13 Savvy // Aug 22, 2009 at 3:14 am

off topic–It has occured to me that there are a number of you that are Seattlites–hmm…we should all meet up when I finally get up there.

OK Savvy, sounds good.

I’d argue that the crusades of some cultural elites are actually quite well understood, in terms of their consequences.

Some readers may call you sexist, on the grounds of this post alone. I cannot speak for you, but I think you hit something that should be soundly contemplated.

The same readers may call me sexist – they should not blindly call me sexist without doing some real homework and legwork. If anything, the elitist supporters of such schemes often are operating on far more prejudicial assumptions than Carrie, Miranda, and Samantha, sitting in a café reading the article over low-fat lattes may imagine.

Readers who have an immediate emotional reaction to what I write, I CHALLENGE you to not assume that I am a “crusty misogynistic conservative who wants third world women in the kitchen.”

Rather, to first, make your own conclusions by being a careful reader, and looking beneath the surface, doing a bit more research on microfinance and its results, positive and negative, giving a FAIR listen to both sides – include the critics of microfinance.

I challenge those with the most progressive umbrage to consider the possibility of their being wrapped up in very privileged life, and not examining certain assumptions. The set that regularly reads the NY Times, and is most concerned with the plight of third world women and children, is often quite affluent, and has not come close to experiencing grinding poverty, and often rarely examines their assumptions on such matters.

I supported microfinance for years, when I first read about Muhammad Yunus’s success in Bangladesh.

As a younger “progressive Muslim” I had concern for rural poverty in and the deleterious effects of poverty, and rigidly patriarchial social orders on women’s opportunities.

Never dawned on me to consider possible corrosive effects of such “progressive” efforts on the family structure. On doing years of deeper research, on other topics, and years of contemplation, I came to the conclusion that there is a very subtle social engineering agenda at work behind it.

Consider that whatever the advantages of a consumer society, such a society may be more easily managed and regimented.

Microfinance helps many escape poverty, but the fact that it is weighted most heavily towards poor women and not poor men both gives massive agency to only one half of the equation. Why not help both ? Why be only concerned with poor women and children?

Is the subtext the assumption that poor men are simply expendable? Assuming rural poor men scraping by to help feed their families are actually petty autocratic tyrants is a silly Hollywood assumption and is actually quite racist.

Consider that many progressives and liberals tend to be closet racists, often without realizing it, in that they operate from sets of narrow class induced assumptions and stereotypes about “these people” (and it is always those people, those poor others, so in need of our help, so pass the bloody herbal tea please…)

Consider that the psychology of debt is very potent in shaping people’s values and choices, this is key in a consumerist society, debt molds us, credit molds us, it regiments us and induces a certain mindset upon us, and it is also true that dumping vast amounts of money (and lets face it, $20 extra a year is a vast amount of cash in rural Bangladesh) into the hands of new spenders and consumers will not always help them make responsible choices

Consider this link: “Young women ‘lured into bankruptcy by celebrity lifestyle’ ” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/5557493/Young-women-lured-into-bankruptcy-by-celebrity-lifestyle.html

Really, this cannot be argued against. Anyone who has been to college knows the credit card trap. Imagine something more pernicious, on a lower more grinding level.

Consider that introducing organizational shocks into the most fundamental of social systems has profound effects Consider that in many cases a woman’s increased agency due to sudden increased affluence creates tensions in the family unit, and that often SHE WILL RESENT HER HUSBAND’S NEW BETA ROLE, dig around, look in your own lives, the flush of new self confidence at being a provider often comes with a certain nagging disgust towards her partner.
(like go read Penelope Trunk’s old blogs on her own marriage, she lacks a degree of self reflection at times, but she can often be quite clear on some things in her life, in retrospect)

Consider all of these things up, and really just think about it. Deeply. Consider the possibility that what you know may be wrong.

Consider hitting your local library for Edward Bernays, his first book Propaganda is seminal (keep in mind that while under government employ he virtually organized the government’s early propaganda machine) but also look for his more rare books, the ones that cost an arm and leg on Amazon (for good reason). Do a YouTube search for Edward Bernays, some videos will be incoherent conspiratorial ranting, just focus on the lucid documentaries (there are a couple good ones). Read Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda. It is a scholarly work.

Consider very well everything, pro and con, that you have read about microfinance.
After doing this if certain things are not crystal clear I’d be more than glad to offer a hypothesis or two, with some interesting facts.

Lukobe I was looking to see if you had a blog, couldn’t find that but found you are all over Wikipedia.

And Welmer we’ve discussed it previously.

Drop me a line at my email. I know of another blogger who visits Seattle with regularity. Maybe we can make it a mini blog conference.

So is it really his fault that he can’t find work? Oh, oops, they forgot to address that.

