By Dhanuka Nadeera Dickwella

“ Fellow Koreans!
In the 21st century, culture is power. It is an era where an individual’s imagination becomes creative content. Across the world, the “Korean Wave” is welcomed with great affection that not only triggers happiness and joy but one that instills abiding pride in all Koreans. This is a result of a foundation created by the convergence of both tangible and intangible heritages of five thousand years of Korea’s cultural splendor as well as our spiritual ethos.” Park Geun-hye, the former president of South Korea.

Despite being able to boast about a culture that had a rich history of 5000 years like many nations across Asia, the 20th century predominantly belonged to American culture, not to any of the Asians. American heroes were household names for generations of kids from the global south to the global north alike. From muscled Rambo to machine-killing Arnold to breathtaking Julia Roberts to floor-twisting Michel Jackson to seductive Madonna, the celebrities were children’s heroes, heroines, and role models they wanted to grow into. American brands were things the global population tried to embrace in unison. Be it the sizzling Coca-Cola, a hot Mcburger from Mcdonalds, a steaming drumlet from KFC, delicious frappes of Starbucks, James Caleb Jackson’s favorite cereals the list goes on. The entire bandwagon of American culture including its fast food cuisines, Hollywood cinemas, pop songs, tens of cartoons, and trendy fashions represented the American dream. The perfect way of life for an earthly citizen in the most prosperous and diverse country in the world.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, even once closed eastern bastions of Russia opened up a McDonald’s in busy Moscow. Supported, funded by the tens of American businesses, and promoted by the United States-based mainstream media, the global embrace of American culture was at its height. Americans used their cultural soft power skillfully to promote their values which in turn helped the fast-tracking of globalization connecting the far corners of the world, making America the oasis of the world, the center of the universe, and the one and only source of true power. Americans did not need to use European colonial methods to conquer lands. Their culture managed to win over the hearts and minds of a generation across the continents giving the United States a unique stand in geopolitics and geoeconomics. People displayed a natural bias and obedience to the sayings of the Americans. American values such as Individualism, Equality, Informality, being Futuristic, ready for Change, and Progress, importance to Achievement, Action, Work, and Materialism, Directness, and Assertiveness, value of Time became incorporated into work cultures and societies in general. Being the global trendsetter America enjoyed an enormous power and influence over the whole global population. That was an epic achievement for a country with a shorter history than certain individual imperial dynasties in Asia and elsewhere.

However, after a few decades, things have taken a totally unexpected turn.The world’s top boy bands are no longer the Backstreet Boys, Westlife, or Boy 2 Men. They come from an unfamiliar territory that is not an Anglophonic nation. The Korean youths are dominating with their ever-popular names loved by Americans and the world alike. What you see in music charts, open concerts, and Spotify is BTS, ONEUS, Exo, TXT, ATEEZ, NCT, MONSTA X, GOT7, Super Junior, SHINee, and Wanna One. All hailing from South Korea. Believe it or not, BTS was given the podium at the United Nations to address climate change simply recognising their outstanding global reach. Korean, Japanese, and Turkish dramas, movies, cartoons, anime, and manga are watched by every capital from Seoul to, Colombo to Johannesburg to, Brussels to Washington. Tens of Indian, Chinese, and Arabic cuisines are taking over the once-dominant instant food market. Having an Indian vegetarian meal, a fancy sushi dinner or a Turkish breakfast has become something of a la mode. Just to put some intriguing numbers in perspective, there are 36,000 McDonalds globally whereas there are nearly 40,000 to 45,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States alone. You can not simply forget the 7000+ Indian restaurants and 7000 plus Korean restaurants in the USA. Kombucha, boba teas, and other Asian-inspired drinks are what Westerners prefer. Yoga, meditation, and Chinese martial arts are pursued by men and women alike in millions. Acupuncture specialists or feng shui masters are consulted by Westerners every day. While all the Eastern cultural waves are spreading across the West, the American cultural soft power is retreating at a speed.

The United States is still figuring out its own cultural identity. Largely it is still based on capitalistic values but things have changed in more complex ways. From a variety of 72 choices to identify your gender to cancel cultures to woke cultures the liberal American values often confuse the rest of the world who are not familiar with what those values stand for. The other America or the conservative one has a slightly more mono-ethnic religious scope for its identity. The Christian, white American identity has become such a mainstream topic lately. The conservative pendulum swings from your day-to-day church-going rightwing person to the groups who claim them as the alternative right to the ultra-nationalist, far-right groups. Alternative right groups are distant cousins of the far right groups who believe in white supremacist ideology. The simple fact is within modern-day America, those groups won’t see eye to eye let alone presenting a unified cultural appeal.

Today’s American cultural symbols are not as attractive as they used to be. Mired by various political divisions, people would remember the United States for very different reasons. The minutes-long neck crushing of George Floyd, the racially motivated torch marches in the battleground of Charlottesville, the opium crisis, a recreation of history by removing the confederate statues, Capitol Hill riots, running riots among the Antifa and far-right groups, youth hordes looting shopping malls, endless tent camps of homeless people and unfortunate mass shootings in schools. While those political, and social symbols are tainting the glorious standing of the stars and stripes, there is more bad news.

There is a concentrated, well-coordinated pushback against the American cultural influence by the entirety of the global south and some of the central and eastern European states. Those pushbacks come in both cultural and religious sense. One classic example was the showdown at the FIFA World Cup held in Qatar where the United States-led west kept shaming Qatar for its stand on Western values. In central Europe, the leaders are openly criticizing the American values and the culture based on those values.

The decline of American soft power is not the result of the Asian waves of cultural influence and dominance alone. It is also not just the internal divisions, social disparities, and partisan divide within America. When American fighter jets, battle tanks, drones, and aircraft carriers started to appear more often on screens bombing the rest of the world who did not respect their ideology, when Americans decided that they could take down any global leader they couldn’t leverage with, when America became a military bastion and its leadership started to behave like warlords, they started to lose their cultural influence. Instead of public diplomacy the public arrogance was displayed in all the global theaters and over the years, there is little emphasis on promoting American culture. The new age of American culture is not as attractive as it once used to be.

America is desperately looking for heroes, symbols, and icons to regain its lost cultural capital. The uncontested popularity of Taylor Swift is clearly one such move. She is an American idol who fits the bill. But can they move the minds of their own population who are steadily embracing certain aspects of the Eastern culture that are yet to be seen? More than anything, will the next generations of Americans will understand the importance of soft power backed by moderate hard power is not entirely clear. Until such time the US administrations realize that it would be much more profitable to sell US movies, songs, and fast food cuisines than exporting tens of F16 the decline will keep happening. Unless the Americans become humble enough to not shoot the messenger but to critically analyse the lack of depth in their world view no amount of Taylor Swifts will be able to repair the damage of the policy blunders their leaders have been committing for quite a while.