Grameen Bank and Peoples Potential

One fine day, on December 2007, I was hanging around in my best friend house at Jalan Semarak rehearsing for our next big performance. Around noon, he went to the kitchen making me drinks and I walk around his house and I stop in his father's small library. Viewing the shelves, I suddenly grab a green-red book entitled 'Banker to the Poor'. What makes me grab this book? Well, the tittle grabs me first. I was thinking this book is like 'The Confession of an Economic Hit Man' (first and third world economics control) and I hope I can get the same thrill if I read 'Banker to the Poor'. So I borrow the book with promise to finish it before I fly back to Wellington. Because of the Cameron Highlands-Kuala Lumpur long five hours bus journey and the peaceful Cameron Highlands environment, I manage to finish the book in one week. I found the book was so inspiring, way better than 'The Confession of an Economic Hit Man'.

'Banker to the Poor' is an autobiography of Dr Muhammad Yunus (picture above), a Bangladeshi, founder of Grameen Bank and 2006 Nobel Prize Winner. He was first a lecturer in one of university in the States, then come back to Bangladesh after it got separated from Pakistan. He introduced micro-credit or micro-lending to mostly poor mothers or women in Bangladesh to help them pay their debts and start new business to help support the families. The system is different from conventional bank lending that makes it impossible for the poor to even get loans soon driving them to take loan from loan sharks. For me it is so beautiful on how the loan make way based on trust and respect. He treat the poor as they are human being, giving them trust to handle their own fate. The well-treated-manners soon giving the poor hopes, motivation to get out from the poor line and knowing that if they are initially poor, that doesn't mean that they are doomed to be poor until the day they die. If you really want to understand deeply about what I blab about, go read the book!

Actually, my initial point in this post is:

1. Even how low you are, how poor you are, there are still hopes for you to make your life better and do not give up.
2. Treat others well even if you are far more better than them personally or economically. Believe that people can change. Give them some try, would you?
3. Capitalism is okay but with socialism spirit in it.

p/s- Writing about 'Banker for the Poor' reminds me of Mr Suhardi, my friend's father. He is a great man yet with a low profile attitude and I do respect him so much. The copy that I read is his. He passed away few months ago. Al-Fatihah.