PBS Podcast: NOW On The News
Greg Mortenson on Building Schools in
with Maria Hinojosa
Transcript
HINOJOSA: Welcome to our podcast.
This week we're talking to Greg Mortenson, co-author of New York Times
best-selling book, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's
MORTENSON: Good morning, Maria.
HINOJOSA: It's great to have you on the show, Greg. You know
you have so many fans across the country, across the world, who think that your
notion of building one school at a time in countries that are not necessarily
welcoming to Americans—many people read your book and think it's
life-changing. Did you ever think that you would have that kind of an impact on
Americans?
MORTENSON: No, I just started out—I was a dirtbag climber on
HINOJOSA: And I'm sure you never thought you would end up
building more than one school over there. I wanna
start Greg, by asking you the question that is—is really on the news—your
response to this report that Pakistan has arrested a Taliban chief, Mullah Obi
Ai Dullah (PH). He is considered a—a—a very high
level of the Taliban to be arrested. When you see this kind of news about an
important member of the Taliban being arrested, what goes on for you?
MORTENSON: Well Maria, I think it's great. Given all the
resources and money and everything we—we spend into capturing or killing
terrorists or al-Qaeda or the Taliban, that—you know it's—you know, it shows
that there's some progress. Unfortunately, against the—the backdrop of that is
the fact that the international community, the Pakistan Afghan government,
and—and the
For example, after 9/11 the Taliban were about 20,000
strong. And then they had about 80,000 you'd say, semi-adherents, who a lot of
them deserted right after 9/11. They had trouble getting soldiers to fight the
eminent intervention by the
And what—what is not really known about in the West very
much is the fact that under Islam, when a young man goes on jihad—you know, we
think of jihad as holy war, but it—it can also be a noble quest like—going on
with your education or spiritual endeavor, or it could mean also
joining—joining the Taliban. So a young man has to get permission and blessings
from his mother. And if he doesn't do that, it's very shameful or disgraceful.
And also under we say, real Islam, suicide is—is perhaps the
ultimate sin or—or atrocity a person can commit in the killing of civilians. So
if a young—young man doesn't get that permission and—and he—he becomes a shahid (PH) or martyr, it's very disgraceful or—or he—he's
not gonna go to heaven as he may—might think he does.
But I've been criticized for saying that. But—even if you look at the 9/11
hijackers, certainly they were educated. Some of them even had university
degrees. But—nobody really went and checked their mothers, who are nearly all
illiterate.
And now that's a very strong deterrent—that we had the same
thing you know, here—we do in the inner cities, where you have single mothers
you know, who are impoverished and less education. Their son wants to get into
drugs or gangs or violence, but if she has an education, she more
likely—not—you know, condone her son to go into violence. And she'll encourage
him to get a job or go on with his school.
HINOJOSA: And I wanna talk to you
a little bit more about how strongly you feel about educating girls and women.
But before that, I'm sure that many of our listeners kind of approach this and
think, "You know, my sense," they might say to themselves, "is
that if we go to
MORTENSON: Maria, I started in '93. So I'm—I'm going on 14
years. Now I have very close relationships with many people over there. And I
find that by—you know, in the great majority of communities—and I'm talking
about rural and impoverished communities—they definitely support education. And
it's the few extremists or radicals (UNINTEL) hijacked their religion and—their
faith, and are trying to you know, propagate a very
violent—ideology.
And it is—it is kind of frightening—the fact that 1980,
there were about 300 extremist madrasahs (PH) in
And you know, 99 percent of madrasahs are very similar to confirmation or catechism or
the bar mitzvah. But there are these other extremist madrasahs,
mostly funded by Wahhabi (PH) adherents. And Wahhabi is one of the—the most extreme of the four Sunni
sub-sects that propagate very violent type of ideology.
And these have flourished. They take the brightest young
boys from the madrasahs. They send them to
So if you look at that—the Wahhabi
plan or—or the extremist plan, it is to—it's over about 100 year plan. And
we're trying to tackle this with billions of dollars and bipartisan bickering.
And we—really—really need to look at education, I think, as an alternative.
Even if we could invest one percent of the money that we put to the war on
terror in education, it could have profound implications.
HINOJOSA: But you know, Greg, some people might say—especially
when they hear your—your—the answer that you just gave, where you now have
students who are being educated in this you know, k—as you say, violent form
of—of Islam, what can one school here and there actually do against a hundred
year plan to confront the infidels of the West?
