How Citizen Diplomacy Broke Through the Iron Curtain

[Zenaan Harkness]

With the endless NATO approach to Russia's borders, Poland and Baltic
states putting bullseyes on their foreheads with America's supposedly
"anti" ballistic missile "shield", endless anti Russian MSM propaganda and
known psychopathic criminals in charge of most (or all) of the western
ICBM nuclear bomb arsenal from USA to UK, and what looks on the face of it
to be pretty serious ongoing escalations as we speak, the following is I
say quite apt for the times, a good reminder that the stereotypes (Russian
state is repressive, Putin's a fascist, Russians are drunkards and madmen
all the way down) fail in the face of meeting actual fellow humans, with
their own families, mothers, grandfathers, children, hopes, tragedies and
loves.

We are all human.



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How Citizen Diplomacy Broke Through the Iron Curtain
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Lessons-for-Peace-from-Bac-by-David-Swanson-Peace_Peace_Peace-Activism_Peace-Advocacy-Activism-160603-97.html
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/lessons-peace-back-ussr/ri14805

One American woman determined to visit the USSR ignored US government
warnings and established more contacts and learned more about the country
than US officials had in decades
David Swanson

In the early 1980s almost nobody from the United States traveled to the
Soviet Union or vice versa. The Soviets wouldn't let anybody out, and good
Americans were disinclined to visit the Evil Empire. But a woman in
California named Sharon Tennison took the threat of nuclear war with the
seriousness it deserved and still deserves. She got a group of friends
together and asked the Russian consulate for permission to visit Russia,
make friends, and learn.

Russia said fine. The U.S. government, in the form of the FBI and USAID,
told them not to go, warned that they would not be permitted to move
freely once there, and generally communicated that they, the U.S.
government employees, had internalized their own propaganda. Tennison and
company went anyway, had a wonderful experience, and spoke at events with
slide shows upon their return, thus attracting many more people for the
next trip.



Now it was Tennison's turn to brief the flabbergasted and ignorant U.S.
government staff who had virtually no actual knowledge of Russia beyond
what she gave them. This was back in the day when President Ronald "Is
this a film or reality?" Reagan said that 20 million dead Americans would
be acceptable in a war. Yet the so-called intelligence so-called community
didn't know its assets from its elbows. War as a "last resort" was being
considered without having considered literally any other resorts. Someone
had to step in, and Sharon Tennison decided she'd try.

Those first trips took courage, to defy the U.S. government, and to
operate in a Soviet Union still monitored by a nasty KGB. But the
Americans went with friendship, were generally permitted to go wherever
they wanted, and encountered friendship in return. They also encountered
knowledge of cultural differences, the influences of history, political
and social habits both admirable and lamentable. They became, in fact, a
bridge between two worlds, experts on each for the other.

They expanded their work as Gorbachev came to power and the USSR opened
up. They hired staff and opened offices in both countries. They sponsored
and facilitated all variety of exchanges from art schools to Rotary clubs
to police officers to environmentalists. They began bringing Russians to
the United States as well as the reverse. They spoke all over the United
States, even -- in some examples Tennison gives in her book The Power of
Impossible Ideas -- converting gung-ho members of the U.S. weapons
industry into volunteers and staff (in one case a man lost his job at
General Dynamics as penalty for associating with them, but this freed him
to more closely associate).

Tennison's organization worked on sister cities, citizen diplomacy,
alcoholics anonymous, and economic development. The latter would, over the
years, become increasingly central and certainly focused on privatization
and Americanization in a manner that might well be criticized. But it was
not U.S. citizen diplomats who created the oligarchs of the 1990s or any
culture of oligarch admiration. In fact, Tennison and her philanthropists
made grants to Russians dependent on their making donations to others,
working to build a culture of philanthropy. Alcoholics Anonymous can also
be criticized, of course, but this was an effort to assist Russians with a
real problem, not to threaten them with nuclear annihilation. All of these
projects built relationships that have lasted and that have influenced
U.S. policy for the better.

Through the 1990s, the projects evolved to include food and financial
donations, orphanages, aid modeled on the Marshall Plan's Productivity
Tours, the creation of urban gardens and sustainable agriculture, and
numerous business-training initiatives. Tennison met Vladimir Putin before
he rose to power. She also met and advised top officials in the U.S.
government. She accepted huge grants from USAID, the agency that had
advised her never to begin her work. Of course, USAID has been involved in
coups and hostile propaganda around the world, and a closer look at that
problematic association might have been helpful in The Power of Impossible
Ideas. But the work Tennison describes was all for the better, including
taking U.S. Congressional leaders to dine in ordinary Russian homes. (I
wonder how many current U.S. Congress members have done that.)

I can't possibly recount all the amazing stories in Tennison's book, which
lives up to its vague and extravagant title; I strongly recommend you read
it yourself. The critical development in the later chapters is the
diversion Tennison encountered between reality and U.S. media. She found
Putin to be a force for reconciliation, and the U.S. media to be intent on
demonization -- at least from the moment that Russia refused to
participate in attacking Iraq in 2003.

Putin had tried to partner with the United States, challenging the demands
of Russian hardliners. He allowed the U.S. to use Russian bases in Central
Asia. He overlooked the United States withdrawing from the ABM treaty. He
accepted NATO expansion right to Russia's border. He supported, up to a
point, the U.S. "war on terrorism." Washington didn't care.

    "During the 2000s," writes Tennison, "I watched as the reservoir of
    goodwill from the Gorbachev/Reagan years evaporated." In 2004 the
    State Department cut off its funding for Tennison's work. In 2006 the
    Council on Foreign Relations produced a report hostile toward Russia.
    That same year, Russia gave the United States the 10-story-tall
    monument that stands in Bayonne, New Jersey, but it was too late to
    have the U.S. media inform many people of it. In 2007, the U.S. was
    pushing to get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Now, following the
    Ukrainian coup, the U.S. is seeking "partnerships" with NATO for those
    nations. The U.S. also announced its plans to put Ronnie's "Star Wars"
    into Poland and the Czech Republic, later changed to Poland and
    Romania.

Finally, Putin began pushing back, warning against aggression toward
Russia. In 2007, Tennison brought a group of 100 Russians to Washington,
D.C., to speak to Congress. But the hostility only increased. (By 2016
Pentagon staff would be openly saying (
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/army-internal-fight-russia-defense-budget-213885
) the motivation of this hostility is bureaucratic and profit-driven.) In
2008, Tennison and others in her organization ( http://ccisf.org/ )
launched a blog ( http://russiaotherpointsofview.com/ ) to correct bad
U.S. media. But with tensions growing ever worse (
http://davidswanson.org/node/5151 ), Tennison has lately returned to where
she started and begun taking groups of interested Americans to visit
Russian cities and get to know members of the demonized foreign land.
These trips are as badly needed as they were in the 1980s, though they may
require less courage. In fact, what seems to me to require the most
courage, or the greatest delusion, is to not participate in this
potentially world-saving project.