Dear Alochoks
Naeem has got this partly right. He writes very well indeed and in the true spirit of today's greatest writers - of the writers, by the writers, for the writers. When the Drishtipat Collective takes politics head on we will see it fulfill its true potential, make its greatest contribution and finally be the potent change agent that it naturally should be. Asif Saleh, Drishtipat key man, is a friend and hero of mine.
Naeem is correct about our hero syndromes.
He makes no allegation against Yunus or Grameen. At best he speaks of terrible policy.
He stresses the impact of the word 'siphoning'. This is about media sensationalism and our susceptibility to it. Poor attention span does not negate the overall concensus on the allegations - worldwide - today, just two weeks later. Bravo to Dr Yunus and Grameen. Boo headliners!
Yes, the bullseye is proportionate to the halo. But the bullseye has been missed by all Deshi arrows. Hasina's arrow fell at her feet.
The problems of organisational dynamics, management strategies and managing growth are universal.
The named critics of micro credit have done a good job. I hope they continue to challenge. Perhaps they could use easier language so that our leaders can understand? Or is it too much to ask?
And yes - the white man's narrative become all important. But then its not like the average Deshi politician could ever have read, let alone understood, the accounts of Grameen!
"Robust economic critique and a push for reform are always needed." Bravo! Indeed. Bravo! Let's hope Drishtipat applies some of this to politics one day?
Now. Enough cruising... Lets fight.
Naeem asserts that the state machinery has taken up aggresive positions. He uses the plural and uses the disagreement between Hasina and Muhith. WRONG. The state machinery has taken only one position in this issue and that position is against Dr Yunus. The direction Hasina passes wind is the direction her party and cabinet sniffers will take. Muhith has demonstrated on this issue a basic wisdom in his choice of words that Hasina cannot even comprehend. And in AL, Hasina, not Muhith, gives marching orders and signals to worshippers, lackeys, cadres, minions, sycophants and blind supporters.
Naeem dismisses, almost casually, the revenge AL seeks against Dr Yunus for his foray into politics. WRONG! This is the very essence of our malaise. Such revenge requires more than a single comment. Such revenge should in fact be the very subject on which he should prefer to write. Hmm! I suppose it was inevitable Hitler was always going to get the Jews. Tea please! What's the weather like tomorrow? There is wickedness in certain types of wryness.
Very few people who thronged the BCFC seem to be stepping forward to defend Dr Yunus? WRONG! Everyone, but everyone, is either stepping forward to defend him either directly, through their silence or by not speaking against him. It is only Hasina, her BlackJackets and some tricksters who have taken personal positions against him. And they seem to have shut up recently.
"Nobody wants to say: the Bank made mistakes, the model has flaws, things need to change, but this can't become a personal crucifixion." This is a fair comment. But this is because the whole issue has been politicised by Hasina and the AL. People have been forced to take sides. More tragically, our greatest failures, deeply embedded in our politics, cause great shame and we cling to what relief is provided to us more than we should.
Most important of all, let us replace the word Bank with AL. Naeem could never powerfully demand that, "Nobody wants to say: the AL made mistakes, the party has flaws, things need to change, but this can't become a personal crucifixion". WRONG?
Humayun Azad is part of the establishment. He has his biases too. I think we Bengalis tend to hero worship too much and seldom tear them down. If this is an oblique reference to Mujib being torn down by one time supporters, well that is as much due to his own mistakes and flaws than any 'Hasina like' envy on the part of others. Zia and Khaleda, the heroes of BNP, have not been even questioned, let alone torn down, by any single man in the BNP for decades. Mujib and Hasina, the heroes of AL, have not been even questioned, let alone torn down, by any single man in the AL for decades. Ah! The Bangladeshi political male! What a creature!
Criticism and vilification are two different things. Naeem does not vilify Dr Yunus. But in a glaring example of what is wrong in so much of our narrative, he virtually ignores the jealousy and spite driven vilification of Dr Yunus by none other than the most powerful person in Bangladesh - Sheikh Hasina. Such a talented writer cannot make such an omission by mistake. It is deliberate. I don't understand the vilification of Tagore - he is the undisputed emperor of our culture.
But we need the passion of Nazrul now more than we need the reflections of Tagore. Ah! If he were alive now! What he would write about our condition and those responsible! If only the The Drishtipat Collective could be more passionate and pained like Nazrul than relaxed and reflective like Tagore. If only! How marvellous it would be! How wonderful!
We'll leave reflections to those who reflect as a lifestyle choice.
Right now the democratically elected government of Bangladesh is again ignoring the murder of a citizen by the Indian BSF on the border, ordering the physical torture of an invidious man but an MP nonetheless and obstructing the leader of the opposition at the airport as she departs to China! Democracy in action. Hasina style. Imagine the cable from the Chinese Embassy to Beijing!
But rest assured many will prefer to write about something else.
Ezajur Rahman
Kuwait
--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Robin Khundkar <rkhundkar@...> wrote:
>
> I know it will surprise our pals Hakka Hua and his band of angry men to find that the most horrible/greatest of Bongo hero/villains, the "accursed hindu" Rabindranath also a nobel winner was similarly reviled and praised and then reviled throught out his life and after. I think Naeem has got this quite well. Enjoy the read and reflect.
>
>
>
> A short op-ed on the Grameen Bank controversy. .
