Problem: In many underdeveloped Muslim countries, education is not widely available to all citizens. Many of the children and youth in these countries are educated in small religious schools called madrasas that teach a strict fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law to their students. Militant Islamic extremists use these schools as a vehicle to recruit potential terrorists.
Solution: The citizens of these countries have shown that they are open to building new schools with funding and assistance from Western nations. These schools encourage women to participate and teach a comprehensive curriculum free of fundamentalist teachings. The resulting improvement in literacy and understanding of the outside world creates a more moderate outlook and reduces poverty and overpopulation.
Every year hundreds of wealthy Westerners flock to the Himalayan mountains in Asia in hopes of conquering some of the most challenging peaks in the world. Most will hire local villagers to guide them to the summit and carry their gear along the way. These villagers do most of the work for what generally equates to pennies.
In 1993, American climber Greg Mortonsen decided to try to reach the top of the notorious K2 in Pakistan, one of the highest and most dangerous peaks in the world. Although Mortonsen did not reach the summit, he did learn a lot about the living conditions in this wild and remote region. Mortonsen had separated from his group on the descent and ended up stumbling down the mountain exhausted and disoriented, and without shelter, food or water. Fortunately, he managed to enter a small mountain village where the locals looked after him until he was able to regain his strength. While recovering from his rise, he was surprised to see the rampant poverty and high infant mortality rates (over 30%) common in the villages in this area.
When he realized that only less than 3% of the inhabitants had become literate, Mortonsen saw how he could most effectively give back to the people who had been so kind to him in his hour of need. Mortonsen felt that education was the key to reducing poverty, reducing infant mortality, and slowing birth rates. He started raising money to help build schools. One of their requirements for building a new school was that it should allow women to attend. Mortonsen realized that educating women was the key to advancing poverty, infant mortality, and high birth rates.
Mortonsen was on to something. Studies have shown that in countries where women have received more education there are consistent results that improve the quality of life in that country. Poverty rates and infant mortality decline substantially as education increases. Economies grow and birth rates fall as more women enter the workforce. Mortonsen understood that poverty and ignorance are the motivating social factors that fuel religious extremism. If I could reduce ignorance and poverty through education; especially education for women, then it could reduce the incentive for religious extremism that is used to recruit terrorists.
When Mortonsen started raising money, he didn’t get much of a response from the famous and wealthy people he tried to contact. His best response came from American schoolchildren. A group of elementary school children in Wisconsin raised more than $ 600 in pennies to help support their cause. This caught the attention of adults who began to take Greg’s mission more seriously and was the beginning of a program called Pennies for Peace. Today, Pennies for Peace educates American schoolchildren about life in other countries and shows them how the pennies they raise can help make the world a better place for children in other countries. The money raised by these children is sent directly to Pakistan and Afghanistan for the construction of schools and sports facilities.
Today Greg Morton chairs the Central Asia Institute. The mission of the Central Asia Institute is to: Promote and provide community-based literacy and education programs, especially for girls, in remote mountainous regions of Central Asia. This year, the schools built by Greg Mortonsen and CAI educated more than 20,000 children in the 55 schools that have been built in the last 12 years. Almost 50% of these students are girls. CAI ensures that women have access to this education by requiring that the enrollment of girls increases by 10% each year. The CAI school curriculum focuses on math, science, and languages. Students in CAI schools averaged 72% on tests to qualify for middle school last year. By comparison, the national average in Pakistan is less than 45%. In addition to building schools, CAI has also developed more than 15 water projects and built four vocational centers for women.
Too often, in these regions, the only source of help and support for these villagers comes from Taliban militants or extremist groups financed with money from Saudi Arabia. These groups take full advantage of this dependency to suppress women’s rights and take young people and children to madrassas when they can be indoctrinated with extreme fundamentalist ideology and then recruited for terrorism. The education provided by the CAI schools offers an alternative to this path and the opportunity to improve life in these villages without becoming indebted to warlords and religious extremists.
When Mortonsen began his mission to provide education and assistance to the people of remote Pakistan and Afghanistan, he did not have much support at home. Even more daunting was the threat posed by local tribal chiefs and clergy. Several times Mortonsen came close to giving his life for his mission when angry mullahs issued fatwas on his death that they suspected of being a spy for the United States government. Mortonsen once survived an armed kidnapping by escaping and hiding under a pile of animal carcasses as they were transported out of town. Even in the face of danger, Mortonsen persisted and continued to build schools and relationships until his detractors were convinced of the value of his contributions.
Apparently, the results speak loudly in these impoverished regions. Saeed Abbas Risvi, the senior Shiite spiritual leader in Pakistan, was so impressed by Mortonsen’s work that he approached the Supreme Council of Ayatollahs in Iran and managed to get a very rare letter of recommendation for Mortonsen to help protect him from the mullahs. and local clergy. . When news of his success traveled home, Mortonsen earned the respect of some prominent members of Congress who now support the work of the Central Asia Institute.
There are many lessons to be learned from the success of the Central Asia Institute and the respect Greg Mortonsen has earned from Muslim leaders. One of them is a lesson in economics. Mortonsen has shown that investing in reducing poverty and ignorance can be the most profitable solution to terrorism. He is happy that “if we could turn the million dollars to buy a Tomahawk cruise missile dropped on the Taliban into educational assistance, we could deal a serious blow to terrorism.” Another lesson is that educating women can be the most effective way to combat poverty and ignorance. To quote Mortonsen; “Girls’ education is a mighty sword in the war on terror.” It makes one wonder if much of the money spent in the war on terror could have been better spent educating women and reducing poverty and ignorance where terrorists are recruited.