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听力文本
The Nobel Peace Prize 2006
Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank
Nobel Lecture
Nobel Lecture, Oslo, December 10, 2006.
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee,Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Grameen Bank and I are deeply honoured to receive this most prestigious of awards. We are thrilled and overwhelmed by this honour. Since the Nobel Peace Prize was announced, I have received endless messages from around the world, but what moves me most are the calls I get almost daily, from the borrowers of Grameen Bank in remote Bangladeshi villages, who just want to say how proud they are to have received this recognition.
Nine elected representatives of the 7 million borrowers-cum-owners of Grameen Bank have accompanied me all the way to Oslo to receive the prize. I express thanks on their behalf to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for choosing Grameen Bank for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. By giving their institution the most prestigious prize in the world, you give them unparalleled honour. Thanks to your prize, nine proud women from the villages of Bangladesh are at the ceremony today as Nobel laureates, giving an altogether new meaning to the Nobel Peace Prize.
All borrowers of Grameen Bank are celebrating this day as the greatest day of their lives. They are gathering around the nearest television set in their villages all over Bangladesh , along with other villagers, to watch the proceedings of this ceremony.
This years' prize gives highest honour and dignity to the hundreds of millions of women all around the world who struggle every day to make a living and bring hope for a better life for their children. This is a historic moment for them.
Poverty is a Threat to Peace
Ladies and Gentlemen:
By giving us this prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has given important support to the proposition that peace is inextricably linked to poverty. Poverty is a threat to peace.
World's income distribution gives a very telling story. Ninety four percent of the world income goes to 40 percent of the population while sixty percent of people live on only 6 per cent of world income. Half of the world population lives on two dollars a day. Over one billion people live on less than a dollar a day. This is no formula for peace.
The new millennium began with a great global dream. World leaders gathered at the United
Nationsin 2000 and adopted, among others, a historic goal to reduce poverty by half by 2015. Never in human history had such a bold goal been adopted by the entire world in one voice, one that specified time and size. But then came September 11 and the Iraq war, and suddenly the world became derailed from the pursuit of this dream, with the attention of world leaders shifting from the war on poverty to the war on terrorism. Till now over $ 530 billion has been spent on the war in Iraq by the USA alone.
I believe terrorism cannot be won over by military action. Terrorism must be condemned in the strongest language. We must stand solidly against it, and find all the means to end it. We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time to come. I believe that putting resources into improving the lives of the poor people is a better strategy than spending it on guns.
Poverty is Denial of All Human Rights
Peace should be understood in a human way − in a broad social, political and economic way. Peace is threatened by unjust economic, social and political order, absence of democracy, environmental degradation and absence of human rights.
Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society. For building stable peace we must find ways to provide opportunities for people to live decent lives.
The creation of opportunities for the majority of people − the poor − is at the heart of the work that we have dedicated ourselves to during the past 30 years.
Grameen Bank
I became involved in the poverty issue not as a policymaker or a researcher. I became involved because poverty was all around me, and I could not turn away from it. In 1974, I found it difficult to teach elegant theories of economics in the university classroom, in the backdrop of a terrible famine in Bangladesh. Suddenly, I felt the emptiness of those theories in the face of crushing hunger and poverty. I wanted to do something immediate to help people around me, even if it was just one human being, to get through another day with a little more ease. That brought me face to face with poor people's struggle to find the tiniest amounts of money to support their efforts to eke out a living. I was shocked to discover a woman in the village, borrowing less than a dollar from the money-lender, on the condition that he would have the exclusive right to buy all she produces at the price he decides. This, to me, was a way of recruiting slave labor.
I decided to make a list of the victims of this money-lending "business" in the village next door to our campus.
When my list was done, it had the names of 42 victims who borrowed a total amount of US $27. I offered US $27 from my own pocket to get these victims out of the clutches of those money-lenders. The excitement that was created among the people by this small action got me further involved in it. If I could make so many people so happy with such a tiny amount of money, why not do more of it?
