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Grass Roots Development May Hold Promise in the Muslim World

I would actually hope that it holds promise for everyone: There is, Khan averred, a “dominant player fallacy” or the tendency to place “too much reliance in national governments and other institutions which may have relatively superficial connections to life at the grass-roots level.” Thus, “urban-based outsiders often look at these situations from the perspective of the city center looking out to a distant countryside, searching for quick and convenient levers of influence.” The secret, then, is to work “from the bottom up” and not from the top down, as is so often the case. As he told the dinner…

Greg Mortenson and the Business of Redemption

Readers who may not know much about the political situation in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, still know, based on images they see on television, that the situation of women is disastrous. Three Cups of Tea reaffirmed that message, and provided a savior in the form of Mortenson. But what about women’s organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan? Why are they not part of this picture of empowerment of women? These questions are not directly addressed in these kinds of discussions, because, by definition it seems, Afghan and Pakistani women are victims, and not actors in their own lives; they…