{"id":24224,"date":"2016-01-18T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-17T19:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=24224"},"modified":"2016-01-15T15:58:55","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T04:58:55","slug":"and-the-7th-madeleine-award-goes-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/and-the-7th-madeleine-award-goes-to\/","title":{"rendered":"And the 7th Madeleine award goes to…"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>US Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, treated CNN as the Security Council\u2019s 16th member.<\/p>\n It was a tactic of a natural communicator: not much use being \u2018on message\u2019 if the message isn\u2019t loud.<\/p>\n Albright inspired our annual Madeleine award for the use of symbol, stunt, prop, gesture or jest in international affairs.<\/p>\n As UN Ambassador and then as Secretary of State, Albright took diplomatic signalling to a new place by sending messages via lapel brooches.<\/p>\n In read-my-brooch mode, she wore a golden coiled snake to talk to the Iraqis, crabs and turtle brooches for the slow pace of Middle East talks, a huge wasp to needle Yasser Arafat, and a sun pin to support South Korea\u2019s sunshine policy. Her favourite mistake was wearing a monkey<\/a> brooch to meet Vladimir Putin, causing the Russian to go ape.<\/p>\n The previous column<\/a> announced the minor awards. Now for the Madeleine contestants.<\/p>\n The singer Taylor Swift is honoured for giving China\u2019s censors conniptions. The Swift China tour merchandise carried her initials \u2018TS\u2019 and pushed her album entitled \u20181989\u2019. What could be wrong using Ms. Swift\u2019s birth year or initials?<\/p>\n Well, TS could also stand for Tiananmen Square and 1989 was the year of the massacre. By comparison, Katy Perry gave the censors a simple thumbs-down choice when she draped herself in a Taiwanese flag during a Taipei concert.<\/p>\n Worthy of a Madeleine mention was China\u2019s \u2018top global honour\u2019, the Confucius Peace Prize, awarded to Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe\u2019s great burden joins nobles such as Castro and Putin.<\/p>\n The ancient dictator\u2019s Confucius underlines the truthiness of a long ago Tom Lehrer<\/a> thought: it\u2019s hard to do satire when Kissinger gets the Nobel.<\/p>\n To be fair (seldom a Madeleine aim) the Confucius isn\u2019t awarded by China, having no link to the Confucius Institutes that China is founding around the world. A bunch of Chinese citizens in Hong Kong<\/a> created the Confucius in 2010 as a response to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Chinse dissident, Liu Xiaobo. Beijing might reflect that in the soft power stakes, friends can be as dangerous as opponents.<\/p>\n North Korea always helps set the Madeleine field. The regime that uses nuclear blasts to yell \u2018Look at me\u2019 can\u2019t help altering images<\/a> of its hereditary dictator. In August, Pyongyang stepped into the future by putting its clocks back half an hour, creating North Korea\u2019s own time zone. The wicked imperialist time zone imposed by Japan in 1912 was gone. The deadly leader does more than sport strange haircuts. He controls time.<\/p>\n This award concerned with international symbols has due regard for flags. A point to flag for Australia in 2016 is the way the Union Jack is disappearing from neighbourhood flags. Soon only Australia and Tuvalu could have the Union Jack on their national flag. Two other seeds of Pacific empire\u2014New Zealand and Fiji\u2014could fly a new flag. The Kiwis will vote on the change while Fiji will follow recent habit and salute the thoughts of Supremo Bainimarama. \u2018Make mine a Scotch!\u2019 has become a dangerous order for the Union Jack.<\/p>\n The Brits aren\u2019t flagging in doing pageantry with aplomb. The state visits London turned on, almost back-to-back, for China\u2019s President and India\u2019s Prime Minister demonstrated ceremonial glad-handling of the highest order.<\/p>\n A grand Buckingham Palace dinner scores. And a carriage ride with the Her Maj through the capital. Enchanting. PM Cameron taking his mate President Xi for a pint in a Pommy pub was merely minor key duchessing.<\/p>\n Acknowledge the London arrival of an excellent new euphemism for a lie. The co-chairman of the British Tory Party, Grant Schapps<\/a> didn\u2019t fib. When caught out, he admitted only to an \u2018overly firm\u2019 denial. The overly firm denial ranks with classics<\/a> such as \u2018economical with the truth\u2019, \u2018terminological inexactitude\u2019 and that great Private Eye-ism for being drunk, \u2018tired and emotional\u2019.<\/p>\n The final choice for the award is between two fine performances\u2014one using symbols, the other a simple gesture amid pomp\u2014exemplifying the Madeleine spirit.<\/p>\n The runner-up prize goes to Australia\u2019s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, for doing an interview using only emoji characters for answers. Buzzfeed called its exclusive the world\u2019s first political emoji interview.<\/a><\/p>\n The controversial response was replying to a question about Vladimir Putin with a symbol of a red-faced angry man.<\/p>\n The diplomatic relationship with the US got a thumbs up, a tick and a smiley face. China also got the thumbs up and the tick but, in contrast to the US, China\u2019s happy face wore sun glasses and the smile was more of a grin than America\u2019s toothy beam. Try and write a cable or an analysis discussing the significance of that difference.<\/p>\n The world operates on hard and soft power, bribes and bluster, argument and alliance\u2014and emojis. When examined by the Foreign Affairs Committee in Senate Estimates<\/a>, the focus was on Russia\u2019s red emoji.<\/p>\n \u2018I’d like to understand what the diplomatic message is of the red face?\u2019 Labor\u2019s Penny Wong asked Foreign Affairs\u2019 worthies. \u2018Is it intended to suggest the Foreign Minister is angry at President Putin? Or does it express something else? What is the statement or public message of the red face? We don’t like him? We’re angry at him?\u2019<\/p>\n Foreign took the question on notice. Senators riffed extempore on Buzzfeed Bishop. Attorney-General George Brandis objected that the emoji was more red than angry\u2014perhaps an ideological colour. Emoji diplomacy is born.<\/p>\n For the winner of the 7th Madeleine award, head to Washington as a VIP flies in. The New York Daily News gives the flavour<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u2018This frugal pontiff steers clear of Mercedes-Benz. Pope Francis, after touching down Tuesday afternoon at Andrews Air Force Bases, climbed into a modest Fiat 500L for his ride into Washington. The Italian-made four-door hatchback was the smallest vehicle in the motorcade transporting the Holy Father.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The black Fiat\u2019s license plate: SCV-1, \u2018status civitatis Vaticanae\u2019\u2014Latin for \u2018state of Vatican City.\u2019<\/p>\n