That is what I have been trying to do ever since. The first thing I did was to try to persuade the bank located in the campus to lend money to the poor. But that did not work. The bank said that the poor were not creditworthy. After all my efforts, over several months, failed I offered to become a guarantor for the loans to the poor. I was stunned by the result. The poor paid back their loans, on time, every time! But still I kept confronting difficulties in expanding the program through the existing banks. That was when I decided to create a separate bank for the poor, and in 1983, I finally succeeded in doing that. I named it Grameen Bank or Village bank.
Today, Grameen Bank gives loans to nearly 7.0 million poor people, 97 per cent of whom are women, in 73,000 villages in Bangladesh. Grameen Bank gives collateral-free income generating, housing, student and micro-enterprise loans to the poor families and offers a host of attractive savings, pension funds and insurance products for its members. Since it introduced them in 1984, housing loans have been used to construct 640,000 houses. The legal ownership of these houses belongs to the women themselves. We focused on women because we found giving loans to women always brought more benefits to the family.
In a cumulative way the bank has given out loans totaling about US $6.0 billion. The repayment rate is 99%. Grameen Bank routinely makes profit. Financially, it is self-reliant and has not taken donor money since 1995. Deposits and own resources of Grameen Bank today amount to 143 per cent of all outstanding loans. According to Grameen Bank's internal survey, 58 per cent of our borrowers have crossed the poverty line.
Grameen Bank was born as a tiny homegrown project run with the help of several of my students, all local girls and boys. Three of these students are still with me in Grameen Bank, after all these years, as its topmost executives. They are here today to receive this honour you give us.
This idea, which began in Jobra, a small village in Bangladesh, has spread around the world and there are now Grameen type programs in almost every country.
Second Generation
It is 30 years now since we began. We keep looking at the children of our borrowers to see what has been the impact of our work on their lives. The women who are our borrowers always gave topmost priority to the children. One of the Sixteen Decisions developed and followed by them was to send children to school. Grameen Bank encouraged them, and before long all the children were going to school. Many of these children made it to the top of their class. We wanted to celebrate that, so we introduced scholarships for talented students. Grameen Bank now gives 30,000 scholarships every year.
Many of the children went on to higher education to become doctors, engineers, college teachers and other professionals. We introduced student loans to make it easy for Grameen students to complete higher education. Now some of them have PhD's. There are 13,000 students on student loans. Over 7,000 students are now added to this number annually.
We are creating a completely new generation that will be well equipped to take their families way out of the reach of poverty. We want to make a break in the historical continuation of poverty.
Beggars Can Turn to Business
In Bangladesh 80 percent of the poor families have already been reached with microcredit. We are hoping that by 2010, 100 per cent of the poor families will be reached.
Three years ago we started an exclusive programme focusing on the beggars. None of Grameen Bank's rules apply to them. Loans are interest-free; they can pay whatever amount they wish, whenever they wish. We gave them the idea to carry small merchandise such as snacks, toys or household items, when they went from house to house for begging. The idea worked. There are now 85,000 beggars in the program. About 5,000 of them have already stopped begging completely. Typical loan to a beggar is $12.
We encourage and support every conceivable intervention to help the poor fight out of poverty. We always advocate microcredit in addition to all other interventions, arguing that microcredit makes those interventions work better.
Information Technology for the Poor
Information and communication technology (ICT) is quickly changing the world, creating distanceless, borderless world of instantaneous communications. Increasingly, it is becoming less and less costly. I saw an opportunity for the poor people to change their lives if this technology could be brought to them to meet their needs.
As a first step to bring ICT to the poor we created a mobile phone company, Grameen Phone. We gave loans from Grameen Bank to the poor women to buy mobile phones to sell phone services in the villages. We saw the synergy between microcredit and ICT.
