Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
by David Oliver Relin, Greg Mortenson
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Book Summary Information
Author: David Oliver Relin, Greg MortensonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-01-30
ISBN: 0143038257
Number of pages: 349
Publisher: Penguin Books
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- Condition: New
Book Reviews of Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
Book Review: Saving those backwards people, one Euroamerican institution at a time
Summary: 1 Stars
My persistent suspicion for any bestseller that grapples with "the Muslim world" has been renewed. After hearing much kudos (from Muslims and non-Muslims alike) for Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea, I figured there might be a possibility that the contents of the book would be refreshing and unconventional.
"Disappointed" doesn't begin to describe my reaction.
With the back cover proclaiming that he was a "real life Indiana Jones" and the Washington Post dubbing his territory "exotic," I had a hunch that the book would prove to be a study in Orientalism .
I found myself outraged as I read page after page of descriptions of servile natives who, for reasons unknown to me, pledged allegiance to the United States despite living on the other side of the globe. I found abundant depictions of dangerous territories which would offer the Westerner enlightenment and adventure. I found a plethora of depoliticized explanations for `terror,' the main one being a lack of literacy, and at times I even came across blatantly racist and colonial language.
In other words, I found nothing short of the very imperialist language that antiracist activists and scholars ferociously charge in their work.
The role of adventurer, mountaineer, savior and expert Greg Mortenson was chillingly Christian in nature. Mortenson plays a forgiving, humble savior, looking for "more outcasts he might serve" (159). Perhaps it is no small coincidence that the Washington Post and Bloomsbury Review inside cover blurbs describe his project as a "mission," and that Mortenson himself is the offspring of two missionaries.
Mortenson's Christlike presence in the remote hinterlands of Pakistan is enough to completely reform the natives, we are told. "Former Taliban fighters renounced violence and the oppression of women after meeting Mortenson."
As his project to build schools for neglected and illiterate natives gained momentum, people came to learn of his noble presence. As the book tells us, "the legend of a gentle infidel called Dr. Greg was ... growing" (210). One local tells his fellow countrymen that "Christian men have come halfway around the world to show our Muslim children the light of education" (257), swiftly relegating the Muslim world to the illiterate and ignorant, and upholding Christians as the heirs of education and civility.
The historic and well-known connections between Christianity and colonialism are critical in deconstructing Three Cups of Tea. You see, Mortenson is not just a Christlike savior, he is also an imperialist in his own right. We are given image after image of his trek through a dangerous and rugged land, a land open to penetration, ready to be claimed or tamed. Indeed, Mortenson's simple goal to "leave Christa [his deceased sister]'s necklace at 28,267 feet" is oddly reminiscent of planting a flag in the soil.
Orientalism tells us that the Westerner in the Orient is there to be an expert, to understand the local culture and norms (even better than the locals themselves) and translate them for the West. This is precisely Mortenson's project, and "going native" is just one of the many habits he develops. Speaking of his childhood abroad, we learn that Greg swam "happily in a sea of cultures and languages" (36). The multitudinous cultures are there for Greg to absorb; the world offers itself to him unselfishly, and Greg accepts it.
Mortenson's samplings of local culture are most striking when he asks the natives for instructions on how to pray (62), dresses as a local and asks whether he looks Pakistani (71), and decides he must worship "in the sunni way in this sunni land" (168). Almost comical was Mortenson's appropriation of local names for his children: his daughter, named Amira, and son, named Khyber, suggest that Mortenson has found a cultural richness in the land that was ready to be borrowed and imported into his own life.
Morteonson knows the land so well that he might even know it better than the locals. When a native suggests that he builds a climbing school, Mortenson deals uncomfortably with the question, knowing that the European model of schooling is better for these people. His colleague, McCown, acts at one point "like a big boss from America...(hamming) it up, (walking) around like a chief, paying everyone their wages, telling them they were doing a great job..." (123). Impressing and gaining the trust of the locals is a performance for these men, and their expertise on the region makes them well-suited for the job.
When Mortenson realizes that the locals might not be thrilled about receiving funds from the very people who have been their enemies, he simply says "we could make it look like a private donation from a businessman in Hong Kong" (295). For Mortenson, the politics and convictions of the brown men makes deception the only viable option.
