This is an archive page.  The links are no longer being updated.

REMARKS BY:	DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
PLACE:		American University Of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
DATE:		December 8, 1998

On my way here today, I was thinking about one of Lebanon's greatest national treasures - cedar trees.

Cedars are part of our noble Phoenician heritage of shipbuilding and trade. There's a cedar on your flag. And personally, I love the smell of cedar - because it reminds me of my Lebanese roots and my deep love for this magnificent country.

As I was thinking about the cedars of Lebanon, I couldn't help but think about my own country's great forestlands. There is none more beautiful than Yellowstone National Park. Let me tell you something about Yellowstone.

About ten years ago, a terrible fire broke out in Yellowstone. Fed by high winds and a long period without rain, the forests of Yellowstone burned for weeks. Thousands of volunteers came to Yellowstone to fight the fires. Although these volunteers fought bravely, and at great personal risk, they had only limited success. Eventually the snows came, and the fires were put out. Still, many people feared that this great national park would not survive. But by the next spring, new plant life was already coming up through the ground. Wild and colorful flowers bloomed. Young trees replaced the old ones. And the vitality of Yellowstone proved itself to be eternal.

And so it is with the American University of Beirut - and all of Lebanon. You suffered through many difficult years of civil war. But the vitality and spirit of Lebanon are as eternal as the forests of Yellowstone. Life springs from the ashes - and the future is born again.

I mentioned my Lebanese heritage. My grandparents left Lebanon at the turn of the century - and headed for America. My grandfather told me he left to avoid being recruited - involuntarily - into the Turkish army, and for the opportunity and promise of America.

They brought their Lebanese culture, cuisine, and spirit with them. I grew up in the large Lebanese- American community in Cleveland, Ohio. I was surrounded by family and friends who re-created for me the Lebanese community my grandparents knew when they were young.

I'm proud of the leadership role my family took in helping to forge a community for Lebanese in Cleveland and throughout the American Midwest. I'm proud of the values they taught me - and the opportunities they gave me. I'm proud also of what my parents sacrificed to help me return to our native soil - as a proud Lebanese-American, and as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, the highest-ranking Arab-American in the history of my country.

This is not my first visit to this university. I first came in 1963 - 35 years ago. I came from Iran - where I was serving in the U.S. Peace Corps - to join AUB faculty to teach English as a second language to teachers in a refugee camp in Sidon. I can remember to this day - the first time I walked across the AUB campus. It was exciting - but not much like the villages in the "old country" my grandmother Shalala described.

My father loved the work of Lebanese poet, Kahlil Gibran, who once said, "The only way to help yourself is to help others." Those words echoed the words of President Kennedy - who died the year I came here to teach - when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

My generation of American leaders listened to both the Lebanese poet and the American President. We listened. We learned. And we did our best to follow.

You must too.

The Lebanese people have shown unbelievable strength of character in overcoming the challenge of war. The faculty here, and in other colleges and schools, never abandoned their sacred duty to educate and enlighten - no matter what dangers they faced each day. This university is like a special kind of birthday candle that is sold in the United States - and perhaps here, as well. You think you've blown it out - but it immediately comes back to life. The fire of education at the American University of Beirut is like that. It also refuses to go out.

The fact is, this is a great private university serving the public interest, and a great beacon lighting this city, this nation, this region and the world. Lebanon, too, is becoming a beacon lighting this region - its flame of progress now proudly restored.

As I drove here today, I saw a booming city. A city of new buildings - with more on the way. A city that is still the jewel of this nation and the Middle East. A country with an energetic people - led by a dynamic new president. A country of hope and opportunity, where the next century will bring prosperity - and we all pray, peace.

But a 21st century vision for Lebanon will not arrive on its own. It will take hard work; collaboration among all of Lebanon's people; and the leadership of the graduates of the American University of Beirut. It will test the commitment and the character of this generation of young Lebanese - Muslim, Christian and Druze.

I did not come here with simple answers to the challenges you face. That would be arrogant. But I know universities and their role in economic development - and the preparation of a workforce and leaders for the 21st Century.

What can Lebanon - and this university - do to make a successful passage into the next century? How do you assure Lebanon's rightful place as a world leader in commerce, education, art - and of particular interest to me - health and science? On these questions I have some thoughts.

The place I'd like to begin is with words President Lahoud spoke when he was sworn in last month. He said, "The young want to see more interest in educational, social, health and environmental issues." President Lahoud is absolutely right. But I want to emphasize the importance of making sure that all Lebanese receive the blessing of a 21st Century education.

