Professor Yunus in Malaysian Dream Cabinet
NTS OnlineSO it's election time. To think about it, options are generally limited, are they not? Choose the incumbent, challenger, or if you dislike them, some spunky independents.
You might not have the luxury of voting for any particular politician or individual you respect or admire as your own member of parliament or assemblyman, of course. The prospective MP you'd want might be going for a seat in some constituency unfamiliar to you, many states away. Or someone you'd root for generally sniffs at the word "politics".So, at the ballot box on voting day, you put that "X" against the person you prefer, or think would do the job better, among your limited options.
Sometimes I thumb my nose at limits, just for the heck of it. I like to retreat to my daydreams. If there were no rules, no boundaries, and if I lived in my own little dreamland, who would I want in the government of my choice? My Dream-Team Cabinet? My MP? What a salivating idea.
Perhaps my chosen MP would be Gordon Ramsay, no-nonsense renowned chef who values hard work, dedication to perfection, family values and continual improvement. Okay, so he's a little colourful with the language, but no mediocre work would get past him. And perhaps many Petaling Jaya restaurants would be up for Michelin stars? (I did say "no limits".)
Who would be prime minister in my super Cabinet? Why, Nelson Mandela would be an easy choice. And assisting him? Let's see. Why not animal rights campaigner and environmentalist Jane Goodall for Environment Minister, Richard Branson for Entrepreneurial Development, and the formidable Shirin Ebadi for Human Rights?
What about the "Father of the Green Revolution" Norman Borlaug for Agriculture Minister and author and teacher Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez for Education Minister? Too international? Then why not go for our beloved Datuk Lat to head Arts and Culture, and perhaps Tan Sri Abdul Samad Ismail for Information and Communications? And how about my Ah Ma, my maternal grandmother, for Defence Minister? Nobody would cross her, or want to.
This is why imagination is nice, limits are just the small fry in the corner you can ignore.
I had the honour of meeting one of my heroes last week; someone I would put in my dream Cabinet as well. I would not hesitate to have economist and "Banker to the Poor" Muhammad Yunus as Finance Minister on my team. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and Grameen Bank founder came to my university for a public lecture on "Creating a World Without Poverty: How social business can transform our lives", which is also the title of his new book.
It was a full house, with hundreds more waiting outside hoping to get in the hall. Needless to say, Muhammad Yunus had everyone's rapt attention. He pioneered "microcredit", the innovative banking programme that provides poor people -- mainly women -- with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty.
The pride of Bangladesh and a champion of the poor, Muhammad Yunus is living proof that one does not have to think of philanthropy and idealism as concepts "out of the system". They are, as his story shows, perfectly capable of being part of a state's economic development.
Educated in economics in the United States, Muhammad Yunus returned to his country in 1972. Two years later famine devastated his country. The poverty of his countrymen was heartbreaking. In 1976, he had the idea of opening a bank for poor people.
"We looked at other conventional banks, and did the opposite," Muhammad Yunus said. The current system of denying the poor loans, he thought, was "ridiculous". Today, Grameen Bank has 2,500 branches all over Bangladesh, and has loaned almost RM20 billion to seven million borrowers. It is self-financing and makes a profit. The repayment percentage is extremely high. And 97 per cent of borrowers are women, who basically "own the bank".
Muhammad Yunus also spoke about his concept of "social business", saying it made sense for companies to regard giving back to society as a viable, logical step in improving their processes, reducing wastage of resources, and indeed, raising innovation.
He had abiding faith in the entrepreneurial spirit of the poor who, he said, were "just like everyone else". He spoke of the poor as "bonsai": "If you take the best seed of a tall tree and put it in a small pot, it grows small. There is nothing wrong with the seed. Because of its base, it can't get the nourishment to grow like the one in the forest."
After the lecture, I was lucky enough to get him to sign a copy of his book and tell him he was an inspiration. It's not every day you get to shake the hand of a Nobel Prize winner. It was quite dreamlike, hence my current mood.
But one must get back to reality and serious business. What would your dream cabinet be like? Your MP? The best thing about being a voter is that one has options. We may not get our Yunuses or Mandelas, but it's nice to know, perhaps, that we can vote in that spirit.
