The Kansas City Star

The Kansas City Star

Friday, Sept. 7^th, 2007

Education is vital to winning over 'hearts and minds'

Opinion: Special to The Star

By Shahid Butt

In the next few months, Pakistan will regularly be in the news. The country is five times larger than either Iraq or Afghanistan. This land where I was born, which I visit regularly, is scheduled to hold national elections.

As it traditionally does in the developing world, the U.S. administration may be evaluating which political or military personality it should support and covertly fund to ensure that U.S. interests are protected. The hope is that the individual the administration supports will promote a positive view of the United States and mitigate violence against Americans across the world.

The flaw in this approach is that one person may or may not be able to help generate support among the population as a whole.

Consider this: In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld, a primary architect of the invasion of Iraq, expressed concern that, in the battle of “hearts and minds,” the United States was creating more terrorists than were being captured or killed, as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sadly, experts agree that despite several long years at war, the number of people who will resort to destructive, senseless violence has increased. Note reports of the Taliban resurgence and an increase in the violence in Iraq. If these wars were designed to deter violence against the United States and its allies, to make the world a safer place, it raises the question of whether the $500 billion spent by us so far has been well- spent. Maybe there is a different way to way to spend our money and our time.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the extreme poverty, the lack of access to drinking water and basic health care is powered, fundamentally, by widespread illiteracy. Parents who cannot read but look to better their children’s lives through education are left with one option — sending their sons to single-minded, religious schools funded by conservative money from the Middle East.

That had been the only viable option, until Greg Mortenson, a mountain climber from Montana, committed to educating poor boys and girls in these remote mountains. With private money, including an initial $12,000 from a Seattle businessman, Dr. Greg has built 58 schools and sent over 24,000 children — over half of them girls — to school in the last 15 years. After elementary school, scholarships are awarded to children who want to continue their education.

Mortenson’s work is well-received. When corrupt mullahs in these Shia areas twice sought to disrupt his work by issuing fatwas against him, supreme Shia figures in Iran and the Shariat Islamic court in Pakistan not only nullified the bogus decrees, they honored him for the work that he was doing. After interacting with Mortenson, locals say, “We didn’t know Americans like this existed.”

His work is chronicled in the book Three Cups of Tea. At the high end, it costs his Central Asia Institute $20,000 to build a school, educate and provide hope for hundreds of impoverished people in these too-forgotten lands. Imagine what a fraction of the $500 billion could have done to win “hearts and minds.”

Shahid Butt is a principal with Broadband Marketing Group. He lives in Kansas City.

http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/265459.html