Social Business
Was Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus's sacking from the microlending bank he created part of a conspiracy to discredit and force him out?
Was it a conspiracy? Last November, a documentary aired on Norwegian television accusing Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, of a slew of unethical and illegal practices. The most serious was the illegal transfer of $100 million from Grameen Bank, the financial institution he established to help his country's poor, to another Grameen company. The film sparked an investigation by the Norwegian government, but not a single charge leveled against Yunus held up to scrutiny.
Regardless of the film's inaccuracies, its consequences were significant. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed's government began attacking Yunus soon afterward, and the Bangladeshi press all but declared him guilty. Then in March, Yunus was fired as Grameen's director. The official reason was that the 70-year-old Yunus was ten years past the mandatory retirement age for government workers. But to some, this smelled contrived. Yunus had offered to step down numerous times over the years, and his requests were repeatedly denied. Moreover, there were cabinet members older than Yunus, like Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, the 76-year-old finance minister. In light of these inconsistencies, Yunus's supporters cast their gaze on the prime minister.
Sheikh Hasina's change of heart toward Yunus has indeed been striking. An ardent supporter for years, she recently began calling him a "bloodsucker of the poor." The reasons for her turn are murky, but many believe she harbored a grudge against Yunus because of his Nobel win (she had lobbied for the Peace Prize after signing a peace treaty in 1997) and because of his plan in 2007 to launch a political party to clean up Bangladeshi politics (Bangladesh currently ranks among the most corrupt countries). Yunus's supporters assert that Hasina exploited Yunus's damaged reputation caused by the documentary to settle her vendetta. But would the prime minister really have waited fourteen years to get even? Microfinance, after all, has earned Yunus more enemies than Sheikh Hasina.The concept of microfinance is as simple as it is revolutionary. Rather than relying on outside forces to help the impoverished, such as Western aid or foreign development, Yunus's idea was to start a bank that would provide tiny loans to poor families so they could help themselves by starting their own businesses. A family could take a loan for something as simple as seeds and garden tools, for instance, and sell vegetables, or buy a cow and sell milk. Yunus founded Grameen Bank in 1978, and within Bangladesh it has proved remarkably successful, eventually garnering Yunus his Nobel Prize. Today the bank has 8.3 million borrowers, most of whom are Muslim women. This empowerment of Islamic women earned Yunus his first group of enemies: religious radicals who accused microcredit of "destroying Islam."
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