‘Karak Chai’, truck art and Public Diplomacy by EU

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“Karak Chai (strong tea)”, demands Dr Riina Kionka at a truck hotel, once again outshining her peers in the reign of public diplomacy.
On February 14, the ambassador of the European Union kind of woke up Pakistani community setting off on a tour to Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, and Rawalpindi from Islamabad.
But how she did it was more important than what she did for two reasons. First, she wore Pakistani dress and a traditional cap that most Pashtoons wear. Second, she spoke in Urdu breaking cultural barriers and boarded a truck to switch it on.
Since all this was filmed, seemingly, in Islamabad, the matchless picturesque background made it doubly impressive.
The mainstay of her message was 60 years of friendship between Pakistan and EU.
The use of truck art smacks of her taste for creativity in delivering this message.
Truck art has become an identity of Pakistan in diplomatic circles.
Chakwal, about 100 kms from Islamabad, has a vast area dedicated to truck art. Diplomats travel to Chakwal from Islamabad to witness that place. However, the district administrators of Chakwal remained ignorant to the importance of the city for diplomats as creating bureaucratic bottlenecks for the masses was seemingly more important for them than pondering about matters like truck art and representation of the country in the world.
Recently, Quratulain Malik has assumed the office of deputy commissioner of Chakwal. It is hoped that she will value these cultural niceties that will increase prestige of the town, with a long history in politics.
Back in the first week of November last year, I talked to Dr Riina Kionka at the opening ceremony of EuroVillage in Islamabad and she said she would like to understand culture of Pakistan. At that time, the EU also had prepared a truck fully decorated where the ambassador posed for photographs.
In those days, her selfies were a hit as she took selfies with Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and others.
Those who took not so seriously of her being “a serious amateur musician who enjoys winding down at the end of the day with her trumpet in hand” had to review their opinion when she played her trumpet to announce her coming to Islamabad.
The EU Dosti Truck that she switched on is set to travel across Pakistan to experience the cultural diversity and flavours of Pakistan and meet people in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Quetta.
To symbolize the bilateral partnership in a unique way, a special EU-Pakistan friendship truck was prepared for the first time.
The truck would travel all around the country to reach Pakistani youth in various universities and offer a window into the strong connection between the EU and Pakistan.
In a message, EU Ambassador Dr Riina Kionka said that the specially designed EU-Pakistan friendship truck received immense appreciation from within Pakistan and abroad.
She said, “We cherish the diverse cultures, languages, religions, histories and identities that coexist in Europe. They are part of our wealth, they shape our shared values, connect us and give us a joint sense of purpose.
“It was a common understanding of shared values and diversity that lies at the heart of our relations with the world – including with Pakistan.”
To evaluate the public outreach, I compared the EU Facebook page with its Twitter account carrying the same video clip. It was found that public response to Dr Kionka’s message on Twitter is highly lower compared to Facebook. On Twitter, hardly 350 people liked and few elitist commentators routinely made some comments. These commentators are predictable as Twitter has become one of the selected snobberies of the digital age.
However, on Facebook, over 20,000 people liked the message and 1,000 commented on it. This is an unprecedented outreach an EU message has made on social media of late.
I asked ChatGPT about this phenomenon and it replied that public diplomacy has gone digital in a big way in post-corona world.
The success of any communication strategy lies in originality of message and the manner in which it is delivered.
It was also in the last week when the EU might have made one of the worst experiments of public diplomacy by sponsoring a stage show at PNCA starting from February 9 to 11.
A senior producer from Pakistan Television says that performance of artists was below average in the theatre at PNCA. Others say that the whole event was as badly arranged as well advertised.
The little-known organizers of the show were all eager to attract the EU diplomats with no regard to how bored they had made the Pakistani audience.
However, Dr Kionka has almost completed a year in the office and in this year she has successfully carried out public diplomacy activities. Her predecessor Androulla Kaminara, who completed her term on April 30, 2023, had given Dr Kionka a good start to move forward.
Her public diplomacy activities belie the hard talks that are going on between Pakistan and the EU for approval of GSP Plus status. This is the beauty of public diplomacy that it covers thorny issues.

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