Sheet metal walls embedded in the clay, the common house is full to bursting. That collection day to Atalor, a village located about fifty kilometers from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The "banker" is there, one hand on the book of accounts and the other on the calculator while seated at a thirty women draped in shawls.
One after another, they just get up and put a small wad of cash to the employee of the Grameen Bank, "Bank of the poor" invented by Professor Muhammad Yunus, microcredit pioneer and Nobel Peace 2006. Outside, a rooster crows. Taslima Begum tending 3,665 taka (37 euros) for repayment of the loan to buy his fruit stall.
Mofida, she was indebted to mount a hen house. As for Asia Begum, she started a business of cosmetics and jewelry. A number, one, captures the essence: 97% of the 8.3 million borrowers of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh are women. "My husband is now consulting for the management of family affairs, confess Asia Begum.
And I'm proud." The Grameen Bank is not alone in dealing primarily with women, deemed more "reliable" than men. Other microcredit institutions (Brac, Asa ...) do the same. Bangladesh, it is a little anticliché. This is a Muslim country - 90% - where women are the agents of a silent revolution.
Remote villages to the palace in Dhaka, they are displayed. Sheikh Hasina is in his second term as Prime Minister. And if it were to lose power in an upcoming election, it would be replaced by another woman, Khaleda Zia, leader of the opposition who have officiated twice in the head of government.
Of course, these "two Begum" derive their legitimacy from a male. They are an orphan or widow of a great man. Sheikh Hasina's father is none other than Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the "father of the nation" who was assassinated in 1975. And Khaleda Zia is the widow of Ziaur Rahman, another hero of independence, was assassinated in 1981.
Bangladesh is no exception to the dynastic logic at work in the entire South Asia. The women took up the torch of the clan as in Pakistan (Bhutto), India (Nehru-Gandhi) and Sri Lanka (Bandaranaike). However, Bangladesh remains special, especially in terms of its membership in the Muslim world.
Unlike Pakistan, where Benazir Bhutto had shown little interest in breaking the male hegemony in Islamabad, the government in Bangladesh is much more open to women. They now run - in addition to the head of the executive - the departments as important as those of foreign affairs, interior and agriculture.
And this is just the tip of a more global society. To believe the figures from Unicef, the enrollment of girls in primary education in Bangladesh is higher than those of Pakistan and India. The same applies to the literacy rate among adult women. This particularity lies in the very circumstances of the founding of Bangladesh, born in 1971-1972 in a violent separation from Pakistan.
Extremely deadly, war has done, according to official figures, about 3 million deaths among Bangladeshis - mostly men. "Widows and have taken the responsibility of the country," said Sultana Kamal, one of the most prominent feminists in Bangladesh. This irruption of women in the public sphere merely reinforced the secular dimension listed in the "DNA" of the new state ideology.
Indeed, the cultural nationalism of Bangladesh, more than the reference to Islam, is the source of national identity. While the country then experienced a similar trend to that of Pakistan, where the army has planted the seeds of Islam. The climax of this drift has been the surge of fundamentalism in the early 1990s, which culminated in violent campaigns against the feminist writer Taslima Nasreen, forced into exile for "blasphemy".
But the secular front has resisted. Heir to this tradition, the Awami League, now in power in Dhaka, is campaigning against judicial and police solved the fundamentalist movement. Referred itself by Islamists planned attacks, the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is inflexible. In this atmosphere, the High Court in Dhaka said in July 2010, "illegal" fatwas pronounced by village mullahs.
"The climate for women has become much more relaxed," admits Sultana Kamal. Yet there is a catch. Because the same government of the Awami League, the champion of secularism, now seems to tackle a different environment, non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Mohammad Yunus, born in this galaxy, is the target of a fierce political cabal.
But the Grameen Bank, like other NGOs, has generously served the interests of women in Bangladesh. "It is sadly ironic to see women in power to attack an environment that enabled the advancement of women," laments Sara Hossein, Professor Yunus and lawyer who defended former Taslima Nasreen.
