Photo: from left to right – Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, the Author, Ambassador Ashraf ud Doula and Prof. Yunus in Tokyo in 2006
by Ashraf ud Doula 9 January 2024
I returned home from my London posting in December 1985 and joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Director, Western Europe desk.
The Nomination of Prof. Yunus for the Nobel Prize by the Bangladesh government
During my tenure at the West Europe Desk, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sometime in 1986, a note from the Foreign Secretary was passed down to me through my Director General (DG), my immediate boss, to propose a suitable candidate from Bangladesh for the Nobel Prize, was as part of a routine exercise for the foreign ministry to respond to such annual requests from the Nobel Committee. No one paid much attention to the matter.
Since the task of nomination for the Nobel came upon my shoulder, I started pondering over a credible candidate.
I had heard of Prof. Yunus’s groundbreaking works in microcredit and poverty alleviation and thus thought of doing some research on Prof. Yunus and his work. At the time, Prof. Yunus had a small office in Shamoli, Dhaka and one day I visited him there. I spent an hour with Prof. Yunus and discussed with him about his projects. That I was deeply impressed and requested Prof. Yunus to hand me some of the literature on his works was hardly a surprise. Prof. Yunus said that his deputy would see me in my office at the Foreign Ministry with the relevant booklets, soon.
As promised, a gentleman came to my office one day and handed over a stack of reading materials on the Grameen Bank. I went through all the booklets and picked up a few salient points. Using those materials I prepared a note, proposing the name of Dr. Yunus, as our candidate for the prestigious award, and submitted it to my DG, who in turn passed it on to the Foreign Secretary for further action. On his part, the Foreign Secretary mentioned a few positive attributes, recommending it to the Hon’ble President Ershad for his endorsement of the proposal.
As President Ershad granted license for the Grameen project to operate as an authorized banking institution and provided some seed money from the government for its initial operations, he might have thought it not to be a bad idea and thus approved Foreign Ministry’s suggestion to nominate the Nobel Committee the name of Prof Yunus for the Nobel prize.,
After receiving approval of the President Ershad, a formal submission, nominating Prof Yunus for the year 1986 Nobel Prize was forwarded to the Nobel Committee.
As we all know, Prof. Yunus was not awarded the Nobel prize in 1986 and that was the end of my touch with the subject and Prof. Yunus for a while. However, the process of nomination of Yunus for the Nobel which got me to do considerable research on his work, opened my eyes to this great man and his work and more importantly, an opportunity to establish a respectful and enduring relationship with Prof. Yunus, but we seldom met with each other.
The Clintons and the Grameen’s global fame
Following the assumption of power by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 1996 (I was then DG, (Americas & Pacific, handling all matters about the US- Bangladesh relationship), the Grameen Bank gained considerable popularity in the country and elsewhere, as it became evident by then that both President Clinton and his wife Hilary Clinton became great champions of the bank And this is because as Governor of Arkansas, before becoming the President of the US, Governor Clinton introduced the Grameen Bank concept in his state, Arkansas which had substantial number of poor especially the among the African American community with successful outcomes, This cemented Prof. Yunus’s lifelong and lasting friendship with the couple.
Microfinance Summit: Grameen’s Recognition as Universal Model of Poverty Alleviation and the Nobel Peace Prize
Subsequently, Mr. Clinton’s election as the President of the United States helped Dr. Yunus to propagate his ideas on a global stage, with considerable success.
To further galvanize the microfinance concept as a global movement, the White House took the initiative and organized a “ Microfinance Summit in Washington DC, in 1997, which was co-chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the US First Lady Hilary Clinton, where a large number of world leaders including the NGOs came and attended.
This was also a time when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina forged a strong bond of friendship with the Clintons. Following the Summit, the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was received warmly at the White House by the Clintons, the President, and the First Lady.
I served at home at the Foreign Ministry until August 1998 and during this time, I have been a witness to many foreign heads of Governments who during their Bangladesh visits expressed interests to see firsthand, the Grameen Bank operations in the country. Some of them also expressed their appreciation for the landmark peace deal in the Chittagong Hill Tracts which was brokered by the Hasina government.
A cool breeze of goodwill swept the country and created a positive vibe in the nation, which propelled a collective upward image trajectory for Bangladesh. The country found its pride of place in the Comity of Nations, especially in the global south, surpassing many of our neighbours.
In this context, I should also mention that it was Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who for the first time granted the necessary license to the Grameen phone for its official operation in the country.
As Bangladesh Ambassador/ High Commissioner to different countries, including Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, I frequently received invitations from several universities and other social organizations to speak about the Grameen Bank, which also came in handy to project and promote the positive image of my country, at the same time.
Recognition of microfinance as a viable and tested tool of poverty alleviation and that of its champion, Prof. Yunus reached its Zenith when Prof. Yunus and his institution, the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Dr. Yunus and the Grameen Bank in October 2006 took the world by storm, and he became an instant celebrity not only in Bangladesh, but also worldwide.
