Education and Freedom

Today is Freedom Friday. Are you wearing blue today in support of our troops? I believe that education is very important for obtaining and retaining liberty and freedom. I particularly believe that girls and women need education in addition to boys and men. I once heard a statement that went something like this: "When we educate a man, we education only a man. When we educate a woman, we educate an entire family. I believe this statement is true, particularly because mothers do most of the teaching of their children. I believe that it was the educational level of our Founders that assisted them in writing the United States Constitution as they did. I believe that it is because of their education that they knew about and understood the evils that bad government could bring upon the Americans. The Founders used their knowledge in a way that is a blessing to us today. Afghanistan is a good example of what happens in a country that does not encourage education for both their boys and girls. In the mid-1990s about 20 percent of "all Afghanistan's people 15 years of age or older can read and write. The law requires all children from 7 to 10 years old to go to school. However, many of these children cannot attend school because the country does not have enough schools or teachers" (Riffat Sardar, World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p 95). In 1993 Greg Mortenson staggered into Korphe, a tiny village in Pakistan. He describes how he "watched 82 children scratch their lessons in the dirt with sticks" (Parade Magazine, No. 22, 2009, p 8). A young girl asked him to come back to her village and build a school that would be open to all children. Three years later he returned to Korphe and built that school. His organization, the Central Asia Institute (CAI) now has 91 school houses in the mountains of rural Pakistan. There are 19,000 students - three-quarters of them girls - being taught in those schools. CAI crossed the border into Afghanistan and opened its first school there in 2004. The 39th school was opened this year. Including tent schools in refugee camps, there are 39,000 Afghan children, mostly girls, being educated there. "Yet my commitment to educating girls has only grown stronger. Indeed, we hope soon to complete a 200-mile line of girls' schools directly through the heart of Taliban country. "Young women are the developing world's greatest agents of progress. Just one year of schooling will dramatically raise a girl's later economic prospects, and where girls get to fifth grade, birth rates and infant mortality plunge. Teaching girls to read and write reduces the ignorance and poverty that fuel religious extremism and lays a groundwork for prosperity and peace. In military parlance, educating girls is a `force multiplier.' Thus the flame that burns at the center of my work, the heat around which I cup my hands, are the stories of girls whose lives have been changed by education" (Parade, p 8). Mortenson reported that in 2000 only 800,000 Afghan children were in school - no girls. Now there are 8.5 million Afghan children in school, including nearly 2 million girls. The people of Afghanistan recognize the importance of education and are willing to pour scarce resources into schools. Mortenson is the author of two books. His first book, entitled Three Cups of Tea, published in 2006, is now required reading for all Special Forces soldiers deploying to Afghanistan. Military leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, have turned to Mortenson for guidance in improving relationships with tribal and village leaders. Mortenson's second book, entitled Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was published December 1 by Viking. I saw copies of this book in Costco yesterday. "I have observed with my own eyes how America's welfare is tied to that of our brothers and sisters on the other side of the world - and, in particular, that of our youngest sisters. Their dreams of progress rest in our hands; our desire for peace rests in theirs" (Parade, 10).

Afghanistan

I decided that I needed to learn more about Afghanistan. I listened to President Obama's speech about sending more troops to Afghanistan and then watched a television program where the "talking heads" were discussing the speech. Apparently, the men and women on the program were experts on the subject - and none of them could totally approve or disapprove the President's decision. It appears that Afghanistan leaves a lot of questions in everyone's mind. Afghanistan, a nation of about 33 million people, is one of the least developed countries in the entire world. Approximately 82% of the people in Afghanistan live in rural areas. Most Afghan workers are farmers, and many of them use old-fashioned tools and methods. Some farmers roam the grasslands with their herds of livestock in the summers and then spend the rest of the year farming. Most of the semi-nomads live in tents made of goat hair. Most other people in Afghanistan live in homes made of sun-dried mud bricks, but some city dwellers live in modern homes and apartment buildings made of cement. "Most Afghans are a blend of many early peoples who came to the country as invaders or settlers. These groups include Aryans, Persians, Arabs, Turkish-speaking people from central Asia, people from Mongolia, and people from the Zinjiang region of western China" (Riffat Sardar, World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p 93). There are about twenty different ethnic groups, most of whom "have their own language and cultural pattern. Most ethnic groups consist of several tribes, many of which speak their own dialect. Many Afghans feel greater loyalty to their ethnic group or tribe than to their country" (p 93). The Pushtuns (or Pathans) and the Tajiks are the largest ethnic groups, making about seventy-percent of the population. There are two official languages in Afghanistan, Pashto or Pushtu and Dari. Most Pushtuns live in the southeastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border and speak Pashto. Most Tajiks live in central and northeastern Afghanistan where some speak Dari. Most Afghans are Muslims. The Islam religion is the one common link among the people. Afghanistan history shows that the country was conquered by at least a dozen different armies between 1500 BC and 1747 AD when the tribes united for the first time and gained control of their country. Civil war broke out between tribes and wars continued off and on until 1919 AD when Afghanistan became fully independent. Afghanistan was still struggling to set up an operating government when Russia invaded the country in late 1979 and early 1980. Russia left Afghanistan by February 1989. Rebels overthrew the government (1992) and different factions continued to compete for power. The Taliban took control of the nation in the mid-1990s and were driven from power following September 11, 2001. Afghanistan has been at war in one way or another for the past thirty years. It is no wonder that the country is undeveloped as compared to other nations! I believe that we need to stay in Afghanistan and try to help the people there in gaining freedom.