Read 'Three Cups of Tea' by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. A great book describing the real life fairy tale (ish...with actual ups and downs) and the continuing happy ending of Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer who found his life's work of building schools in Pakistan/Afghanistan out of a failed attempt to climb K2.
An American nurse (yes, the surname could have been Focker/Stiller!), he has built more than 50 schools in isolated villages that barely showed up on maps years ago. I think this guy is a Nobel Peace Prize winner sometime in the next decade. The funda was to educate and provide options other than Jihad. Ex-Taliban fighters are his advocates, warlords have seen the value of his non-religious work in educating boys and girls in his schools. A simple idea anywhere else but quite radical for the region it was achieved in.
Tells me that secularism works....that 'pseudo-secular' is a curse that only the communalists use and that most often, the rigidity of organized religion is the root cause of most conflict (dare I go far enough to say 'most evil'?!)!
The Spirit of the Marathon
13 years ago
1 comment:
hi. hopped over from here or there.
have been planning to read this book after a friend recommended it big time!
Post a Comment