Good morning! There are a couple of dates in the year when our politicians go on collective trips to demonstrate their alleged political connections in the world, which they later use for internal needs, i.e. internal identification. One is the annual gathering of the UN General Assembly, the other is ministerial meetings in NATO. And one rather atypical form for our conditions is the Prayer Breakfast, which has been organized every first Thursday in February for some eighty years. What is it really about?
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Prayer breakfast
Americans are masters of soft power. Soft power means to achieve interests and exert international influence by creating the energy of attraction. Hard or harsh power is the opposite of soft power and it implies coercion. Soft power is the ability to endear yourself to the world for who you are rather than what you present yourself to be. Soft power is a complicated toy and in order for a country or society to be able to use it, it must fulfill several conditions.
Soft power is much more than public or people diplomacy. For a country to be capable of broadcasting soft power, it must have a free civil society and a free media. Totalitarian and autocratic regimes are not capable of soft power. They can engage in public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy, and these are much narrower terms than soft power.
Soft power is brands, art, fashion, but also civil society and the media. Civil society is an intermediary between the state and society. It is an instrument of political power control. In the broadest sense, civil society is any social organization that is not under the direct control of the state. From expert non-governmental organizations, through religious communities, to scouts and sports clubs and associations. From Freemasons to Trade Unions. There are also quasi-governmental organizations and government-organized non-governmental organizations (GONGOs) formed by the government itself in order to outsource part of its work, and sometimes to create the appearance of a vibrant civil society and democracy where there is none.
America, in the sense of civil society, is a huge buffet. There is something for everyone. Some of these organizations are focused on international relations and such organizations are often concentrated around New York and Washington. One of them is the Fellowship Foundation, popularly called The Family, which until last year was the main organizer of the prayer breakfast. A documentary was made about it and is available on Netflix.
It is a spiritual organization aimed at promoting Christ’s message in the world, but with a non-standard interpretation of Christianity. For a deeper understanding of this topic, I would suggest that you watch the aforementioned documentary, because the controversies related to this organization are not so important and terrible, although because of them, the organization of the event was left to the Congress, which established its own foundation, which has been dealing with the Prayer Breakfast since last year.
The idea of the National Breakfast is noble, and that is the most important thing for our story today. Congressmen from both parties gather at this event and pray together. This is a way to ignore divisions and political disputes and a moment to recall that party interests are secondary to state and national interests. And that is why political and social actors from different sides of the political spectrum are invited to the Prayer Breakfast from all countries of the world, including Montenegro.
I saw the list of names that were invited from Montenegro this year. From Spajic and Djukanovic, through Gjeloshaj to Bobo Batricevic and Slaven Radunovic. Everyone goes there to sit in the same room and pray together. If they can do it in America, why can’t they do it in Montenegro, inspired by the American example? Why have we not matured enough as a society to have traditions and events that will bring us together around the awareness that we live in the same political community?
That’s it for today and this week. See you again on Monday.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(The opinions and views of the authors of the columns are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial staff)
