What Book to Read?

Published in 2006, this book purports to be an account of the work of an American writer, speaker and philanthropist, Greg Mortenson, as per the subtitle: One Man’s Extraordinary Journey to Promote Peace … One School at a Time. It is a flawed book about a flawed man. But I found it inspiring. I say ‘purports’ because it turns out some of the details are not true. I’ll nevertheless stick with ‘inspiring’ because the essential truth is that not only did Mortenson single-handedly begin the work of building schools for children, particularly girls, in remote northern Pakistan and later Afghanistan, he also told the American people that the war on terror could not be won by bombs; it had to be won by education.

Mortenson, a trauma nurse by training, was an avid mountaineer. In 1993, having failed in an attempt to climb K2, the second highest mountain in the world, located in northern Pakistan, he stumbled into a village below it. The villagers helped him recover. He saw they had no school building and promised to return and build one. The details about how this happened are among those contested; apparently, he only briefly visited the village and in fact returned later to promise the school. I agree accuracy is important and here Relin, the professional author who did most of the writing, has tried to make the story a bit more dramatic than it actually was. But given how subjective biography always is, I don’t find this a knockout blow. (There is at least one other contested incident where Relin has overdramatised; some people take this as invalidating the whole.) The book then goes on to explain how Mortenson went back to America and tried to raise funds for his school, how he was assisted by a benefactor who set up the non-profit Central Asia Institute for him, how from one school it grew to many, how Mortenson negotiated  the incredibly difficult landscape of northern Pakistan – physical, political, social and religious – and how he fared after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre led to an American war on the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The book is a sort of case study of the growth of one person’s commitment to an idea into a significant non-government organisation, with all the strengths and weaknesses this involves. Mortenson had the dream and the drive to make it happen. Even if Relin overstates the devotion Mortenson seems to have attracted in Pakistan – and he certainly does lay it on a bit thick – Mortenson was clearly visionary, brave and dogged. Maybe he was a bit obsessive. But it is amazing that one man, with just a small band of supporters in Pakistan and America, could accomplish anything where past promises of government aid had come to nothing. That he succeeded in establishing any schools for girls in a poor Muslim country is particularly to his enormous credit. There is a bit of discussion in the book about whether NGOs coming in and changing traditional practices is a good idea, as it will change a way of life in balance with its environment; the book heads one chapter with an approving quote suggesting ‘an ancient connection between ourselves and the earth … that ancient cultures have never abandoned.’ It is clear, however, that improving education, water supply and maternal health are welcomed by those who have to live with the downside of the traditional practices. On the other hand, Relin makes it clear that Mortenson didn’t have the administrative skills or inclination to control the organisation properly. He is open about the fact that Mortenson disliked the fund-raising side – though he got better at it as he went along – and that he was ‘goofy and unbusinesslike’. For the first several years, funds were limited, and he begrudged spending money on administration in America that he felt could be better used in Pakistan. He found it hard to do tasks he disliked – like keeping CAI’s board informed of what he was doing. Even by the time of publication of the book, the organisation was suffering from poor administration.

Just how badly it suffered only became clear after the book was published. It was an enormous success and generated revenue far beyond anything the CAI had previously enjoyed. Mortenson also made a lot of money from speaking fees. Then came the backlash. In 2012, questions about the authenticity of the book were raised, as were concerns about whether all the money was going to the charity. People who had previously supported Mortenson turned against him. After an inquiry found there was no intentional wrong-doing on his part, Mortenson agreed to repay $1 million to the organisation, and was banned from taking a leadership role in it. Sadly, the allegations about elements of the story being untrue caused Relin, already suffering from depression, to commit suicide.

While scandals about the book and Mortenson’s financial mis-management seem to be the frame through which many people view him, to me there is a much more important story. And that is Mortenson’s attempt to argue to his American audience that education is more important than bombs in the war on terror. Indeed, he was acutely aware that bombing, which inevitably killed civilians, made Americans hated in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He saw with concern the spread of Saudi Arabian funded madrassas, preaching the fundamentalist Islamic creed of Wahhabism, some of them home to militant extremism. He respected Islam, but wanted children to have a balanced general education, not religious indoctrination. He understood that support for the Taliban came from anti-Americanism, ignorance and a perversion of Islam. This was not what many in America wanted to hear. Of course, only a conspiracy theorist could possibly suggest a direct connection between his criticisms of the war on terror and accusations of impropriety against him. However, framing him as corrupt and incompetent has deeply compromised other possible ways of looking at his work in promoting peace one school at a time.

You can read more about Mortenson and what happened after the book was published here. And this is a summary from the Washington Post giving both sides of the story, and where he was up to in 2014. These are also interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bFnjDigs_w; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH7wmSuMB8k.