The real enemy is ignorance, says Greg Mortenson

Dubai: One of the greatest fears in the world is not the bullet, it’s the pen. The real enemy, said Greg Mortenson at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature on Friday, is ignorance.

“To overcome this, you need passion and courage,” he said to a packed audience at the Intercontinental, Dubai Festival City.

Mortenson spent more than two months climbing K2 – the second biggest peak in the world – before drifting into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram mountains.

He decided to climb the mountain in memory of Christa, his sister, who died in 1992 from a massive seizure, having struggled with epilepsy throughout her life.

He didn’t make it to the top of K2. In the village, after seeing a young girl writing with a stick in the dust, she asked if he would build her a school. He promised he would: his foundation the Central Asia Institute (CAI) has now built more than 178 schools and supports thousands of teachers.

He has dedicated his life to promoting education – particularly for girls – in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan; providing education to more than 68,000 children, including 54,000 girls.

His initial journey is chronicled in “Three Cups of Tea”, published in 2006 with co-author David Oliver Relin.

The title refers to a saying by Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief of the Karakoram Mountains. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said, they drink three cups of tea to do business: the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything – even die.

Mortenson’s latest book “Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan” was released in 2009.

The humanitarian was accompanied by three Afghan members of CAI staff – one of whom was on his first trip outside of Afghanistan.

“Martin Luther King said ‘Even if my world ends tomorrow, I will plant my seed today’. That seed is education”, Mortenson said.
He received a standing ovation.