WASHINGTON, DC – At an Oversight hearing this week on African public opinion, U.S. Rep Bill Delahunt called international exchange programs an effective tool in helping reverse the growing tide of anti-Americanism that threatens our national security.

“The best way to compete with Al Qaeda’s ideology of anti-Americanism is not by continuing to occupy Iraq, or through “gunboat diplomacy”, but by sending more Americans to Africa through the Peace Corps or as non-governmental volunteers --- and by having more Africans and visitors from other countries come here, as students and tourists.” Delahunt said.   

The comments were made following the testimony of Devra Moehler, a professor at Cornell University and a Scholar at Harvard University and the nation’s leading expert on African public opinion about America.  She testified during Wednesday’s hearing before Delahunt’s Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight.

Dr. Moehler conducted a statistical analysis of a survey of 10,000 Africans.  She concluded that contact with Americans, particularly through travel to the United States, has a “multiplier effect,” in which even members of the traveler’s extended family in Africa form a more favorable opinion of the United States. 

Upon hearing Professor Moehler’s testimony, Delahunt and Chairman Donald Payne of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, pledged to promote programs to provide additional scholarships for study by Africans at American universities, and to pursue changes in visa regulations that would be permit more travel to America by Africans who meet security requirements.

“This study is further evidence that the greatest ambassadors for the United States are the American people themselves.  They are our best and most effective weapon in overcoming the failed foreign policies of this administration.” Delahunt said following the hearing.

Delahunt has been convening a series of hearings to explore the sources of - and solutions to - what the non-partisan General Accounting Office has identified as a “spreading and deepening anti-Americanism” that “threatens national security by increasing foreign public support for terrorism directed at the United States.” 

When Congress returns from its district work period in mid-April, Delahunt plans to continue his hearings on the impact of foreign public opinion on national security with a hearing on Arab opinion of the United States.

To view Dr. Moehler’s testimony, please click here.

To view additional testimony, please click here.

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