international development may be more depressing than international politics

[intertribal]

Jon Krakauer has produced an investigative expose of Greg Mortenson and his memoirs about building schools in Afghanistan, Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools (available for free at byliner until April 20th).  Krakauer seems mostly pissed off because the dramatic story was used to solicit donations for the Central Asia Institute - Krakauer

Comments

[rezendi]

The sentiment in your subject line is one to which I have long subscribed.

[asakiyume]

I've only read Three Cups of Tea, not the sequel, but the *story* of Three Cups of Tea--of how Mortenson came to have this driving desire, and about how he accomplished what he accomplished in the early days, is fascinating--and while there's plenty of stuff that could be taken as ego stroking, there's plenty that shows his flaws and shortcomings. You do get the impression, in the book, that the foundation and its financial management are rather beyond him, for instance. And yeah, his outlook and attitudes are simplistic--but the book shows him suffering the consequences of that, early on

[intertribal]

I hope you don't mean suffering the consequences = getting kidnapped by fictitious Taliban... which really bothers me more than anything else

[asakiyume]

No, I didn't mean kidnapped by Taliban! (When I read the book, I had no way of knowing that that story wasn't true, but that's not what I was talking about.) I mean: he first sets out to raise money by mailing typewritten letters to celebrities--which is a no-go. And then he wants to try to organize building the bridge to get to the first village all by himself, but of course he doesn't have the connections or know how to do things local style, so that doesn't work out, so basically the village people have to take him aside and say, "Look, let us handle this"--and he has to. So it shows that he's ignorant, and that other people have to coach and guide him. And, he learns some things, but not others

[intertribal]

When I told my mother, the first thing she said was "well, the Republicans would have a field day with that." Krakauer does give links to other charities who are doing similar things, but have been doing them for longer and have more of a sense of what they're doing, including the people that originally funded the CAI.

I am sympathetic to NGOs and the challenges they have, and I don't think they're doing anything worse than what government projects do. On the other hand, they're not a cure-all, and in this case, I actually do disagree that building schools will stop terrorism. I think that's misinformation, so it frustrates me. Is building schools good? Sure. But he's not "fighting a war with the Taliban every time he builds a school."

One of my favorite poli sci articles is "Conserving Nature in the State of Nature: The Politics of INGO Policy Implementation" by Deborah Avant, and it's about what environmental groups (ex. the WWF) do when their principles come into conflict - she concludes that despite being motivated to