MORTENSON: The way I approach this—you know, I'm actually an
optimist, and you know it's easy to get pessimistic or—or—what I say is you
know, if you fight terror, terrorism, it's based in fear. But if you wanna promote peace, it's based in hope. And—and what we're
trying to do is look at the most extreme areas—either
physical isolation, areas of conflict and war, or the third is—religious
extremism. And we're able to, over several years, put flourishing, thriving
communities-based schools, including for the girls, in those areas.
We have 58 schools, which doesn't sound like a lot. But—if
you look at where those schools are, I think it's a tremendous credit to the
communities that they value education. Including in—in Taliban strongholds, we
have schools that—have girls coming to school.
HINOJOSA: Which is something that's really
wonderful in the beginning of your book. When you have failed to—to
scale the second highest peak in—in—in the world, and you're really devastated,
and you get saved essentially and brought back to life by these people in this
small village up in the mountains. And—and you realize that these kids have no
school. And you write about their fierceness to learn. That's not necessarily
how a lot of people may perceive these young kids, that there's a fierceness to
be educated.
MORTENSON: Yeah, on fierceness, they don't have the
distractions—no Nintendo, T.V. So these kids, they have to work quite a bit.
They do manual labor in the fields and—and the household. But education for
them is—is kind of like their greatest—joy in life. And—and you find there's a incredible learning curve.
They're riveted to their lessons. They take 'em home. They—they work with their parents, so we get these
great results. And it's not all—Maria, it's not all perfect. Last year, two of
our female teachers in Wolander Village (PH) and Charsea Valley (PH), which is the home of Hickmanteur (PH), who's also one of the most wanted
Taliban. And—and he formally was a mujahideen (PH)
and freedom fighter again the
Anyhow, in his—his village, two of our teachers resigned
last fall. They're female. So I went to their houses. I talked to them. They
said, "We'll only go back if the Commandant Doud
(PH)," who you might say is the warlord of the local co—commander,
"will order us back." So we went to his compound. He has daughters in
school. He—he became furious. And now he's posted six of his militia at the
school and said that if anybody even looks you know, cross-eyed at those two
teachers, or—or says anything to them, that—that their orders are to shoot
them.
HINOJOSA: But you know, the
interesting thing, Greg, is that you talk so much about a sense of hope and positivity (PH) and trying to find these human connections.
The reality is that many of these people call you an infidel. You've had fatwas (PH) put out against you. It's not as if there is a
sense of open arms to what you're doing.
MORTENSON: What the fatwa was and the—the hate is coming
from a few of the despot mullahs. And these are in rural illiterate society.
And they control that society with their l—they're often the only literate
person. Or they have some education. And they do not want education in their
areas because it'll empower the people.
And furthermore, they're even more antagonistic towards
girls going to school because they do know that if—if the girls have an
education, when they become a mother, then they've pretty much lost
their—(UNINTEL) of their power. And often it's about—more about money (UNINTEL)
Islam. In many areas, for each young boy that goes to a madras, the local
mullah gets say, $50 to $80 per year, which—which is a lotta
money. It's probably you know, like $5000 here in the States.
And when you put in a school, often many of the
kids—including the boys and girls—will go to the school. And an example, that
is in
But what really happened was the fact that the madras
enrollment dropped from about 500 down to about 80 students in one year. Most
of the boys started going to school. And so the mullahs paid some Taliban to go
and—and destroy those schools.
HINOJOSA: So you have clearly faced resistance, even
violence, in the projects that you're doing in
MORTENSON: I was in
And when I came back to States, it was Halloween—Day, 2001. Went to my—my little office in the basement. I start opening
up my mail. And I start getting hate mail. And subsequently I start getting
death threats. And even now with the book out, I've—we've been getting—very
threatening e-mails and some phone calls.
HINOJOSA: What is the greatest misconception that we
Americans have gotten because of the reporting? What is the reporting missing
that we need to know?
MORTENSON: The good facts. In
You know, that
And—and obviously, it—it's only a drop in a bucket. But that
is, to me, very positive news. And it's probably the most hopeful news that I
could try to convey to the American public.
HINOJOSA: Greg, are you hopeful at this point? Do you see a
light at the end of the tunnel?
MORTENSON: I do. And it's—but it's a tunnel. And Maria, it's
— I unfortunately think it's gonna get worse before
it gets better. But I do think that you know, those four million children now
in
HINOJOSA: Thank you so much for joining us on Now on the
News.
MORTENSON: Thank you, Maria.
HINOJOSA: Greg Mortenson is co-author of the New York Times
best-seller, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's
MORTENSON: Thanks, Maria.
HINOJOSA: I'm Maria Hinojosa. We'll talk to you again next
week
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