I'm on a swing through central/eastern Europe -- familiar territory since 1993, when I became US ambassador to Austria. In fact, my predecessor was none other than Roy Huffington. That's right: Arianna's father-in-law.
Since the mid-1990s, I've made dozens of trips to the newly independent states. (My husband, Charles Ansbacher, is often a guest symphony conductor, so we can combine our work.) I've observed the opportunities and challenges faced there by a population long under Soviet rule or influence. The trip I'm on these two weeks is no different. Charles and I flew from Boston to Vienna. He went on to Odessa to work with the orchestra, but I stopped off in Vienna for meetings with government officials.
In the past 24 hours, I've talked politics with dozens of people, from cab drivers to the president of Austria. Enthusiasm for Barack Obama is on everyone's lips. Expectations are high; his success or failure will stretch as wide as the ersatz Hapsburg Empire. President Heinz Fischer wondered aloud to me if we're looking to Obama as a Messiah. I said he has the opportunity for greatness given the crisis at hand -- greatness appears only against a background of crisis, after all. But I wonder how many Americans are aware of the wide reach of our election November 4th.
The change these days isn't just an adjustment to a lower standard of living. With these economic woes, human trafficking of women and children from Eastern Europe will likely increase, as bereft single mothers or futureless girls in Moldova or Ukraine answer ads for "exotic dancers" in Frankfurt, London, or Rome. Several of my conversations today were with Austrians (Egbert, et.al.) or regional officials (from the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe) working on stemming the tide. All agreed that it's hopeless to just try to staunch the flow of victims; ultimately, we have to address the demand for women's bodies as commodities.
There's an interesting argument among some Austrian NGOs that say legalizing prostitution has allowed women to get weekly medical exams. Problem is, only a few hundred women have registered, and there are thousands more in doorwells on the streets. Besides, it would be possible to legalize the selling of sex and criminalize the buying. That policy would encourage women to come out of the shadows for help, while shrinking the demand of an industry with three times the "normal" suicide rate among its workers. This is a chauvinistic power play, not a woman's right to choose....
One piece of good news: Austria has become one of the two-year revolving members of the UN Security Council. Under their former foreign minister, Ursula Plassik, the country took a lead on advancing women's leadership globally as a way of creating a more peaceful and prosperous world. President Fischer says he's committed to his country maintaining that forward-leaning position, and I imagine this small country will make a sizeable difference as a leader in this movement.
One last word about the president. He graciously spent an hour with me in his gilded office -- formerly Empress Maria Theresa's bedroom suite. When I presented him with Reese's peanut butter cups and a Harvard baseball cap (I teach at the Kennedy School), he began to reminisce about his time in the '70s as a student of Henry Kissinger. When HK let the students choose a public official to visit, they named "Bob Kennedy." (As informal as the Austrians try to be, they can't bring themselves to utter "Bobby.") When the 20 students went into Kennedy's office, Heinz looked around the room for chairs. There weren't enough, and he wondered what the attorney general would do. He turned to see their host sitting down on the floor, inviting all the students to join him.
How cool is that, I thought. No wonder (despite the past eight years) most of the world loves Americans.