Gretchen Peters on The Afghanistan-Pakistan border

Tell us about your first book choice, The End of Poverty.

I think Jeffrey Sachs gives a fascinating and very basic new way of looking at development. Essentially, we all benefit when the poorest people are better off. This is as opposed to the maniacal way of thinking that says if India and China are as rich as us there will be a global disaster. His research shows that this is simply not true. It’s a readable book because he weaves his journeys around the world into the argument of the book and it’s filled with very gripping stories of people living in desperate conditions in different places.

It opens talking about Malawi…I was horrified to read that the government of Malawi put together a thoughtful and innovative plan to treat their huge population of Aids patients, and the international community kept cutting back and saying they didn’t have enough money. So they left them to die, when there was a carefully costed plan and something could have been done. Sachs shows a kind of out-of-the-box thinking that proves how richer nations will benefit when the poorest nations are better off.

Why?

Because it reduces insecurity, disease and overpopulation. Educated people have fewer children in general and richer countries are more stable and less likely to be a threat. It’s win-win. I don’t understand why more people don’t get that.

It’s sounds like a compelling argument. Why don’t they see it?

Well, there has always been this feeling that if, for example, China and India, become powerful, it will weaken powerful nations in the West. It’s a sinister mentality because, in fact, there is enough for everybody. The difference between the way wealthy people live compared to the way the poor live, even in poor countries – there is no reason for that. Sach’s book is engaging because it is not particularly sentimental. It’s written in a way that very clearly lays out why wealthy nations will benefit. It’s cold hard economic analysis explaining why moral economic policy makes sense. This idea is effectively the basis of counterinsurgency strategy being implemented in Afghanistan: that the best weapons don’t shoot. You won’t beat the Taliban and al-Qaeda by killing them all, but by making them irrelevant because you provide a better alternative. It is the same essential point. And it’s the basis of Three Cups of Tea as well.

This is by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

Right. Having lived in Pakistan, a lot of what is written resonates with my experience there – one that people who haven’t lived in Pakistan often find it hard to understand. When I tell them I lived there with my children, who are now two and four, they say; ‘How could you do that?’ as though everybody there is a Kalashnikov-wielding fanatic. Before we left I took the children up to the Himalayas and it was a lovely journey, hiking. At the high altitude I found it hard to carry Sophia, my younger daughter, so the tribesmen would come and carry her for me. The people are welcoming and friendly, and I laughed out loud when I read Mortenson’s line that if he was killed in Pakistan, he knew it would be in a car accident and not by a terrorist. Americans often said to me, “Aren’t you afraid about living in Pakistan?” And I’d answer, “Yes, you should see how they drive.” But in other ways it was completely safe. I lived in Islamabad and when we left, and I’d packed up the house, it took me half an hour to find the house keys to return to the landlord because I’d never used them.

What does Greg Mortenson do in Pakistan?

He builds schools in the mountain areas of the Himalayas and he is now working in Northern Afghanistan, primarily building schools for girls. Contrary to popular belief, I found that Afghan and Pakistani parents do want to educate their girls, but only as long as it’s safe. His book has been a bestseller in the US, and several books from the region, like The Kite Runner, have really captured public attention. I think people are intrigued by Afghanistan and Pakistan. Post 9/11 I think a lot of Americans thought people in these areas were all savage fanatics and these books are perhaps beginning to change that perception.

What do the three cups of tea refer to?

In the mountain areas, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is a saying that when you meet someone you drink three cups of te the first when you are still strangers; by the second you are friends, and by the third you are family. It is striking the way you are welcomed into people’s homes and lives if you make the effort to travel to see them. It is a very friendly part of the world. I went to a refugee camp after 9/11 where people were living in tents and boiling grass to make tea and at least one family offered to let me sleep in their tent. Obviously, not everybody is nice. They have their problems…but my overall experience was very welcoming.

I love your next choice, the 9/11 Commission Report.