The phone business was a success and became a coveted enterprise for Grameen borrowers. Telephone-ladies quickly learned and innovated the ropes of the telephone business, and it has become the quickest way to get out of poverty and to earn social respectability. Today there are nearly 300,000 telephone ladies providing telephone service in all the villages of Bangladesh . Grameen Phone has more than 10 million subscribers, and is the largest mobile phone company in the country. Although the number of telephone-ladies is only a small fraction of the total number of subscribers, they generate 19 per cent of the revenue of the company. Out of the nine board members who are attending this grand ceremony today 4 are telephone-ladies.
Grameen Phone is a joint-venture company owned by Telenor of Norway and Grameen Telecom of Bangladesh. Telenor owns 62 per cent share of the company, Grameen Telecom owns 38 per cent. Our vision was to ultimately convert this company into a social business by giving majority ownership to the poor women of Grameen Bank. We are working towards that goal. Someday Grameen Phone will become another example of a big enterprise owned by the poor.
Free Market Economy
Capitalism centers on the free market. It is claimed that the freer the market, the better is the result of capitalism in solving the questions of what, how, and for whom. It is also claimed that the individual search for personal gains brings collective optimal result.
I am in favor of strengthening the freedom of the market. At the same time, I am very unhappy about the conceptual restrictions imposed on the players in the market. This originates from the assumption that entrepreneurs are one-dimensional human beings, who are dedicated to one mission in their business lives − to maximize profit. This interpretation of capitalism insulates the entrepreneurs from all political, emotional, social, spiritual, environmental dimensions of their lives. This was done perhaps as a reasonable simplification, but it stripped away the very essentials of human life.
Human beings are a wonderful creation embodied with limitless human qualities and capabilities. Our theoretical constructs should make room for the blossoming of those qualities, not assume them away.
Many of the world's problems exist because of this restriction on the players of free-market. The world has not resolved the problem of crushing poverty that half of its population suffers. Healthcare remains out of the reach of the majority of the world population. The country with the richest and freest market fails to provide healthcare for one-fifth of its population.
We have remained so impressed by the success of the free-market that we never dared to express any doubt about our basic assumption. To make it worse, we worked extra hard to transform ourselves, as closely as possible, into the one-dimensional human beings as conceptualized in the theory, to allow smooth functioning of free market mechanism.
By defining "entrepreneur" in a broader way we can change the character of capitalism radically, and solve many of the unresolved social and economic problems within the scope of the free market. Let us suppose an entrepreneur, instead of having a single source of motivation (such as, maximizing profit), now has two sources of motivation, which are mutually exclusive, but equally compelling − a) maximization of profit and b) doing good to people and the world.
Each type of motivation will lead to a separate kind of business. Let us call the first type of business a profit-maximizing business, and the second type of business as social business.
Social business will be a new kind of business introduced in the market place with the objective of making a difference in the world. Investors in the social business could get back their investment, but will not take any dividend from the company. Profit would be ploughed back into the company to expand its outreach and improve the quality of its product or service. A social business will be a non-loss, non-dividend company.
Once social business is recognized in law, many existing companies will come forward to create social businesses in addition to their foundation activities. Many activists from the non-profit sector will also find this an attractive option. Unlike the non-profit sector where one needs to collect donations to keep activities going, a social business will be self-sustaining and create surplus for expansion since it is a non-loss enterprise. Social business will go into a new type of capital market of its own, to raise capital.
Young people all around the world, particularly in rich countries, will find the concept of social business very appealing since it will give them a challenge to make a difference by using their creative talent. Many young people today feel frustrated because they cannot see any worthy challenge, which excites them, within the present capitalist world. Socialism gave them a dream to fight for. Young people dream about creating a perfect world of their own.
Almost all social and economic problems of the world will be addressed through social businesses. The challenge is to innovate business models and apply them to produce desired social results cost-effectively and efficiently. Healthcare for the poor, financial services for the poor, information technology for the poor, education and training for the poor, marketing for the poor, renewable energy − these are all exciting areas for social businesses.
