[chottala.com] Saga of a 'patriot' and a 'blood sucker': Hasina's gift to posterity

Commentary

The saga of a 'patriot' and a 'blood sucker': Sheikh Hasina's gift to posterity

Mahfuz Anam

Leaders bequeath many gifts to the nations they lead. Sheikh Hasina will of course have her own share of them. While we leave it to history to judge her other gifts to Bangladesh, we can right away say that she will definitely be remembered by posterity for giving them two iconic figures -- a "patriot" and a "blood sucker".

While most at home and many abroad including one important global institution claim to have "credible evidence" of corruption against him, our Prime Minister found him to be a patriot. Why? Because he has resigned his cabinet post. When? After becoming the principal cause of cancellation of the World Bank funding for the country's biggest infrastructural project, not to mention harming the reputation and damaging the image of the country.

But to our Prime Minister, he is a "patriot" and she must be right.

It is well known that most of his cabinet colleagues and many of the top leaders of his own party had urged him, from the outset, to send in his papers so that the government could move on with this vital project.

Any other person with the minimum of feelings for his country, his party and his own leader (and also with a modicum of self respect) would have, when the controversy began, publicly resigned and challenged the government and the accusing world body to conduct an independent investigation to prove his guilt. This way he would have given the government, of which he was a part, significant manoeuvrability to take the project forward. But not our "patriot". His desire to "serve" the country was so strong that he waited till the WB funding for the project was cancelled, the country disgraced and our people insulted. His resignation, by the way, has not yet been officially notified.

Our "patriot" was the very man who had to be thrown out from Sheikh Hasina's previous cabinet (1996-2001) for a passport-related incident. He is none other than the man described by former US ambassador to Bangladesh James F Moriarty as a man "less than honest" in one of his cables dated February 3, 2010, revealed by WikiLeaks on August 30, 2011. And yet our Prime Minister considers him a "patriot" and she must be right.

As for our "blood sucker", he was actively involved with our Liberation War activities in the US just as the present finance minister, AMA Muhith, former finance minister late SAMS Kibria, and hundreds of others living in the US at that time.

His story of how he began the micro-credit experiment and how it grew to become a global movement is too well known to necessitate a repetition here. What is worthy of note is that ever since he left his Chittagong University job, he devoted all his intellectual and physical energy to trying to find ways to root out poverty. When the poor were essentially looked upon as a burden on the society, he thought of them as assets, with wondrous creativity to contribute to solving their own problems.

To set up a bank with women at the helm and targeted only for those who do not have any collateral, was a first in history. Nobody ever, anywhere else in the world, had thought of setting up such a bank targeting poor rural women. He not only conceived it, he brought it to fruition and operated successfully for more than two decades after which the Nobel Committee though it worth awarding Nobel Prize to both the "blood sucker" and the blood-sucking institution he built.

Compared to individuals, there are not too many institutions that have been given Nobel Prize. Since 1910, only 22 institutions/organisations have been so awarded. Some of the more recent ones are Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IAEA, UN, UNHCR, UN Peacekeeping Force, Amnesty International, etc.

The important point to note here is that all the award winners are international bodies and run by international secretariats, comprising experts from various parts of the world. No national institution like Grameen Bank, run totally by nationals of one country, in this case Bangladeshis, has ever been given a Nobel Prize. If we leave aside the one person, and focus on the institution, we can very proudly say that led by its women board of directors, all the higher level, mid-level and grassroots level managers and staff members contributed to making it a world class institution that was so unique, so successful, so exemplifying, so emulative, so wondrous and effective that the world took cognisance of that, bowed their heads, and gave it the highest honour -- Nobel prize. All this undeniably was the handiwork of none other than the "blood sucker".

In our government's shameful and incomprehensible attempt to harass and denigrate one person, are we not denigrating and insulting the magnificent achievements of all the millions of poor borrowers and Bangladeshi management of Grameen Bank? Nothing exemplifies more the saying "cut off your nose to spite your face" than our government's attempt to damage the reputation of one person.

We urge Sheikh Hasina's government to stop inflicting insult on ourselves. The world is watching our shameful act of insulting the very man who has brought the maximum recognition to the creative potential of our people. He is one name that is recognised in most of the big cities of the world. He is one person referred to in most conferences on poverty held in recent times. He is one person whose work is the subject of most PhD theses on development and poverty alleviation.

He is one man who has proven more forcefully than others how creative, regenerative and resourceful our poor are and how, with little assistance in terms of resources and training, they can solve their own problems.

Maligning Prof Yunus is like "spitting in the air" that ultimately falls on our own face. The "blood sucker" is a hateful figment of a myopic imagination, which is being fed by Bangladeshi Rasputins who are thriving on some deep-rooted misconception and suspicion of the Prime Minister. The faster it can be gotten rid of, the better we all will be.

The present steps the government leaders have taken will boomerang on themselves, as they are completely unaware of the status of our Nobel laureate in the minds and imagination of our young people. They find fresh ideas, inspiration, confidence and hope from him and not from the old politics of confrontation, violence, mutual bad-mouthing and deep mistrust. They want to build a future Bangladesh of dignity and respect.

When will our leaders learn that monopoly of wisdom has never been nor will it ever belong to just one party, one coterie or one leadership? When will they learn to hate less and see some positives in others?

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=244889

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