The following interview was published in “Der Standard” on March 2nd 2015. To see the original click here.
Without bitterness José „Pepe“ Mujica takes stock of his life as a guerilla fighter, political prisoner and President of Uruguay. Device: Hate results in blindness.
STANDARD: Mr. President…
Mujica: Pepe!
STANDARD: Ok … Pepe, what happened to your nose?
Mujica: Yesterday I hurt myself with pliers, when I tried to bend a wire. Although I’m the President, yesterday I was driving around with a tractor, scooping soil from here to there. Then I came home dirty, tool a bath and looked after the bloody nose. That’s human freedom: that from time to time you can do, what makes you happy. I don’t live on the countryside because I’m a wack, but because I love nature very much.
STANDARD: In the 1970s you were fighting for political, economical and social change. You were a co-founder of the urban guerilla Tupamaros.
Mujica: We wanted a perfect world. We wanted, that people would have more to eat, have a roof over their heads, have better health and education. Nothing is more beautiful then life and immediately after there comes society. Humans need society. Humans are, anthropological speaking, socialists.
STANDARD: Did you adapted the ideas of those days to reality?
Mujica: You never adapt reality – it’s to complex.
STANDARD: You legalized gay marriage, abortion and the right to gender identity. You reduced unemployment, poorness and child mortality.
Mujica: The Left today seems to believe that it can replace the struggle for power with a social agenda. This is all very good. I support the course. But the black man, who really suffers, is the black man in poverty. And the woman who is the most discriminated and humiliated, is the woman in poverty. The same applies to the indigenous. Our big problem is the class difference. You have to fight for power, so that you then can bring structural changes.
STANDARD: You are often called the „poorest President of the world“.
Mujica: Because of my way of living: modest, with few lugage. This is my conscious choice. For What? To have free time. Because if I would amass money, I would have to constantly watch out that you do not steal from me. I would be wasting my time. And what you can not buy in the supermarket, is time. Well, maybe I’m a bit of an anarchist.
STANDARD: What has your government failed to do?
Mujica: We have neglected education. And in infrastructure we should have invest more. The economy grew strongly, but not so the infrastructure. Also we should had absolutely seriously seek a constitutional reform in order to bring profound changes. The judicial system represents the needs of the dominant class.
STANDARD: Once you said: “I was imprisoned 14 years, but I don’t hate anyone because of that.” How is that possible?
Mujica: Of course I might add a sadism content. One man is more, some less sadistic. During my time in prison I met soldiers who risked their lives to bring me a glass of grappa or an apple. Black and white does not exist. In between, there are always many shades of gray.
STANDARD: How to get rid of this experienced?
Mujica: I returned to where I was imprisoned. Military has brought me there. It makes no sense to ruminate about the past, to lick the wounds. Life is the future. From the past one should learn not to be buried by it.
STANDARD: No feeling for revenge?
Mujica: On he contrary. In my first speech shortly after my release, I already spoke of it: Hate makes you blind.
STANDARD: You have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize…
Mujica: I told them that they are crazy. Everywhere in the world wars were raging, and they came to me with the Nobel Peace Prize! I proposed to them, to give it post mortem to Gandhi.
STANDARD: Your presidential term is over. And now?
Mujica: Now I go in direction of my grave. Of course, very slowly (laughs). Death is a part of life. You return to the spring. But until that arrives, I will continue to politicize. I do not believe in a life as a pensioner. I would die of sadness in a corner.
(Camilla Landbø, DER STANDARD, 2.3.2015)
José “Pepe” Mujica (79) was elected for President in 2010. Before becoming deputy, then senator and finally a minister, the former guerilla-leader was imprisoned for 14 years in total until 1985.
Translation by Gewitterland
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