In my country (New Zealand), we get well-schooled in the dangers of getting "too big for our own boots." We call it the "tall-poppy syndrome": the risk that any flower who stands above the rest will have its head lopped off.
I know some people who suspect this is what's going on for Greg Mortenson this week.
"No good deed goes unpunished," said Clare Boothe Luce (or Billy Wilder, depending who you ask).
But that's not all there is to this.
I've just finished reading the impressive report "Three Cups of Deceit" by Jon Krakauer. It is a carefully researched and well-written expose of what I hope will become a cautionary tale about the perils of the cult of personality in aid work.
1. The Perils of Telling the "Truth"
As someone who has just finished writing a memoir about my work in Afghanistan, I confess, this topic makes me nervous.
In an interview with Outside magazine, Mortenson talks about how he worked with his editor and writer to agree on "compressions" in the story: combining two or three trips to the same place into one trip for the sake of actually fitting it all into one book.
I do that in my book. I combine two different trips to Qala-e-Naw town in Badghis province into one visit. Both trips did in fact happen, each contained one event relevant to the overall story and timing didn't seem to be critical.
Do these changes make my story less true?
And what about that police chief who -- if asked -- will almost certainly accuse me of lying about his collusion with drug traffickers? What if 60 Minutes ever interviewed him about the veracity of my book?
It's a minefield, writing a nonfiction book about a place like Afghanistan. And yet, I can stand behind every story in my book. I may have changed names, changed ethnicities and compressed events. But I have not claimed that the mob of angry men banging at my gate were Talebs trying to kidnap me. I have not exaggerated for dramatic effect. I have not invented.
And although I think "truth" is a slippery word, I also think that those of us who tell our readers that we are reporting life as we experienced it, rather than fiction, bear the responsibility of the trust our readers then place in us to report that life as carefully, mindfully and -- yes -- truthfully as we are able.
If we plan to then leverage our story to encourage our readers to donate money to our cause then we bear an even heavier responsibility not to mislead them in any way. Greg Mortenson appears to have taken this responsibility too lightly.
2. The Perils of Amateur or DIY Approaches to Educating Girls: The Empty School
Without teachers or ongoing operating budgets, perhaps built in the wrong place in the first instance, the image of Central Asia Institute (CAI) schools being used as warehouses or sitting completely empty has shocked many people.
During my two years in Afghanistan, I saw my fair share of empty schools built by well-intentioned foreigners (ranging from the U.S. military to a group of wealthy women from Germany).
Effective education programming requires a comprehensive approach. Teacher training, community engagement and consultation and -- in the ideal scenario -- effective government oversight to ensure that there is some kind of sensible strategy about which schools get built and where. Which brings me to my next point.
3. The Perils of Hero Worship
Greg Mortenson has been turned into some kind of hero. Many of us wanted to believe in the story as it was told. We wanted a hero.
The real story of girl's education in Afghanistan is even more inspiring than the Mortenson story. It is the story of men and women all over Afghanistan -- employees of the Ministry of Education, of large NGOs like CARE and local community members sitting on village school boards -- who work tirelessly to build an education system that meets the needs of as many of Afghanistan's children as possible.
But that wasn't the story the West wanted to hear.
We wanted the story of a single heroic individual doing battle against, or simply doing better than, big institutions.
But what if those big, clumsy, flawed, bureaucratic institutions are the real story? What if, as I believe, a national education strategy led and monitored by the Ministry of Education is the only long-term solution to education for girls in Afghanistan.
I am not alone in this conclusion. Back in July 2009, Mosharraf Zaidi said much the same thing about Pakistan.
To educate almost 70 million children, the only "cup of tea" that will do is the one that is served by the state. The state is not only ultimately responsible -- legally, morally, and politically -- for educating Pakistan's children. It is responsible, and internally wired, to ensure Pakistan's survival.
So I'm not surprised CAI schools are standing empty. But perhaps Mortenson's most important work was educating his readers about the importance of education for girls to effective development and security in the region. But that was not what donors thought they were funding and it brings me to the next set of questions, about governance and financial management at CAI.
4. The Perils of the "Founder Syndrome"
From all accounts -- and to be fair this is one of the few criticisms of him that does come through in the first book -- Mortenson resists any kind of management or oversight. Of all the accusations leveled against him, this is the one that stops me in my tracks. This is the one that makes me want to take him by the collar and say, "Greg, dude, what are you doing?"
