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It Takes a School, Not Missiles
- PieSquared 18y ago"So I have this fantasy: Suppose that the United States focused less on blowing things up in Pakistan’s tribal areas and more on working through local aid groups to build schools, simultaneously cutting tariffs on Pakistani and Afghan manufactured exports." What a fantasy. I wish. But what's easier: bombing and shooting or educating? (Same goes for most other non-violent measures that could have been taken. They're harder.)
- dominik 18y agoA good review; the better parts are where the columnist, Mr. Kristof, describes the book and Mr. Mortenson rather than talking about his own opinion. Most interesting: "To get a school, villagers must provide the land and the labor to assure a local “buy-in,” and so far the Taliban have not bothered his schools. One anti-American mob rampaged through Baharak, Afghanistan, attacking aid groups — but stopped at the school that local people had just built with Mr. Mortenson. “This is our school,” the mob leaders decided, and they left it intact." "Mr. Mortenson has had setbacks, including being kidnapped for eight days in Pakistan’s wild Waziristan region." Strangely, the columnist adds in "It would be naïve to think that a few dozen schools will turn the tide in Afghanistan or Pakistan," right after that, undermining his own point... ?
- ivankirigin 18y agoIt's an op-ed. The point is to get the author's opinion.
- maw 18y agoWhy does it undermine anybody's point? In an area where millions of people live, a few dozen schools is a small number, yet thousands of them may make a positive difference.
- rokhayakebe 18y agoThis is the kind of article I need to read in the morning. It gives a sense of purpose. We are seeing a shift in our collective consciousness. The system we are part of is not the best. In fact it is arguably the worst system since the caveman era. We are the first generation that truly believes we can, need and will improve our world without hurting anyone.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- GrandMasterBirt 18y agoThis puts my faith back into humanity. I've heard people say "we should have nuked Afghanistan, to show that we are not to be messed with... you punch a bully in the face, you don't talk to him trying to work out your differences." I've always felt that taking people out of ignorance will always make them less inclined to kill. The more logical justification people have for doing good and not doing bad vs purely faith-based, the harder it is for some religious nut-job to come in and say "kill the infidels in the name of god".
- rbanffy 18y ago"you punch a bully in the face" The fun part is that it goes both ways. In the end, both bullies will need reconstructive surgery.
- aspirant 18y ago"An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind" - Gandhi
- pfedor 18y agoExcept in reality, it doesn't. In reality, an eye for an eye is a very good strategy, with examples ranging from biology to military history to the results of iterated prisoner's dilemma tournaments played by computer programs.
- omouse 18y agoI don't know, considering how awful some of the schools here are, do we really want to export them to other countries? It'd be nice if some countries took some chances and innovated in regards to how schools, corporations, and other social structures work instead of plainly copying the Western world. edit: I agree that education is important and better than lobbing missiles and bullets at someone but at the same time...
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y agoSo many of the problems with education in the US are cultural that it's depressing. When people don't want to learn, there is very little you can do to improve the situation. Especially in a compulsory system where students are not free to leave and end up simply disrupting those students who truly want to learn. The thirst for knowledge in the third world and true desire to learn combats the worst features of the Western education model.
- omouse 18y agoTo an extent it is a cultural problem, but on the other hand, why would you want to learn about something that's taught in a dry and boring way?
- JabavuAdams 18y agoBecause you're in the developing world, and you're desperate to become an engineer / civil servant / whatever, so your kids don't have to drive taxis? I'm all for studying what you're interested in, and in general, I don't do things that I'm not at least marginally interested in, but let's not kid ourselves. This is a luxury that many don't have.
- DarkShikari 18y agoThis reminds me of the film "Charlie Wilson's War" and the story of what happened back in Afghanistan in the late 80s; after spending over a billion dollars secretly providing rebels with weapons in order to defeat the Soviets, we walk out without spending even a few million on rebuilding, and almost none of the population learns that we were the ones who saved them--and instead blame us for not helping, not being educated enough to know the truth. And thus we created the enemy which we fight today.
- jfarmer 18y agoActually, what happened was that the Saudis stepped in and DID build the schools, houses, and infrastructure. And then we're shocked, SHOCKED! that the radical elements would win out over the more moderate ones.
