Three Cups of Tea Author Visits MHC
December 7, 2009
Posted: December 7, 2009
By Madgalena Georgieva '10
“The greatest enemy that we all face in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or here in the U.S. is ignorance,” said writer and school founder Greg Mortenson as he addressed a packed audience in Chapin Auditorium December 5. Before the book signing of his new title, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mortenson spoke about education as the key tool for promotion of peace.
Author of the New York Times bestseller and mandatory reading for all senior U.S. military commanders and forces deployed to Afghanistan, Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson told book fans about the inspiration and challenges behind his humanitarian work. In his new book, Mortenson continued the story of his school-building initiatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s rural regions.
“The more I do this, the more I am convinced that education should be our top national priority,” said Mortenson who has established more than 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since 1996, when his first school was completed, Mortenson has been working to empower local communities through his nonprofit organization Central Asia Institute and his children’s program Pennies for Peace. He was a 2009 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and recipient of one of Pakistan’s highest civil awards, the Sitara-e-Pakistan.
“If you have hope, you can do anything,” said Mortenson referring to the high school students involved in Pennies for Peace. This initiative began in 1994 when children from Westside Elementary School in River Fall, Wisconsin, raised 62,340 pennies to help Mortenson build his first school in Pakistan. “It wasn’t celebrities, it wasn’t adults; it was children reaching out to children halfway around the world,” he said. Now his schools provide education to nearly 58,000 students, especially girls.
“If you educate a boy, you educate an individual, but if you educate a girl, you educate a community,” was the African proverb that Mortenson repeatedly used to illustrate his cause. When he learned that girls return to their rural communities to spread the knowledge they have gained, he concentrated his school-building initiatives around girls’ education.
“I have seen the profound results of what girls’ education can do,” he said emphasizing the importance of female literacy. Among the major results he listed were reducing infant mortality, reducing population explosion, and improving health and life standards. With the greatest increase in girls’ education from 2000 to 2009, more than 2.5 million girls can now attend schools in Afghanistan.
Yet Taliban groups and violent religious extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan work to shut down schools and restrict women’s education. About 800 schools have been closed in the last two-and-a-half years. “Why are these big men with guns scared of little girls?” Mortenson asked. “Their greatest fear is not a bullet but a pen,” he said. The Taliban guerrillas are afraid that the value of education will shift into the community, he added.
Fortunately, only one of Mortenson’s schools has been attacked by the Taliban. Mortenson has found that building relationships and gaining the trust of local leaders has tremendously contributed to his cause. This is also the message he wants to convey to U.S. policy makers.
“You cannot plug in democracy, you must build democracy,” he said. Mortenson emphasized the importance of listening to elders and involving them in the public debate. He wished the Afghanistan shuras (tribal leaders) had been engaged in the debate about the recent troop deployment instead of holding meetings behind closed doors.
“The public should be involved in these decisions,” he said. If you are going to help a country, he said, you should listen to it.
Harriet Weissman '58 introduced Mortenson. The event was sponsored by the Weissman Center for Leadership, the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives, and the Office of the President.
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Greg Mortenson
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