NORTHAMPTON - I read Greg Mortenson and David Relin's "Three Cups of Tea" shortly after it was published in 2006. I was moved by the despair in Mortenson's life (the death of his sister) that sent him on his quixotic adventure to climb K2 in Pakistan. An accident ends his quest. The villagers of Korphe rescue him. In response, Mortenson wants to promote education not only in this village, but also in the region.
Thus far, the story is inspirational. But matters are more complex from here on. Mortenson is taken over by his publishers, by the nonprofit industry and by the Pentagon. His genuineness is less relevant than the brand he becomes and the work his charity is able to do for the U. S. war aims in Afghanistan.
Mortenson wanted to subtitle his book, "One Man's Mission to Promote Peace - One School at a Time." Penguin insisted it be subtitled "One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations" (after it became a hit, the book took Mortenson's subtitle).
The small voice of charity had already been suborned to the war on terror. That was how the book came to us, putting forward the liberal view that the war should not only be fought with guns, but with books.
"I supported the war in Afghanistan," Mortenson has said. "I believed in it because I believed we were serious when we said we planned to rebuild Afghanistan. I'm here because I know that military victory is only the first phase of winning the war on terror and I'm afraid we're not willing to take the next steps."
The schools are the next steps, or, more accurately, the simultaneous steps.
In 2002, Mortenson comes to Congress and at a briefing makes his pitch for the schools project. He is not driven by the war on terror, he says, but notes that terrorism "happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death." This statement startles. It comes with insufficient context. Mortenson talks about "Pakistan's impoverished public schools," and the "Wahhabi madrassas sprouting like cancerous cells," as well as the "factories of jihad."
Anthropologist Nosheen Ali points out that "the Shia region of Baltistan with its Tibetan-Buddhist heritage has nothing to do with the war on terror," and it is not the place that Mortensen says, "gave birth to the Taliban." By making such a rash assertion, Ali points out, the subtext of "Three Cups of Tea" is "rooted in a narrative of fear and danger."
The Taliban emerged in the southern districts of Afghanistan and in refugee camps funded by the United States government, the Saudi monarchy and the Pakistani military. After the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, a brutal civil war broke out among rebel factions. The U. S. government colluded with the Pakistani military to bring stability in Afghanistan via the Taliban. Stability was needed to finish plans for an oil pipeline to run from the Caspian Sea to Pakistan.
Why do children in Pakistan's northern region find themselves without education? Not because of "tribal" reticence or some ancient animosity to learning, but because of the long war (since 1979) that has disrupted the region and brought nothing but suffering to the people. In the 1980s, the International Monetary Fund forced Islamabad to end its support of public education, and opened the door to the madrassas, most of which are not "factories of jihad," but the last resort of children from the lower middle class and the working class - all of whom want an education.
In 2010, the U. S. military has already conducted over 75 drone attacks in the areas of northern Pakistan where Mortenson's project operates. His close association with the Pentagon disturbs people in the region, as the anthropologist Shafqat Hussain found over this summer. One friend writes, "School girls, then bomb them. Or bomb them first, and then school the survivors. The order's not important."
There are many other sincere agencies at work in northern Pakistan. None come with the association of the Pentagon, or with a compelling book. Hafiz Muhammad Iqbal, the dean of the faculty of education at the University of Punjab, says of the work of Aga Khan Education Services in particular, "It is because of such interventions that education facilities have reached almost in each and every corner of the region" (he is referring to Baltistan and Gilgit).
I took to Mortenson's book because he does not seek to elevate himself above the villagers (people like Haji Ali, Sakina, Ghulam Parvi, Hussein and others). In "Three Cups," Mortenson is careful to avoid the lineage of the "white man's burden" and his own temperament seems unequal to the colonial official.
Nonetheless, the Mortenson effect allows us to adulate Mortenson for his sacrifices and to reduce the efforts of people in Pakistan, who wish to bring dignity to their own lives. Indeed, their work is often undermined by the very policies Mortenson supports, and that he allows his foundation to run alongside. This is colonialism by book, as the bombs fall with apologies.
Vijay Prashad is director of international studies at Trinity College and author of "The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World" (New Press, 2007). He lives in Northampton.
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