Amber Siri .pdf - Oakland Community College

Learning to Fish
Preconceived notions constitute the base for giving across the United States. Thousands
of private organizations send money to so-called “helpless” regions like Sudan believing it will
protect them from mounting starvation and genocide. However, for Darfur along with regions
like Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and Iraq, the U.S. often fails to see the dependency problem that such
giving creates. As a Chinese philosopher once said, you can give a man a fish and feed him for a
day, or teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. However, even the gift of education must
consider a region’s values for it to be a success. In order to aid the people of Zimbabwe, Darfur,
Pakistan, and Iraq we must think outside the monetary box, and learn to build independence
using the strengths, and desires of the people.
Financial dependency has become a prevalent consequence of well off nations throwing
fish to their financial opposites without clear foresight. In Zimbabwe “the international
community now feeds one half of the population” something that Lyman titles “lifting the burden
of a failed economy” (Lyman 26). Like a father looking to silence the financial cries of his son,
America gives money without realizing the harm it does. In addition to America’s donations,
countries like Great Britain, and France are also ignorantly throwing funds at a problem that
requires human capital. By lifting this financial burden to such an extent, we not only silence the
alarm that stimulates employment, but we add to it by encouraging the title of “neediness” into
the peoples hearts and minds. While it is important to help these people find food and
employment, money must not become a means of U.N. nations “paying off” their responsibility
to protect.
Darfur is yet another region needing our time and intellect much more than our financial
aid. In the region, a whopping 40% of the population now depends on outside assistance for their
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survival, a number that is not surprising considering Sudan’s history of foreign reliance (Lyman).
In the 1990s Northern Slave traders in Sudan made a killing off capturing men from the south
that Americans paid to set free. However, despite this lesson America continues to fight the War
in Darfur using their checkbooks. Already “100,000 people have died in Darfur” not including
the thousands who’ve been raped and robbed of the aid we’ve sent (Applebome). Just last year
when the Red Cross attempted to bring food and medical supplies, “its convoys where hijacked
and its workers robbed,” proving that the war in Darfur cannot be won by just providing
“supplies” (Preston). It must be done by first teaching Union troops how to organize their
defense, and later sending the necessary financial support.
In Three Cups of Tea Gregg Mortenson’s actions illustrate a process in successful giving,
that is, by studying the people and their ambitions. As any Middle Eastern missionary will tell
you “you’ve got to go there, to know there” (Hurston 119). With a similar mindset, Mortenson
offers aid to Pakistan, by first studying their needs. He sees beyond the society’s stereotypical
“neediness” to find a group of people hungry for education and independence. He sees children
writing outside in the sand because they are too poor for classrooms and supplies, he sees girls
banned from education, and a whole village segregated from society because they are too poor to
build a bridge. But, instead of throwing money at the issue, Mortenson asks why this is, and
confronts each blockade keeping education from the society. He organizes the funds to build the
bridge, and inspires the people to stand up against their corrupted religious officials.
Similarly as America seeks to aid the Middle East we must understand that successful
giving recognizes the cultural ambitions and desires of the people. In the story Three Cups of
Tea, Gregg Mortenson works successfully at bringing equal education to the village of Korphe,
Pakistan .The most successful element of his project is that his purpose uplifts the people’s will
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to participate. Towards the middle of the story, the village nurmadhar named Haji Ali says to
Mortenson “you need to do one thing: You need to shut up, sit down… and give empowerment
to local villagers" (Relin 150). As Haji Ali explains to Mortenson, allowing the surrounding
society to give birth to the school is crucial because, with their effort; hopes, dreams, and
attachments are built. Today, Mortenson, and many of his followers, have pushed his mission
further north into the heart of Afghanistan. “In 2000 at the height of the Taliban only 800,000
Afghani children were in the school system. Today there are 6 million, 2 million of which are
female” (Lyman 18).This is thanks, in part, to Mortenson’s effort, but more so on behalf of those
minds he taught to fish for education.
Like Mortenson, America must recognize the cries for equal education in the Middle
East, and that it is necessary before equal rights can be swallowed there. In the Islamic culture,
women have been thought of as property for centuries. Thirteen-year-old girls have been given in
marriage to forty-year-old strangers; they have been beaten without rights, and have been
charged as sex offenders for leaving their husbands (Jones 23). In 2003, when Iraq’s government
began reconstruction, half of the seats in the “United Iraqi Alliance” were reserved for women
(Marshal). Not only did violence and protest rise, but even the women elected undermined their
sex’s potential, suggesting laws with “legal preference in the treatment of men” (Marshal).
Though change is necessary, educating Iraq must come first. In an Islamic society where time
often moves at a much slower pace, placing women into seats of power must not strike them like
a gun-shot, but at a steady pace. In her novel Kabul in Winter Ann Jones, a current resident of
Afghanistan, describes how we have “misspent billions of American tax dollars” on similar shot-
gun projects that did not incorporate the desires of the people (Jones 56).
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Though we often see no educational benefit in going where oppression lies there is much
to learn about cherishing what and who we believe in. As Mortenson illustrates throughout his
journey, living in such a rugged environment teaches us to place the society that protects us,
above and beyond ourselves. Even the influence humility reveals its benefits throughout these
societies. There is a form of stead-fast determination which is unmistakable in the naked eyes of
Pakistani women. These women teach us that sometimes it’s ok to live humbly. That you can
take the time to drink three cups of tea a day, thank God for your blessings, and still be happy in
the poorest circumstances.
In any given society education must come before social organization, just as America
must hear the cries of the Middle East before they can begin to educate them. Just as Mortenson
showed, education is not something that can be set off like a shot-gun or spent like money. In the
end the course of fully aiding a society is like teaching a man to fish, it requires patience.
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Works Cited
Applebome, Peter. “An Anguished Cry Far Away, Heard Through All the Buzz.” The
New York Times (Nov 28 2004). PA47 col 02: A47. Info Trac Custom
Newspapers. Gale. Oakland Community College. 11 Dec. 2008
.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
Jones, Ann. Winter in Kabul. New York: Pan Books 2006.
Lyman, Princeton “Beyond Humanitarianism” New York: Atlantic Publishing, 2007.
Marshal, Linda “Betraying Iraqi Women.” TomPain.com 13.16 (July 16, 2004).
NA. Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale. Oakland Community College. 14 Feb. 2009
.
Preston, Caroline. “Care in the Crossfire.” Chronicle of Philanthropy 18.18 (June 29,
2006): NA. Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale. Oakland Community College. 11 Dec.
2008 .
Relin, David Oliver et.al. Three Cups of Tea. New York: Penguin Group U.S.A. 2007.
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