Oh the other hand, women in 3rd world countries can be treated very badly–to the point of being burned alive if their husbands are displeased for any reason. This certainly isn’t anything that biblical beliefs could ever endorse.

I wrote a series of articles about microcredit and matriarchy in 2007. Microfinance’s major modern proponent is Muhammad Yunus, whose Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. (Grameen lends to over 7 million Bangladeshi females. Impoverished Bangladeshi males can eat cow shit.)

“More than 96% of Grameen loans have gone to women, who suffer disproportionately from poverty and who are more likely than men to devote their earnings to their families.”

(Note the two sugar-coated lies in their statement above.)

Microfinance/microcredit is just another New Woman Order shuck. It traces to Templar banking, mercantilism, and goddess-worship.

But then, I’m just a Conspiracy Nut.

Yunus is a member of the Global Elders, founded and funded by international matriarchalist and entrepreneur Richard Branson and backstabber Peter Gabriel. Global Elder members are former “world leaders” and upfront New Woman Order shills.

Here’s a passage from the series, in which the Nobel Prizewinner is quoted:

Yunus: If you give a small loan to a rich person, that is not categorised as micro credit. We are meaning a small loan to the poorest person.

Negus: Why do you think that this works particularly well when the people borrowing the money are mainly women?

Yunus: Because women, we saw all along the way, have longer vision, want to change their lives much more intensively.

Negus: Just Bangladeshi women or women in general?

Yunus: I think women in general. If you are born into a poor family, if you are a woman you have seen the worst of poverty. In a cultural way in the families in Bangladesh it’s the women who eats last. So if you have a scarcity in the family

Negus: She misses out?

Yunus: She misses out So everything comes in the raw deal for her. So , given a chance she works very hard to make a change to improve her life. And by training she is the most efficient manager of scarce resources. Because with the little resource she has, she has to stretch it as much as she can to look after the children, look after the family and everything else..unlike men – men want to enjoy right away. Whatever he got, whatever tiny bit of thing he got he doesn’t care for much what’s coming up.

Negus: One of the criticisms, and you’ve got your critics, is that this scheme has changed the relationship between poor Bangladeshi men and women-that it has altered the relationship completely, have you found that? Is that a problem? The men can’t handle the fact it’s the women who are doing it?

Yunus: The way you describe it, it could be an admiration of what we’ve been doing -that we’ve improved the relationship. It’s changed for the better…. In a kind of Grameen Bank way you get more stability within a family, better relations between men and women. The husband doesn’t see the wife as a kind of dependant person. He starts looking at her now as a kind of partner in the family because she also has an independent source of income.

For example, in the first few years after WW2 the rubble in W Germany was mostly cleared by women because the men of working age were dead, disabled or in POW camps. But the economic miracle was created by male pro-free-market administrators and the returning POW’s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23FOB-idealab-t.html

‘Nor does a rise in a woman’s autonomy or power in the family necessarily counteract prejudice against girls. Researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute have found that while increasing women’s decision-making power would reduce discrimination against girls in some parts of South Asia, it would make things worse in the north and west of India. “When women’s power is increased,” wrote Lisa C. Smith and Elizabeth M. Byron, “they use it to favor boys.”’

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23fob-wwln-t.html

‘In general, women give differently than men. They are less likely to want their names on things and more likely to give as part of drives (large ones, like Women Moving Millions, and smaller ones, like living-room “giving circles”) that include other women. And they tend to spotlight different causes (women’s health, microfinancing of businesses owned by women) and for different reasons. A study of more than 10,000 large donors by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University suggests that while men describe their giving as practical — filling in the gaps that government can’t or won’t — women describe theirs as emotional, an obligation to help those with less. Behind all this giving lies the theory that helping women and children is the way to change the planet. “Seventy percent of people living in poverty around the world are women and children,” says Christine Grumm, president and C.E.O. of the Women’s Funding Network. “If women have a roof over their heads and a home free of violence, and good and affordable health care, then so do children. In the larger picture, it’s not just about women, but entire communities. Women are the conduits through which change is made.” ‘

And then there’s this interview with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23fob-q4-t.html

‘If women ran the world, would wars still exist?

No. It would be a better, safer and more productive world. A woman would bring an extra dimension to that task — and that’s a sensitivity to humankind. It comes from being a mother.

But if women had power, they would be more likely to acquire the negative traits that power breeds, like selfishness and territorialism.

It would take a very long term of women absolutely in power to get to the place where they became men.

INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.‘

This could very well be, Welmer. It could be that he despises the men in his own circles and therefore feels justified in his crusading for women (and by proxy, therefore, *against* men). I’m also pretty sure his wife has a huge influence, if not control, over him at this stage.