Culture agent’s sojourn
to Iraq leaves impressionPat Harrison believes
the East-West Center
fosters cooperation
Pat Harrison, an assistant secretary of state for cultural and educational affairs, says Hawaii's East-West Center is vital for world understanding.
"Because of the events of Sept. 11, if we didn't have an East-West Center, we would have to invent one now," said Harrison, who is just back from a trip to Iraq, during an interview before her first meeting as an East-West Center board member.
Harrison, a former Republican Party national co-chairman, is also a close political ally of Hawaii's Gov. Linda Lingle and was enjoying a three-day stopover in Honolulu.
She is a booster of the center on the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus but stops short of saying that the federal program will benefit from an increased budget for its 200-person staff.
"If the East-West Center were in San Francisco, it would not be as viable as the East-West Center in Hawaii. This state has done far more in pushing ahead the global theme," Harrison said.
She marveled at a meeting Thursday with 300 Hawaii schoolchildren and asking them if they had ever met someone from another country.
"Ninety-five percent of them said yes," Harrison said.
In Iraq, Harrison said, the job of rebuilding the country will have a real effect on the children.
She recalls meeting with a women's group in Baghdad and being told that the reign of Saddam Hussein was a national nightmare.
"One woman said, 'We have been living in an insane asylum and we are all damaged -- our children have been damaged, our families.'"
Harrison recalled a conservation with one Iraqi woman who said the Iraqis thought the arrival of Americans would be like a "magic wand."
"I said we don't have a magic wand, and we are going to be doing this together for a very long time. It was a very frank conversation, and it ended with her saying, 'Please don't leave,'" Harrison said.
She stayed away from discussing the possible political effect of the Iraq war on President's Bush's re-election but added that in reconstructing the country, the United States was not ready for the level of atrocities.
"These people have been living in basically a national concentration camp. When you get there you see how much has to be done, beyond bricks and mortar.
"But I came away convinced that what we are doing in Iraq is going to determine the fate of the Middle East," Harrison said.
