Friday, April 22, 2011

Cooling off the Three Cups of Tea outrage

Amira on the Greg Mortensen scandal:

http://amiralace.blogspot.com/2011/04/keeping-things-in-perspective-in.html

in which she points to this news piece, as evidence how difficult it is for anyone to do development/aid work in Central Asia
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/63328

And, even Krakauer points out Mortensen has done a lot of good, has built schools.  Just  not as many has he's said, and the money's not being handled the way you've been led to believe.

I can't bring myself to regret the money I've donated to Mortensen's Central Asian Institute.  I do, however, expect they'll now bring their financial practices into line, and I do hope they'll be able to continue good work.

The Guardian complains that the US uses Mortensen because he provides a feminist pretext for interfering in foreign countries.  I'm laughing because of all the Soviet materials I read in college in Uzbek.  The Soviets needed an underclass to justify the revolution, and chose women as their substitute proletariat.  I'm not on board that furthering women's education is really the same thing.  

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