Social business is important because it addresses very vital concerns of mankind. It can change the lives of the bottom 60 per cent of world population and help them to get out of poverty.
Grameen's Social Business
Even profit maximizing companies can be designed as social businesses by giving full or majority ownership to the poor. This constitutes a second type of social business. Grameen Bank falls under this category of social business.
The poor could get the shares of these companies as gifts by donors, or they could buy the shares with their own money. The borrowers with their own money buy Grameen Bank shares, which cannot be transferred to non-borrowers. A committed professional team does the day-to-day running of the bank.
Bilateral and multi-lateral donors could easily create this type of social business. When a donor gives a loan or a grant to build a bridge in the recipient country, it could create a "bridge company" owned by the local poor. A committed management company could be given the responsibility of running the company. Profit of the company will go to the local poor as dividend, and towards building more bridges. Many infrastructure projects, like roads, highways, airports, seaports, utility companies could all be built in this manner.
Grameen has created two social businesses of the first type. One is a yogurt factory, to produce fortified yogurt to bring nutrition to malnourished children, in a joint venture with Danone. It will continue to expand until all malnourished children of Bangladesh are reached with this yogurt. Another is a chain of eye-care hospitals. Each hospital will undertake 10,000 cataract surgeries per year at differentiated prices to the rich and the poor.
Social Stock Market
To connect investors with social businesses, we need to create social stock market where only the shares of social businesses will be traded. An investor will come to this stock-exchange with a clear intention of finding a social business, which has a mission of his liking. Anyone who wants to make money will go to the existing stock-market.
To enable a social stock-exchange to perform properly, we will need to create rating agencies, standardization of terminology, definitions, impact measurement tools, reporting formats, and new financial publications, such as, The Social Wall Street Journal. Business schools will offer courses and business management degrees on social businesses to train young managers how to manage social business enterprises in the most efficient manner, and, most of all, to inspire them to become social business entrepreneurs themselves.
Role of Social Businesses in Globalization
I support globalization and believe it can bring more benefits to the poor than its alternative. But it must be the right kind of globalization. To me, globalization is like a hundred-lane highway criss-crossing the world. If it is a free-for-all highway, its lanes will be taken over by the giant trucks from powerful economies. Bangladeshi rickshaw will be thrown off the highway. In order to have a win-win globalization we must have traffic rules, traffic police, and traffic authority for this global highway. Rule of "strongest takes it all" must be replaced by rules that ensure that the poorest have a place and piece of the action, without being elbowed out by the strong. Globalization must not become financial imperialism.
Powerful multi-national social businesses can be created to retain the benefit of globalization for the poor people and poor countries. Social businesses will either bring ownership to the poor people, or keep the profit within the poor countries, since taking dividends will not be their objective. Direct foreign investment by foreign social businesses will be exciting news for recipient countries. Building strong economies in the poor countries by protecting their national interest from plundering companies will be a major area of interest for the social businesses.
We Create What We Want
We get what we want, or what we don't refuse. We accept the fact that we will always have poor people around us, and that poverty is part of human destiny. This is precisely why we continue to have poor people around us. If we firmly believe that poverty is unacceptable to us, and that it should not belong to a civilized society, we would have built appropriate institutions and policies to create a poverty-free world.
We wanted to go to the moon, so we went there. We achieve what we want to achieve. If we are not achieving something, it is because we have not put our minds to it. We create what we want.
What we want and how we get to it depends on our mindsets. It is extremely difficult to change mindsets once they are formed. We create the world in accordance with our mindset. We need to invent ways to change our perspective continually and reconfigure our mindset quickly as new knowledge emerges. We can reconfigure our world if we can reconfigure our mindset.
We Can Put Poverty in the Museums
I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social system that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue.
Poverty is created because we built our theoretical framework on assumptions which under-estimates human capacity, by designing concepts, which are too narrow (such as concept of business, credit- worthiness, entrepreneurship, employment) or developing institutions, which remain half-done (such as financial institutions, where poor are left out). Poverty is caused by the failure at the conceptual level, rather than any lack of capability on the part of people.
