Muhammed Yunus Wins Peace Prize
Speaking of the top 10% of intellects, Bangladeshi scholar Muhammad Yunus was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize today for founding Grameen Bank—which lends money to the poor via the concept of "micro-lending"—and for his writings contending that ending poverty will end war. The award was something of a surprise because Yunus was thought to be in line for the Economics prize, even though people like former U.S. prez Bill Clinton and other heavyweights had backed Yunus for the Peace prize. By agreeing with Clinton and others, the Nobel Committee have sent a message about the importance of the fight against poverty.After you get over your disappointment that Bono or Bill Gates didn’t win, you’ll probably say that Yunus’s poverty/war thesis is self-evident (particularly if you live in poverty yourself, like 12.6 percent of Americans, or 1 of every 8 people, according to U.S. Census figures), but while the connection between poverty and crime is indeed pretty much self-evident, suggesting that the same dynamic exists between poverty and war is a giant leap forward into territory certain wealthy western nations do not want to explore.
The news of Yunus’s award will be greeted with a resounding thud in the United States. He’s Moslem, after all, and the screaming rightwingers will claim that the Nobel committee are a bunch of politically motivated eggheads whose work is aimed solely at eroding our wonderful way of life. But just keep that U.S. poverty figure in mind when someone tells you about all the advantages Americans possess. I’ve been around a bit and in many of the countries I’ve visited, people live better than Americans—i.e., safer, healthier, longer, more content, and with more freedom (I’ll discuss this in a later post).
Yunus’s award is good news, and another small victory for freethinkers. If you have any spare time, Google Dr. Muhammad Yunus and take a few moments to look over his writings. He has become one of a growing number of influential people who speak for the impoverished. He is yet another who warns that, though it may be easy to ignore the voiceless poor, if the plague of poverty is not cured, one day everyone on this planet may have to pay the piper big time.
And as for Bono, he deserved it too (after all, he helped convince the World Bank to totally write off 40 billion dollars of African debt), but maybe he'll get it next time.
posted by Egan Ehlers @ 2:49 PM
1 Comments:
I remember an interview I heard with Yunus perhaps a couple years ago. Sometimes the amount of money separating people from running their own business and sustaining an income and complete poverty (facilitated by middlemen of course) was like fifty or seventy-five cents. Yunus didn't have any worries about the loans being paid back as the borrowers were completely honest and had no intention of stiffing him.
Yunus definitely deserves the prize for creating such an elegant solution for helping those in serious need.
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