What now distinguishes the United States from almost every place else on earth is our firm commitment to build a nation using the skills of all our people. That means men and women. African-Americans, Latinos and Arab-Americans. Young and old. Rich and poor. Urban and rural. We strive to tap into the talents of everyone.

Call these talents the building blocks of nationhood. I don't mean roads, and bridges, hospitals and new office towers. I mean those who will construct a new world. Men and women -- their minds, bodies and spirits. So if I may, allow me to seize this opportunity to give back to the land of my grandparents, and offer three challenges to the AUB community.

Three challenges involving the mind, body and spirit.

First -- the challenge of the mind -- is to never stop learning.

After food, shelter and family, learning is a basic human hunger and requirement. It's the water of progress, the key to everything we want for ourselves, our nations and our world. This ancient value made this region the cradle of civilization. But centuries ago, learning was a luxury reserved for the few. Today it's a survival skill for all.

In this Age of Democracy, you need learning to be better, more informed citizens.

In this Age of Change - when half of all scientific knowledge will be obsolete in a decade - you need constant learning to adapt to change, to stay ahead of change, to harness change.

In this Information Age, you need learning to pull knowledge from the raging river of data flowing over the Internet and bouncing off of satellites. Already, 40 percent of the hits in the Middle East come from Lebanon.

In this Computer Age, you need computer learning to join the electronic web of nations, systems and people -- where isolation is impossible, and where we're all citizens of the world.

In this Golden Age of Science, you need learning to seize the opportunity to achieve new breakthroughs, and apply them to better people's lives. That's why I'm pleased today to announce that the National Institutes of Health, will begin offering two visiting fellowship positions to AUB faculty each year for five years. This gift, worth almost half a million dollars, is an investment in AUB's future. Eligible faculty will work on biomedical and behavioral research with some of the finest scientists - and social scientists - in the world -- and we will be proud to have them.

Finally, in this Age of Globalization, you need learning to leap over the old boundaries of culture, tradition, religion and geography to embrace the world and its wealth of diversity. You must see diversity as Lebanon's strength. It's what AUB stands for. And it's certainly what your late President, Malcolm Kerr, stood for.

He was an American who grew up in Beirut. His parents taught at AUB. And he left Lebanon only to become a renowned scholar of this region. On the Western shores of America, he taught many young people about Lebanon, the home of his heart. When he returned to Beirut to become President of AUB, Dr. Kerr embodied the historic bridge between the United States and Lebanon. Even when an assassin's bullet took his life in 1984, as he stepped off an elevator in College Hall, Dr. Kerr's legacy refused to die -- the legacy of looking beyond borders, boundaries and barriers to the common humanity in every human.

In this and in so many ways, AUB gives its students learning for life.

Here, they learn how to learn. Earn a respect for learning. And develop a yearn to learn, throughout their lives.

From a very early age, I was blessed with a love, respect and yearning for learning. I received these gifts from my remarkable late father, who had to drop out of high school during the Depression to help his sisters and brothers. I received these gifts from a very well educated, and very successful Lebanese- American woman. She was the first Lebanese-American woman from my community to go to college and to law school. In fact, in 1948, she was one of very few women in America attending law school. And as she went to classes, she also raised her family. Today, at age 87, this remarkable woman still practices law in Cleveland. And she's still teaching me lessons about life, almost every day.

That woman is my mother, Edna. Her parents were born in Saghbine. She's here with me today. By sharing her life experiences, my mother taught me something else about learning. My father too. Something that AUB can teach the world. That learning is crucial to the advancement of women. And the world.

My father was an unusual Arab man for his time, because he believed deeply in the education of women. He urged his friends to send their daughters - as well as their sons - to college. AUB's commitment to educating women dates back 90 years. Today, there are almost as many women studying in this elite institution as men. Women make every university stronger. And women graduates of AUB enrich this nation and the world.

Why? Because the progress of humankind depends on the progress of women. And the progress of women depends on their progress in learning. We know that women make 10 to 20 percent more income for every year of education they receive - not just in the United States, but around the world. In the poorest countries of the world, every year of basic education for women translates into a five to 10 percent decline in the mortality of their infant children.

There is no question that better educated women help make healthier and better societies the world over. And, yet, the global gender gap in education persists. Nearly two-thirds of the illiterate people in the world are women. Of the 130 million children who lack access to primary school around the world, two-thirds are girls.

This is not an American woman pointing her finger at the world. In my own country, women are still not equal in the halls of learning. We don't have enough women in medical schools or engineering programs. Or enough women from minority populations in college at all. Or enough women on faculties of our universities. Educational disparity should concern both women and men. Because in this era of rebirth and rebuilding, no nation can afford to squander the potential of any person. Neither should people squander their own potential.

