Jose 'Pepe' Mujica: 'It's one thing to be passionate and convinced of what you're defending and anot
YESTERD AT 22:15
Former Uruguay president José ‘Pepe’ Mujica on heroes and leaders, fanaticism and feminism, Argentina and the River Plate and the meaning of his life.
JORGE FONTEVECCHIA
Cofundador de Editorial Perfil - CEO de Perfil Network.
‘Pepe’ Mujica says he has won the respect of almost everybody, "although many still ignore” him. Even so, he sends a clear message to anybody listening to him in Argentina: in his traditional, folksy style he suggests: "Sip a mate with those who disagree with you and try to understand how they think."
The former Uruguayan president highlights "the slightly social democratic" character of all his compatriots, recognising that he is the most Peronist of all his Frente Amplio comrades. And he shows joy over the possible return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the epresidency in Brazil, affirming: "He’s more intelligent and docile than Jair Bolsonaro."
You said: “The only merit we might have is that over time we have managed to maintain continuity in certain issues and we are not revolutionaries in the sense of being able to change everything. We change things gradually but we don’t tear down everything done by others. This gives us a certain stability.” Here in Argentina we interpret that Uruguay must thus have discovered at some point that confrontation was not the correct course. Was that so?
That’s too rational, as if all society could be contained within the head of an individual. A society is an accumulation of experiences, of comings and goings with the result meeting them in the middle. We’re not as perfect as we might appear but we have an important degree of stability, when compared with the recent history of Latin America. We naturally have our contradictions. Modern societies are increasingly difficult because of the great diversity of interests they contain, a rising trend.
More:
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin-america/jose-pepe-mujica-its-one-thing-to-be-passionate-and-convinced-of-what-youre-defending-and-another-thing-to-fall-into-fanaticism.phtml