Two Stops Past Siberia

By Nicolas Tanner, November 29th, 2009

Three Cups of Tea is primarily the story of a very persistent and dedicated person. Greg Mortenson, a former mountaineer, arduously perseveres for a decade, fighting at what seem to be at super human levels to bring schools and education to the people of some very stark settings in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson follows in the footsteps of other mountaineers before him but is unique in that he was one of the first with a desire to help Muslim communities in Central Asia. It is obvious from the get-go that, if efforts are any indication, Mortenson is of a special breed  (possibly a demigod) and humble to a fault. It is impossible to deny that this man has made a lasting impact in the world and provided us with a guiding example.

Mortenson and his writing partner, “globe-trotting journalist” David Oliver Relin safely follow the guidebook for an acceptable non-fiction travel piece. There are the exotic locations, the elegant yet puzzling cultures, a host of characters differing in moral fortitude and, finally, a couple near death experiences.

The most effective writing in the book comes in quotes, usually at the beginning of the chapters. George Shaller’s description of the Karakoram mountain range from Stones of Silence, for example, is enough to keep you reading. “In the immensity of these ranges, at the limit of existence where men may visit but cannot dwell, life has a new importance… but Mountains are not chivalrous; one forgets their violence. Indifferently they lash those who venture among them with snow, rock, wind, cold.”

Relin and Mortenson also supplement the appropriate elements to quaintly illustrate the ups and downs of the humanitarian aid process: first defeat, then learning from defeat, then success. Then include at least one anecdote that illustrates how helping even a single person (hopefully a child) is just as valuable as helping a thousand and you’ve got gold. Thankfully, that the narration steers- sometimes veers aggressively- towards platitudes and the formula is plain-as-vanilla is irrelevant to the book’s better purpose and worth forgiving.

Chapter 22, entitled “The Enemy Is Ignorance” begins with a quoted section of an article by Kevin Fedarko. Fedarko notes in his piece for Parade, dated April 6, 2003:

As the U.S. confronts Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, Greg Mortenson, 45, is quietly waging his own campaign against Islamic fundamentalists, who often recruit members through religious schools called madrassas. Mortenson’s approach hinges on a simple idea: that by building secular schools and helping to promote education- particularly for girls- in the world’s most volatile war zone, support for the Taliban and other extremist sects eventually will dry up.

At its best, Three Cups is an empirical example of an urgent yet persistently disregarded truth- that if the West is ever going to “win” a war- physical or ideological- in the Middle East, Central Asia or elsewhere, it is not going to do so by surgical air strikes or attaching the words freedom and democracy to military operations. The book earnestly points out what most literate people should know by now and it does so warmly and without preaching. If quelling extremism is the objective, real and lasting improvement through peaceful means- e.g. building schools and bridges, providing education, ensuring basic human rights- is infinitely more complicated and exhausting, yet far more effective, than executing warfare.