I really liked the book. It is a real life story of how Greg Mortenson, transformed the lives of so many thousand people in Pakistan. It is really amazing to read how much trouble the guy has endured to build a school in Pakistan and how he has built so many schools and enlightened so many lives after that incident. Mind you, he has spent more than a decade in a country, that is on top of the "Dangerous places on Earth" list and a country, where people like him (Americans) are generally disliked.
We all know, people are generally scared of Muslims in the western world. In their eyes, all muslims are terrorists. Recently the Bollywood star, Shah Rukh Khan was detained in the Newark airport, just because his last name was Khan. But it plainly is a very normal name in the muslim world. Pretty much 60% of all muslims i know have some sort of Khan in their name.
Along with Greg's troubles and pains in building schools in Pakistan, the book also touches few important events, like the 911. Greg Mortenson was actually there in Pakistan during the incident. And as he recalls in the book, one villager came running by and said to him in urdu, "I am really sorry. Some one has bombed a village named New York. You should leave Pakistan immediately" Imagine how much trouble Greg should have had to raise money for his foundation, after the 911 attacks.
I personally feel, American government can give few millions to him rather than giving billions to the Pakistani government. It will be spent more wisely.
As argued in the book, proper education alone will eradicate terrorism. Education about the world and education about Islam itself is necessary in that part of the world. The main reason for all this trouble is that few people completely mis-interpret Islam and use the strong belief that Muslims have in their religion for selfish needs.
I recall a recent article I read in New York times. Americans use the Drone missiles to just bomb the hell out of every inch of Swat valley in Pakistan and that is not going to control terrorism. It might eradicate few important terrorists. But normal citizens of Pakistan are angry. This anger itself will give rise to new Al-qaedas and LeTs. As Amartya Sen once said, the only way to develop a country is to educate the girls. Read the book and you will certainly agree with him.
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1 comment:
These kinds of books bewilder me.
Why are we building schools in Pakistan? Why aren't THEY? I feel as if we are forcing education and civilization down their throats. How ignorant are they, how stupid are we. THEY KNEW Bin Laden was there and didn't tell us, and we are STILL talking to them? My God how stupid is THAT? They are corrupt and we are building THEIR schools????? What am I missing?
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