[One Thousand Characters a Day] 'Great Speeches of the World' - Muhammad Yunus

Editor's NoteAsia Economy provides daily 1,000-character transcription content for readers of the 'One Day Ten Thousand Characters' newsletter. The transcription content is carefully selected according to daily and monthly themes from Eastern and Western classics, Korean literature, notable columns, and famous speeches. This week, Kim Yang-ho, Director of the Korean Language and Culture Institute (Ph.D. in Education), introduces speeches by world-renowned figures from his book . The first is part of a speech by Muhammad Yunus, an economist and banker from Bangladesh and President of Grameen Bank, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. He led the microcredit movement in 1976 to help the poor suffering from the usury of loan sharks, spearheading poverty eradication, which has since spread worldwide. The text contains 1,035 characters.

Everyone, by awarding us this prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has given significant support to the challenge of poverty, an inseparable factor of peace. Poverty is a threat to peace.

The distribution of global income is in a very miserable state. While 94% of the world's income goes to 40% of the global population, 60% of humanity lives on only 6% of the world's income. Half of the world's population lives on $2 a day. More than one billion people live on less than $1 a day. This is not a formula for peace.

The new century began with a great global dream. In 2000, world leaders gathered at the United Nations and adopted a historic goal to halve poverty by 2015 in cooperation with other countries. It was the first time in human history that all countries adopted a clear goal with a deadline and scale in unison. However, after 9/11, the Iraq War began, and the world deviated from the pursuit of this dream. The focus of world leaders shifted from fighting poverty to fighting terrorism. To date, the United States alone has invested more than $530 billion in the Iraq War.

I believe that terrorism cannot be defeated by military action. Terrorism must be condemned in the strongest terms. We must confront it firmly and find every possible way to eradicate it. From now on, to eradicate terrorism over time, we must find its true causes.

I believe that investing resources to improve the lives of the poor is a superior strategy to arming them with weapons.

Peace is widely understood socially, politically, and economically in human terms. Poverty is the lack of all human rights caused by unjust economic, social, and political systems, the absence of democracy, environmental destruction, and insufficient human rights. The resentment, hostility, and anger generated by miserable poverty cannot maintain peace in any society.

To create unwavering peace, we must find ways to give people the opportunity to live an average life.

- Kim Yang-ho, (Vision Korea, 19,800 KRW)

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.