American Cultural Center in Jakarta Reaches Out
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On the third floor of a shopping mall here, around the corner from a Gap Kids and a Wedgwood china outlet, a new tenant is busily promoting what is perhaps the world’s biggest brand: America.
The tenant, called @america, represents the United States government’s first attempt at creating a full-fledged cultural center since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A high-tech, interactive operation heralded as the digital-age successor to the venerable American Cultural Center, it is also American public diplomacy’s latest effort to win over young foreigners, especially in Muslim countries.
Thousands of high school and college students have been bused in from schools in Jakarta, the capital, and its outskirts since @america’s opening in December. Just before five members of Congress dropped by recently, the center was filled with 118 students from Islamic Senior High School No. 4. The technology on display — a giant, supercharged version of Google Earth called Liquid Galaxy, scores of iPads that are available to test, interactive monitors explaining Black History Month — thrilled the teenagers.
It was unclear whether the center had changed their perceptions of the United States, though. [...]
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“It doesn’t matter what they think of the United States — ‘Do you hate us? Do you love us? Are you somewhere in between?’ — we want as many people as possible to visit this place,” said Matt McGowan, 36, an American from upstate New York whose company, PT Ganesha Aggies Jaya, has been contracted to run the center.
The State Department’s under secretary for public diplomacy, Judith A. McHale, described @america as the “first of a new generation of American cultural centers.” Scot Marciel, the American ambassador to Indonesia, said the center “was not necessarily meant to push a particular message.”
“Frankly, one of our big challenges here is that many Indonesians are a little bit wary,” he said. “They’re not quite sure what to expect about the United States. So the more we can expose them to the reality of the United States, including its flaws, I think that helps change perceptions in a positive way.”
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