The former president of Frente Amplio José Mujica received the team of Cyclingthe journalist of daily lifeon his farm in Rincón del Cerro, and shared his vision of the international situation.
How did you experience Donald Trump’s victory in the United States?
A disaster of democracy. If a country like the United States, with the universities it has and the intelligence it has, elects him as president, it will close its doors and leave. Cities are also eating the pill. The people voted for [el presidente argentino, Javier] Milei. But the German people voted for [Adolf] Hitler. People make mistakes too.
And what explains the fact that Milei is in Argentina and Trump in the United States?
The disenchantment that inflation has produced in Argentina. It’s terrible. Germany’s Weimar Republic was killed by hyperinflation and was Hitler’s gateway, with all the consequences that brought. And the thing about Trump is one thing…it’s not that I was in love with the other candidate [en referencia a Kamala Harris]please. But Trump is unpresentable, he is a criminal, he has done no harm. The mentality he has with women… he has no shame. Everything is. Trump has every decalogue of shit a man can have. Stop for a bit.
Do you think he also has fascist traits?
Yes, it is. And what’s more, the policy that is being developed… says that it will even involve the military. It is believed that the United States cannot have coups because there is no Yankee embassy, but this old man threatens anything.
Are you worried about the progression of the far right in Europe?
Yes, there is progress, and the worst is that there is also progress in the ideological field. But that doesn’t worry me so much, I worry about left field, that there is no creativity for new thinking, and they are looking for answers in old books. The world that is coming is different, it is something else, we must have the audacity to think with another freedom in our heads. What was will no longer be. It’s another world that’s coming, and we have to situate ourselves. We talk about renewal all the time, and the least we can do is that of renewal in the field of thought. I cannot believe that humanity is being amputated in this form of liberal democracy, which is not even liberal and which sometimes ends up not even being a democracy. I believe that humans can build better societies and should fight to build them, and we must be part of this renewal, we cannot be satisfied with the past, we must learn from our own mistakes. When I read the newspaper, I find people who think today as they did 40 or 50 years ago, as if nothing had happened in the world. I can read you the political pages of The countryI’m surprised, because there are guys who haven’t spoken to anyone, to us, for 30 years, who have no idea what we think, and yet they judge by the pattern they 50 years ago, it’s as if nothing had happened in the world. What stagnation.
This democracy is less and less liberal. We must respect liberalism, liberalism was a step forward from a civilizational point of view, but what there is now is less and less liberalism, less tolerance for what is different. Liberalism was a step forward in learning to live with differences. Of course, this deifies the market, but it goes beyond the market. What we have today is called liberalism, it predates liberalism in its keys.
This madman from Argentina calls himself libertarian, which offends the anarchists. What kind of libertarian is this shit? This is a blatant capitalist statement, from the big whore who attacks the state. Yes, I know that the libertarian is against the State, but he is against the exploitation of man by man. What are you going to call that a libertarian? Even your language changes.
How do you see the situation in Venezuela?
I don’t confuse [el expresidente Hugo] Chávez with [Nicolás] Wall. Chávez could be criticized for certain romantic things, but Chávez was an open man, he lost the elections and he respected them. We cannot play with democracy and dictatorship. There are political prisoners and above all torture. I don’t share this, I can’t wear this. Never. In fucking life.
In Bolivia, the internal situation of the Movement towards Socialism is complicated. Did you talk about it with Evo Morales?
No, I didn’t speak. I’m broke. It seems that revolutions swallow up their children. And sometimes personalism appears. “I am irreplaceable.” I don’t believe in personal projects. The projects are collective or they do not last. And I’ve said it my whole life. Because human life is not enough, no one is irreplaceable, and we must focus on permanent renewal, and for this we must give people the opportunity to self-assimilate. What are you going to have problems with? Yes, but you are going to have more problems with irreplaceable phenomena, with stars which are insurmountable. Well… You die and the world keeps spinning and nothing happens. But what happened in Bolivia hurts me terribly because they threaten to see the right win, in silence.
