John Clark
It's difficult not to gush about a geologist who saw the rich nation/poor nation divide and set out alone to correct it, fifty years ago. The abuse of minorities that he saw in Asia made John Clark develop his philosophy of five ideas.
« Objectivity, dissatisfaction, creative confidence, individuality and responsibility--these are the five fundamentals in the Western philosophy. They have made possible our spiritual, intellectual and physical development which the rest of the world desires. These are our unique possession and these we must freely give. »
Like all idealists, John confidently took his ideas to the Powers That Be. But the US Foreign Relations Committee and the State Department gave him only a polite hearing. Unfazed, he set off--for the remote Himalayan kingdom of Hunza in Pakistan. With help from friends and the Methodists, he collected sufficient funds to teach boys woodcraft for one year.
John chose the Hunza community because they were cheerful and hardworking. They were so poor that any training and commerce would improve living standards immediately. And the Hunzakut carefully harvested apricot trees for wood. Research showed that this wood was good for craftwork. So John arranged with the Marshall Fields retailer for a trial sale if he provided quality handicrafts.
Wholesale American florists in Illinois donated vegetable seeds in exchange for future Himalayan wildflower seeds. The Carnegie Institute paid John in advance for Himalayan butterflies to be added to their high-altitude collection. And geological analysis of the Hunza mountains was to be his main assignment for the young nation of Pakistan. He admired its leaders and hoped to discover minerals for their economy.
But counterbalancing John's enthusiasm and organization was his American directness in speaking and writing. Low-level Pakistani bureaucrats resented his style and opposed his mission from the moment he landed. And this clash continued in Hunza.
Hunzakut boys never spoke before their elders unless spoken to. They obeyed and deferred to the "Sahib" who was of a superior race. And John's encouraging the lads to eat at his table, express their opinions, and consider themselves his equal, shocked them and the community. But he persevered. Because unthinking subservience had to end for their natural curiosity to emerge.
John's designs in golden mulberry wood with inlays of dark brown walnut, pale tan apricot, and red juniper, woke creative spirits. When he needed a dark stain, and commercial ones were too expensive, his students found the answer. Their experiment in creating a wood stain from boiled hardwood ashes and lime led to ideas with machines.
On seeing their first electric lathe in Lahore, the boys immediately discussed how they might adapt it for use in their valley. They had only water power. And the best student asked to analyze, alone, how to set it up.
« Sahib, will you do me a favor? ... You taught us that anything another human brain has made, our brains can understand. I'd like to try this and see if it is true. »
The words of one emerging, free-thinking Hunzakut leader!
Such success was sweeter because it came after obstacles. The government-funded doctor refused to visit the villagers. So when word of John's dispensary spread, people carried their sick over the mountains to him. Although he had only basic medical knowledge, he might see anywhere upto sixty-two patients in one day! Even after training his two best students to clean sores, dispense pills, and translate symptoms, he had little time and energy left for teaching.
But it was the ruler, or Mir of Hunza, whom John couldn't win over. The Mir was generous and thoughtful but he was used to profiting from every local enterprise. And John was too rushed to explain American-style accountablity. Why donors' money and medicines HAD to be used for the poor of Hunza. Why American donors wouldn't build a marble mining enterprise for a ruler.
Rock climbing with Australian friends
American ideas of equality were clashing with a tradition of royalty. Awakening the boys' leadership skills to takeover the American-funded workshop was the last straw for the Mir. He brought John's experiment to an abrupt end.
However, Hunza's boys had shown that Asia's children were ready for John's philosophy. And his Central Asiatic Research Foundation went on to pay for his best pupil's studies at university.
« The majority of mature people may hesitate to accept a new philosophy because they fear the destruction of good things in their own culture by the foreign ideas. Their antipathy will disappear when it is explained to them that the philosophy of five ideas is not a plant sprouted in Western soil and nourished with American rain; it is not being transplanted to choke out Eastern flowers. Rather it is a code of faith that had its beginnings in the earliest civilizations of the Near East. It passed from hand to hand, through Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and finally, after the Crusades, to the West. We have the honor to offer Asia, not an untried bright idea, but rather a philosophy developed and tested over several thousand years in many different cultures. »
John's goals are still meaningful in the 21st century.
- To help Asian people use their own resources to their own best advantage
- To institute medical and educational assistance
- To promote understanding of Asia in the United States
Other heroes and heroines
Bryan Clark, Australian teacher
Faiz El-Ghusein, Damascan historian
Contact
I'm available at frontender[AT]veeryani[DOT]com. Replace the brackets, and words in them, with the usual symbols.
- VEERYANI: little-known, unsung heroes and heroines
- [veeryani: language Sanskrit, meaning heroic deeds; from the word veer for brave, courageous, hero.]
