Those who visited Washington DC, in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2002 might have stumbled upon an ‘orientalised’ National Mall, transformed as it were into a caravanserai reminiscent of the world exhibitions of earlier times, replete with artists, actors, musicians, cooks, craftsmen, nomads and merchants flown over from what were announced as ‘Silk Road countries.’ ‘Once again the Silk Road is a living reality,’ then Secretary of State Colin Powell observed at the opening ceremony to the Silk Road Folklife Festival, a high-profile event hosted by the Smithsonian Institution. ‘Once again the nations of Central Asia are joining the nations at either end (…) on a path to a better future to all.’ Powell's speech did not need to spell out who was to be held responsible for blocking that ‘path to a better future to all’ as suggested by the temporal adjunct ‘once again’. From the vantage point of the ‘free world’ (to put it in Cold War terminology), those nations had in their recent history been disconnected from the global network by Soviet communism, and now, just over ten years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Islamic fundamentalism appeared as the new force that hampered them in their allegedly natural propensity to peaceful collaboration.

Powell's presence at a festival timely subtitled ‘Connecting Cultures, Creating Trust’ seems anything but disinterested, nor were the facilitative assistance and financial support that his department extended to the festival's organisation. In need of a charm offensive at a time when the Bush administration was ‘liberating’ Afghanistan from ‘terrorists’ through the universal language of bombs, the State Department seized the opportunity to invite fourteen prominent journalists from twelve ‘Silk Road countries’ (Afghanistan excluded) to witness with their own eyes the ‘U.S. respect and appreciation for Muslim cultural heritage’ displayed at the festival.