- mtw 18y agoit reminds me of the movie idiocracy. explosions and violence make more impression on short-term than litterature or culture
- rbanffy 18y agoChildren should be required to watch "Idiocracy" in the classroom...
- arthurk 18y agoIs there a way to see this article without registering?
- jcl 18y agoThey don't require registration for users referred from Google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22It+Takes+a+School%2C+Not+Missiles%22&btnG=Google+Search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22It+Takes+a+Schoo...
- mynameishere 18y agoCripe. I have this vision of my property taxes going up 100-fold as I pay to educate every single child in the world. The NEA will be thrilled. Really, it's not the USA's responsibility to buy schools for non-Americans. Shit, it's not the USA's responsibility to buy schools anywhere. Any genuinely effective techniques can be covered under this heading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations
- bgutierrez 18y agoThe U.S. takes on plenty of "responsibilities" that it shouldn't. I would be thrilled if the world saw the U.S. as ambitious educators, not aggressive policemen. But don't worry; first world nations don't want our education anyway.
- PieSquared 18y agoNor do many of the US's own citizens, sadly. Maybe that's why education is in this miserable state. Then again, when you compare it to third world countries...
- klahnako 18y ago...it's worse!
- JabavuAdams 18y agoThis is a strawman argument. Your tax dollars are paying for the military anyway. The article claims they can build 20 schools for the cost of one cruise missile. In the long-run, we can't win the GWOT through military force alone. Even relatively hawkish people like Richard Clarke recognize this.
- mynameishere 18y agoOh, man, schools and cruise missiles aren't fungible. Heck, no government program has ever replaced any other government program. We'll see those cruise missiles targeting the schools before that happens.
- pragmatic 18y agoSigh. So now we have to build millions of schools around the world so people will love us. Is this reddit, the "social" socialist propaganda site? What does this have to do with hacker news?
- JabavuAdams 18y agoNo, we need to win the war against violent, Islamic extremism, and violent religious fundamentalism, in general. In that regard, schools and education are just another weapon in a combined military / social arsenal. As it turns out, the schools are cheaper than the missiles. The point is, if we don't do this, we will lose.
- xlnt 18y agoThe reason that, for example, Palestinian textbooks contain maps omitting Israel is that they don't want to teach their children a fair and peaceful message. Schools are great when people are reasonably open to living peacefully but can't work when people do not want peace and sabotage attempts at real education. So, unfortunately, we're going to need a bunch of missiles. I know it's hard to grasp, but there are people who do things like destroy greenhouses of their own out of spite or hate. If you give them a a voluntary choice, some people don't want peace; their agenda for how the world should be comes first. You know, it's funny, one of the memes strong enough to change some dangerous people enough to be safe is Christianity, but the idea of converting Muslims to Christianity is met with extremely loud screeching about how we shouldn't do that and they should be allowed to believe the (uncivilized) things they believe now. If we can't convert them to peaceful Western values then it's going to be missiles.
- rbanffy 18y ago"some people don't want peace; their agenda for how the world should be comes first." The point is that those people are relatively few. Most people would rather live in peace unless taught otherwise. Still, the cost of one missile pays for a bunch of schools. I think it's money far better spent.
- breck 18y ago"Three Cups of Tea" is a terrific book. I highly recommend it.
- jpcx01 18y agoactually, it takes both
- mdemare 18y agoDoesn't anybody here remember what the Taliban in Afghanistan were like before the U.S. drove them out? Well, here's a reminder: "Women seeking an education were forced to attend underground schools such as the Golden Needle Sewing School, where they and their teachers risked execution if caught." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_treatment_of_women http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_treatment_of_women I applaud what Mr. Mortenson has accomplished, but what he did (in Afghanistan at least) only became possible after the U.S. army invaded Afghanistan and fired all those expensive missiles.
- omouse 18y agoI'm sick of this re-writing of history. There are other countries that helped to remove the Taliban, among them are Canada and the U.K. Please give credit where credit is due. A U.S. pilot even killed some Canadian soldiers! So to say "the U.S. drove them out" and "the U.S. army invaded Afghanistan" is insulting.
- mattmaroon 18y agoWhat if you have a school and missiles?