The former president of the Frente Amplio José Mujica received the team of Cyclethe journalist of the dailyin his farm in Rincón del Cerro, and shared his vision of the international situation.
How did you see Donald Trump’s victory in the United States?
A disaster of democracy. If a country like the United States, with the universities it has, with the intelligence it has, elects that as its president, it will close and let’s go. The towns eat the pill too. The people voted for (Argentine President 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 is in the United States?
The disenchantment that inflation produced in Argentina. It’s terrible. The Weimar Republic in Germany was killed by hyperinflation, and was Hitler’s gateway, with all the consequences it had. And the Trump thing is one thing… it’s not that I was in love with the other candidate (in reference to Kamala Harris), please. But Trump is unpresentable, he is a criminal, he has done any damage. The mentality he has with women… he has no shame. Anything is. Trump has all the decalogue of shit that a man can have. Stop a little.
Do you think it has some fascist traits too?
Yes, it has. And furthermore, the policy that is being formed… says that it is going to involve even the military. One thinks that the United States cannot have coups d’état because there is no Yankee embassy, but this old man threatens anything.
Are you worried about the advance of the far right in Europe?
Yes, there is progress, and the worst thing is that there is progress in the ideological field as well. But I’m not so worried about that, I’m worried about the left field, that there is no creativity of new thinking, and they are looking for answers in old books. The world that is coming is different, it is something else, we have to have the audacity to think with another freedom in our heads. What was will no longer be. It is another world that is coming, and we have to locate ourselves. There is talk all the time about renewal, and the least there is is renewal in the field of thought. I cannot believe that humanity is amputated in this form of liberal democracy, which is not even liberal and sometimes ends up not even being a democracy. I think that humans can build better societies and should fight to build them, and we have to be part of that renewal, we cannot be satisfied with the past, we have to learn from our own mistakes. When I read the newspaper I find people who today think like 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 am amazed, because there are guys who have not spoken to anyone, to us, for 30 years, who have no idea what we think, and yet they judge by the scheme they have from 50 years ago, it is as if there were no nothing happened in the world. What stagnation.
This democracy is increasingly 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 leap to learn to live with differences. Of course it deifies the market, but it goes beyond the market. What we have today is called liberism, it is prior to liberalism in its keys.
This crazy guy from Argentina calls himself a libertarian, that’s offending anarchists. What kind of libertarian is that shit? It is a blatant capitalist statement, from the big whore, who takes on the State. Yes, I know that the libertarian is against the State, but he is against the exploitation of man by man. How are you going to call that libertarian? Even your language changes.
How do you see the situation in Venezuela?
I do not confuse (former President Hugo) Chávez with (Nicolás) Maduro. Chávez could be criticized for some things as romantic, but Chávez was an open guy, he lost elections and respected them. You cannot play with democracy and dictatorship. There are political prisoners and, above all, torture. I don’t share that, I can’t carry that. Never. In fucking life.
In Bolivia the internal situation of the Movement towards Socialism is complicated. Have you talked about this with Evo Morales?
No, I haven’t spoken. I’m broke. It seems that revolutions swallow their children. And sometimes personalism appears. “I am irreplaceable.” I don’t believe in the personal project. The projects are collective or they do not last. And I’ve said it all my 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 process themselves. What are you going to have problems with? Yes, but you are going to have more problems with the irreplaceable phenomena, with the stars that are insurmountable. Bah… You die and the world keeps spinning and nothing happens. But what happened in Bolivia hurts me horribly because they are threatening that the right will win, quietly.
Source: www.eldiario.es
