Even the U.S. military, which has waged the counter-productive, impossible to win war in Afghanistan wanted to believe, to the extent that they invited Mortenson to advise and speak to troops on many occasions. As Greg Jaffe writes in the Washington Post, Mortenson provided a kinder, gentler way of winning hearts and minds that the military badly wanted to be true,

Mortenson’s narratives of wise, patient and kind Afghan and Pakistani elders made it seem as though progress in Afghanistan was achievable. All U.S. troops had to do was learn the Afghan culture, show some patience and deliver a little bit of progress, and the Afghans would see the U.S. military’s good intentions and turn against the Taliban. In this formulation, counterinsurgency — a complex, morally ambiguous and frequently bloody type of war — came to look a bit like social work with guns.

The allegations made by 60 Minutes and Jon Krakauer have however severely dented the armor of our hero. While no one disputes that Mortenson has built schools, it is deeply disturbing that,

a financial statement from the Central Asia Institute (CAI), which Mortenson co-founded in 1996 and is acting executive director of, show that only 41 per cent of funds raised actually went towards schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the American Center for Philanthropy, a charity watchdog, CAI claims that $1.7 million was spent on Mortenson’s “book-related expenses,” more than they spent on all of their schools in Pakistan last year.

Also, as Michelle Goldberg points out, while indeed CAI built numerous schools, education requires more than just a building–ongoing funding for books, teachers, etc. are key. But as Goldberg writes, while we want to believe in the white knight in shining armor image that Mortenson presents, it isn’t the best model for making a sustainable difference.

Mortenson became as famous as he did because people love the idea that one intrepid humanitarian can solve intractable problems in the world’s most desperate places. Schimmelpfennig calls it the “White in Shining Armor” approach to development. It makes for good stories, but it usually doesn’t work. In nearly every country in the world, there are people on the ground trying hard to improve things in their communities, and the most successful programs work through them. The Global Fund for Women, for example, takes applications for grants in any form and any language. It supports organizations like the Afghan Institute of Learning, which began by running underground girls schools during Taliban rule, and which has since trained more than 7,000 female primary school teachers. The problem isn’t that the world of development lacks real heroes. The problem is that they’re rarely the ones we hear about.

Kalsoom Lakhani wisely offers this perspective on the Mortenson saga, saying,

We should also use this opportunity to look inwards at ourselves, at our ability to get carried away by a charismatic personality and digestible narrative, in which Mortenson was the John Smith in the Pakistani version of Pocahontas. Rather than society questioning whether good intentions truly equaled good aid, we gave him a platform, feeling warm and fuzzy for the part we indirectly played in saving schoolchildren. This thinking is endemic of a larger problem with charity and non-profit giving, in which show ponies and personalities often sweep us off our feet. We forget that we must demand transparency, and that we need to go beyond giving, remembering instead to give well, and who our money should be ultimately going to. This means supporting institutions and organisations that are not built on personality alone, but on community engagement and sustainability.

There is no question that CAI’s finances need to be thoroughly investigated and Mortenson needs to be given a chance to fully respond (the 60 Minutes story unfortunately came out just before Mortenson underwent a heart proceedure from which he is currently recovering and therefore it may be some time before he is able to respond).

Regardless of that however, the Mortenson story is merely a variation of the we are better than everyone else therefore we must save them and show them the wisdom of our ways mythology that poisons so much of our public dialog.

And let’s remember that Mortenson is hardly the first person to observe that educating children, especially girls, is a very effective way to better a society. Human rights groups have been saying this six ways to Sunday for a very long time. If we truly bought into this theory however, we would be spending a great deal more on education and a great deal less on military action. Women’s rights groups such as RAWA have been operating schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan long before Mortenson showed up to discuss the matter with the male elders of remote villages. Yet RAWA, which operates on very minimal funds and in the face of great danger and usually the disapproval of those very same warlords and elders, only generates niche support in this country while Mortenson catches the attention of the whole country for the simple reason that we were brought up to believe that this was the model of heroism that will save the world.

It won’t.

(Dr Nighat) Shah, (secretary-general of the Society of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, Pakistan (SOGP)) says that at the very least, with many of the camps now being visited by health professionals, women there are benefiting from reproductive-health information that they would have otherwise missed. This, says the doctor, may help the women break free from what she calls the “death trap” of frequent pregnancies.

Now, says Shah, “We can provide them the much-needed family planning services”.

