Today's Public Intellectual

During the Age of Enlightenment, the streets were filled with the works of intellectuals such as Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Voltaire.  Even during a time where the literary rate was a mere 30 – 60% of males and only 14 – 27% of women, the thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge from these public intellectuals were still made known through public spheres, institutions and coffeehouses.

But over time, what ever happened to these public intellectuals and public spheres?  Thanks to the age of technology and the evolution of education, the concept of the public sphere rapidly declined.  No longer do we have to visit a coffeehouse to learn why the earth is round; we have Google for that.  The ideas, the thoughts and the knowledge of these smart individuals never went away but the perception or even the need of the being a “public intellectual” disappeared. 

Now a days, the term public intellectual is not a common household word.  You may be asking, what even is a public intellectual? According to the MITcommunications forum a public intellectual today is, " Such a person is often a trained in a particular discipline, such as linguistics, biology, history, economics, literary criticism, and who is on the faculty of a college or university. When such a person decides to write and speak to a larger audience than their professional colleagues, he or she becomes a "public intellectual."  The New Democratic Review adds on, “The measure of public intellectual work is not whether the people are listening, but whether they’re hearing things worth talking about.”  The public intellectual has declined but I don’t believe is dead.    They are still out there, they are just not the under the same definition.

A public intellectual is someone who uses his or her knowledge and findings to enlighten the public for the greater good.  The public listens and respects these views and opinions because the intellectual has a background of expertise.   

Muhammad Yunus is today’s public intellectual. 

 

Muhammad Yunus, a professor of economics at Chittagong University, and his Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.”  After watching thousands die of starvation from a terrible famine in Bangladesh, Yunus knew he could not just sit there without doing anything.  He commented, "Nothing in the economic theories I taught reflected the life around me. How could I go on telling my students make believe stories in the name of economics? I needed to run away from these theories and from my textbooks and discover the real-life economics of a poor person's existence." 

So Muhammad Yunus not only decided to just give to the poor, but he gave the poorest people of Bangladesh, specifically women, the opportunity to learn how to save and the ability to take out loans.  This was how the Grameen Bank was formed.   This micro-financing bank provided loans to the poor without any collateral.  True to The New Democratic Review’s definition of a public intellectual, Yunus and the Grameen Bank’s works have been heard.  They are currently now under investigation by the Bangladesh government for a controversy with it’s funding.

So how did the Grameen Bank even become introduced into the public sphere?  Let’s start with Yunus’ academic background and how he became an intellectual.

Muhammad Yunus was born and raised in 1940 in Chittagong, Bangladesh.  While studying at the Chittagong Collegiate School, he passed the matriculation examination, in which he secured the 16th position among 39,000 students in East Pakistan.   He obtained both his Bachelor of Arts and his Masters degree in economics at Dhaka University.  Although he did not leave Bangladesh until he earned his PhD at Vanderbilt University after receiving a Fulbright scholarship, he travelled to many other countries such as the West Indies and Canada as an active boy scout.   Yunus began teaching as an assistant professor of economics at the Middle Tennessee State University until he moved back to Chittagong in 1971 where he became head of the economics department at Chittagong University.

In 1974 Bangladesh was hit with a terriblefamine. Yunus recalled, "We tried to ignore it, But then skeleton-like people began showing up in the capital, Dhaka. Soon the trickle became a flood. Hungry people were everywhere. Often they sat so still that one could not be sure whether they were alive or dead. They all looked alike: men, women, children. Old people looked like children, and children looked like old people.” Knowing that he could just not do anything, Yunus decided he had to do something. 

Bangladesh has a population of approximately 160 million people but only 28% of those people live in an urban development. This means the rest of the Bangladesh population lives in rural areas, many without running water, electricity or ways of modern technology.  While visiting the poorer villages around Chittagong during the famine, Yunus discovered the women of Jobra, a local village.  These women, who made bamboo furniture as a living, had to take out extreme loans to buy the bamboo. All the money they had made would go right back into repaying the money loaners so they would end up with making nothing.  Seeing these struggling women was where he came up with the idea of making tiny loaning to self-employment to help them make a living. 

Muhammad Yunus’ first loan was $27USD out of his own pocket to the bamboo furniture-making ladies and that was the start of the Grameen Bank.  

A public intellectual has the responsibility to enlighten others and influence them in a particular way.

Grameen Bank started out as an idea in the classroom after Yunus made that first loan to the bamboo furniture making ladies.  Him and his students developed several plans but the bank loan idea quickly became the most successful. 

Grameen Bank is a community bank based off of microcredit that is known to make loans to impoverished people, mainly women, without collateral.  These loans were extended to only the poorest of the poor.  To obtain a loan, the families must demonstrate that they own less than half an acre of land.  The borrowers are under strict discipline to ensure they pay back the loans and develop good credit.  Yunus strongly believed in loaning to women (they made up 95% of the loaners) because according to him only 1% of borrowers in commercial banking represent women. 

Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank have helped finance over 4.4 million families.  Yes, over 4.4. million families have beaten the odds and climbed out of begging.  Skeptics will say “so what?” it is just from a lot of donations.  Well that would be over 4.7 billion dollars in donations, and with those kinds of donations, why wouldn’t we just beg for that kind of money to get the US out of debt?  But what is so unique about this situation is these people are not only receiving their loans but they are paying the money back.  This money in turn just goes back around to finance someone else. Yunus encouraged all borrowers to become savers to help the local capital for even more loans.  Grameen Bank has an outstanding payback rate of 98%.  Not a bad percentage coming from people who literally have nothing.  These banks soon became self-sufficient and the community was able to help each other out.

The success of the Grameen Bank quickly became public and was soon heard around the world.  Over 25 other countries have established similar institutions.  In 2006 Muhammad and the Grameen Bank was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.   According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the prize is awarded to the person who “...shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” This award must go to someone who is publically known and internationally acclaimed and respected.  This honour would not have happened if the Grameen Bank had not have made such a huge impact on the world.

This worldwide phenomenon would not have occurred without the brilliant mind of Muhammad Yumus.  A small intellectual man from Bangladesh was heard all over the world.  People like him prove that public intellectuals still exist.  They are just harder to find but are certainly out there.

To learn more about Muhammad Yunus, read his book Creating A World Without Poverty