> http://unheardvoice.net/blog/2010/12/15/grameen
> *
> Pride and (Extreme) Prejudice*
> Naeem Mohaiemen
>
> Today I want to talk about the fickle nature of our hero syndromes. But
> first, people will ask: *yes, yes, but where do you really** stand?* So,
> let's get that over with in the first paragraph. Based on the public
> documents, Grameen Bank acknowledges transferring funds from one entity to
> another to reduce tax liabilities and support that entity. The transfer
> helped the overall picture of "Grameen" entities-- a fund surplus in one
> area moved to the deficit zone. Not a novel practice. But not informing the
> donors? Bad decision and terrible policy.
>
> Tom Heinemann's signature is the "aha, caught you" documentary. From *Bitter
> Taste of Tea *to the investigation of Telenor's outsourcing practices in
> Bangladesh. But this time the target is bigger, as the spiraling reaction to
> his film shows. Whether the transfer was "notional", whether Norwegian
> donors give Grameen a clean chit, becomes almost irrelevant. The damage is
> the first screamer headline: "siphoning". No one has attention span for long
> news cycles.
>
> The Grameen Bank script could have simply been of the Chittagong economist
> who modified existing economic models and grew it to global scale. But the
> universal desire for a "wise man of the east" narrative inserted a highly
> personalized, Gandhianethos into the project. In an uber-cynical age, such
> saintly stories have a predictable arc: the rise and fall. The bullseye is
> proportionate to the halo.
>
> A Yunus-centric Grameen Bank story has created a problem of succession and
> leadership. When the Heinemann scandal broke, senior managers like Muzammel
> Huq and Khalid Shams and Dipal Barua, who had been with the Bank for
> decades, were no longer there. The person left to face the media was the
> woefully unprepared M Shajahan. Maybe he's a good daily administrator (I
> don't know), but under the klieg lights of television he was frozen.
> Road-kill on the scandal highway.
>
> Microcredit started as a solid concept. Grameen succeeded in developing a
> business model, targeted sharply on the bottom poor and women. An
> enhancement and successor to Akhtar Hamid Khan's two tier co-op in the
> 1960s, and the government's "Integrated Rural Development Programme" of the
> 1970s. But far more self-financing and successful than those earlier
> experiments.
>
> Global ambitions pushed expansion to an epic scale, and within that scale is
> the Achilles heel. Until the mid-90s, the Bank was relatively small,
> motivation of staff was strong, and credit was well supervised. Then
> international attention exploded and the microcredit dam broke. Grameen Bank
> became gigantic and extremely difficult to manage, and hundreds of large and
> small microfinance institutions also entered the fray.
>
> As documented extensively in research studies, the larger the microcredit
> movement became, the wider its exposure to those borrowers who could not
> generate enough earnings and therefore might default. A cycle began: some
> borrowers took out new loans to cover existing loans, getting stuck in a
> feedback loop. Other borrowers defaulted, creating more pressure on existing
> loans.
>
> The more famous Dr. Yunus became, the more he traveled abroad, the more the
> absence of a strong management in Dhaka to get things under control. And
> here the lack of seasoned managers (the Huq and Shams of early years) was
> acutely felt. There was no one to enforce rectification, reduction-- a good
> dose of micromanagement to get fundamentals in order.
>
> The flaws of the microcredit model have been analyzed by Lamia Karim, Anu
> Muhammed, Omar Tareq Chowdhury and others. But Grameen Bank's response has
> been to ignore or steamroller the critique. But now comes Heinemann's fairly
> average documentary, and as Afsan Chowdhury once remarked about the arsenic
> crisis, it's when the western/white narrator arrives that issues finally
> become "important".
>
> The state machinery has taken up aggressive positions. The public
> disagreement between the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister gave
> everyone signals and marching orders. Dr. Yunus' election foray in the early
> days of 1/11 laid the course for this unraveling as well. I would not expect
> the Awami League to forgive that political adventure, and some payback seems
> inevitable.
>
> Robust economic critique and a push for reform are always needed. But
> there's a parallel stream of glee here. *Schadenfreude* is joy at the
> distress of others. Blood in the water and others want a bite. The chatter
> in town is sprinkled with "bhalo hoise", "bujho thela" and "ekhon khela
> shesh".* *
>
> * *
>
> I'm remembering China-Bangla Moitree Shommelon. That huge reception after
> the Nobel Prize. It seemed everyone in *shushil* Dhaka was there (you were
> there too, don't deny it). People crowded around the honey-pot during fame
> times. I wonder what happened to that crowd, the multitude? Very few of
> those people seem to be stepping forward to defend Grameen Bank, even a
> little. Nobody wants to say:* the Bank made mistakes, the model has flaws,
> things need to change, but this can't become a personal crucifixion.*
>
> * *
>
> Humayun Azad once wrote,* When Bengali wants to lift someone up, they lift
> him to the skies. And when they want to bring him down, they rip him down
> into the mud. *The secret pleasure over the controversy speaks volumes about
> the crowd. I'm reminded of the nihilistic dance at the end of 'Lord of the
> Flies': *Kill the beast! Cut his throat!*
>
> * *
>
> The visceral and poisonous thrill of communal bloodletting.
>
> *Naeem Mohaiemen is a member of Drishtipat Writers' Collective and can be
> reached at naeem.mohaiemen@...*
> _______________________________________________
>
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