That leads to my second challenge today -- a challenge of the body: Respect the gift of health.

There's an old Arab proverb that says, "Where there's health there's hope, and where there's hope there's everything."

That's true whether we sit in the shadow of the cedars of Lebanon or the pines of Yellowstone National Park. It goes without saying that no nation can hope to rebuild itself, or sustain itself, or improve itself, without a healthy population. Health is the beginning of effective social and economic development. And the beginning of good health is preventing bad health.

In my country, there's an old saying, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." That saying has new meaning today, because in the 21st Century, curing disease will only incur greater national costs.

In both our nations -- and indeed the world -- we will have more older people, higher health care costs, and more chronic diseases. And in both our nations, we lack unlimited health care resources. So we must focus more on prevention.

Most preventable deaths are related to personal behavior. Throughout the world, the primary killer of older people -- cardiovascular disease -- is often related to poor diet, lack of exercise and smoking. Individuals have it in their power to protect their health, save their lives, and advance their national well being. They can simply get more exercise. Eat better. Have regular check-ups. And make sure children are vaccinated against infectious diseases.

Most importantly, stop smoking - and avoid tobacco altogether. Smoking is the number-one preventable cause of death in my country and in much of the world. As many as 250 million children alive in the world today-children from Sidon to Singapore to San Francisco-will eventually die from tobacco related diseases. That's why I'm working with the new Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Gro Brundtland, on a global campaign to protect people from tobacco.

But it all starts with you. If you smoke, quit. If you don't smoke, don't start.

All of us who work in medicine, public health or scientific research also have a special role to play in any effort to ensure a healthy population.

This is the perfect forum to discuss healthy populations - because AUB has long been a leader in medicine and research not only in Lebanon but in the entire Middle East. As I've told medical audiences in the United States many times, we must foster a dialogue between public health and medicine, a dialog that will foster a united front so that people can better understand the health effects of their behavior. And we must all work to help build-or as here in Lebanon, rebuild-a primary care infrastructure.

As we struggle with competing health care costs, scarce resources, and rigid bureaucracies, we must never allow dazzling cutting edge research to blind us to the fact that primary care is the basic building block of a healthy population. When it comes to ensuring the blessing of health for ourselves and our children, we all need to be involved.

That leads me to my third challenge today -- a challenge of the spirit -- captured in another Kahlil Gibran's maxim, "It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding."

This challenge is about who we are. About building a love for ourselves, for our community and for world peace.

Last year I went to the University of Mississippi - a school that 30 years ago was at the center of racial conflict in the United States. This is part of what I said: "I come as a stranger, but I am one of you. Because before region. Before race. Before age. Before gender. Even before history - there is humanity."

Today, I want to expand on that idea and say that finding our common humanity and solving our problems together is not a dilemma for any one of us, it is a dilemma for all of us. Peace. Prosperity. Brotherhood and sisterhood. These will come - as Kahlil Gibran said - through understanding. By all of us working to make ourselves more tolerant, more educated, more open-minded, more compassionate.

When these become the qualities that mark our spirits - our spirits will become the tools with which we can build or rebuild great nations.

In 1800, when my country was not even 25 years old, one of our Founding Fathers gave a famous speech about national greatness. He said greatness is not measured in numbers, wealth or extent of territory. Nor in genius and excellence in the arts - or even liberty.

What constitutes national greatness, he declared, is national spirit -- a high, generous and noble spirit. You do not need to be Lebanese to recognize that kind of greatness in Lebanon. My friends, you have a great nation because you have a great resilient spirit. You see it in your rebirth after two decades of strife.

You see it in your kind and welcoming hospitality, known the world over.

You see it here in the promising minds and lives of AUB students.

And you certainly see the great Lebanese spirit in your diversity of cultures, traditions and religions.

It is this spirit of tolerance that your first President of AUB, Dr. Daniel Bliss, dreamed about.

So my final challenge today is to carry forward the spirit of Lebanon in whatever you do and wherever you go. Restore it. Renew it. Relive it.

I say that particularly to the students of AUB. Because remember, when you leave here, you will enter a world where you will no longer be judged by your grades, but by your character. By the promises you keep, and the changes you shape. By the love you give and the help you repay. By the examples you set, and the challenges you meet. By your guts and your heart.

These are the standards by which we will judge each AUB graduate and ourselves -- no matter what profession or dream we choose.

At the end of World War II, as President Harry Truman reflected on all of the men and women who struggled, sacrificed, prayed and perished to free the world of tyranny and terror, Truman settled an age- old question: He said, "Individuals make history and not the other way around. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better."

Lebanon will thrive if it learns from history. Its own.

Thank you.