Muhammad Yunus — Nobel laureate, interim leader of Bangladesh and friend to Utah — surprised many when he came to New York City last week to speak to the United Nations General Assembly accompanied by the leaders of three rival political parties.
But the unnatural grouping — perhaps jarring, by American standards — seemed to be paying dividends.
The Deseret News has kept a close eye on the transformation currently underway in Bangladesh, examining what has been one of the most consequential and least covered international stories of 2025.
I traveled there in February, taking a close look at how Yunus, as the nation’s interim leader, is trying to break the chain of political upheaval and violence while instituting safeguards to protect basic human rights. I spoke with leaders and political rivals, interviewed people who are rising out of poverty through Yunus’ microcredit programs, talked to a leader of the revolution that ousted the nation’s dictator and listened to stories of hardship and political suffering.
Americans — from politicians to pundits to average people — argue and agonize over the future of constitutional democracy and the threats it must navigate to survive in a changing world. They speculate about the loss of prestige, diminished strength and eroding liberties caused by this or that policy or executive decision. They fear the rise of political violence and threats to free speech.
In Bangladesh, a densely populated, relatively new nation in volatile South Asia, these issues are playing out in real time against echoes of the American revolution and the age-old struggle for self-governance and human rights.
In short, Bangladesh holds some lessons for a United States that is growing ever more hyper-partisan.
“We are the outgoing government and they are the incoming government,” Yunus told a group of supporters at a private reception Friday, Sept. 26, at the University Club in midtown Manhattan. He was referring to the political rivals he somehow had persuaded to travel together.
Yunus said the party leaders are not used to talking to each other. “It’s a wonderful thing to have them together and speaking in the same forum about their aspirations and so on,” he said.
A crisis can either unify a nation or foment tribalism and disarray. Yunus, who at age 85 has no desire to run for office nor to hang onto power, and who is unattached to any political party, clearly wants to avoid the latter.
In the 28 years I have known him, he has been unequivocal in his support for a unified and free Bangladesh.
Elections and protests
He has called for elections in the first part of February. They loom as a potential crisis for his nascent campaign for democracy and human rights. Tensions have risen in recent weeks. Numerous media reports said protesters threw eggs at Yunus’ entourage at JFK Airport and picketed outside his hotel. The assailants were thought by many to be affiliated with ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, whose party, the Awami League, has been outlawed, and who is living under asylum in India.
As time runs out on his interim government, Yunus seems to be in full-court-press mode to do what he can to ensure that the winner of the election will establish an inclusive and peaceful government.
The United States could learn much from this soft-spoken world leader. Recent political killings in the U.S. — including those of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, killed at Utah Valley University, and Minnesota’s state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband, killed at their home — have become hijacked by petty political narratives. Condolences are drowned by partisan venom on social media.
Two separate attempts were made on the life of Donald Trump while he was a candidate for president last year. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was beaten by a man who had been looking for her (she was not at home).
Americans are worried
A nationwide poll for the Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics conducted last month by Morning Consult found that 82% of Americans are either somewhat or very concerned about civil unrest, with 86% feeling the same about political violence and 77% about political polarization.
It also found that 77% are either somewhat or very concerned about the safety of elected officials.
Where is the American leader who is willing and able to bring the leaders of the two major parties together, Yunus style, to talk frankly and honestly about common ground, instead of common differences?
State politicians have a better record of working together than those in Washington, as Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham demonstrated during a recent joint appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” But even then, host Scott Pelley noted, “There are some people watching this interview who are disgusted that you two are sitting together.”
Targeted violence goes well beyond politics in the United States. The recent mass shooting and fire at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse in Grand Blanc, Michigan, is just the latest example of violence against worshippers — a direct assault on the First Amendment to the Constitution. In late August, a gunman opened fire through a Catholic church window in Minneapolis, killing an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old and injuring 19 other people, including 16 children, at a back-to-school mass, reports said.
The 2025 edition of the Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey found last month that only 48% of Americans could name freedom of religion as one of the rights protected by the First Amendment.
Yunus may or may not succeed in implementing permanent human rights and democratic principles into Bangladesh’s political traditions, but his efforts are remarkable. In the United States, by contrast, social media seems intent on reinforcing battle lines while performative politicians fear voter backlash for fraternizing with the enemy.
Yunus recently compiled what he calls the “July Charter,” commemorating the revolution that overthrew Hasina’s government in July 2024. The charter is a list of political reforms for which all parties in Bangladesh are expected to give approval.
Discussions around the charter appear to have stalled, mainly over questions surrounding its implementation under the nation’s constitution, but here again, Yunus may have provided another idea from which Americans could learn.
A charter for America?
Would Americans sign a charter circulated in the United States, the purpose of which would be to reinforce and recommit to constitutional principles, including free speech and the right to freely exercise religion? It could be a great tool for discussion and education.
Yunus first gained notoriety in the mid-1970s when he discovered that, by loaning small amounts of money to the very poor (as little as $6, in some cases), he could help them escape poverty by becoming entrepreneurs. He founded the Grameen Bank with the express purpose of providing such microloans on a massive scale.
He and the Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize for these efforts in 2006. Later, Hasina began threatening him with jail time, alleging, among other things, that he had persuaded the World Bank to withdraw funding for a bridge project. After last year’s student uprising, in which 1,400 protesters were killed, according to U.N. estimates, the leaders of the revolution persuaded Yunus to serve as the nation’s interim leader.
His unique position as someone unattached to any political party and as an interim leader without any parliament has been both a challenge and an advantage. He has little leverage other than his position and status as a national icon, but he also has the freedom to say and do as he pleases.
In some ways, Yunus is a type of George Washington to Bangladesh. He has no desire to hold onto power. He is working hard to establish precedents for freedom that will continue after he leaves office. He wants to protect the legacy of a popular uprising indicative of the people’s desires for a new course toward opportunity and prosperity.
While he was in New York, some stark contrasts were obvious. The city is in the grips of a momentous mayoral race. The frontrunner, Zohran Mamdani, is a socialist who, among other things, advocates creating government-run grocery stores in order to drive down prices.
Yunus, on the other hand, lectured the United Nations on the need for what he calls social businesses. As he explained to me when I met him in Dhaka earlier this year, he believes Western socialism hides poverty by giving people subsistence without letting them grow. Also, unrestrained capitalism values profits above all else.
Social businesses, however, use the principles of capitalism with a twist. All profits go toward solving social problems, from homelessness to climate change to malnutrition.
With these businesses, he told the U.N., the “entrepreneurial spirit of every human being can be harnessed for the welfare of society.”
It’s a theme he has presented during his several trips to Utah through the years. Together with microcredit, it’s a recipe for poverty reduction he hopes to continue after leaving office.
First, however, he has to continue the fight to ensure his native country doesn’t backslide into a return of political violence and retribution.
Back at the private reception in midtown Manhattan, Yunus recalled the many who gave their lives to overthrow the previous government, including, he said, 10-year-old boys and girls.
“That’s the spirit which brought the uprising,” he said. “Our job is to fulfill their wishes and the imaginations these young people had.”
Someone had taken a photo of him in New York with the rival Bangladeshi political leaders, he said. The photographer had written, “This is the united Bangladesh at the United Nations,” Yunus said, adding that he believed it was a good headline for the photo.
That drew the loudest ovation of the evening.