Educate to build peace, Nobel nominee says
Greg Mortenson gave a simple message to a packed gym at Gull Lake High School Thursday night: The road to peace must be lined with schools for all children.
The Nobel Peace Prize nominee and author of best-seller “Three Cups of Tea” (2006, Penguin) has been working since the mid-1990s to build schools in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan. So far, he has helped build or support 131 schools in the region.
“Ignorance promotes hatred,” Mortenson said. So education, especially for girls, is the best solution for conflict. “We can drop bombs, build roads … but unless girls are educated, it will never change a thing,” he said. Educated women are essential to all communities, and in regions in the current conflict, educated mothers usually refuse to allow sons to join terrorist causes, he said.
Mortenson’s story spanned from growing up in Tanzania, where his father helped found a hospital, to mountain climbing in Pakistan.
A failed attempt to scale K2 in Pakistan brought him into the care of the village of Korphe.
It was there that he learned the proverb, to share “one cup of tea, you’re a stranger; two cups and you’re a guest, three cups and you’re family.”
“I’ve already had three cups (at Gull Lake), so it feels like we’re family,” he told the appreciative audience.
In Korphe he decided to build a school for his rescuers. A long process of fundraising led to “Pennies for Peace,” which gets pennies from U.S. school children to fund his efforts. The Gull Lake schools had so far raised $3,000 during his visit.
Mortenson found that as an outsider in the two countries he had to respect the locals, “let go and empower the communities.”
With his funds, villages build and run the schools. The Taliban has destroyed schools in the region — girls’ schools are usually the target — but tribal elders are willing to protect the schools they’ve built with his help.
One protester stood outside the event holding a sign against “foreign schools in Afghanistan.”
Mortenson was asked about the protester.
“All I can tell you is that we’re asked to come and help,” he said. In other words, Mortenson won’t go where he’s not wanted.
His book’s biggest fans are in the U.S. military, which is looking for ways to rebuild Afghanistan. It’s become standard reading for troops from recruits to Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen.
Mullen agreed with Mortenson’s message that “we cannot capture hearts and minds, we must engage them,” Mortenson said.
He said he did not want to get involved in the politics of the conflict, but Mortenson had sharp words for the current decisions on Afghanistan “being made behind closed doors.”
“We cannot have a democracy in secret,” he said.
A questioner at the end asked Mortenson about what he’d have the Obama administration do about Afghanistan. He said that personal contact can help bring peace.
Mortenson gave kudos to Secretary of State Clinton for visiting Pakistan in person.
As for the president, “He really needs to go over for a cup of tea,” Mortenson said, getting applause. “That’s worth $1 billion in aid.”
(c) Kalamazoo Gazette 2009
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2009/10/educate_to_build_peace_nobel_n.html
