mela or Pakistan week, to be observed and promoted by all Pakistani groups in the US.

• Inviting non-Muslims to break the fast during Ramazan, celebrate Eid, etc. "It should be the duty of all Pakistanis to at least do that once a year," said one attendee.

• One table made what I thought was the brilliant suggestion of holding free or subsidized clinics for Americans without health insurance, staffed by volunteer Pakistani doctors.

• Visible involvement in American civic life: "Feel that this is your home too, and get involved. Make your voice heard and get involved in American issues, not just Pakistani issues.

• More effective promotion of Pakistani visual and performing arts: "We don't get the same publicity [as India] because we don't have Bollywood. We need a Paki-wood, or something like that."

• The government of Pakistan should have public relations training for all its officials working or travelling abroad.

The AOPP plans to hold similar workshops later this year in Washington DC, Chicago and Los Angeles. Visit www.aopp.org for updates.


The writer is the author of Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time. Email: ethan@ethancasey.com. This article first appeared in The News.

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Posted by collective at June 12, 2006 07:44 AM