Social business interest:The dignity of people – most of us find it difficult to describe exactly what is meant by this. But when we meet it, we immediately recognize it by its very special quiet glowing radiance. Fortunately, I was able to see this glow frequently. I was privileged to observe this, intensely, during my trips to India and Bangladesh. I met people there who, under what we view as unbelievably difficult conditions, have quite obviously captured, like an inner treasure, the true nature of humanness.
Being able to free themselves by their own strength from literally life-threatening poverty is no doubt the secret of their treasure. In Professor Yunus, I met a person who has devoted himself entirely to the battle of this liberation, tirelessly working for the dignity of every person. I asked myself, how can a single person accomplish
so much of significance? I very quickly discovered the answer:
He can’t. Nor you, nor I, and also not the Nobel Prize winner Yunus can do it.
Behind every great idea is a great person. Behind this person, however, stand numerous others who bring ideas into life. In this case, a better life for hundreds of thousands. Behind Muhammad Yunus stands the Grameen family – a power that I am firmly convinced will lastingly change the face of our world for the better. Which, in the words of my friend, Muhammad Yunus, “will banish poverty into a museum forever”. The question remains, what of our own dignity? I personally find the answer in the faces of these people: our dignity is inseparably connected with the dignity of all the people in the world. The strength to change the world grows out of it.”
