[Reader-list] How Grameen Changed The World (Mushfiqur Rahman)

[NAEEM MOHAIEMEN]

A little antidote to Taj Hashmi.

"Grameen is not without its critics. Given the
sprawling nature of the organisation and the vast
number of operatives who run the network, there are
bound to be scattered cases of maladministration.
However I know from my personal experience, having
visited my village home year after year during the
last three decades, how truly the Grameen program has
made a real difference to the lives of people at the
very bottom of the socio-economic pool."

DAILY STAR
Tue. October 17, 2006 	 
How Grameen has changed the world
Mushfiqur Rahman

I was listening to the announcement from Oslo live on
CNN and I felt a sense of vicarious joy. Prizes of any
kind are contentious, specially the Nobel Peace Prize,
when there are so many worthy candidates and a few
unworthy recipients (Henry Kissinger comes to mind).
However that should not detract from this prize which
will receive universal acclamation.

Grameen is not without its critics. Given the
sprawling nature of the organisation and the vast
number of operatives who run the network, there are
bound to be scattered cases of maladministration.
However I know from my personal experience, having
visited my village home year after year during the
last three decades, how truly the Grameen program has
made a real difference to the lives of people at the
very bottom of the socio-economic pool.

A case in point is Mortuza, who was employed as a cook
in our home, succeeding her mother who used to be the
cook during my childhood. It was a generational thing
with which anyone with a rural background would be
familiar with. Mortuza began her early childhood
running around our home, sometimes playing with my
younger sisters (but always aware of the social
boundary which existed). Their lot never improved --
with pittance of an income -- they merely survived.
Families like ours, of course, did nothing to change
the status quo, happy to enjoy the fruits of their
labour by virtue of our own fortuitous birth.

Well, things have changed. Not in any dramatic earth
shattering manner but in small incremental steps and
Grameen has led the way to this transformation. Old
attitudes persist. The deference and subservience
shown by the "working class" to the "old order" is
still very much there, but not any more in the context
of an abject submission.

Anyone with a rural background would be familiar with
the nuances associated with the hierarchy of the
village aristocracy. There have been no wholesale
changes but one can see the incremental changes in
such nuances of unequal relationships -- the body
language and the eye contacts tell an unfolding story.
Grameen has often been the catalyst behind these
changes.

"Empowerment" is a much used buzzword and cliché, but
that is precisely what happened to the womenfolk in my
village, to Mortuza and her cohorts. First, they have
been able to unshackle themselves from the tyranny of
their husbands; secondly they have discovered relative
economic freedom.

For centuries, our village women have suffered under
the weight of a double whammy -- their ongoing
exploitation by a semi-feudal social order and their
situation further exacerbated by the generally
oppressive environment in their own home. With new
found economic freedom, in many cases being the
primary income earner in the family, women in my
village are starting to put their foot down. Without
any doubt they have been "empowered."

Mortuza does not cook for us anymore because my
mother, too old and feeble to manage on her own, now
stays in the city with my brother. When I made a day
trip to my village last year Mortuza came round to
resume her "duties" with unfailing loyalty,
undeserving on my part yet so generously offered by
her. I inquired about her family and she opened up a
little bit, a glint in her eye that I had never seen
before.

She is illiterate but her children attend school and
she talked about the future with a sense of hope and
optimism. What was quite extra-ordinary about my last
trip was her "audacity" to invite me to visit her home
for a cup of tea. I use the word "audacity" merely to
illustrate the absurdity of the request within the
context of village protocol that existed and which in
many respects still persist.

In all my early years of growing up in my village and
many subsequent visits I (or for that any other member
of my family) have never condescended to visit the
homes of these people who served us through
generations. They lived in one corner of a very large
tract of paddy field which their men folk had
cultivated as share-croppers. From a distance one
could see a few tiny huts with thatched roofs dotting
the landscape. The weather-beaten fencing around the
perimeter shielded our eyes from the misery of their
world, a world so different from mine. That world has
changed for the better, thanks to Grameen.

I accepted Mortuza's invitation for tea and after a
brisk walk turned up, somewhat to the amazement of the
whole neighbourhood. Admittedly my hosts were a little
flustered as they really didn't expect me and fumbled
around to make me feel comfortable. After more than
half-a-century I finally came to see how and where
they lived.

But gone were the thatched roofs and the shabby
exterior. Corrugated iron sheets for roofing, a
tube-well in one corner and a clean well-swept court
yard where little kids played hop-scotch. From my
vantage point I could peer inside their dwellings
around us. Wooden cots were in view, not straw mats as
I expected.

For now, the game which the kids were playing had to
be stopped. They were shooed away to make room for a
lone chair which was brought for me to sit while
everybody else stood around to watch the spectacle.
Mortuza lined up her 3 kids for inspection, mildly
rebuking them for mucking around and not studying hard
enough. Most telling was the way she handled her
husband who was a bit of rogue in a previous life and
who also suffered a tongue lashing for being too lazy.

He stood nearby, wringing his hand, accepting his
wife's admonishment without much protest. How she was
going to repay her "instalment" to Grameen if her
husband didn't do his share in looking after the cows,
she lamented. Mortuza, an illiterate woman, was after
all running a little business -- selling fresh milk in
the local market. She understood the critical
importance of cash flow and she was not going to let
anything, including a recalcitrant husband, get in the
way of her dream! The quiet, confident demeanour in
her body language had the hallmarks of a no-nonsense
attitude and that she had taken control of her life.

Tea was served with salted biscuits. I was the only
one being feted. The old social barriers had not yet
disappeared. Mortuza and her family were not expected
to join in, not even in her own house! Neither did I
press the issue as this would only embarrass her.

As I walked back home accompanied by a whole
procession of people, I felt chastised. But I felt
happy and a tinge of joy too.

Thank you Muhammad Yunus.

Mushfiqur Rahman is a freelance contributor to The
Daily Star.

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