I firmly believe that we can create a poverty-free world if we collectively believe in it. In a poverty-free world, the only place you would be able to see poverty is in the poverty museums. When school children take a tour of the poverty museums, they would be horrified to see the misery and indignity that some human beings had to go through. They would blame their forefathers for tolerating this inhuman condition, which existed for so long, for so many people.
A human being is born into this world fully equipped not only to take care of him or herself, but also to contribute to enlarging the well being of the world as a whole. Some get the chance to explore their potential to some degree, but many others never get any opportunity, during their lifetime, to unwrap the wonderful gift they were born with. They die unexplored and the world remains deprived of their creativity, and their contribution.
Grameen has given me an unshakeable faith in the creativity of human beings. This has led me to believe that human beings are not born to suffer the misery of hunger and poverty.
To me poor people are like bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a flower-pot, you get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted, only the soil-base that is too inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on. All it needs to get the poor people out of poverty for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly.
Let us join hands to give every human being a fair chance to unleash their energy and creativity.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me conclude by expressing my deep gratitude to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for recognizing that poor people, and especially poor women, have both the potential and the right to live a decent life, and that microcredit helps to unleash that potential.
I believe this honor that you give us will inspire many more bold initiatives around the world to make a historical breakthrough in ending global poverty.
Thank you very much.
听力文本译文
尤努斯教授在 2006 年 12 月 10 日奥斯陆诺贝尔和平奖颁奖典礼上致领奖词(节选)
尊敬的陛下、殿下,尊敬的挪威诺贝尔委员会委员们,尊敬的阁下,女士们、先生们:
孟加拉乡村银行和我本人万分荣幸地接受这项最为尊贵的奖励,这项殊荣让我们激动万分、不能自已。
自从诺贝尔和平奖公布以来,我源源不断地收到了来自世界各地的贺信,但是最让我感动的还是几乎每天从孟加拉遥远的山村打来的那些电话,乡村银行的贷款人在电话里告诉我,乡村银行获得这样的认可让他们感到无比的骄傲!
孟加拉乡村银行 700 万的储户兼借贷户中选出的 9 名代表一路陪我来到了奥斯陆来领这份奖。我在这里代表她们感谢挪威诺贝尔委员会将今年的诺贝尔和平奖颁给孟加拉乡村银行。
在给予她们世界上最尊贵的奖励的同时,你们也给予了她们无与伦比的荣耀。正是由于你们
的奖励,9 名来自孟加拉山村的自豪的妇女才能作为诺贝尔获奖者在今天的典礼上出现,这也赋予了诺贝尔和平奖全新的意义。
孟加拉乡村银行的所有贷款人都在庆祝今天这个他们一生中最重要的日子。他们正聚集在孟加拉各个村子里最近的电视机前,跟其他村民一道,观看这次颁奖典礼。
今年的和平奖把最高的荣誉和尊严赋予了世界各地的亿万妇女们。她们每天辛苦劳作,为的就是生存,并给她们的孩子带去对更加美好生活的希望。这一刻对她们来说是历史性的!贫困是对和平的威胁。
女士们、先生们,通过将这个奖颁给我们,挪威诺贝尔委员会极大地支持了和平与贫困息息相关的观点。贫困是对和平的威胁!
世界各地的收入分配很能说明问题。世界上 94%的收入装进了 40%的人的口袋里,而 60%
的人口却只有世界上 6%的收入。世界上一半的人口每天靠不足两美元生活。还有 10 亿多的
人口每天靠不足一美元生活。这样的情况下是得不到和平的!