Half the sky of Bangladesh is not without clouds. coiled @ bbc. Frederic Bobin en Article published in the edition of 05.02.11 
One after another, they just get up and put a small wad of cash to the employee of the Grameen Bank, "Bank of the poor" invented by Professor Muhammad Yunus, microcredit pioneer and Nobel Peace 2006. Outside, a rooster crows. Taslima Begum tending 3,665 taka (37 euros) for repayment of the loan to buy his fruit stall.
Mofida, she was indebted to mount a hen house. As for Asia Begum, she started a business of cosmetics and jewelry. A number, one, captures the essence: 97% of the 8.3 million borrowers of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh are women. "My husband is now consulting for the management of family affairs, confess Asia Begum.
And I'm proud." The Grameen Bank is not alone in dealing primarily with women, deemed more "reliable" than men. Other microcredit institutions (Brac, Asa ...) do the same. Bangladesh, it is a little anticliché. This is a Muslim country - 90% - where women are the agents of a silent revolution.
Remote villages to the palace in Dhaka, they are displayed. Sheikh Hasina is in his second term as Prime Minister. And if it were to lose power in an upcoming election, it would be replaced by another woman, Khaleda Zia, leader of the opposition who have officiated twice in the head of government.
Of course, these "two Begum" derive their legitimacy from a male. They are an orphan or widow of a great man. Sheikh Hasina's father is none other than Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the "father of the nation" who was assassinated in 1975. And Khaleda Zia is the widow of Ziaur Rahman, another hero of independence, was assassinated in 1981.
Bangladesh is no exception to the dynastic logic at work in the entire South Asia. The women took up the torch of the clan as in Pakistan (Bhutto), India (Nehru-Gandhi) and Sri Lanka (Bandaranaike). However, Bangladesh remains special, especially in terms of its membership in the Muslim world.
Unlike Pakistan, where Benazir Bhutto had shown little interest in breaking the male hegemony in Islamabad, the government in Bangladesh is much more open to women. They now run - in addition to the head of the executive - the departments as important as those of foreign affairs, interior and agriculture.
And this is just the tip of a more global society. To believe the figures from Unicef, the enrollment of girls in primary education in Bangladesh is higher than those of Pakistan and India. The same applies to the literacy rate among adult women. This particularity lies in the very circumstances of the founding of Bangladesh, born in 1971-1972 in a violent separation from Pakistan.
Extremely deadly, war has done, according to official figures, about 3 million deaths among Bangladeshis - mostly men. "Widows and have taken the responsibility of the country," said Sultana Kamal, one of the most prominent feminists in Bangladesh. This irruption of women in the public sphere merely reinforced the secular dimension listed in the "DNA" of the new state ideology.
Indeed, the cultural nationalism of Bangladesh, more than the reference to Islam, is the source of national identity. While the country then experienced a similar trend to that of Pakistan, where the army has planted the seeds of Islam. The climax of this drift has been the surge of fundamentalism in the early 1990s, which culminated in violent campaigns against the feminist writer Taslima Nasreen, forced into exile for "blasphemy".
But the secular front has resisted. Heir to this tradition, the Awami League, now in power in Dhaka, is campaigning against judicial and police solved the fundamentalist movement. Referred itself by Islamists planned attacks, the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is inflexible. In this atmosphere, the High Court in Dhaka said in July 2010, "illegal" fatwas pronounced by village mullahs.
"The climate for women has become much more relaxed," admits Sultana Kamal. Yet there is a catch. Because the same government of the Awami League, the champion of secularism, now seems to tackle a different environment, non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Mohammad Yunus, born in this galaxy, is the target of a fierce political cabal.
But the Grameen Bank, like other NGOs, has generously served the interests of women in Bangladesh. "It is sadly ironic to see women in power to attack an environment that enabled the advancement of women," laments Sara Hossein, Professor Yunus and lawyer who defended former Taslima Nasreen.
Half the sky of Bangladesh is not without clouds. coiled @ bbc. Frederic Bobin en Article published in the edition of 05.02.11
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