Based on wide-ranging interviews with former employees, board members, and others who have intimate knowledge of Mortenson and his charity, the Central Asia Institute, Three Cups of Deceit uncovers multiple layers of deception behind Mortenson’s public image. Was his crusade really inspired by a desire to repay the kindness of villagers who nursed him back to health when he became lost on his descent down K2? Was he abducted and held for eight days by the Taliban? Has his charity built all of the schools that he has claimed? This book is a passionately argued plea for the truth, and a tragic tale of good intentions gone very wrong.
100% of Jon Krakauer’s proceeds from the sale of Three Cups of Deceit will be donated to the “Stop Girl Trafficking” project at the American Himalayan Foundation (www.himalayan-foundation.org/live/project/stopgirltrafficking).
Jon Krakauer
When Three Cups of Tea was first released, the book suddenly became frequently talked about – at least in some development circles. In my circles, responses seemed to fall (very roughly and unscientifically) down two lines – those who thought it was an inspiring and fact-filled story, proving that all you need to be an excellent NGO worker is to be a nice person with a nice story and, on the other hand, those of us (mainly people in the NGO world in some way), who saw countless red flags, both in his story and in the development model he was advocating for. Full disclosure: From the beginning, I have been firmly in the second camp.
Having heard bits and pieces over the years about the follow up from the original book, and then his second book, I hadn’t thought about it for a long time, until an unrelated discussion happened to bring it to my attention. A quick search, and some reading, got me at least partly caught up on what has happened in recent years.
Many of my concerns with the original book, and the work that followed, are covered in detail in Three Cups of Deceit. Without writing a full dissertation on everything that is wrong with Three Cups of Tea, I will summarize a few primary concerns here. These are my points (ie not quoted directly from Three Cups of Deceit), but they are generally shared among various critiques that have been written of Three Cups of Tea:
1) It promotes the idea (long ago disproven) that work in development requires only that someone “be a nice person who wants to help”. As with countless other jobs, being a nice person is obviously required, but is in no way a substitute for professional expertise or knowing what you are doing/how to do it well. And, ultimately, the damage done by poorly managed development projects is so destructive (to communities and to other organizations), that being “naive but well-intentioned and nice” results in impacts that are actually not a very nice for others at all.
2) It is overwhelmingly, factually inaccurate. It is fiction posing as non-fiction.
3) It is extremely disrespectful of communities that he claims to want to serve and help. The focus is on him and his imaginary hero-story – where he is the knight in shining armour saving helpless communities from themselves. He sees himself as Santa Claus, dropping in from the outside to deliver gifts, then leaving again. That is not development – it is the epitomy of White Saviour Complex.
4) It promotes a model of development that is not grounded at all in modern best practices, and is actively harmful in many ways – far more than can all be identified in one post. His model promotes a world-view that is highly colonialist, disrespectful of others, and not effective at achieving his stated goals. For example, putting funds towards teacher training or other things would have had a greater positive impact on education than putting it towards construction. That said, given that he seems to have kept most of the funds for himself, it can’t even be said that he put the money towards construction – but that was the theoretical aim, it seems.
5) The active mismanagement of funds and other problems risks decreased trust, by the general public, of the work that really good NGOs are doing. Hopefully, the reverse is true, and people will learn from this, and really appreciate the excellent, transparent and accountable work that countless good NGOs are doing. 🙂
I am grateful to the author of Three Cups of Deceit (and others), for doing the hard work to fact check an organization that has been unaccountable for far too long. Based on what I was able to find currently, I was not able to (in a fairly brief search), definitively determine the current status of the organization. That said, I can say definitively that it is not an organization I would donate to, or recommend that others donate to. If you have a copy of Three Cups of Tea on your shelf, consider replacing it with Krakauer’s well-written critique, instead.
Want to read more about this? Here are a few more resources, with a few key quotes. All are well worth reading.
(Note that some of the resources on this topic are a number of years old, from when some of the more significant allegations of corruption and misuse of funds came to light publicly).
How the U.S. military fell in love with ‘Three Cups of Tea’ – Washington Post
“No amount of tea with Afghans will persuade them that we are like them, that our war is their war or that our interests are their interests,” said Michael Miklaucic, a longtime official with the U.S. Agency for International Development who is currently serving at the Pentagon’s National Defense University. “The war in Afghanistan isn’t about persuasion or tea. It is about power.” (Italics mine).
WP
What Mortenson Got Wrong – The New Yorker
Another reason I’ve always had trouble talking about Mortenson’s books is that it’s hard to give an alternative for people who feel the need to act. Even before the reports of C.A.I.’s mismanagement, I saw little value in this model of development. It’s centered around a foreigner, and the foreigner has no special expertise in either education or Central Asia. Even a balanced and reasonable individual is likely to fail in this situation.
The New Yorker
Three Cups of BS – Foreign Policy
Over the last 50 years of studying international development, scholars have built a large body of research and theory on how to improve education in the developing world. None of it has recommended providing more school buildings, because according to decades of research, buildings aren’t what matter. Teachers matter. Curriculum matters. Funding for education matters. Where classes actually take place? Not really. (Italics mine).
Foreign Policy
Here are a few more:
CharityWatch Hall of Shame: The Personalities Behind Charity Scandals and
3000 Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer.