新千年开始的同时也迎来了一个伟大的全球梦想。世界各国的领导人于 2000 年聚集在联合国,通过了一系列包括到 2015 年将贫困人口减半在内的决议。人类历史上从未出现过像这
样全世界认可的、明确了时间和规模的大胆目标。但是,接下来却发生了和“9·11 事件和
对伊战争,突然之间,世界不再关注实现这个梦想,因为世界领导人的注意力都从反贫困之
战转移到了反恐之战。到现在为止,仅美国就在伊拉克战场上花掉了 5,300 亿美元。
我认为单单依靠军事行动是无法战胜恐怖主义的。我们应该用最严厉的言辞遣责恐怖主义,坚决地对抗它,用所有可行的方法消灭它。我们应该找出恐怖主义产生的根源,从而将其彻底“根治”。我坚信比起花钱购买枪支,改善贫困人口的生活水平才是上策。贫困否定了人权我们应该以人性的观点来看待和平——从广泛的社会、政治和经济角度来看待和平。不
公正的经济、社会和政治秩序、民主的缺失、环境的恶化以及人权的缺乏都会威胁到和平。
贫困就是对一切人权的否定。在任何社会赤贫所带来的沮丧、敌意和愤怒都无法维系和平。要建立稳定的和平,我们必须找到办法,给人们提供可以过上体面生活的机会。给大多数人——也就是穷人——创造机会正是我们过去 30 年全情投入的工作中心。
孟加拉乡村银行我最开始既不是以政策制定者也不是研究者的身份关注贫困问题的。我开始研究这个问题的原因是贫困就在我的周围,我根本无法避开它。在 1974 年,我发现在孟加拉国严重饥荒的背景下,很难再在大学教室里教授那些华而不实的经济学理论了。突然之间,我感到在极度的饥饿和贫困面前这些理论是多么的空洞!我希望能马上做点什么来帮助周围的那些人,即使是只能帮助一个人,即使只能让他轻松地过一天也好。这样,我目睹到了贫困人口的挣扎,为了维持艰难的生活,他们挣扎着寻找哪怕只是一点点的资金。一件事情震动了我:村里的一名妇女从高利贷那里借了不到一美元,但条件却是高利贷将拥有独家收购她家所有农产品的权利,价格还由高利贷来定。在我看来,这无疑是购买奴隶劳动力的做法!
我决定把学校旁边村子里的高利贷受害者列一个名单。当我完成名单的时候,上面有42个受害人的名字,他们总共借了 27 美元。我自己掏出这27美元给他们还了债,使他们脱离了高利贷的控制。我这么一个小小的举动在村民中所引起的轰动使我决定继续下去。如果我能用这么少的钱让这么多的人开心,那为什么不继续下去呢?
这便是我从此一直在做的事。我首先做的第一件事是试图劝说校园里的银行借钱给那些穷人。可是银行不肯借,因为他们觉得那些穷人信用不高。在几个月的努力失败之后,我提出做这些穷人贷款的担保人。结果让我吃惊不已:这些穷人每次都按时将贷款还上!虽然如此,但当我想扩大贷款救助规模的时候,现有的银行体系让我不断碰壁。也就是在那个时候我决定专门为穷人成立一个银行。到了 1983 年我终于做成了这件事,我将其命名为乡村银行!