(Dr. Azra) Ahsan (of the National Committee for Maternal Neonatal and Child Health (NCMNH))  herself notes that with only 22 percent of married Pakistani women using a modern family-planning method, this may be an “opportune time” to introduce the intrauterine contraceptive device (IUCD) to the women in the camps.

She does not think pills would be a successful intervention, reasoning, “They will either forget to take it, or when the dose finishes they may discontinue (taking it).”

Shah favours tubal ligation for those who already have more than three or four children. She even suggests offering counseling to women who come to deliver their babies at hospitals, and encouraging them to opt for ligation after their family is “complete”.

“When they return home,” says Shah, “their lives will hopefully be better off if such interventions are made.”

So because these women’s lives have been decimated by flooding, sterilization should be suggested?  Aside from that smacking of sounding like population control, not maternal health care, many of these women have been displaced, their homes destroyed, they are living in refugee camps in very difficult conditions and it is being suggested that in addition to recovering from childbirth they are being asked to consider undergoing and recovering from elective surgery?  The implications of this report are disturbing and should be investigated.

That the overwhelming impact of the floods on Pakistani women is largely invisible in the media, however, is no claim to its nonexistence. So far,  According to the Reproductive Health Response in Crises Consortium (RHRC), 85 percent of those displaced by the flood are women and children. In the aftermath of the floods, Pakistani women and children continue to face monumental hardships in an already conservative society. Overcrowding and flimsy tents force women and girls to bathe and sleep in close proximity to unrelated males. For women who have lost sons and husbands in the floods, they are offered little protection under conditions that already constrain women’s freedoms.

An added element to the hardships Pakistani women are now facing? An estimated 500,000 pregnant women are currently in their second or third trimesters. Of these, 100,000 women are due to give birth in the next month – most of them in crowded shelters unfit for childbirth, not far from stagnant and disease-ridden waters. As UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Pakistan Martin Mogwanja aptly stated, “This disaster has affected almost 18 million people. We don’t want it to also affect half a million babies who are not born yet”.

While we don’t usually post information multiple times, because of the severity of the situation, here again are links to some of the  organizations working in Pakistan or doing resource mobilization to support relief efforts there with particular sensitivity to women-specific needs:

• Shirkat Gah: http://www.shirkatgah.org/news.php?id=202
• Aware Girls: http://awaregirls.webs.com/contactus.htm
• Global Fund for Women: https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6174/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2574
• Madre: https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5095/donate_page/pakistan
• Women’s Learning Partnership: http://www.learningpartnership.org/en/partners/pakistan/flood-relief

The following statement and information about ways to help women in Pakistan is reprinted with kind permission.  Please note that both of these statements can also be viewed in French and Spanish on the AWID site.

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) is gravely concerned by the tremendous losses of life and livelihoods and ongoing humanitarian crisis triggered by the worst floods in Pakistan’s history.

We stand in solidarity with all the women, men and children of Pakistan during this difficult time. In particular, we send a message of solidarity to the women of Pakistan, who for many years have contributed to upholding the struggle for peace and democracy throughout the country, and who continue to struggle for survival in the face of this unprecedented crisis.

Please donate now to help Urgent Action Fund support women’s organizations in Pakistan (see below for more information on UAF’s work)

Whilst the flooding has had a devastating impact on everyone in Pakistan with an estimated twenty million people displaced, and one-fifth of the country underwater, women are particularly affected. Due to gender norms that marginalize them, women and girls are more likely to fall through the gaps of emergency relief and reconstruction processes. They are often denied access to the provision of food relief and reproductive health services, while female-headed households, pregnant women and those with infants are particularly at risk. In post-disaster situations women also face an increased threat of violence, including sexual violence.

Many of the flood-affected areas of Pakistan have spent years in conflict marked by rising religious fundamentalisms. Reports from the ground indicate that fundamentalist groups are mobilizing aid and providing relief services in areas unreachable by the government with potentially dangerous implications for women’s rights. While it is clear that the scope of the current crisis is beyond the capacity of the Pakistani government to address and that fundamentalist organizations are attempting to fill this gap, there are many other groups engaged in fundraising and delivering emergency relief on the ground who are working from a human rights perspective and whose efforts require vital support (please see a short list below). Pakistani women’s organizations are also reporting that women and children are missing in significant numbers, which could mean they have been kidnapped. Women in the rural areas of Pakistan are among the most disadvantaged with particular difficulties in accessing relief and reconstruction support.

