TALIBAN ON A TEETER-TOTTER:

HOW SCHOOLS HAVE PACIFIED JIHADISTS

Read other columns on Mortenson here.

By Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho (nickgier@roadrunner.com)

The ink of scholars is holier than the blood of martyrs.

--an Islamic Hadith

        America has produced some prominent humanitarians, but Greg Mortenson, executive director of the Central Asia Institute (CAI), is one of the most remarkable.  This is a person who has actually earned the Nobel Peace Prize that he should receive. 

        Mortenson’s background as an avid mountaineer would not have pointed to a career totally dedicated to educating the children of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He financed his climbing habit by working as an emergency room nurse in the Bay Area. Mortenson initially went to Pakistan to climb K-2, the second highest (28,251 ft.) and most difficult of the Himalayan mountains. I know from my own experience that being a mountaineer can sometimes be a very self-absorbing experience.  The obsession with “bagging peaks” pushes out all other concerns and obligations.

         Edmund Hillary is the only mountaineer before Mortenson to organize  large-scale aid for the Himalayan people, without whose backbreaking labor none of these climbs would have been possible.  The Nepali Sherpas have gained most of the attention, while the Muslim porters in Pakistan have been ignored.  Mortenson attributes some of this to the Sherpas’ exotic Buddhism in contrast to the stigma of helping Muslims who may be associated with religious militants.

         Focusing on the education of girls, Mortenson has now built, exclusively with private donations, 131 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan paying the teachers and serving 58,000 students.  He has focused on remote communities that have been ignored by the central governments. The crowning glory of this policy is a four-room school for a neglected Mongol tribe in the high Pamirs 30 miles from the nearest road.

         The Afghan Women’s Co-op, started by a CAI Afghan male staff person, has now been taken over by the women themselves and has spread to five provinces.  Mortenson observes that these women are “on fire,” and he realizes that there is now a second insurgency in Afghanistan: “a quiet revolution of female learning and liberation.”

         Mortenson has won the admiration and respect of top military brass. His best-selling book Three Cups of Tea is now compulsory reading for all members of the Special Forces. In 2009 Admiral Michael Mullen, head of the Joint Chiefs, made a special effort to attend the inauguration of Mortenson’s Pushgur Girls’ School in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley.  The school’s top student, a young woman fluent in Dari, Pasho, Urdu, Arabic, and English, translated Mullen’s address.

           One of those who spoke at the inauguration of the Pushgur Girls’ School was Wohan Khan, head of the Border Security Force in Northeast Afghanistan. Khan had fought against the Soviets and the Taliban, and during those trying times a legend grew up that the tens of thousands of mujahedeen who died turned into stones on the hillsides surrounding the villages. Khan praised Mortenson for taking the stones and turning them into schools.  The title of  Mortenson’s new book Stones into Schools was inspired by Khan's story. 

The elaborate stone work in Mortenson’s schools is much more aesthetic and sturdy than the ubiquitous concrete block structures. Working in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir after the devastating 2005 earthquake, CAIs staff realized that they could not rebuild even with stone.  Instead, Mortenson raised $54,000 to build three schools according to an ancient Chinese design in which the aluminum frame would flex with any future tremors.

 One of Mortenson’s most frustrating experiences is persuading his female students’ families to allow them to go on for post-secondary education.  In these very conservative Muslim families, it is rare that permission is granted immediately. In one instance an obviously jealous brother-in-law, who insists that he should get the scholarship instead of his bright sister-in-law, has held up her advancement indefinitely.

 Some of the young women, however, have done remarkably well.  There is Jahan Ali, granddaughter of the village chief who nursed Mortenson back to life after he lost his way coming down from a failed attempt on K-2. After waiting nine years for permission to proceed, Ali has now completed a maternal care program, but she won’t stop until she becomes a member of Parliament.

 There is also Shakila Khan, who will soon become, as Mortenson boasts, “the first locally educated female physician ever to emerge from Baltistan’s population of 300,000.” Then there is Aziza Hussain, who thanks to a Central Asian Institute scholarship, finished a maternal health program and now his serving her home village.  While she was growing up, about 20 women lost their lives  in childbirth each year.  Under Hussain’s care no mother has died in ten years.

 Under the Taliban it was illegal for girls to go to school and teachers who held clandestine classes were executed in front of their pupils.  Today the Taliban continue a brutal campaign against the education of girls.  Since 2001, 478 schools have been attacked, three by means of toxic gas. The most vicious attack was the squirting of battery acid in the faces of nine girls and four teachers. 

In one instance, however, Mortenson achieved something he never thought possible. At the urging of his daughter, who reminded her father of the obvious truth that all children need to play, Mortenson started installing playgrounds in all of his schools. One day some Taliban fighters came to check out one of Mortenson’s schools. When the Taliban commander saw the playground, he ordered his men to lay down their weapons and play on the equipment. When Mortenson invited them into the school, the leader declined saying: “No, we have seen enough.  We would like to formally request that you come to our village [and] start building schools.  But if you do, they absolutely must have playgrounds.” The Taliban agreed to this knowing full well that the schools would have to admit girls.

 Mortenson gives no reason why the Taliban were so taken by the playground.  I surmise that it may have something to do with the fact that many of Taliban leaders were orphans from the Soviet occupation.  They grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan under the most austere conditions and religious indoctrination. Their childhood had been taken from them, and this spontaneous outburst by the Taliban leader may have been the result of childhood deprivations.

 Yet another dramatic example of how a school pacified the Taliban is the village of Saw in a district that has recently experienced heavy American casualties. The commanding officer, Colonel Chris Kolenda, had worked hard to build up trust with the area’s village leaders, and one of their primary concerns was the lack of schools. Kolenda had read Three Cups of Tea and he proposed that Mortenson build a school in Saw. When the school was finished, threatening notes from the Taliban were tacked to the school door each night.  The Taliban said that if any girl attended this school, they would burn it to the ground. Instead of caving into the threats, the local mullah informed the Taliban that, as Mortenson relates, “if they dared to harm a single student or teacher, they would be committing an offense against Islam. To this day, the school has not been attacked or threatened once.”

 From his first days in the village at the foot of K-2, Mortenson learned lessons that he has effectively applied over the past 16 years.  He learned the local customs and he wears the traditional dress. His knowledge and respect for Islam not only impresses his hosts, but also in one case his sensitivity to Islamic practice saved his life and won the hearts of his kidnappers. Mortenson has also listened to the people (including the children) and determine not only what the local needs are, but, just as important, he learned the local ways of meeting those needs. He also insists on sweat equity from the people who want his schools.

 Mortenson was so head strong in building his first school according his own American perspective that the village chief hid his tools and told him to sit down for yet another cup of tea.  Mortenson is deeply concerned when he sees that many other NGOs have not learned this basic lesson.

 I have criticized President Obama for his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, but in the back of my mind I knew that Mortenson was working there, and now that I’ve read his second book, I have to say that I’m glad our forces are there.

 During the rule of the Taliban, only 800,000 children, all boys, were in school.  Today, 8 million Afghan children taking classes and 2.5 million are girls.  This accomplishment is essential to protect, preserve, and augment. Mortenson reminds us that all Islamic militants must receive permission from their mothers before they go on jihad.  I think he is right to believe that confident and educated mothers would be less likely to give their blessings.

        With the image of Taliban fighters in my mind swinging and playing on a teeter-totter, I’m now convinced that we ought to stay the course in Afghanistan for the sake of the women and children.

Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.