今天,乡村银行贷款给近 700 万的穷人,其中 97%是妇女,贷款覆盖了孟加拉国的 73,000
个村子。乡村银行向贫困家庭提供无需抵押并有增值空间的住房、助学和小型企业贷款,并
为这些家庭的成员提供一系列优惠的储蓄、养老基金以及保险产品。从 1984 年将以上项目介绍给穷人以来,他们用住房贷款共修建了 640,000 所房屋,而这些房屋的法定所有权归这些妇女们自己。我们银行集中帮助妇女,因为我们发现贷款给妇女们可以给家庭带来更多的收益。
乡村银行累计发放贷款额已经达到 60 亿美元。还贷率达到了 99%。乡村银行常年保持盈利。在财政上,它已经达到自给自足,并于 1995 年之后就不再接受捐款了。乡村银行今天的存款和其他资源总计达到所有外借贷款总额的 143%。根据乡村银行的内部统计,我们贷款户中已有 58%跨过了贫困线。
乡村银行最开始只不过是一个很小的地方工程,是在我的几个当地的学生的帮助下运作起来的。这么多年之后,这些学生中有三人仍然留在乡村银行帮我,他们已经是银行的最高管理层,他们今天也来到这里,接受你们所给予的荣誉。
这个诞生于孟加拉国一个叫鞠不拉的小村子的点子,已经在全世界散播开来,现在几乎每一个国家都有像乡村银行这样的工程。
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我们实现梦想
我们总能得到想要的东西,或是不去拒绝的东西。我们接受周围总会有穷人的事实,觉得贫困是人类命运的一部分。这正是我们周围还有贫困人口存在的原因。如果我们坚信贫穷是不可容忍的,贫困是不属于文明社会的,那么我们一定就能建立起适当的体制和政策,创造出一个没有贫困的世界。
我们想登上月亮,最终也成功了。只要是想做成的事我们最终都做成了。如果有些事做不成,原因只不过是我们并未下定决心来做这件事。我们能实现梦想!
我们想得到些什么以及怎样去得到都要取决于我们的心态!心态一旦形成就很难改变。我们根据自己的心态创造出世界。我们需要找出方法来不断改变我们的视野,并随着新知识的出现调整自己的心态。改变心态我们就可以改变世界!
我们可以把贫困关进博物馆
我相信我们可以创造一个没有贫穷的世界,因为贫穷不是由穷人造成的。贫穷是由我们自己设计的经济和社会制度、由组成这个制度的体制和观念、以及我们执行的政策所造成和维系的。
贫穷的起源是因为我们建立的理论框架是基于低估人类能力的假设之上,因为我们设计的概念是如此的狭隘,比如商业、信用、企业家素质以及就业等狭隘的概念,因为我们开发的体制都不完整,比如金融体制就将穷人摒弃其外。贫困的根源是概念层面的失败,而不是由于人们能力的缺乏。
我坚信如果我们大家都拥有同样的信念,就一定能创造出一个没有贫困的世界。在一个没有贫困的世界里,唯一能看到贫困的地方就是贫困博物馆。当学校的孩子们去参观贫困博物馆的时候,他们会为以前有些人所遭受的贫苦和不幸而动容。孩子们会责怪他们的先辈们,是他们容许了这样不人道的情形在这么长的时间里,发生在了这么多人的身上!
当一个人来到这个世界的时候,他/她不仅已经拥有了照顾自己的能力,而且还能为扩大整个世界的福祉做出贡献。一些人有机会在某种程度上发挥了潜力,但是许多人终其一生都没有得到展现其天赋才能的机会。当他们去世的时候,他们与生俱来的才能并未得到发挥,这个世界也没有因他们的创造力和贡献而获益。
乡村银行的经历使我对人类的创造力深信不疑。也使我相信人不是生来就要遭受饥饿和贫穷的痛苦的。
对我来说,贫穷的人们就像盆栽。当你把最高的树木的最优良的种子种到花盆的时候,你得到的是这颗参天大树的翻版,但只有几英寸高。你播下的种子没有问题,问题在于土壤的基础太薄弱了。穷人就像盆栽。他们的种子没有问题。只不过是社会没有给他们足够的生长的基础。我们想让穷人脱离贫困,只需为他们创造一个能帮助其生长的环境就可以了。一旦贫困人口释放出其精力和创造力,贫穷很快就会消失.
让我们携起手来,赋予全人类释放自身精力和创造力的公平机会!
女士们、先生们,在演讲结束的时候,请允许我表达对挪威诺贝尔委员会的深深谢意,他们认识到了,穷人,尤其是贫穷的妇女们,不仅有潜力而且有权利过上像样的生活,而小额信贷则能帮助她们释放这样的潜能。
我相信你们给予的这份殊荣一定能够激励世界各地更多大胆的计划,为结束全球贫困的努力取得历史性的突破。
谢谢大家!