Despite these challenges, women have a vital role to play in the reconstruction of Pakistan. Women hold valuable skills and knowledge on community mobilization, coping strategies and local resources. In their roles as economic actors, as caregivers and as leaders, they are essential to rebuilding a just and inclusive Pakistan. As supporters and facilitators of Pakistani women’s participation in the reconstruction process, Pakistani women’s organizations must also be central actors to efforts on the ground.

AWID therefore calls upon the government of Pakistan and the international community to take immediate action to ensure that the very much-needed aid is committed and actually delivered in a timely and effective fashion. Also, the well-being of women and girls has to be ensured through the provision of both emergency relief and significant longer-term support for reconstruction and development that responds to the gender-specific needs and circumstances of Pakistani women and girls. In particular, we call for the full participation of women at all levels of reconstruction and for sustained efforts to be centered on the long-term development needs of women and girls and the promotion and protection of their human rights.

Links to some of the women’s organizations working in Pakistan or doing resource mobilization to support relief efforts there:

• Shirkat Gah: http://www.shirkatgah.org/news.php?id=202
• Aware Girls: http://awaregirls.webs.com/contactus.htm
• Global Fund for Women: https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6174/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2574
• Madre: https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5095/donate_page/pakistan
• Women’s Learning Partnership: http://www.learningpartnership.org/en/partners/pakistan/flood-relief

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Additional information about Shirkat Gah and the Urgent Action Fund:

In Pakistan, grassroots women’s groups have stepped into leadership roles to ensure that women are safe and secure, that women’s needs are met and their voices are heard, and that aid is distributed effectively and equitably. Last week, UAF funded a request from Grassroots in Action (GIA) in Peshawar. GIA observed that in natural disaster situations, women and children do not have the same access to humanitarian aid as men do…Please donate now to help UAF support women’s organizations in Pakistan.

Women and girls “are also at risk of sexual violence — already reports are emerging of rape and kidnapping, as criminals and human traffickers take advantage of the chaos caused by the floods. And, GIA pointed out, when mass-anxiety and insecurity reign, age-old patriarchal values and behavior can gain a stronger foothold.

GIA proposed to train 230 community-based organizations in three flood districts on the gender dimensions of the disaster and how to overcome them. Once trained, these organizations will coordinate their flood responses and ensure the needs of women and children are met, document women’s human rights violations and make recommendations for addressing them, and advocate for women’s needs to national and international NGOs throughout the rehabilitation process.

Your dollars can go a long way in Pakistan. You have the power to chose where you send your money. Please give to UAF so we can support the grassroots organizations that are meeting the real needs of women and children in this crisis.

Blue Veins, another Pakistani women’s organization, also received UAF support last week. Despite reports of trafficking, kidnapping, abuse, and sexual violence in the flood-affected areas of the Northwest Frontier Province, the government and aid agencies are focusing solely on providing food and shelter, and are not prioritizing the protection of women. Blue Veins proposed to establish 100 Multi-Purpose Committees of women in 100 flood affected areas and Internally Displaced People Camps. The Committees will train women about their rights and how to prevent further violence, report incidents of gender violence, and advocate for women with government and aid agencies.

Please donate now to help UAF support women’s organizations in Pakistan.

Shirkat Gah, a women’s resource center with offices around the country, is sending out field teams to assess the needs of communities in all four provinces. They are focusing on women and children, and collaborating with partner NGO’s to deliver the necessary aid. UAF made an alliance grant to Shirkat Gah last week.

• In Londa village, where nearly all the infrastructure has been destroyed, the field team found out that women had not been able to obtain medical assistance or food during official distributions. Shirkat Gah distributed food and organized two medical camps for women.
• In Shahdadkot, Shirkat Gah interviewed people who were camped on the banks of rivers and canals. The displaced people said they did not need food right now, but prioritized medical aid, especially for pregnant women. Shirkat Gah worked with partner organizations to organize a mobile medical station to move along the canals, with a female doctor.
• Shirkat Gah is attending official meetings with the United Nations and the President of Pakistan, to voice women’s needs and concerns. These include the fact that banned militant groups are providing food and shelter in areas the government and NGOs have not been able to reach, and that the number of missing women and children is increasing.

