Ok, that was embarrassing

So bent was I to publish that post that I didn’t bother to check the grammar of its title, which was originally “A Book that Move Mountains”.

Note to self: next time, don’t treat the title as afterthoughts!

A Book that Moves Mountains

Someone once told me that an action, no matter how small, can lead to tremendous consequences. There were forest fires started by a mere litter of not-quite-extinguished cigarette butts. There were stalagmites that tumbled down by a mere echo that lingered a second to long. There were massacres that started by a mere dispute between a government official and a cigarette vendor. There were human rights movements that began by a mere middle-aged colored woman who insisted on not leaving the seat for white folks.

Greg Mortenson is a man who saw his small act turn to something greater. Written by journalist David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea is a moving, nonfictional account of Greg, whose failed attempt to summit K2 eventually led him to start humanitarian projects. Resting at an unknown village of Korphe after his descend from Karakoram Range, he saw that the children there had no means to receive formal education, so he promised to build a school to repay for the kindness people of Korphe gave him. Fulfilling that promise would also mark the beginning of a new path of his life, as he sets on his still-active mission to intrepidly build schools for other underdeveloped provinces of Pakistan and, later, Afghanistan.

The book’s story, with enough twists to make it a good movie, is wonderful enough. It’s its resounding theme of love and compassion that elevates it a K2 higher than just entertainment. Challenging subject matters that come so naturally when taking about Islam are never shunned, and once you’ve finished reading it you might start lamenting on how misguided Americans are about Muslims. Equal parts hopeful and horrifying, you’ll glance at how badly Muslims are bullied, both by Taliban and by the west. You’ll see how they are forced by extremists to study in schools that teach nothing - not physics, math or whatever languages - but the most hateful interpretations of Koran. You’ll see how underprivileged women are. And Greg, in his building of schools, reveals that the better way in which the battle against terror should be fought is by giving Muslims and their women the right to actual education that they have long been denied of. It breaks the stereotypes of Muslims as being combative, declaring that they want peace and order just as much as all of us do. It also shows how neglected they are, that they have never received the aids and funds promised to them by Americans and Russians whom have taken their turns to rule Afghanistan for no other reason than to prove the firepower of democracy or communism.

Go read this book, and it’s about time we see Muslims as we see ourselves: that, like us, they deserve neither to be bombed by the hypocritical administrations that should’ve long overgrown their jingoistic cowboy fantasies masqueraded as “heroism”, nor to be spilled racist diatribes by FOKKKS, excuse me, FOX news.