Greg Mortenson

It’s not every day a Nobel Peace Prize nominee — and one for the current calendar year, at that — speaks in southwest Michigan.

Greg Mortenson’s \But Greg Mortenson, one of the half-dozen more inspirational of the 200-plus nominees President Barack Obama beat out for the prize this month, will appear on Oct. 29 at Gull Lake High School in Richland, part of the Gull Lake Community Schools Foundation’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

In the days leading up to the declaration of Obama as the winner, Mortenson, author (with David Oliver Relin) of the New York Times best-seller “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time” (2006, Penguin), wasn’t giving many interviews.
Nor, at the time of this writing, had he made a public statement about the president’s win.
He could be found, however, doing what he always does, keeping the pressure up for building more schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan for children.

Mortenson believes it’s the best way to reduce terrorism.

“What is so critical is the emphasis on girls’ education,” he said Oct. 7 on CNN, two days before Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. “I think the short-term solution is helping boys find an alternative (from terrorism) path. But unless the girls are educated, nothing will change in this society.

“If you put a school in a village, 95 percent of the kids will go to the school — I’m talking about secular education,” he said. “If there’s no school, then it becomes ripe, fertile recruiting grounds. And the Taliban deliberately targets an illiterate, impoverished society.”

Mortenson has discussed the issue with Afghan and Pakistani tribal elders, he told CNN. “They all plead, ‘What we need most is education,’” he said.

He has also talked to the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and Generals David Petraeus and Eric Olson, “and they will all say there is no just-military solution in Afghanistan — it has to be much broader, and the key to it is education.”

In his efforts to get education to Afghan and Pakistani children, Mortenson has survived kidnapping attempts, firefights between opium warlords, and a couple of fatwas.

Because of his work in promoting peace through education, members of the U.S. Congress nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. In Congress’ letter to the Nobel committee, California Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack wrote: “He has overcome great adversity, escaping brutality and death, to continue his commitment to providing educational opportunities to children, especially girls, living in Pakistan and Afghanistan. … Mr. Mortensen has clearly demonstrated to us his strong character, determination and unique ability to work peacefully with foreign leaders during a time of adversity.”

In “Tea,” Mortenson wrote of how he went from mountain climber to philanthropist. In 1992, he attempted to scale the world’s second-tallest peak, K2 in Pakistan. It turned into a rescue of a fellow climber, which resulted in Mortenson getting lost and needing help himself.

Suffering from exhaustion, he stumbled into the tiny village of Korphe, where the residents cared for him. There, he saw children trying to write with sticks in the sand. So to pay the village back, Mortenson promised to build them a school.

This led to the formation of the Central Asia Institute (ikat.org). In spite of threats, a 1996 eight-day kidnapping in Waziristan, and war, Mortenson has managed to help build or support 131 schools in a volatile region.

Mortenson spends half the year away from his Montana home. He once had to escape a battle between warlords by hiding under putrid animal hides in the back of a truck. He not only has endured fatwas from local mullahs, but he has had to put up with CIA investigations and has gotten threats from Americans for educating Muslim children.

He insists on providing education for girls, which has earned him the most wrath from Islamic extremists. Educating women is one of the best ways to fight terrorism and extremism, Mortenson has often said.

(c) Kalamazoo Gazette 2009

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2009/10/author_and_leading_nobel_peace.html