Dan Rather YOU HEAR the phrase "medical miracle" a lot on the news, probably too much. But last week we witnessed an act that lived up to those words in every way: The surgical procedure in Texas that separated twin 2-year-old boys joined at the top of their heads.
A staff of 60 doctors and other medical personnel at Children's Medical Center Dallas worked for 34 hours to untangle a mass of blood vessels shared between the two boys, giving them a chance to see each other face to face for the first time.
When a nurse emerged from the operating room and announced to the waiting parents that "We have two boys," the boys' father, Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim, fainted.
SHARED HUMANITY
This is the kind of story that speaks to our shared humanity. While it's too early to know how the twins will ultimately fare, their father's delirious joy upon hearing that the surgery had been successful crosses all barriers of language, nationality and religion.
So, too, are the good feelings we get from hearing that the team of doctors performing the surgery and the nurses assisting them all donated their work, while charity is footing the estimated $2 million of additional costs for the procedure.
But in light of a recently issued, government-commissioned report that found that "hostility toward America has reached shocking levels" in the Arab and Muslim worlds, it might be worth noting that the twins and their family are Egyptian Muslims.
This family has learned something of the true character of America and of the American people, just as the young French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville did when he travelled this young nation 200 years ago. De Tocqueville managed to spread the word about what he saw as the American generosity of spirit at a time when the printing press was the state of the art in communications technology. So why, in this age of the Internet and satellite communications, is the United States having such a hard time getting the word out?
Doubtless, there are those who will read this and say that the problem lies not with public-relations strategies or perceptions but with U.S. policy. Whatever one might think about that, the United States Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, which issued the Bush-administration-sponsored report, found that the same people who dislike the United States are often ignorant of or misinformed about the particulars of U.S. policy.
The report blames this state of affairs, in part, on what it calls "a process of unilateral disarmament in the [United States'] weapons of advocacy over the last decade" -- and goes on to note what a small share of America's national-security budget goes toward outreach programmes aimed at Muslim and Arab peoples.
The report makes a strong case that more needs to be done not to "spin" news about America but rather to just plain get the word out about this country, its policies and its people.
AMERICA'S BRASHEST
If you have spent any time at all travelling outside the United States, you know that American consumer culture is everywhere from the famous examples of Coca-Cola and blue jeans to pop music and Hollywood films. But these things represent only one aspect, and it is often America's brashest, most materialistic side that gets the biggest play.
This nation's truest face can be seen in deeds like last week's miraculous surgery on two young Egyptian boys. Letting the world see more of this side of America might go a long way toward raising our standing in those places where it now sits so low.
Dan Rather is a television news anchor. Copyright 2003 DJR Inc. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
