“Three Cups of Tea” 101

If there were any American who deserved the Nobel peace prize, it would be him. He was nominated by a group of congressional legislators, Democrats as well as Republicans. When the Norwegian jury reached its decision on October 9, Greg Mortenson was in St. Louis, on the banks of the Mississippi. He was doing what he always does in winter when he’s not in Pakistan or Afghanistan: talking about peace. One school at a time.

Barack Obama received the Nobel prize and drummed up the troops for what he continues to consider a “just war,” eight years after 9/11. Greg Mortenson stuck modestly to building schools: schools for girls, for the most part. So far, he has opened ninety-one of them in Pakistan and forty in Afghanistan (reaching 50,000 students, in total). In 2007, one of the establishments was attacked by the Taliban. The local warlord, who had two daughters enrolled, assembled a small militia and went to tell them what they thought of the matter. The school re-opened three days later.

Greg Mortenson rarely appears on television, but the waiting lines to hear him speak on his book Three Cups of Tea extend hundreds of meters. When he came through Washington on December 3, the crowd included high-ranking officers and Jill Biden, the wife of the vice president. The school-builder says he’s not very good at explaining his own passion. Despite these doubts, he is able to reassure his compatriots and he familiarizes them with his “mission” in Afghanistan. Thanks to them, he says, Shakila Khan, age 22, is now in her last year studying medicine. She will be the first female doctor in a region of 1.2 million people. Thanks to them, the girls of Chunda will be able to attend school, after eight years of refusal by the local mullah…

Released in 2006, Three Cups of Tea spent 140 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. It has been published in twenty-nine countries. It was read by the two military commanders, General Petraeus and Admiral Mike Mullen (Mortenson, who seems to believe that women alone are the future of peace in Afghanistan, smiled as he claimed that the commanders read his book based on recommendations from their wives). The book is now required reading in military academies, where the new American approach to counter-insurgence is taken. Looking at photos with Greg in them, one has the surprising thought that maybe the Taliban aren’t so hard to tame after all. The proof: two laughing devotees in turbans, at a school in the native region of Mullah Omar. They try out a swing for the first time in their lives. But before reaching this point, there were years of perseverance, two fatwas and a hostage-taking (eight days in Waziristan) — never mind that Greg has also been interrogated twice by the CIA.

Greg Mortenson begins all his speeches with “salaam alaykum”: peace be with you. He tells the story of his “circular” life path. The son of two Lutheran teachers in Minnesota, who moved the whole family to the foot of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Greg carried their torch, so to speak, to the Pamir Mountains, at the foot of K2. His father believed that local populations should be charged with the development projects that concern them. Greg insists on the villages themselves providing the workforce for the schools. After connecting with an elderly sage, who taught him to listen to the people, he stopped trying to micro-manage the process. He says that when he left the locals to do the job themselves, three weeks later the school was opened. In the meantime, he drank a whole lot of tea. (“The first cup you’re a stranger, the second cup you’re a friend, the third cup you’re family.”)

Greg Mortenson is not a strong supporter of the “war on terror.” He fought for a long time against the subtitle imposed on his book by editors: “One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations.” With success, he has finally been able to instate his own: “One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace.” “If you fight terrorism, that’s based in fear. But if you promote peace, that’s based in hope.” He doesn’t approve of Barack Obama’s decision to send more soldiers. More troops just means more conflict and more violence, according to Greg. Most of all, he criticizes the White House for failing to ask Afghans about their opinions. Not the non-existent Karzai government, but the real power structures, the shura, which includes elders, notable community members and businessmen. That said, Greg points out that his NGO, the Central Asia Institute, has organized thirty-five meetings between these local councils and General McChrystal. Each time, the commander agreed to ask not for combatants but for specialized collaborators.

Before his death, Haji Ali, the sage Greg considered a second father, told him to “visit his grave and listen to the wind.” He often does just that. According to Robert Abdul Hayy Darr, another who fell in love with Afghanistan, Greg Mortenson brings, to those who otherwise have good reason to doubt him, proof that the involvement of an American in the business of others isn’t condemned to failure.