Why is it OK for women to talk about killing other women, men or themselves in their songs and call themselves bitches and hoes? Why is it OK for men to talk about killing other men, or themselves in their songs? Why is it not acceptable for men to talk about killing some women or call some women bitches and/or hoes in their songs? Why the double standards? What is violence? Aren’t we all violent life forms? Don’t we all eat or drink another life form? If so, then we all are violent.
We are quick to demonize music, television, magazines or any thing else that degrades women or shows violence against women, but we allow and encourage men to commit violence against each other. Why? I do not agree with violence against men or women. In order for us to realize why men are violent towards themselves and to women, we must look at ourselves. We breed violence in our society, and we are reaping what we have sowed. Why is it acceptable and encouraged for males to have several female sexual partners, and at the same time, it is unacceptable and discouraged for females to have premarital sex or several male sexual partners? Fear, hate, anger and mistrust are also other forms of violence. There is another form of violence, too. Mohandas K. Gandhi said, Poverty is the worst form of violence. What world do we wish to live in in 50 years? In 500 years? In 50,000 years? In 500,000 years? In one million years? Whatever world that we wish to see, we need to start planning and working for it now, right here, today. Gandhi also said, We must become the change we want to see. What are people around the world doing to improve their lives? In Bangladesh, there is the Grameen Bank.
This is an excerpt from the Grameen banking for the poor Web site:
The origin of Grameen Bank can be traced back to 1976 when professor Muhammad Yunus, head of the rural economics program at the University of Chittagong, launched an action research project to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted at the rural poor. The Grameen Bank Project (Grameen means rural’ or village’ in the Bangla language) came into operation with the following objectives: Extend banking facilities to poor men and women, eliminate the exploitation of the poor by money lenders, create opportunities for self-employment for the vast multitude of unemployed people in rural Bangladesh, bring the disadvantaged, mostly the women, from the poorest households within the fold of an organizational format which they can understand and manage by themselves and reverse the age-old vicious circle of low income, low saving and low investment,’ into the virtuous circle of low income, injection of credit, investment, more income, more savings, more investment, more income.’
The action research demonstrated its strength in Jobra (a village adjacent to Chittagong University) and some of the neighboring villages during 1976-1979. With the sponsorship of the central bank of the country and support of the nationalized commercial banks, the project was extended to Tangail district (a district north of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh) in 1979. With the success in Tangail, the project was extended to several other districts in the country. In October 1983, the Grameen Bank Project was transformed into an independent bank by government legislation. Today Grameen Bank is owned by the rural poor who it serves. Borrowers of the Bank own 90 percent of its shares, while the remaining 10 percent is owned by the government.
In an excerpt from a speech by my friend Grace Lee Boggs titled The Look of 21st Century Revolutions, she discusses some more specific information about the Grameen Bank: In Bangladesh Grameen banks have been organized in thousands of villages with mostly women members. These banks are based on the idea that people’s participation, not technology, is the key to socioeconomic development and that the best way to combat poverty is to act as a group. Small groups of Grameen members borrow money from the bank for all kinds of economic activities, such as manufacturing fans, boats and umbrellas or raising milk cows. The group collectively decides who gets a loan and for how much. Only after the first two members have demonstrated their readiness to make regular repayment are the next two eligible for loans. In this way members collectively nurture the four Grameen principles: discipline, unity, courage and hard work.
