Building schools in the Hindu Kush. But military security always gets a higher priority than development, and there’s money for bombs but not for school books.

President Barack Obama’s new policy on Afghanistan wisely includes Pakistan, a nation in great peril. And it seeks to get beyond the ‘war on terror’ mentality – which, arguably, has generated more terror in the world than it has cured – and to confront not only terrorism but the causes behind it.

That is evidenced in Obama’s commitment to target far more resources (a surge in economic aid of US $7.5 billion) toward a narrower set of Afghan problems: government incompetence, opium cultivation and heroin trafficking, and a poorly equipped and trained army. And to bring real development among the region’s impoverished populations. As Obama commented: ‘There has been a lot of progress since 2001 – after all, girls are back in school. I happen to believe that's important. As a father of two girls, I couldn't imagine living in a society where my little girls couldn't have a chance to realize their God-given potential.’ Which may be a better benchmark for progress than simply a Taliban body count.

While reaching for that sort of progress, Obama and his advisers could gain something from the 15-year experience in the region of another American. In 1993 Greg Mortenson survived a failed attempt on K2, the second highest mountain, only with the help of Pakistani porters. Lost, famished and disoriented, he wandered into an isolated mountain village in the Karakoram mountains. While being nursed back to health, he was challenged to see the 84 children there lacked any education simply because no-one could afford to pay a $1-day teacher. He left promising to build a school for them. It took him three years, writing 580 individual letters to American celebrities and business-people and selling all he had including his precious mountaineering gear. But he did it. In the process he discovered a fierce competition for schools and education right across these mountains of northern Pakistan.

Since then, with the support of a small group of Americans, he has established 78 schools in this forbidding territory which gave birth to the Taliban. Twice he had a fatwa issued against him by local mullahs, because his schools equally educated girls. Each time, he was saved by Shia clerics who secured rulings of a higher Shariat court supporting his work.

Through the Indo-Pak war over Kargil, 1999, and the start of the American-led invasion of Afghanistan following 9/11, he risked his life to bring relief and education to those villagers most affected. In return, more than once Pakistanis and Afghanis risked their lives to save him.

In his book Three Cups of Tea, co-authored with David Oliver Relin (Viking), Mortenson quotes the illiterate village chief of Korphe, where his life was rescued: ‘Here, we drink three cups of tea to do business: the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything – even die.’

Such lessons, drawn from Mortenson’s work, might be critical in this current surge. To sum up:
RESPECT: Rather than sweeping judgements, Mortenson reveals devout Muslim families with a high sense of honour and justice, desperate to advance the lives of their children.

PARTICIPATION: Mortenson’s schools were built for less than US $20,000 each, because village people provided not only the labour but also the local expertise to get the most for the money. While Mortenson’s American NGO assisted with funding for books and teachers, the running of the schools is in the hands of village leaders and local staff.

KEEPING PROMISES: Soon after 9/11, Mortenson flew into Afghanistan and took a dangerous journey into the Hindu Kush to fulfil a promise made to Wakhan tribesmen who had travelled five days on horseback into Pakistan pleading with him to build schools. After being pinned down by a fire-fight between rival Afghan opium dealers, Mortenson was embraced (literally) by a regional war-lord, Sahkar Khan. ‘We fought with the Americans, here in these mountains against the Russians,‘ said Khan. ‘And though we heard many promises, they never returned to help us when the dying was done.’ A repeated theme in Mortenson’s book is that military security always gets a higher priority than development, and there’s money for bombs but not for books.

In 2002, after American forces drove the Taliban out of Kabul and blasted them in their mountain hide-outs, Mortenson was taken by a US Congresswoman to address military and civilian staffers at the Pentagon. He spoke of the ‘legions of jihadis’ being forged in extremist madrassa (schools) which he had seen springing up across Pakistan, financed with Saudi Wahhabis. For the just one of the 114 Tomahawk cruise missiles then launched into Afghanistan, costing $840,000 each, ‘you could build dozens of schools that could provide tens of thousands of students with balanced non-extremist education over the course of a generation. Which do you think will make us more secure?’ argued Mortenson.

Schools and security, books and bombs, democracy and decisive military action… all will be needed. Plus plenty cups of tea.

See Mortenson’s work described at www.threecupsoftea.com

NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.

Mike Brown, writer/ trainer from Australia, currently assists programs at the IofC Centre in Panchgani, India, including the international Action for Life program. A member of the original National Sorry Day Committee, he has long been involved in the Australian reconciliation movement, as well as racial dialogues in the US.