“The biggest issues in the world we need to address today are poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance. Ignorance breeds hatred.” – Greg Mortenson
All children should have the right to an education. But while students here in Eugene grumble about buying more notebooks, folders, textbooks and writing utensils in preparation for winter term, children in Afghanistan and Pakistan are scratching their lessons in dirt with sticks. Many reside in villages so poor that schools cannot even afford the $1-a-day salary to hire a teacher. This may seem like a far-fetched comparison, but it serves its purpose in showing the vast difference in educational opportunities around the world.
I value my education because I know I am lucky to have the opportunity. Since I was a child I have attended school without the fear of an attack or having to deal with gender discrimination. Children in many regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan do not have this same security or acceptance. For them, education is not a right. It is a privilege that far too many continue to live without.
Greg Mortenson’s words have a valid point: that providing knowledge and financial aid for the people of even the most secluded villages of Afghanistan and Pakistan is the most effective way to take a stand against the hostility that circulates throughout the regions. The two countries struggle for stability amid poverty and terrorism and appear doomed to wallow in violence indefinitely. This situation, notes New York Times writer Nicholas D. Kristof in his column “It Takes a School, Not Missiles,” is partially a result of Bush’s post-9/11 military force that supplied more than $10 billion to the government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. The backlash of this failed approach has actually benefited the terrorists in Pakistan’s tribal areas and left the people living in constant fear of an attack.
Though U.S.-led forces removed the Taliban from power in 2001, terrorist groups continue to attack innocent children. In southern and southeastern Afghanistan, anti-government insurgents often force the closure of schools throughout the region with suicide bombings, threats and other violence against teachers and students. Girls were forbidden to attend school under the Taliban and even now face constant attacks. Many of these anti-government insurgents specifically target schoolgirls, who are often easily recognizable by their uniforms. Many girls, for lack of a safe public school, attend home-based classes, wary of even the slightest sound that might indicate the arrival of an intruder.
Pamela Constable of The Washington Post addresses the issue in her article “Afghan Girls, Back in the Shadows,” saying, “Within two years of the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, an extremist Islamic movement that banned girls’ education and emphasized Islamic studies for boys, officials boasted that 5.1 million children of both sexes were enrolled in public schools.” Since then, the tables have turned and violence continues to threaten the lives of students and teachers. A recent CNN report describes just one of many violent incidents meant to deter girls from getting the education that they deserve. In November of 2008, two men on a motorcycle used water pistols to spray acid on girls walking to school in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, burning some of them and blinding at least two.
The United States cannot possibly target and eliminate each and every one of the innumerable terrorist groups located throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, there are ways to indirectly decrease the violence in those countries.
Greg Mortenson exemplifies the selfless, proactive perspective that is necessary for a true constructive surge of hope for the lives and education of children in these regions. Firstly, he is the co-founder of the nonprofit Central Asia Institute, which promotes and supports community-based education, especially for girls, in the remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He is also the founder of Pennies for Peace, a program of Central Asia Institute that “educates children about the world beyond their experience and shows them that they can make a positive impact on a global scale, one penny at a time.” His endeavors to establish schools throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan are chronicled in his #1 New York Times best-seller “Three Cups of Tea.”
Unlike many foreign aid organizations sponsored by the United States government, Mortenson has single-handedly made a significant difference in the lives of these people living in poverty and fear.
He not only raises money, but he has made trips back to these regions, helping to educate thousands of children by building schools, providing necessary supplies, and even constructing bridges for easier travel to and from the schools.
Peaceful actions such as those demonstrated by Greg Mortenson are positive steps toward ensuring stability in even the most remote regions of two countries that too often seem to be acknowledged primarily for their widespread violence and unrest.
Providing proper education is not only a non-violent way of taking a stand against terrorism, but it is helping to move these two countries in a positive direction.
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