JEDDAH, 26 February 2008 — “Rock star” is how one well-known Saudi editor described Nobel Prize-winning father of microcredit Professor Muhammad Yunus after his scintillating, straight-from-the-heart address at the Jeddah Economic Forum yesterday. The directness and simplicity with which “the world’s banker to the poor” delivered his speech left the crowded Jeddah International Conference and Exhibition Center spellbound.
His words are covered in great detail in one of this newspaper’s reports, but the audience also was taken with the professor’s charisma. They simply adored him, clinging to his every word. Most of the women clapped incessantly while some whistled wildly.
“The biggest resistance to my microcredit project came from men,” he said, much to the jubilation of the women in attendance. “I was empowering women, and they didn’t like that.”
He was not speaking from a written script, as was the norm at almost all sessions, but he crafted the finest speech of the day. “I call the poor people the ‘bonsai people,’” he said. “The bonsai grows tallest in the forest because it gets the soil it needs to grow. Take a bonsai seed and plant it in an ordinary pot and it will grow only up to a certain height. There is nothing wrong with the seed. The problem is in the soil and the pot — it doesn’t get the soil and the room to grow taller. Similar is the case with the poor people, society’s have-nots. They are talented like any of us, but they don’t get the opportunity to succeed. At Grameen Bank, we provided these poor people the opportunity to succeed, and they did in a remarkable way.”
Yunus said poverty was systemic. “It is the system, so the system has to be changed,” he said. “Poverty should be relegated to a museum. Every city and every country should decide when to put poverty in a museum and once that date is decided stick to it. It is possible, and the phenomenon of microcredit has proved that beyond any reasonable doubt.”
The concept of his Grameen Bank has gone worldwide, including Latin America and the United States. It earned him a Nobel Peace Prize. Moderator Alastair Stewart noted many an eye had welled with tears by the end of the speech, and he received a standing ovation at his conclusion. He had won over nearly every person in the audience, and they mobbed him at the end of the session as press cameras flashed and cell-phone cameras snapped photos of forum participants standing with Yunus.
“I was floored by his directness and simplicity. He is so down to earth,” said Lina Chehab El Alaili of Lebanon’s Union Bancaire Privee. “Earlier in the day, I heard Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board. He spoke well, no doubt. But those were all cold statistics... Greenspan was basically talking about the business of the rich, and here was Professor Yunus... talking about the business of the poor. Both are economists. The major difference is Professor Yunus’ economics makes a difference in the lives of millions of people.”
While Yunus received a round of thunderous applause, three proud Bangladeshis at the far end of the hall laughed and cried at the same time. Mukhlis Mian of Dhaka, Muhammad Munir of Comilla and Jashimuddin of Sylhet said they were at the forum because their company, Almajal Servicemaster, had brought them there for maintenance work. All of them wore their company’s uniform. “We were overwhelmed by the greatness of one of our countrymen,” one of the Bangladeshi nationals said. “Look, how every Saudi, men and women, were clapping and listening to him with rapt attention. He is a great man. We are seeing him for the first time in flesh and blood.”
The three said the professor’s presence in Saudi Arabia comes at the most critical time in the lives of the 1.7 million Bangladeshi expatriates in the Kingdom.
“There are all these reports appearing in the local press about our iqamas not being renewed and about recruitment of Bangladeshis being stopped and of our compatriots being in the news for all the wrong reasons,” said one of the young Bangladeshis. “There are websites that are running a campaign against us. Professor Yunus’ presence here will go a long way in improving the image of Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia. All the top Saudi business leaders are here and after listening to Professor Yunus they will definitely have a soft corner for all of us. When they think of Bangladeshis, the Saudis will now definitely think of Professor Yunus.”
For the three workmen, the professor's presence was enough. “We don’t know what he spoke about,” said one of the workmen. “We don’t know English. We only saw the entire hall clapping intermittently and we saw that everybody stood at the end for quite a long time. Did you see anybody doing that when other speakers ended their speeches?” “Rock star” seems an extremely appropriate description for the microcredit mogul.