According to a recent article, the Afghan Appeal Fund (AAF) are 'no colonial pet project'. I beg to differ.
AAF is a de facto arm of the British army. The organisation was founded by Caroline Lady Richard, wife of the Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards, a.k.a. the professional head of the British armed forces. The enterprise is also supported by a host of other high-profile military commanders, not least the infamous and now-retired General Stanley A. McChrystal of the United States Army. For its fundraising efforts, it sells official US and British army top trumps, which teach kids the motto (the ever peaceful 'Death Dealing Eye' in the case of the British 3 Regiment Army Air Corps), firepower, manpower, and combat versatility of the respective fighting units.
The websites suggested reading list instructs you in the benevolent civilizing mission of the West; one book reads, 'Afghanistan's Tragedy: A Problem for the West'. Also included is the bestseller, 'Three Cups of Tea'. As required reading for US commanders and troops in Afghanistan, I was immediately suspicious. Finding a critical book review (which traversed beyond mere complaints of style, plot engagement etc.) took more than a few google searches. Indeed, I almost thought my cynicism to be misplaced, with glowing reviews seeming to emanate from every corner (see Amazon, for instance). After a little more persistency, I managed to find a lengthy review of the book at a now defunct blog. Despite the ever-so predictable title ('Not My Cup of Tea'), the piece confirmed my worst suspicions.
With the back cover proclaiming that he was a “real life Indiana Jones” and the Washington Post dubbing his territory “exotic,” I had a hunch that the book would prove to be a study in Orientalism. I found myself outraged as I read page after page of descriptions of servile natives who, for reasons unknown to me, pledged allegiance to the United States despite living on the other side of the globe. I found abundant depictions of dangerous territories which would offer the Westerner enlightenment and adventure. I found a plethora of depoliticized explanations for ‘terror,’ the main one being a lack of literacy, and at times I even came across blatantly racist and colonial language.The parallels between Greg and AAF are self-evident. "You can drop bombs, hand out condoms, build roads or put in electricity, but unless the girls are educated, a society won't change," is supposedly a favourite quote of the Three Cups of Tea author. This is the epitome of the Victorian African civilizing mission with a twenty-first century tinge. This is the 'war on terror'.
As his project to build schools for neglected and illiterate natives gained momentum, people came to learn of his noble presence. As the book tells us, “the legend of a gentle infidel called Dr. Greg was … growing” (210). One local tells his fellow countrymen that “Christian men have come halfway around the world to show our Muslim children the light of education” (257), swiftly relegating the Muslim world to the illiterate and ignorant, and upholding Christians as the heirs of education and civility...
The historic and well-known connections between Christianity and colonialism are critical in deconstructing Three Cups of Tea. You see, Mortenson is not just a Christlike savior, he is also an imperialist in his own right. We are given image after image of his trek through a dangerous and rugged land, a land open to penetration, ready to be claimed or tamed. Indeed, Mortenson’s simple goal to “leave Christa [his deceased sister]’s necklace at 28,267 feet” is oddly reminiscent of planting a flag in the soil.
Orientalism tells us that the Westerner in the Orient is there to be an expert, to understand the local culture and norms (even better than the locals themselves) and translate them for the West. This is precisely Mortenson’s project, and “going native” is just one of the many habits he develops. Speaking of his childhood abroad, we learn that Greg swam “happily in a sea of cultures and languages” (36). The multitudinous cultures are there for Greg to absorb; the world offers itself to him unselfishly, and Greg accepts it.
Mortenson’s samplings of local culture are most striking when he asks the natives for instructions on how to pray (62), dresses as a local and asks whether he looks Pakistani (71), and decides he must worship “in the sunni way in this sunni land” (168). Almost comical was Mortenson’s appropriation of local names for his children: his daughter, named Amira, and son, named Khyber, suggest that Mortenson has found a cultural richness in the land that was ready to be borrowed and imported into his own life.
