Nobel Peace Prize winner shares insights into ending poverty

from Davis Enterprise

By Saraf Nawar/Enterprise correspondent

DHAKA, Bangladesh - On an unbearably hot afternoon in the middle of a traffic jam in this bustling city, crammed with cars, rickshaws and salespeople milling about, one doesn't expect to catch a glimpse of a celebrity. But just a block away, I'm about to meet a humanitarian even more famous than actress Angelina Jolie.

In one of the oldest buildings in Dhaka, I enter to find a crumbling hallway; still, it's a respite from the heat and commotion outside. Every few minutes or so a man or a woman walks out of a small doorway with a contented expression - they're just some of the few people who have met the man who changed their lives.

After a few anxious moments of waiting, a friendly-looking man wearing a punjabi comes out of the doorway, and I am shaking hands with Mohammad Yunus. It's a profound moment. After all, it's not every day that a high school sophomore gets to meet a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

As he leads me into his office, I notice it is no bigger than a corporate cubicle. A closer look reveals that the wall is adorned with accolades from household names like Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth. In my native country for a family visit, it suddenly occurs to me how lucky I am that he could spare some time for me. As I would soon learn, it's hard to ignore Yunus' warm, welcoming demeanor. But what I would really learn from this interview was that Mohammad Yunus, first and foremost, is a true believer.

“You know, I used to have all the time in the world,” begins Yunus, “but after the Oslo business this place is forever crowded. They say people only notice your good work after you are famous.”

It was a good-natured joke. That “Oslo business,” is, of course, his 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, which he happily accepted in Norway a few months ago.

But he's right. After a meeting with the foreign minister, Yunus is scheduled to travel more than 400 miles today. However, he doesn't seem the least bit anxious. Rather, he is in a contemplative mood. So I ask him an eye-opener - how he views the struggle against poverty.

“I always thought of it is a struggle against good and evil,” Yunus begins, “and throughout the years I realized how true that was.”

Raised in a small village in Bangladesh, Yunus learned about the dark side of poverty at a young age. His country has been wracked by a severe economic crisis since its inception in 1971; more than half of Bangladeshis live on less than $1 a day, according to the 2006 census. But it's given him a new outlook on the matter.

“When you grow up where poverty is all around you, you have a close and more personal relationship with it,” he says. “Back then, it was common for foreigners to form a mental ‘image' of the poor man. But when you see poverty and live with it, you realize that the poor are just like you and me. This may not sound like a revolutionary idea right now, but back then, things were quite different.”


Today Yunus, who shares the $1.4 million prize money with his brainchild Grameen Bank, may not live in the same village, but he has never forgotten the experiences of his childhood.

“But how did they shape your world view?” I ask.

“It's something like never underestimating people,” he says, while fiddling with a small homemade handkerchief, probably a token of appreciation from the people I saw coming out of the doorway.

Yet, it's the same argument he used 30 years ago to defend his idea that the poor are credit-worthy. It's hard not to appreciate Yunus' simple but revolutionary idea that if the rules of conventional lending were tailored to their circumstances and founded on principles of trust rather than financial capacity, poverty could be lifted.

“Have you ever doubted yourself or your ideology?” I ask.

“At first,” Yunus begins, “it wasn't hard for anyone to think, ‘Oh, you can't trust the poor.' But when you think about it, you have to attack poverty in order to achieve peace, so private enterprise is essential to peace.”

It was the very idea of peace, poverty and private enterprise that earned the small-town banker and economist international acclaim. The Nobel citation described Yunus' brainchild, microcredit, as a “liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against representative social and economic conditions.” Since its inception in Bangladesh, microcredit has given private enterprise power to more than 20 million women in the country.

Any nervousness I had at the start of the interview has vanished, and after a bit more discussion on poverty and the world, Yunus shows me around his office, which is filled with trinkets like plastered cups and intricate tapestries from the men and women for whom microcredit has changed their lives.

Yunus believes his work is nowhere near done. Right now he focuses on improving the lives of those without microcredit and giving them access to medical assistance and education. And he tells me he has a good reason for that, too.

“When you are poor, you don't care whether you are cutting down forests or doing crime because your survival is at stake,” he says. “But if we work so that these people can get out of that level, I believe it can hit other world problems, too.”

But his greatest belief lies in the future.

“I'm a true believer that poverty can someday be put into museums. Wouldn't you like that, too?”

- Saraf Nawar, a student at Davis High School, is an intern at The Davis Enterprise.