From the Editor

Greg Mortenson, the once failed K-2 climber now Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is coming to ECU on March 1, 2010, to speak about his "Central Asia Institute," and his quest to build one school at a time in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan.  He has done this work in a world where schools are dangerous places, especially if young girls are being educated in them. The mere presence of the schools (84 to date that teach 34,000 students) is life-threatening to the Taliban, and revolutionary to a way of thinking that forces women into a subjugated status. As a result, Mortenson has been the subject of Islamic fundamentalist fatwas and has received hate mail from angry Americans declaiming his efforts has "helping out the enemy." And while Mortenson has struggled at times with only a few hundred dollars here and there, he and co-founder Jean Hoerni have built the most powerful peace movement at work today. In addition, his "Pennies for Peace" campaign begun in 1994 has enlisted the help of American elementary school children in the effort, collecting and donating spare pennies for school supplies. So far the donations have amounted to over 8 million pennies.
 
Recently, I spoke with students in a reading circle at Ledonia Wright Cultural Center concerning Mortensen's book Three Cups of Tea which has been on the New York Times bestseller list for some time and now the selection for the inaugural Pirate Read program for first year students this fall. 

I began by using what Mortenson loves to assert: "You can drop bombs, hand out condoms, build roads or put in electricity, but unless the girls are educated, a society won't change."  And I challenged that supposition: "Is it true," I asked, "that if you educate a girl, that in itself could change the world?"

Instinctively, the group, all women, nodded their assent in an "of course" way.

I pressed them – "Well, how? and in what ways?"

Still hesitant they began to unfold the obvious from their own experience, "educated women who become mothers" they said "almost always see to it that their children are educated," and "instinctively understand how education could help the family, town, community," and how "educated women form ties that are more communal and less competitive" – these comments from their observed experience about their own families and friends.

But still I was not satisfied, and I pressed again – "And this could change the world?" sounding like Dr. Rappaccini.

There was a pause, a looking across the table from one to another, eyes meeting then deflecting, the air still and silent waiting for an answer – I knew I was asking for a grand claim.

"Well," a young woman said, a climber herself, “there are things in the world that have never been done and need doing."

I guffawed. "In all of history, in all the kingdoms of the world?" I demanded. 

"Yes," a definite quick reply, "in all of history."

"Like what, like how?" in my best kind of bandy.

"To make a world, a nation, from human connection, from what people can do, not what people can get, supporting and building emotional ties, rather than building wealth," she said with confidence.  Another said, "This was the lesson in the book, too."
 
Nods all around the room, I was preaching to the obvious, but the choir was not preaching to me. I accused them all of being fundamentalist paradigm shifters "FPS's" and stalked out of the room.

The winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced this Friday, October 9th.

 

Editor: Tom Douglass