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30 October, 2006
The Nobel Prize was instituted according to the will of the
Swedish inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), who
stipulated that his wealth fund annual prizes for physics,
chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. A sixth prize for
economics was added in 1969. However, the prize given for peace
in recent years has tarnished the entire Nobel initiative.
Last year, the Peace Prize went to the U.N. International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) and Mohamed ElBaradei. The well-paid head of
the IAEA has contributed absolutely nothing toward promoting
peace or deterring nuclear proliferation. ElBaradei assumed his
post in 1997. During his tenure, it took an initiative from the
Clinton administration to bring North Korea's secret nuclear
activities under the surveillance of IAEA. Subsequently, his
agency did little but keep watch on these facilities until it was
kicked out of the county.
The other important nuclear proliferation related case overseen by ElBaradei is that of Iran. Iran has conducted its secret nuclear program for 18 years, under the nose of the impotent IAEA. It was the work of dissidents and pressure from Western countries that uncovered and brought Iran's nuclear activities under IAEA surveillance. Here, too, the IAEA merely kept an eye on the nuclear sites before being kicked out by the Iranian regime.
In 2004, the Nobel Peace Prize was given to Shirin Ebadi of
Iran for her campaign for women's rights in Iran. In truth, Ebadi
has done little to alleviate the human rights situation for women
in Iran, except that as a lawyer, she fought a few cases for
victims of discriminatory laws against women in court. After
Ebadi received the prize, human rights for women in Iran may even
have only gotten worse.
In 2000, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to former South Korean
president Kim Dae-jung for the "sunshine policy" that
promoted reconciliation with North Korea. Peace has proved
illusive and tension there is today is at its highest level in
decades. Moreover, North Korea has successfully tested a nuclear
weapon.
In 1994, the Nobel Peace Prize was given to Yasser Arafat
(together with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin), who until the
last moment of his life only sought to trample underfoot every
good peace initiative that came along in the Middle East, and
incited terrorist activities, including suicide bombing, against
Israel.
Against these bizarre disbursements of the Nobel Peace Prize,
this year's prize seems to have gone to a very deserving
candidate, Muhammad Yunus (and Grameen Bank) of Bangladesh, for
his successful microcredit initiative.
Bangladesh has been perennially ridden with poverty and political
turmoil. Rampant corruption has distinguished the country for
five years. It has become the breeding ground for Islamic
terrorists. Over the last decade, numerous terrorist attacks,
including suicide bombings, have killed nearly 200 people.
Terrorists, trained in Bangladesh, have also perpetrated attacks
in India and Pakistan.
In the midst of this bleak picture of Bangladesh, Yunus cuts a
very hopeful figure. His microcredit venture, which later got the
trademark of Grameen Bank (Village Bank), started with a capital
of only US$27 in 1983. It provided loans to society's poorest
members who were not eligible for loans from traditional banks.
It has 6.6 million borrowers in Bangladesh. An overwhelming 94
percent of Grameen's loans went to women, and 98 percent of the
loans have been paid back. The microcredit principle has been
adopted by 58 countries. There are 500 Grameen-based schemes in
the U.S. alone.
One of the greatest pillars for promoting peace in the world is
to provide hope to the hopeless by creating wealth for all
sections of society and helping the desperately poor out of
poverty. Women remain a seriously disadvantaged and repressed
section of Muslim society and Yunus has been a huge proponent of
women's liberation, empowerment and education, and not just in
Bangladesh, as the ever-increasing expansion of his formula to
all corners of the world attests. This year's Nobel Peace Prize
has gone to a truly deserving person.
Interestingly, his Nobel Peace Prize is being exploited by
Islamists in Bangladesh and across the world as a great Islamic
achievement. A flurry of commentaries has appeared in the media
attempting to give his Nobel win an Islamic color. I will cite
two examples here.
A Bangladeshi Islamist Web site, www.islam-bd.org, published a photograph of the Nobel laureate praying
with a tupi (Islamic hat) on his head. In the U.K., the Al-Hayat
newspaper published an opinion piece, titled "Between the Owner of 'Grameen' and Bin Laden,"
which labeled Yunus and his Grameen initiative as Islamic and
Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida as un-Islamic.
The Bangladeshi Web site promotes the agenda of Jamat-e-Islami,
the most fanatical Islamist political organization in Bangladesh
and a junior partner in the current government, which is gaining
momentum for establishing a Taliban-style Sharia-ruled state.
While Yunus is a fierce proponent of women's emancipation,
independence and education, these Islamists are striving hard to
force women into an Islamic veil, ban them from school and
education and confine them at home.
Yunus also has many critics and these Islamists have been the
fiercest opponents of his program. While interest-free Islamic
banking is mushrooming even in Western countries, Grameen Bank is
totally based on interest, which is thoroughly un-Islamic.
Prominent Bangladeshi Islamist politician, Mufti Fajlul Haq Amini
(whose party is a partner in the current government) expressed
his reaction to Yunus' Nobel Prize win by saying, "No Muslim
can accept change of fortune by money earned through
interests." Indeed, Yunus' initiative is hated by the
Islamists, especially for engaging women and charging interest --
so much so that it was a prime target of Islamic terrorist
attacks very recently, until the government's crackdown on them.
There is little doubt that Yunus is only a born Muslim and
personally a thoroughly secular person. His organization does not
discriminate between Muslims and non-Muslims. When the prophet of
Islam established an Islamic kingdom under his rule, non-Muslims
were not employed in any position of his administration.
According to biographies by pious Islamic historians, the prophet
single-mindedly acted on expanding his domain into non-Muslim
territories through war and reduced non-Muslims to Dhimmis
(second-class citizens).
After the prophet's death, the early caliphs followed in his
footsteps, establishing a huge kingdom at the expense of the
non-Muslim territories with concomitant destruction of non-Muslim
religions and religious institutions. There are no instances of
women being given opportunities to hold high positions in
civilian life or in the administrations of the state during these
glorious years of Islam.
According to the standard of Islam set by the prophet and his
closest companions, who became the early caliphs, Yunus and his
microcredit initiative never falls within the principle and
spirit of true Islam. The perennial criticism of his initiative
by the Islamists is thoroughly justified according to the tenets
of Islam. But the exploitation of his Nobel Prize as a triumph of
Islam as attempted by the Muslims now is thoroughly dishonest and
unethical on part of the exploiters and very undeserving of
Yunus.
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