According to Krakauer's report, Mortenson resisted accounting in any detail for any of the money he spent from CAI. One by one, CAI Board members and senior staff resigned as a result. And yet -- somehow -- this all remained unreported in the media until now.
This is the part of this whole scandal that shocked me.
Desiree Adaway has written a very good post about the basics of effective governance and oversight of a not-for-profit and she makes what I think is an essential point: beware of any organization dwarfed by the profile of its founder.
5. The Perils of Being Human
When my mother first told me about Three Cups of Tea, I was living in Afghanistan. Everything she told me about the book pissed me off. I was tired of the cult of the white/Western hero. I was tired of seeing well-intentioned individuals start projects that were unsustainable or, worse, harmful.
The title of the post I wrote when I finally read Three Cups of Tea was "What Greg Mortenson Taught Me About Aid and Humility." That could easily have also been the title of this article too.
Aid is complex. Anyone who wants to be of service in this field needs lots of humility. And, although it doesn't absolve him of his responsibility to account for his actions, Greg Mortenson gets my gratitude for teaching me this yet again, and -- simply because he is human -- he gets my compassion.
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Virginia M. Moncrieff: Lucky! Greg Mortenson Did Not Want This $40K
My only confusion is your refusal to acknowledge that there is a truth, without putting quotations around it. Fact is fact is fact, and the *fact* is, he lied. Taking creative liberties with the truth to tell a good story isn't lying to a point. But lying the way he did takes away any truth. There is truth, no need to bend around it and put quotations there.
I never saw him as the "great white hope". Simply as a man trying to do a huge job on his own for a good bit of the time.
I still admire his work.
Yes, he is disorganized.
But he sure could have taken all of his energy and gone some where safe and comfortable to attempt to do good.
But he didn't and now all of the "johnny come lately s" are on his back and/or covering their selves now by offering up how they are doing some of the same things with their writing while plugging their own books.
To err is human, to forgive divine.
You write, "Do these changes [compressing two visits into one] make my story less true?" Yes, they do. There is a category for what you have written: fiction. A story of a man freeing himself from the Taliban is not inspiring if that man is Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone: it is inspiring if we think it actually happened.
"[E]mpty schools built by well-intentioned foreigners" also seems to be an inaccurate phrase. The 60 Minutes report said many of the schools Mortenson claimed he built did not exist. A "well-intentioned" foreigner does not collect money to run schools that he never even built in the first place.
You write, "[P]erhaps Mortenson's most important work was educating his readers about the importance of education for girls..." Well, I've done that.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/gender/Events/MathForum.html
Give me $50 million.
The main lesson to draw from the story is: Why does the media not check anything?
60 minutes takes how long to come up with an expose? Week? Two weeks? Months? By the time we get the facts from 60 minutes, the deed has been done and we are late to the party ...again. And not even fashionably late.
Regards.
But good intentions are not enough, certainly not in development. And well-intentioned amateur aid efforts often end up doing more harm than good.
Was Mortenson's original intention to do good? Or to make a buck off suckers? I don't know and so I choose not to comment on that. But I agree that if the original intent was good, things seem to have gone very far off track.
As for whether combining events from two trips into one (with a note in the foreword that this has been done) makes the story fiction, I guess we'll each have to make up our own mind on that. What matters to me is that I'm transparent about it so that readers can make an informed decision for themselves.
They do have a genre for stories that are not true and it is, as you said, fiction.
Also, there's a pretty big distinction between memoir (which relies on conventions of fiction and is based on memory which is frequently imperfect and subjective) and long-form third-person narrative, which is typically held to more journalistic standards of objective truth. Three Cups of Tea read to me like a hybrid of the two. That's complicated, because the legal and artistic guidelines of one don't always apply to the other.
Still, when some events in an otherwise nonfiction work are made up for purposes of story and passed off as fact without a disclaimer, I wouldn't call the whole work fiction. I'd just call it dishonest.
But that wasn't the story the West wanted to hear. "
That's a ridiculous and pandering justification. America didn't go to Mortenson and beg him to be their hero. His foundation has openly said that they put him forward as a figurehead and encouraged him to sell as many books as possible because it helped them raise money. They may have had good intentions with their charities, but the fact is that they were collecting amounts of money that FAR FAR exceeded the amounts they were spending on "improvements" to schools in these areas. In fact, most of the schools were simply token buildings thrown up in areas that wouldn't require it to need continued funding in the future.
Add on top of that the fact that Mortenson has become extremely wealthy off of this whole debacle without seeming to care whether or not the organization was doing what they were collecting money to do.
