[spectre] British Council quits Europe to woo Muslim world

[Andreas Broeckmann]

Outcry as British Council quits Europe to woo Muslim world

Helena Smith, Athens
Sunday August 5, 2007
<http://www.observer.co.uk/>The Observer

It was the first visible sign of a cultural 
earthquake. Last week 8,000 books - the entire 
literary heritage of the British Council in 
Greece - were carted off to the English 
department of Athens University. Many of them are 
works by British hellenists, including poets such 
as Byron, or celebrate those who forged the bond 
between Britain and Greece.

It is not just in Athens that the British Council 
is winding down. Across Europe, half a century of 
promoting British culture and values is slowly 
being wound down in favour of a huge increase in 
funding for activities in the Middle East and 
Muslim world.


It is a switch that has been greeted with horror 
by writers who had successfully campaigned to 
prevent the closure of the council's Athenian 
Library in 1997. That high-profile campaign 
prevented the council's European libraries being 
replaced with computerised 'informational 
centres' across the continent. But this time the 
British Council has been in no mood to back down 
- 2007 is not 1997, it says, despite mounting 
criticism over policies that have come to be seen 
as smacking of cultural imperialism and a 
catastrophic waste of UK taxpayers' money.

Instead, funding of EU countries is being reduced 
by £20 million - a tenth of the body's total 
government grant - which is being reallocated to 
the Middle East as the council attempts to bridge 
the 'widening gap of trust' between the UK and 
Muslim states.

Iraq, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are among 'high 
priority' regions that will also receive a 50 per 
cent boost in support for projects to steer 
Muslims away from extremism. And as the council's 
physical presence in Europe is cut back, public 
access buildings, some recently renovated at 
spectacular cost, will close.

'You cannot succeed unless you enter into risky 
areas and are prepared to deal with them,' Cathy 
Stephens, acting director of British Council 
operations, told The Observer. 'We are in 
transformational mood,' she said, acknowledging 
that, while security is an issue, the ultimate 
aim is to win over the hearts and minds of men 
and women in predominantly young populations 
across the Arab world.

'We will, of course, tailor our programmes ... 
and if it is felt we are doing something wrong in 
those countries, we will listen.'

Given the threat of terrorism, the British 
Council believes the overhaul is overdue. The new 
strategy will not only prove beneficial to 
Britain's long-term security and prosperity but 
perfectly upholds the council's mission of 
'increasing appreciation of the UK's ideas and 
achievements overseas'.

'We want more impact, better results and 
interaction,' says Stephens. 'Books and buildings 
are inert resources that [entail] fixed costs and 
a lot of maintaining and staffing. And the 
internet has enabled much better access to books.'

But not all are convinced. Authors who have long 
viewed the council as a conduit to wider 
audiences in Europe, are appalled.

'This whole policy is misconstrued from top to 
bottom,' complains Charles Arnold-Baker, author 
of The Companion to British History. 'We are 
going somewhere where we can't succeed and 
neglecting our friends in Europe who wish us 
well. The only people who are going to read our 
books in Beirut or Baghdad are converts already.'

Failure to endear hostile Arab populations will 
be exacerbated, opponents claim, not only by the 
logistics of maintaining branches in danger zones 
but by the success the policy will have in 
cutting off the next generation of Anglophiles in 
Europe. The Institut Français and Goethe-Institut 
are both expanding and replenishing libraries 
Europe-wide.

Speaking from her home in Dorset, Fay Weldon, a 
vociferous supporter of the earlier campaign to 
prevent the closure of the council's libraries, 
and an author who has long toured with the 
council, argues that women fiction writers will 
be especially hard hit because they will not be 
read in those closed patriarchal societies with 
tiny educated elites. 'I hope the Islamic world 
is grateful,' she adds. 'I doubt that it will be.'

'What do they hope to do? Win hearts and minds by 
sending in rappers to Saudi Arabia and the Middle 
East?' she asked. 'We're trying to impose our 
culture and values on the culture of countries 
that don't share them, in the extraordinary 
conviction that we are right.

'All of this feels like somebody's bright idea 
that has not been properly thought out,' says 
Weldon. 'The British Council should examine its 
own motives, attitudes and indeed cultural 
imperialism, because what they are doing is 
totally short-sighted.'