Basic supplies are of utmost importance. One of our advisors told us that many young girls have stopped moving around at all because they have no sanitary pads and they are ashamed of the blood staining their clothes. This makes it difficult for women and girls to access other necessities such as food and medical aid. Most of the relief packages do not contain sanitary napkins because of the taboo & shame associated with them.

If you wish to donate directly to Shirkat Gah’s women-focused humanitarian aid effort, click here.”

For further information and to donate, please visit UAF.

While very correctly pointing to the gendered impact of the disaster, she then writes,

For feminists, the crisis in Pakistan presents particularly tough questions regarding the ability of women around the world to come together for a humanitarian cause. Despite the fact that Pakistan remains a prominent ally, few American women’s groups have initiated campaigns to either collect funds for flood survivors or to coordinate efforts that would insist that American aid be disbursed in a way that insures that women’s needs are accounted for.

First of all, why should aid be tied to the fact that Pakistan is an ally, this is a humanitarian issue, not a political issue.  Women’s groups regularly raise a ruckus about the need to provide women-responsive aid, but the scope of this disaster is far beyond what most women’s groups can begin to adequately address and it is well past time that women-responsive aid be an internationally recognized need, and not something  assumed to be an issue that women or feminists are responsible for addressing.

While the Global Fund for Women has mounted an admirable effort to raise funds for flood-affected women in Pakistan, the issue has failed to gain significant traction among feminist groups, even those that have been focusing on the region with campaigns on ending the American military presence there.

Being opposed to militarism makes us impotent in the face of a humanitarian crisis?  Must one be in favor of militarism to be empowered to mount an aid effort?  Zakaria’s logic here escapes me.

The silence points to some of my worst fears: that the fervor of arguments preaching immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan may have bled into a general attitude that wants nothing to do with the region at all. Simultaneously, as I discuss here, the admirable push to empower Afghan and Iraqi women may at times slide into the wishful thinking that they can perform a miraculous, by-the-bootstraps self-empowerment, without support.

No one is suggesting that and Zakaria provides no examples. Demands for immediate military withdrawal should not be confused with support for humanitarian efforts.

Could an unfortunate consequence of such thinking be that respect for the ability of Pakistani women to help themselves without foreign interference has been crudely transformed into the belief that they do not need any help from feminists around the world?

With all due respect, how could any thinking, compassionate person possibly think that?

Indeed, acknowledging the integral possibility of self-empowerment must not impose an insularity on global feminism that prevents solidarity at crucial times of humanitarian catastrophe. These unfortunate realities are abstract and achingly difficult to explain to the hundreds of thousands of women crouching in small makeshift beds and holding crying babies who continue to ask aid workers why the world does not care about them.

So the question stands for us to answer: Has global feminism been ravaged by the contentious debates over Iraq and Afghanistan, or can it revive in the face of the worst humanitarian disaster in the history of the United Nations?

That question is quite a leap. Zakaria offers no evidence of what she terms ravaging but with so many examples of how feminism continues to grow this is an odd assertion.  To the extent that feminism is strained, the root causes lie in economic hardship, racism, ecological stress and patriarchal politics, not contentious debates.  In any case, there has never been any debate that we should offer our support to Afghan (and Iraqi) women.  Women in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo and many other places need our support too.  That we are not providing it is a reflection of our misguided national vision and extreme lack of understanding of the dire nature of this need, not our lack of humanity or feminist principles.

It defies understanding as to why there is still debate in the feminist community regarding whether military intervention is a viable way to provide that support or whether in fact a policy that includes the crass and cynical use of the difficulties faced by these women to justify our presence in these countries does more harm than good.  The amount of money we are spending for destruction dwarfs the amounts spent to enable Afghan women, or for that matter spent to provide humanitarian aid to Pakistan.  While there is no doubt that the women of Afghanistan need support, our current policy is not providing that support nor was it ever primarily intended to do so.

As regards Pakistan, again, the way we provide aid needs to be re-conceptualized but in fact, it is worth noting as the Feminist Peace Network did last week that feminist groups from around the world are working to help women in Pakistan.  I find it disturbing and disheartening that Ms. continues to run pieces on their blog that bash other feminists with little to back up those assertions.

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Note:  This is the response I wrote to that particular piece.  As a result of that, a productive dialog was held between Ms. and myself regarding the issues  involved and they were very kind to put a link to my rebuttal on their web page.  In the aftermath of that dialog, this most recent post is particularly baffling.