Anxiety leaves
residents wary
of security in
public places

People will change behavior
as they take less things for granted,
a UH professor says

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By Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com

The images of violence that flashed across the television screen Sept. 11 were beyond what Matt West, 31, could comprehend.

But seeing armed guards at the Honolulu airport two days later brought the reality home.

"It made me stand up and take notice," he said.

It's not just airport security that's changed, West realized. Any public place -- shopping malls, football stadiums, schools -- could become a target of terrorism.

He said he feels a little more guarded out in public now, even when doing something as mundane as walking into a store.

"It's just a change in people's attitudes. People are starting to reassess everything," he said.

Tuesday's events have left most people with a general sense of uneasiness and shaken moral convictions. And some wonder if we will ever feel completely safe again.

"I think anxiety is built into all of us," said Dr. Neal Anzai, medical director of the Kapiolani Health counseling center. "Anxiety pushes us to try to either get away from the danger or have some quick closure."

But without an identifiable enemy, he said people are wondering what's going to happen next.

"There might be one more split in everyone's vision of the world and how safe it is," he said.

Concerns over public safety have led the management at Ala Moana Center to re-examine its security system, even as retailers brace for the attacks' possible effects on the economy.

The shopping center closed Tuesday and saw a slight drop in traffic Thursday due to airport closures.

"I think everyone is concerned, although there are still too many unknown variables for them to focus on," said general manager Dwight Yoshimura.

As for security, "we always pride ourselves in making sure this is a safe environment for our consumers and employees," Yoshimura said. However, "we need to improve in certain areas.

"We feel that we have the proper staffing, and there is the need to work closer with police and other authorities," he said.

Hawaiian Airlines ramp worker Dell Agricula, 21, said increased security procedures at the airport made it harder to get into the parking lot for work Thursday, but once parked, a flash of his employee badge gave him unhindered access. "We don't even get checked getting into the airport," he said.

Jason Hijirida, 32, who handles baggage for Delta, said he is not any more concerned for his safety at work or in the air. "There's a lot of things you can't prevent," he said, especially when even plastic forks or pieces of rope can be used as weapons.

Because the nation's enemy is still unknown, the current events are impossible to compare to any other war, said Neal Milner, a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii.

"I think that we're in for a sustained and frustrating situation, which is going to make the Iraqi war seem simple by comparison," he said.

The attack at home will change the way people behave, as they realize they cannot count on things they could take for granted, he said.

This extends even to personal ideologies, as people grapple with the events they watched unfold.

"I feel tremendously conflicted," said 25-year-old Adam Birnbaum, at a forum on terrorism sponsored by the UH social science department.

Birnbaum, an Israeli citizen, attended school in New York City and watched the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center from his classroom window.

He moved to Hawaii from New York less than a month ago.

"As a pacifist, I understand the pointlessness of responding to this as though it were a war, like any other war that we might have fought," he said.

"I've been listening to talk about revenge and war since I was a child, and I know it doesn't work," he said.

"On the other hand," he said, "I'm angry. And I want blood and I want revenge because I'm getting phone calls from friends in New York who had to walk home, miles, covered in soot and choking on dust and seeing humans' body parts rain out of the air."

Twenty-year-old Steven Do, who was born in Vietnam, talked about his conflict with his religion.

"Jesus said if someone slaps you on your left face, you turn around and let them slap you on your right face. But to me, as a Catholic, I'm going to say that doesn't work.

"If you believe that way and 10 other people don't believe it, you're going to get slapped 20 times," he said. "It's about morality, it's about beliefs. Those people down there, they don't believe."