The rugged terrain of the mountains of Pakistan is a space where men like Mortenson might discover solace, enlightenment, and themselves. It is a place for adventure, as his parents' destinations had been for them. (As a child, "his parents had packed him along on the great adventure of their lives" (35).) The assumption at work here is that the land is simply a tool for the Westerner, who comes armed with liberal humanism, education, and civility, to do whatever important work he needs to do.
The rugged landscape, according to this tale, is populated by mostly servile, subordinate natives who are ready to be of service to Mortenson. These natives embody the stereotypic colored locals, ready to lay down their lives in their assistance to the Westerner. They are, to the tee, described much like the "house Negro."
One character, Mouzafer, says when he discovers Greg alive and well, "Allah Akbhar! Blessings to Allah you're alive!" (20) This same Mouzafer is so devoted to serving Mortenson that "even during his five daily prayer sessions, Mouzafer...would steal a glance away from Mecca to make sure Mortenson was still nearby" (22). From this, we are to be impressed by the native man's willingness to protect a white savior over following his own religious code.
Mouzafer isn't the only brown man whose willingness to serve Greg Mortenson overrides, well, anything else of value. A man named Syed says that Mortenson's "cause was so great that it was my duty to devote myself to help him" (50). One local man suspects that the women are swooning over this white man's admirable mission, saying "I think a few lowe Doctor Greg already" (121). One man even volunteers himself as a bodyguard, telling a driver that "if anything happens to this sahib and memsahib, I will kill you myself" (286).
The natives are so enamored with "Doctor Greg" that they hold ceremonies in his honor (248), they spit in the direction of Afghanistan and assure him that they love the United States (253), and they feel shame at being able to "offer nothing" (220) in return to this philanthropic savior.
As bothersome as it is that these people are groveling at the feet of someone they perceive to be a Western savior, I suppose I would have found it less troubling had his `mission' (for lack of a better word) been truly noble or transformative.
But it wasn't.
The project was a depoliticized and senseless one that placed the onus for change - and thus blame - squarely on the shoulders of the illiterate, uneducated native. And, of course, their neglectful governments. Mortenson's story is about giving girls "the first pencil-sharpener anyone has ever cared to give them" (4), about setting up schools "that the government of Pakistan had failed to provide" (95). The native himself is called in to validate this project, and his testimonial says that "We love Americans. They are the most kind people for us. They are the only ones who cared to help us" (224). These people, it would seem, are truly needy and have been completely abused and disregarded by their own people. They need Americans to save them from their own carelessness.
What we can glean from this is that the neglect came from within their own backward regimes, and salvation will come from this peace-loving Westerner.
I cringed every time terror was blamed on illiteracy and lack of education, rather than on structural, political, and social inequalities suffered by the globally disenfranchised. The schools Mortenson built were to be a "place where they could help themselves" (144); the natives felt that their land was stricken with poverty "because we are without education" (257); a balanced education is purported to make recruiting efforts difficult for extremists (front blurb; Ahmed Rashid). Terror, the story tells us, is less about sociopolitics, economics, imperialism, or colonialism, and more about `those' individuals lacking large chalkboards, clean classrooms, and comfortable desks.
I fail to see the connection between never having studied classical literature or calculus and belonging to a militant political organization that targets a neo-imperialist superpower.
Says Mortenson, "I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death" (292). Again, the problem and the solution lie in the correction of the native, not the systematic, structural, and institutional crimes of their oppressors.
The acknowledgements tell us that millions of children are uneducated because of "poverty, exploitation, slavery, gender discrimination, religious extremism, and corrupt governments." I'm assuming this list is not meant to refer to poverty brought about by neoliberal capitalist policies that plunge the majority of the population into impoverishment; I'm guessing the exploitation does not refer to the exploitation of cheap labor taken advantage of by ever-expanding multi-national corporations; that the slavery does not refer to the enduring and historic enslavement of much of the brown and black world by the EuroAmerican one; that the gender discrimination is not in reference to the ideology that Muslim women are in special need of salvation or liberation by the West; that religious extremism does not refer to the worship of consumption and materialism that has acquired its own religious fanatics in the West, eager to proselytize; that corrupt governments do not include the one most guilty of human rights violations.
It is the failures of the Third World this book charges.
Extremism is the easiest scapegoat for Mortenson, as he feels that a balanced education will make it challenging for extremists to recruit these youngsters. He dismisses those who challenge him as "extremists" (152) and targets his message to the "great moderate mass of peace-loving people at the heart of the Muslim world" (5).
