José Mujica, 89, is battling cancer (Dado Galdieri/NYT)
A decade ago, the world had a fleeting fascination with José Mujica. He was Uruguay’s informal president who had shunned his country’s presidential palace to live in a small tin-roofed house with his wife and three-legged dog.
In speeches to world leaders, interviews with foreign journalists and documentaries on Netflix, Pepe Mujica, as he is universally known, shared countless anecdotes from a life worthy of a movie. He has robbed banks as a leftist urban guerrilla; survived 13 years as a political prisoner, even befriending a frog while in a hole in the ground; and helped lead the transformation of his small South American nation into one of the healthiest, most socially liberal democracies in the world.
But Mujica’s legacy will be more than just his colorful history and commitment to austerity. He became one of Latin America’s most influential and important figures in large part because of his outspoken philosophy about the path to a better society and a happier life.
Now, as he himself says, he is fighting death. In April he announced that he would undergo radiotherapy to treat a tumor in his esophagus. At 89, and already diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, he admitted that the road to recovery would be arduous.
Last week I traveled to the outskirts of Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, to visit Mujica in his three-room home, filled with books and jars of pickled vegetables, on the small farm where he has grown chrysanthemums for decades. As the sun set on a winter day, Mujica bundled up in a winter jacket and wool cap in front of a wood-burning stove. The treatment had left him weak and he barely ate.
“You have to bear in mind that you are talking to a weird old man,” he said, leaning in to look at me closely, a gleam in his eyes. “I don’t fit in today’s world.”
And so we begin.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
José Mujica is undergoing radiation therapy for a tumor in his esophagus (Dado Galdieri/NYT)
How is your health?
I had a radiological treatment. According to the doctors, it went well, but I am devastated.
(Without being asked, he added that he believes that humanity, as it stands, is doomed.)
Why do you say that?
Because it wastes a lot of time. You can live more peacefully. Look, Uruguay has 3.5 million inhabitants. It imports 27 million pairs of shoes. We make rubbish. We work in misery. For what?
You are free when you escape the law of necessity, when you spend time in your life doing whatever comes to mind. If your needs are multiplying, you spend time in your life meeting them.
Now, humans can create infinite needs. It turns out that the market dominates us and takes all the time in our lives.
Humanity needs to work less, have more free time and be more sober. Why so much rubbish? Why change the car? Change the refrigerator?
Because life is one and it goes away. We must give meaning to life. We must fight for human happiness. Not just for wealth.
Do you think humanity can change?
It could change. But the market is very strong. It has generated a subliminal culture that dominates our instinct. It is subjective. It is not conscious. It has made us voracious buyers. We live to buy. And we live to pay. And credit is a religion. So we are like coiled.
It seems like he doesn’t have much hope.
I have it biologically because I believe in man. But when I think, I am pessimistic.
However, his speeches usually have a positive message.
Yes, because life is beautiful. With all its twists and turns, I love life. And I am losing it because I am at the point of leaving. What is the meaning of life that we can give it? Man, compared to other animals, has the ability to find a reason for his life.
Or not. If he doesn’t find it, the market will keep him paying for it for the rest of his life.
If you find it, you will have something to live for. For those who investigate, for those who like music, for those who have a passion for sports, something. Something that will fill your life.
Mujica’s three-bedroom house. He turned down the presidential palace to live here (Dado Galdieri/NYT)
Why did you decide to live in your own house during your presidency?
Because there are cultural vestiges of feudalism. Within the Republic. The red carpet. Those who blow the horn. And the president likes to be flattered.
I went to Germany once. They put me in a Mercedes-Benz. The door weighed about 3000 kilos. They put 40 motorcycles in the back and 40 others. I was embarrassed.
They have a house for the president. Four stories high. To have a cup of tea you have to walk three blocks. Useless. It would be good for building a high school.
How would you like to be remembered?
Ah, like what I am: a crazy old man.
Is that all? He did a lot of things.
I have one thing. The magic of words.
The book is the greatest invention of man. It is a pity that people read so little. They don’t have time.
Nowadays people read a lot on their phones.
Four years ago I threw it away. It drove me crazy. All day long talking nonsense.
Because I want to talk to myself. Learn to talk to the one inside us. The one who saved my life. And since I was alone for many years, I stayed with him.
Sometimes I go out on the tractor. I stop to watch a little bird making its nest. Because he was born with the program. He’s already an architect, nobody taught him. Do you know the ovenbirds? They’re perfect bricklayers, those guys.
I admire nature. I almost have a kind of pantheism. You have to have eyes to see.
Ants are the most communist thing there is. They are much older and will outlive us. All hive creatures are very strong.
Ornaments and mementos in Mujica’s home (Dado Galdieri/NYT)
Back to phones: Are you saying they are too much for us?
It’s not the phone’s fault. It’s us who are not up to date with technology. We make disastrous use of it.
Because a young man walks around with a university in his pocket. It’s wonderful. But no, we are advancing more technologically than in values.
However, it is in the digital world that much of life is lived today.
Nothing replaces this. (Points to the two of us talking.) This is non-transferable. We don’t just talk with words. We communicate with gestures, with the skin. Direct communication is irreplaceable.
We are not that robotic. Humans are very emotional animals, who learned to think, but they are emotional first. And they believe that they decide with their heads. Many times the head finds the arguments to justify the decisions that the gut made. We are not as conscious as we seem.
And that’s fine. Because that mechanism is used to live. It’s like the cow that goes to the green. If there’s green, there’s food. And it’s going to be difficult to give up what they are.
You have said in the past that you do not believe in God. What is your view of God at this point in your life?
Sixty percent of humanity believes in something and that must be respected. There are questions without answers. What is the meaning of life? Where do we come from, where are we going?
We do not resign ourselves to the fact that we are an ant in the infinity of the universe. We need God’s hope because we would like to live.
“With all its vicissitudes, I love life,” Mujica said. “And I am losing it because I am at the point of leaving.” (Dado Galdieri/NYT)
Do you have some kind of God?
No. I have a lot of respect for people who believe. It is a kind of consolation in the face of the idea of death.
Because the contradiction of life is that it is a biological program that is made for you to fight to live. But from the moment the program starts you are condemned to die.
It seems that biology is an important part of your worldview.
We are interdependent. We could not live without the prokaryotes that we have in our intestines. We depend on a number of bugs that we cannot even see. Life is a chain and it is still full of mysteries.
I hope that human life will be prolonged, but I am afraid. There are many madmen with atomic weapons. There is a lot of fanaticism. We have to build windmills, an energy change. And no, we spend money on weapons.
What an animal, eh? What a complicated animal man is: he is intelligent and stupid.
© The New York Times 2024.
