Humbleness - a virtue to understand the poor

“What is your daily income, Sir?” That was me talking to my riskshaw driver. It’s interesting how a little courteous gesture goes a long way. One question leads to a series of questions and answers. Although I don’t speak or understand Bangla (the local language) too well, we still end up having a decent conversation.

“This country is poor. It is overpopulated. There is no hope.” This was a comment coming from another conversation I had later in the day with a well-to-do businessman (let’s just call him John) in a prominent location of Dhaka city. I was trying to highlight the entrepreneurial spirit of the poor and was giving him examples of ideas that this community was generating in order to feed their family daily.

I have a question for you folks out there, “What is it about us well-to-do class of people and our attitudes?” Why is it that we assume so much about the poor in our world? Here in Bangladesh, every lay person you talk to tells you how poor their country is. Many of them come from middle-class, well-to-do backgrounds, but yet, whenever I get into a conversation of eradicating poverty, all they like to project is the hopelessness of the poverty situation.

“International Development Enterprises (said as IDE)? What do they do?” On explaining that IDE is an NGO that works on poverty alleviation among farmers by helping them generate higher incomes, the response I get is “Why don’t they advertise or write articles in the paper informing the people of what they do, if it’s such good work?” Now here’s an idea for you IDE folks. Break away from the mold of an NGO and think of yourselves as Pepsi, Microsoft, LG or even Grameen Phone and start a massive advertising campaign.

Anyways, let’s get back to the point. The issue I’m trying to highlight is that we all like to pose questions or prove the uselessness of interesting and out-of-the-ordinary ideas. Not even giving the idea the time to mature into a more workable form. Instead, the reply I get is, “ohh…you cannot serve the poor like this”. Only if corruption is removed from this government can this country and the poor’s condition be improved. No wonder that every time I ask a Bangladeshi, “What is your opinion of Mohammed Yunus” I get strong opinionated responses such as “He has done nothing for the poor.” Or “How can you even think of providing the poor with credit? They will only sink into more poverty.” Or “He is exploiting the poor in the name of helping them.” Wow, these are pretty harsh comments coming from people who seem to only live in self-apathy.

I am amazed at the foresight and ingenuity shown by some of the people living in poverty, for example my rickshaw-wallah. This young guy managed to setup exclusive deals with the expat community in Gulshan-II (duyee), to shuttle them back-and-forth from their residences to their offices on a daily basis. He even had a cell phone and forced me into giving him my phone number so he could set up the same deal with me. When I offered this example as a possible solution to John, he merely shrugged it off saying, well this creates a class difference among the riskshaw folks and is not really taking care of poverty.

The irony of the situation is that all the above-mentioned proponents; the rickshaw-wallah, John, the well-to-do businessman and IDE, have their business influence in the vicinity of a circle (or roundabout) in Gulshan II, an area where most of the expat community lives, i.e. people who work for various NGOs and government agencies that provide relief to the poor. On this same circle, you will find poor women carrying babies or disabled people coming up to your car window begging for money. Wait a minute, did anyone stop to think of the irony of this situation? In one location you have hope, despair, goodwill, and failures. The locals talk passionately about poverty but no one wants to heed to any solution if provided to them. And yet, you have others in this same area who show determination to do something about their situation.

I guess right now, I feel like a movie screenplay writer. “Three individual stories of hope, faith, despair and ridicule. See how each one living in the same neighborhood perceives the other’s existence and eventually get to meet one another after reading one person’s blog.” My point is that it’s very easy for all of us to discount another person’s work or life without having to experience it ourselves. Here was an opportunity for me to see this. And you didn’t need to read about it on the front page of the newspaper since it was all taking place in the same neighborhood.

You guys reading this could have many opinions and comments on this. I accept them all in advance. I am merely the messenger!