Mortenson says that "the British policy was `divide and conquer.' But I say `unite and conquer.'" (189). I suppose it's no small irony that he allies himself in goals with the British, differing only in tactic. I suppose it's equally telling that Mortenson vocally expresses support for the military action that was taken against Afghanistan after 9/11. It's no accident that we get an in-depth history of India and Pakistan's involvement with Kashmir (212), but no history whatsoever about the U.S. or Soviet involvement with the Taliban.
Such is the depoliticized picture Mortenson paints for us.
Mortenson's right to be in the region, to equip the natives with tools he feels would help them fight terror and poverty, is unquestioned. His own privilege goes un-interrogated.
He is able to call on a wealthy Mr. McCown (122), who made his fortune in venture capital, without ever examining how the global finance industry is complicit in creating the very poverty he wishes to target by building schools.
Mortenson can call on Honda generators, LL Bean fleece pullovers, Helly Hansen jackets, and Nalgene water bottles to make life easier for the natives and himself (31), without ever questioning the implications of such products in the situation these people find themselves.
He can "go to the Marriott" (262) to do his important work without acknowledging the guilt of the hospitality industry in creating and perpetuating global dependency and hierarchies.
He can "remind himself to bargain hard" (64) with local businesses so that he can make his dollar go as far as possible, forgetting that this local business is just as important a beneficiary as his poor, easily-victimized, uneducated young girls.
For Mortenson, the willingness and affordability of brown backs to carry his loads, whether during his mountain trek or his `noble' mission, is assumed (20, 114, 151, 192).
Mortenson offers us a delicate criticism of the gender dynamic of the Muslim world that is abundant in media depictions. He points out the hypocrisy of men who practice muthaa (temporary marriage), while women do not (110), implying that the gender inequality of the Muslim world is somehow greater or graver than that in the West. He informs the native that "women in our culture are free to choose any career" (170), at once overlooking feminized industries in the West in which women's labor has little to do with choice and masculinized industries which are entirely restrictive and hostile to women. He claims to know "for a Muslim, the birth of a son is a really big deal" (170), suggesting an essentialized gender hierarchy exists among all Muslims. And of course, he uses blatantly hostile language to describe the Islamic dress code, describing a woman who removes her outer garments as having "freed herself from her burkha" (289).
"Dr. Greg" falls into racist language easily and without apology, telling us that Friday is the "day the mullahs unleashed their most fiery sermons to mosques packed with excitable young men," feeding into the ongoing stereotype of the zealous, excessively passionate men of South and West Asia. He describes "bearded fighters in black turbans," easily collapsing phenotype and wardrobe with politics and action.
His racism shines through most blatantly when he tells us that he expects things like hate mail "from an ignorant village mullah, but to get those kinds of letters from my fellow Americans made me wonder..." (275). Ignorance is to the Pakistani villager as civility is to the modern American?
So, why am I surprised? Haven't I just described a textbook case of Orientalism, an age-old portion of ongoing neo-imperialist processes? Indeed, the use of charity and development as a branch of colonial efforts has been belabored by others; I need to not delve into it here. And I'm not surprised that this book flew off the shelves. Why wouldn't westerners want to read about a far off, exotic, forbidding yet inviting land populated by servile, accommodating, and needy residents for whom they can flex a philanthropic muscle? I suppose what truly baffles me is the willingness of Muslims in the U.S. - and in Pakistan, I suppose - to welcome and admire this `real life Indiana Jones.' The infantilizing, parochializing, and racializing language he uses to describe the people he works to save is irrelevant to those who truly believe his mission is a noble one.
Edward Said spoke of the "legacy of nineteenth century Orientalism to which the twentieth century has become inheritor" (Orientalism, 197). Sadly, the legacy endures at this, the start of yet another century of Orientalism.
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Summary of Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban?s backyardAnyone who despairs of the individual?s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan?s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools?especially for girls?that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson?s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.
From Viking Press
In regards to the 60 Minutes episode that aired April 17, 2011: "Greg Mortenson?s work as a humanitarian in Afghanistan and Pakistan has provided tens of thousands of children with an education. 60 Minutes is a serious news organization and in the wake of their report, Viking plans to carefully review the materials with the author."
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