Three Cups of Tea

The church that I attend holds 'Mission Mixers' for missionaries to give updates of what they have been doing. Prior to the latest one, in which the missionary would be speaking about time spent in Pakistan, I decided to read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The subtitle of the book reads, 'One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations...One School at a Time'. This, of course, is the selling point for the book. The story as related, does not tell of Mortenson making this his quest and then setting out to do it. It was, that as an expression of extreme gratitude to the people of mountain village in Pakistan, Mortensen promised to build them as school. He didn't say he would do so to fight terrorism, but simply because they needed one. As the project grew and schools were built it become more apparent that education in any form could counteract the reliance of the village students on the madrassa schools of the Taliban. These schools were built to be taught by Pakistani teachers, teaching Pakistani culture and religion, but not militant Islam. In this the students were granted, with and through their educations, choice. In the years following the fall of the towers, Mortenson does strongly advocate for education as “one prong of a two prong attack on the ‘war on terror’". He points out if the same amount of money were poured into the education systems of Pakistan and Afghanistan that the effects would be lasting. It is argued that the current methods being used to attempt to fight the terrorists are creating more animosity as well as uniting and deepening the resolve and hatred of those who were already opposed to America. We are, in fact, ensuring the survival of the roots of the enemy. The other fact pointed out is that the war efforts are obliterating the opportunities for those who are not involved in militant/fundamentalist efforts. Schools are leveled and business wiped out. Many choose to fight for the Taliban because they are offered the only paycheck, option, or future available.

I didn't finish the book before the Mission Mixer. I was (and am) I bit unsure of asking the missionary what he thought/thinks of the war. It is a loaded question and posed to someone who has walked through the mine fields of that area, it seemed more than politically incorrect. But it did leave me thinking of what do I think of the war. More so it left me thinking about education and the choices that are made available with an education. These choices go far beyond career opportunities to the basic choices of existence. Without any way to attain information other than what is handed to you by those who hold the information there is no way to consider options. This considering of options and then being free to make choices based on these options provide some of the foundational principles of being human. It is here that human rights are violated and in ways that I cannot even comprehend. I understand that there are limitations to the information that I can gather. I cannot see the world not through my 'lenses' - my worldview. I cannot know all the facts of any situation, but I can read. I can gather as many facts as I can gather. I can know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I don't have enough information. I can know that there is a more complete picture available because I have been exposed to portions of that picture. Flipside, I know that literacy and education are not the only way that a person may gather information and learn to critically think, but I would think that they certainly do help and are the way for most of us.

I learned a bit more about Pakistan and Afghanistan. I think the most memorable is that the vehicles are often decorated in bright pictures, paintings, and plastic flowers (?). It would seem that is a more of a universal practice than I had known. Perhaps America's efforts to get rid of graffiti are anti-cultural and ought to be embraced and celebrated as artwork and the expressions of a people. But that is probably beside the point.
The 'bad guys' that America are attempting to fight are not all the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan or Iraq or Iran. They are a few - who took their educations seriously enough to learn to fly a plane. But it only takes one right (wrong) negative to completely undo all the positive. If the "true enemy is ignorance", (p.310) education will continue to be an important weapon in the war against that negative.