World Citizens Use Web to Weigh In on U.S. Foreign Policy

Since the U.S. presidential election will affect people around the world, shouldn’t everyone have a vote?

A handful of Web-based groups are trying to at least give citizens of other countries a voice.

“The World Speaks” is a loosely linked constellation of five international websites that discovered they had converged on the same idea: letting people talk to Americans through the Internet about the effects of U.S. foreign policy on the world.

The Netherlands-based www.theworldvotes.org gives each registered member a mock vote in the U.S. election, with the results to be announced Nov. 2. More than 10,000 people have signed up -- the majority from Europe and about 200 from Africa.

An article on the site, republished from the Yale Daily News, says that each U.S. citizen’s vote counts for 20 others who are affected by U.S. policy but not represented.

“The United States has a military presence in approximately 140 countries around the world,” Nick Robinson wrote in the essay. “It decides if and how AIDS drugs will be administered in Africa. It pushes for the privatization of energy in India while shaping land reform in Tajikistan.” The U.S. president’s “power is dramatic and sweeping,” he said.

On other sites -- such as www.earthtoamerica.org, www.opendemocracy.net and www.theworldspeaks.net -- “global citizens” debate whether they are beneficiaries or victims of U.S. policies and whether they would prefer to have some other nation be the world’s policeman.

Mawala Kabanga of the Republic of Congo used www.voices04.org as a vehicle to beg the U.S. not to neglect Africa. “If the world was your house, would you accept to leave one room messy and another one clean? By your will, the world turns.”

One site, www.talktoUS.org, invites people in other countries to send a message in a 30-second video or audio clip. The topics are not just focused on the election, but on perceptions of the United States and how U.S. policies affect their lives.

In one video clip showing a Beijing bus stop that tanks rumbled by on their way to Tiananmen Square in 1989, a 30ish man said that U.S. interventions in the name of human rights often were seen as violations of human rights.

Then there was Boriana from Bosnia, who looked as though she were ready to invite you over for a warm cup of tea, but said, “Don’t help around the world if you’re not asked for help.”

Or young Brian Nganwa from Uganda, in a bright yellow polo shirt, who said he was HIV-positive as casually as though it were part of his name. Africa needs help getting more medicines, he said, reminding viewers that people with AIDS are “just like you.”

The founder of Talk to US, filmmaker and former journalist William Brent, lived in China and traveled widely for years before returning home recently to settle in Seattle. His experience, he said, made him aware of how much Americans needed to hear international feedback.

“There’s a pretty large disconnect about how we think we are perceived in the world and how we actually are perceived -- between the benevolent role we think we play and the impact on the ground the policies have,” Brent said. “It’s clear that our standing in the world has dipped.”

Brent uses much of the project’s funding, from a handful of individual donors and partners, to overcome the digital divide that handicaps all the sites but is especially challenging for Talk to US. Uploading digital footage to the Internet is difficult for the average American, but nearly impossible for an African without a video camera or computer.

To help bridge the gap, Brent commissioned video reporters to interview people on the street. The site had clips from Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Uganda, Jordan and China.

The project is nonpolitical and nonpartisan. But across the spectrum, the clips sound repeating themes: Don’t be such a bully, take care of your own problems, stay out of our business, do more to help us.

“Americans might have a backlash to what others are saying ... and that could turn them off from listening even more,” Brent said potential donors told him. But to him, that underlined the necessity of the venture. “Research shows that the American voting public is now, more than ever, linking national security to the level which we’re respected overseas,” he said. “This whole project is trying to reinforce that. We’re confident and big enough to open our ears and listen to what the world has to say.”

But for all the talking -- in electronic letters, video clips or online chat rooms -- is anyone really listening?

One letter on www.theworldvotes.org said that the focus of the site was too narrow -- that it was simply preaching to the choir. “If The World Votes were truly serious about an experiment in global ‘e-mocracy,’ ” one posting from “D.W.” said, “it should allow voting on all major elections around the world, including ones in Europe.”

Brent said that the goal was simply to connect people, not governments, to provide a richer firmament for grass-roots opinions. Perhaps the people who needed to be listening the most were not, he said, but they might someday be part of a better-informed conversation.

“That’s the message,” Brent said. “Let’s listen to what these people are saying, and think seriously when we make our decisions and how they affect others around the world.”