Poverty Trade Of Dr. Yunus

Poverty Trade of Dr. Yunus
Badruddin Umar


First published in October 2007
Publisher: Robin Ahsan
Shrabon Prokashoni
Room # 28, ground floor & 132, 1st floor
Aziz Super Market, Shahbag, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh
www.srabonprokashani.com
E-mail: info@shrabonprokashani.com
shrabongraphic@yahoo.com
Copyright © Badruddin Umar
Manufactured in Dhaka, Bangladesh
ISBN: 984-70088-0007-9

Contents

1. The “Day Dream” of ‘My Party’ Founder “Renowned” Dr. Yunus
2. Grameen Bank: An Imperialist Scheme
3. Poverty Trade of Grameen Bank
4. The Rural Poor and Cultural Workers, Target Groups of NGOs

(Back Cover)

Poverty that now overwhelms billions of human beings in the present day world has virtually been turned into a commodity. It is being traded for profiteering by a section of the traders; the micro creditors. The issue, poverty, much discussed in the realm of political economy, has been capitalized by micro creditors and has manifested in the pronouncements of Yunus, the so-called banker of the poor. But, behind the charade goes on the old story of deception. The book, a collection of articles free from jargons and logic-structure incomprehensible for the common readers, exposes the trade by Yunus, the so-called crusader against poverty.

Preface

The four articles published in this pamphlet have been taken from a collection of articles in Bengali on the Grameen Bank and the activities of its managing director Mohammad Yunus. The imperialist propaganda machines in the US and other countries have applauded Yunus for being the first banker of the poor in the history of mankind and for its “great” contribution to human welfare finally the Noble Peace Prize has been bestowed upon him. But any knowledgeable person knows that banking to the poor is nothing new. This had been and continue to be the function of rural money lenders during the feudal period and in the semi-feudal agricultural economies of the world, including Bangladesh. The difference between traditional feudal moneylenders and Yunus does not lie in their substance, but in the method employed for realising the loan money with interest.

The feudal money lenders, in spite of being cruel in their method of surplus extraction from the poor, performed a positive historical role in keeping production going, because without this credit it was not possible for the poor peasants to invest whatever little was needed for buying inputs and providing themselves with food in the lean seasons. The peasants were forced by circumstances to take loans from the money-lenders and approached them “voluntarily” for loans, and the moneylenders, the traditional bankers to the poor, took full advantage of this.

The Grameen Bank and its managing director, as “banker to the poor”, qualitatively perform the same task, though their method and techniques of realization are modern, compared to that of the rural moneylenders. The Grameen Bank tries to conceal their real objective in lending money but a mask meant to deceive the world.

Massive propaganda by various sections of US and European imperialists and their allies in other countries create such confusions in the minds of the people that they do not try to find out what actually happens to the poor rural people, who borrows from Grameen Bank.

Quite frequently news are published in the daily and weekly newspapers in Bangladesh how, being unable to repay loans according to the terms and conditions of the Grameen Bank, debtors are being forced to sell their tiny pieces of land, utensils and homestead and even commit suicide.

The articles published in this pamphlet provide some basic information on the Grameen Bank, its method and techniques as “banker to the poor” as well as examines some of the ideas of Mohammad Yunus regarding poverty alleviations and raising cultural level of the poor.

I hope these articles will create interest among some people to find out the real facts about the Grameen Bank and such other money lending NGOs and see through the real game of imperialists in the rural areas of backward countries in the name of alleviating poverty by keeping the existing social order intact.

Dhaka
21.9.2007