My friend Gene Humphrey, not short of combat experience or U.S. intelligence work, sent me an engaging little book, “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson. It opens with the heartbreaking defeat of an attempt to summit K2 and continues with the comparable struggles to build schools in the dauntingly remote Himalayas of Northern Pakistan but these are victories indeed. Gene picks his reading recommendations well; “Three Cups of Tea” has become required reading for U.S. commanders and troops deploying to Afghanistan.
“We can drop bombs and hand out condoms and build roads or put in electricity but if we don’t educate children, and especially girls, nothing will change in society….I find it somewhat amazing how very nimble and small, poor organizations are able to exploit the lack of education very quickly and use ignorance to feed their own agenda. I think that’s why I feel that educating girls is so important. If you educate a boy, you educate an individual but if you educate a girl, you educate a whole community. There is a proverb in Afghanistan that, roughly translated, says that the ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr. And I believe that. Education is our greatest weapon.” Greg Mortenson author of “Three Cups of Tea” in an MSNBC interview on December 3rd.
This is an interesting concept. Is there any validity to it? According to an article in Pars Times by Golnaz Esfandiari, Dr. Said Peyvandi who follows Iranian education from Paris said the number of Iranian girl in the educational system is growing dramatically even following the 1979 revolution and Islamization of the educational institutions. “The remarkable educational progress of Iranian girls is the last decade should be considered a social phenomenon, because its implications for social relations, the labor market, and the status of women in society and in the family are very, very important in determining the future of Iran.” A good argument can be made that we are seeing the results of that societal progress in the current demonstrations and uprising against the illegitimate regime in control of Iran, Ahmadinejad and his mullahs.
It’s good to know that the U.S. continues its support of education in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps victory will eventually come.
Tom Motherway