The Japan Visit of Prof. Yunus and my pride as the Ambassador of Bangladesh to Japan
Within days of his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Prof. Yunus visited Tokyo and I, as the then Ambassador of Bangladesh in Japan felt it my binding duty to host a reception in his honour which I did and the turnout of the guests were incredible, which included, among other dignitaries, the soon-to-be the Prime Minister of the of Japan, Mr. Taro Aso and nearly a quarter of the Japanese Cabinet members, a large number of members of the parliament from both parties, socialites, a good number of foreign resident Ambassadors, besides a group of prominent Bangladeshis attended the reception. The reception took place at the Tokyo Club.
The local Bangladeshis also hosted a reception for him at Hotel Otani, one of the top hotels in Tokyo. The banquet hall was overflowing with expatriate Bangladeshis in Japan. It was a great spectacle to watch- all the Bangladeshis, burying their political divides, became one people, one nation, enjoying in one man, a sense of collective common pride and joy. Yunus was their own man; he represented everyone and more importantly, the positive face of Bangladesh.
On his latter visit to Tokyo, sometime in 2008, I invited Dr. Yunus to a small dinner at my house which was attended, among others, by the then Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso.
In 2007, as an expression of growing Japanese interest in Dr. Yunus and his work, the wife of the Prime Minister Fukuda, asked my wife to request me to give a presentation on Grameen Bank to a group of Japanese influential and socialite ladies, including the wives of the cabinet ministers, and female members of the parliament – this was an all-ladies show. I made a PowerPoint presentation on Yunus and Grameen, which was hugely appreciated.
During the visit of Prof Yunus to Japan in 2006 in the aftermath of his winning the Nobel Prize, and the dinner party that I hosted in his honour, Mr. Taro Aso, the then Japan’s prime minister in waiting made a brief but moving statement, where he said “ people see many dreams but Dr. Yunus not only sees dreams for the poor, he translates them in reality for their benefit .“ I felt so good.
In sum, all I am trying to say is that Prof. Yunus is a highly admired person, not just at home but abroad and more importantly, his work inspires the entire world including in Japan who rarely express their emotions publicly but when it came to Yunus, they seem to have had no qualms in breaking the tradition.
“My heart bleeds”
Prof. Yunus visited Japan again in 2009 and this time, to receive honorary Doctorate, conferred upon him by the Kyushu University. I attended the program at the invitation of the President of the University. By then a host of controversies had erupted in the country involving Dr. Yunus. One day We were sitting in his hotel room without the presence of anyone else.
I asked him some direct questions. First, I asked him about his short-lived forays into politics, and why he decided to float a new party and then abandoned it so quickly. He responded that given the raucous history of the country’s politics, he thought he might try his hands and do something about it but soon realized it was not his cup of tea, while confessing that it was one of the greatest blunders he ever committed in his life. Then I asked him about the report of an emerging chasm between him and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. He replied that he harbours no grievances against the PM, maybe some people around her are poisoning her ears against him. He added that if the Hon’ble Prime Minister invites him for a cup of tea and asks him to do anything for the country, he would be more than glad to oblige.
Since then, I have had the privilege of attending a few public meetings including smaller gatherings, where Prof. Yuns also attended, and I have never heard Prof. Yunus ever speaking ill about the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina nor her government.
Watching the current situation in the country today, my heart bleeds with immense sadness. At a time when the country is deeply mired in a mountain of corruption to the tune of billions of dollars, with the perpetrators enjoying and going unpunished with conspicuous impunity, we have found it convenient to portray Dr. Yunus as the number one criminal and corrupt person in the country. We have convicted a person, Prof. Yunus for flouting Labour Law, someone who devoted his entire life to free the poor of oppressions and alleviate them from their miseries. How ironical!
True, no one is above the law nor without mistakes. But there must be a dignified way to manage such matters that involves someone that enjoys unparalleled respect and admiration for his ingenuity and sincerity, in the world. Furthermore, compelling an eighty-three old person to climb a 6-story building to face court is beyond any sense of sensitivity and dignity deserving of an old man and someone who has done so much for Bangladesh and the world at large!
My heart bleeds! It is said that a nation that does not value its heroes, does not produce a hero.
“Could not answer the Egyptian!”
I will conclude my write-up; with a few embarrassing anecdotes I encountered in my 35 years of diplomatic life. In 1977, I was posted to East Germany, a country that lent huge support to our war of liberation. As I started mixing with the local community, people often asked me, “What kind of people are you, killing your founding father? I had no response.
Within the next four years of my stay in East Germany, President Zia was killed, and I faced similar questions, for example, “how many presidents are you going to kill in your country?
People will remember that there used to be a weekly magazine called “The Far East Economic Review,” published in Hong Kong. Following the killing of President Zia, they published on their cover page three podiums with the picture of the Bust of Bangabandhu on the first one, the second one with President Zia’s bust, and the third one standing empty with a big question mark, who is next? That’s how Bangladesh was viewed internationally, those days.
In 2011, I travelled to Tokyo on a private visit. A Japanese friend of mine took me to a restaurant for lunch and upon our arrival at the restaurant, he announced loudly that I, his friend, was a former Ambassador of Bangladesh to Japan. As we sat for our lunch, an Egyptian waiter who served at the restaurant approached me and directly confronted me saying, “What kind of Muslims are you, that you humiliate your only Nobel Laureate in such a manner?”
I could not answer the Egyptian’s question!
The author is a freedom fighter, a retired Major of the Bangladesh Army, a diplomat, and former Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who served as Bangladesh’s Ambassador to several countries.