[Reader-list] Somewhere In Time

[NAEEM MOHAIEMEN]

This is a piece written for the DAILY STAR in Dhaka,
and influenced by national mood, somewhat sentimental.
 
---

Somewhere In Time
- Naeem Mohaiemen

Senior year at Oberlin College. The Graduation
committee was discussing candidates for the three
Honorary Doctorates. After making our way through
familiar names, we started discussion of an unfamiliar
nominee.
 
"So, who is this Muhammad Yunus?"

The question was not hostile. Only curious.

I started doing my prepared little spiel.  Grameen,
loans to women, Bangladesh, micro-credit, alternative
economic theory, group borrowing, blah blah.

I was running on empty.  I really didn't know enough
about Grameen Bank to put together a cogent argument.
Microcredit wasn't really in most college syllabuses
at that time. This was 1993 -- before the web,
browsers or google. The only way to find information
was on clunky VAX terminals running Lexis-Nexis. I
hadn't found anything there on Grameen, but there was
the little tangential mention in Rolling Stone
magazine's pre-Presidential Bill Clinton interview.
Another friend had photocopied an article from an
environmental magazine. It had been sparse on details,
but there was a nice photo of women in villages. They
were all smiling.

I passed the photocopies around and feebly continued
my speech. But I was losing the audience, I could
tell.

Another professor spoke up: "The other Economist we
just voted for, is he also Bangladeshi?"

Now this was an odd spanner in the works. By a strange
twist, two out of the three student representatives on
this committee were from Bangladesh (the other was
Nadim Haider). On a small, secluded, left-progressive
college campus, there were eight Bangladeshi students
(an unusually generous scholarship program the
previous year). The Indian students outnumbered us,
but had various affiliations (including boarding
schools) that fragmented them. Our group had no
particular moholla ties, so we were inseparable.
Campus wags called it the "Bangla mafia," although our
power was limited to tall tales and bad jokes. 

What had earlier seemed an amusing hegemony was now a
liability on this committee. Suddenly, I was worried
that it might look like we were stacking the decks.
Ethnic or linguistic jingoism was certainly not my
project.

The other economist they were talking about was
Amartya Sen. We had already voted to give him a
doctorate.

"Well," I said, "Amartya Sen is Bengali as well..."

It didn't seem as if anyone was actually too worried
about the Bengali dominance factor. It was more that
there wasn't much literature about Grameen. Most of
the other nominees were American. Amartya Sen was
based in the US. Familiar faces from media coverage.
Not much introduction needed.

Suddenly the President of the College, S. Fred Starr,
interrupted.  "I know Dr. Yunus. Heard him give a
speech a few years back. Moving and effective.
Microcredit is a great concept. Very deserving of this
Doctorate."

Starr had been quiet for most of the meeting. Everyone
knew it was his last year as College President.
Controversy over his policies, perceived as aloof and
conservative, had followed him around for four years.
I hadn't expected him to weigh in on anything here.
But now, for the first time in discussions, he put his
weight behind Yunus' nomination.  

Although I was civil to Starr, I considered him
suspect on political grounds. If campus students were
agitating against him, surely our politics wouldn't
mesh? But this committee was the first time I
encountered him at close quarters. And here he was,
expressing support for micro-credit. Not for the last
time, I had to think beyond surface.

And like that, it was done. Democracy is fun, but a
confident argument from the big cheese is even better.
There was some more discussion, a few general
questions, and the group was unanimous in support. 

By the time Yunus and Sen arrived on campus for our
graduation ceremonies, everyone had done their
homework. The college library had ordered books on
micro-credit. Some students had put up a nice bulletin
board with photocopies of Grameen articles (it turned
out there were many I had missed). A Chicago activist
came and gave a slideshow from his recent trip to
Bangladesh. He had apparently begun implementing the
Grameen model in his American hometown. Now that
really got the audience's attention. 

At a college where a majority of graduates go on to
social welfare professions like human rights law,
union organizing and environmental activism, the
micro-credit concept was received enthusiastically.
Even the skeptical economists were won over. 

By now, many others have been won over as well.


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