You may think "Truth" should be in quotations, but I don't. I find it disappointing and deplorable that you'd try to justify his mismanagement of funds, misrepresentations, and unethical money-chasing like you have. He LIED many, many, MANY times in an effort to get rich. Why would you defend that?
Though I bought Three Cups, I did not make any progress reading it. For me there is a disconnect with people who write books about how wonderful they are. Another book I had trouble with was written by a man claiming to be a horse whisperer to the Queen. Every paragraph of the book started with I...I ....I. He claimed to know the Dorrance brothers, but later I met another cowboy sort who worked for them, a singer & poet, I'll not name here, & he quotes Bill Dorrance, "MAYBE he came up here with his Dad to cut firewood".
Just my way of saying sometimes I get the full circle effect of knowing my gut feeling was correct. The guy's a liar!!
He's not a good guy, he's not a misunderstood hero, and he's not some poor philanthropist with love in his heart who was taken advantage of by an evil charity. He has scammed the system for years and he got caught. We shouldn't be defending him, we should be questioning how we can prevent this from happening in the future.
My view is that he failed in his responsibility to tell the truth - or ensure the truth was told - in his book and he failed in his responsibility to account for the money raised as a result of those books. The points I make about the role our collective love for the 'individual hero' story played in this situation doesn't, in my view, reduce Mortenson's personal responsibility for his actions. But it is an important factor in how and why this happened the way it did.
It's not a justification, and it is not offered as a justification, but it's a part of the picture and it's timely that we examine it because Mortenson is not the only great White hero being lauded for his humanitarian efforts. This has happened before and part of what needs to happen to prevent it happening again is that we become more discerning readers & donors.
As for 'truth' being in quotations, I stand by my comment that it can be a slippery fish to catch. But I also reiterate my point that this doesn't absolve the non-fiction writer from persevering until they are confident they've caught it.
As Steve Almond said over at The Rumpus, creative non-fiction is a radically subjective account of events that objectively took
As for truth -- Truth can be a slippery fish. Truth is often deemed relative. Truth is not easy to find or uphold. But "truth" is always relative, slippery, and very likely not true.
And special kudos to you for taking the time to express compassion for Mortenson. It's not too late for him to do the right thing with CAI: resign and express support for a new management regime which operates ethically and transparently.
How do we reconcile "the desire to give" that is often stirred in us, in response to hearing an emotional and moving story, with "what is actually effective and helpful"?
On a very small scale, I have been dealing with this in the personnel realm lately, as so many people in my sphere have lost their jobs and fallen on hard times. While facing my own financial challenges, I was confronted with the question of "what do I have to offer?" in response to my friends' struggles.
What I arrived at was this: Connection. I could check in on them regularily. I could return their calls promptly. I could listen to their problems, and be encouraging and non-judgmental. And this, most important one, I could reflect back to them a vision of themselves at their best, as whole and radiant, despite their immediate circumstances. This has seemed to be helpful. And it was free.
So often we tend to "avert our eyes" to the suffering of others, because we feel powerless, or because it reminds us of our own fagility.
This scandal is disappointing for sure, but through it, perhaps more people are learning more about the plight of children in distant lands, and the complexities of "giving".
Maybe this will somehow lead to a "net gain" for humanity.
There are many reputable, experienced organisations doing effective (if not perfect) work in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan. CARE, CRS, World Vision, Save the Children, the Aga Khan Foundation and IRC are all organisations I saw in action on the ground in Afghanistan.
If you are interested in supporting education for children in Afghanistan (or anywhere for that matter) then I'd recommend looking for organisations committed to international best practice for the provision of education in conflict settings and to the protection of children's rights.
Very well written, nuanced, thoughtful, balanced.
I got sucked in by the hero worship. Very easy to do when we are confronted with difficult issues in Central Asia. I now see where I was romantic and naive, drawn into a comforting myth. I am learning some important things about aide and development. I have learned once again there are no miracles, no quick and easy answers.
Where I am stuck is the alleged financial improprieties, I just can't see anyway around that issue. Charities have to be transparent and accountable for the money we entrust to them.
I want to feel compassion for the man and his family, while not excusing the alleged behavior.
Very well said!
MaraRose
The lack of financial management is, to me, the most damning of all the allegations and is the one concerning aspect of Mortenson's character that is foreshadowed in 'Three Cups of Tea'.
After this story broke, I've been feeling like the kid who was just told Santa Claus isn't real.
It's a joy to see an unethical and dishonest organization fall.