Nothing is worth more than a life, fight for happiness: Pepe Mujica

But that 10% of the history of man above the Earth is responsible for our civilization that gave us beautiful things. After all, we live 40 years longer in this century than we did 100 years ago on average. I know there is hunger, but there is twice the population, and twice the amount of food. Too bad we throw away almost 30% of the food we produce, we don’t even give it to the dogs, and we don’t even give it to poor people. Those are the contradictions of our civilization, naked, clear, aggressive, that give us reason, they charge us the batteries to continue fighting.

Never has man had so much as today, never so much knowledge. I never tire of repeating and remembering the millions of dollars per minute that are spent in the world on military budgets. To say that there is no money in this world, for a gigantic Marshall Plan that will cover the entire earth in favor of the poor, to integrate human life. Telling me that there are no resources is not being ashamed.

When they tell us that the second fortune in the world, spending a million dollars a day, would have to live 220 years to be able to spend what it has, but still could not, because with an interest rate of 2-3% per year, it has 4 million dollars per day. And if we say that in this world there is no money, it is because we have political cowardice, not to charge and ask, and to put our hands in the pockets of those who can.

That is why we are in politics, and that is why we fight in politics, because, after all, simplifying, is cutting the bacon a little thicker in favor of the weakest. Because politics is choosing decisions, and choosing decisions that favor one and can harm another. And you are with the majority or you are with the minority and there is no middle ground, you cannot be neutral, and you have to take sides.

But apart from this companions, there is another thing. There is one thing more important than justice, some of us wanted to form a world that was a valley of tears to go to paradise, I am not taking it to you. Paradise is this, or this is the condemnation, and it is this life that must be fought so that people live better, and there is no middle ground.

So, the first value, and this makes sense if we talk about central, elemental and forgotten things, I do not suck the finger of a tribute, from here I am going to leave the same old man that I am. What makes sense is to think, because there are many young people, and if you are young you have to know this: life escapes you, and if it goes minute by minute, and you cannot go to the supermarket to buy life, then fight to live it , for giving content to life.

You can, in relative terms, be the author of the path of your own life. You are not like a vegetable that lives because it was born. After being born you can give a content, or not. Or you can alienate your life and let the market buy it for you, and you spend your whole life paying cards and buying gadgets, and you give it a go. And in the end afterwards you look like an old man like me. All full of rheumatism, you peeled yourself and what did you do in this world?

But if you had a dream and you fought for a hope, and you tried to transmit to those who remain, perhaps a small breath will remain rolling, in the hills, in the seas, a pale memory that is worth more than a monument, than a book, that a hymn, than a poetry. The human hope that is being realized in the new generations.

Comrades, nothing is worth more than life, fight for happiness. And happiness is giving content to life, and towards life, and not letting it be stolen from you. And for that there is no recipe, it is here, in the conscience. If you use the wonderful chance of being born, almost miraculous.

Por lo demás, un segundo consejo a los jóvenes, lo imposible cuesta un poco más. Y derrotados, son solo aquellos que bajan los brazos, y se entregan. La vida te puede dar mil tropezones, en todos los órdenes, en el amor, en el trabajo, en la aventura de lo que estás pensando, en los sueños que piensas concretar, pero una y mil veces estás hecho con fuerzas para volverte a levantar y volver a empezar, porque lo importante, es el camino. No hay una meta, no hay un arco del triunfo, no hay un paraíso que nos recibe, no hay odaliscas que te van a recibir porque moriste en la guerra, no, la quedaste y punto.

No, what there is is something else, it is the beauty of living to the fullest, of wanting life, in any circumstance and fighting for it, and trying to transmit it. Because life is not just receiving, it is first of all giving, something that we have. And as fucked up as you are, you always have something to give to others.

He was a kid in a country they called the little Switzerland of America, and in the 1940s they are going to study all of Latin America, we had been privileged children, bastards of the English empire, and we did quite well. As the Argentine Republic that was proud among the powerful of the world, The Silver River was something different from the rest of Latin America, we seemed almost half European, and until now it seemed that we were. But that was a mirage, step, the world rearranged itself after the war, the terms of trade came, we began to owe the international monetary fund, and that was my youth. From something that was very tall, and beautiful and crumbling. And there is nothing more troubled than one that, being well, collapses. He who is used to being bad, resigns himself.

That is why I belong to a movement that hit its mouth, and went out to try to change the world, and they ground us to a stick. We cherished our dreams, they were times when we thought that the dictatorship of the proletariat was an important explanation of the class struggle and naturally, each generation commits its vicissitudes. But that old fire that we carried inside was so great that it allowed us to reach today, being aware of the mistakes we made, but being aware of the gigantic generosity with which we embrace life.

And when we see a world full of pots, silver, resources … God save me, it seems that their soul breaks for lending you a car, or shaking hands with a beggar, or picking up a dog and feeding him. What do I know, I have not seen the world more machete than the one we live in. I long for that youth, with an open heart, who mistakenly gave himself up and gave everything, and kept nothing for himself.

I do not deny the past, I do not deny mistakes, life is a continuous learning and is full of dead roads and tramples. But the old causes, which pushed us, are present, in the world in which we live. Never has so much concentration of wealth been seen, never has so much inequality been seen in a world that has so many resources, and we have so many possibilities. I believe and am confident that man is capable of building infinitely better societies, if he has the courage to look at the course of older societies, which are at the bottom of the history of humanity. Not to return to the caveman, but to learn the generosity that defending life implies, to understand this, to understand the elementary, the simplest, to be happy we need the lives of others. Individuals alone, we are nothing. Individuals depend on society, and on the progress of society, and it is what allows us to enrich and permanently improve our lives. Therefore, collective causes must be raised, and in this story, and at this moment, that has a name. In this Latin America, the struggle to get closer, the struggle to integrate ourselves, the struggle to recreate a culture that respects diversity, but expresses that deep and hidden “we” that comes from the shaping of our own history. We can and we must, but it will be possible, if there is political will, if there is commitment.

And to young people, if you want to live happily, raise an idea to believe in, live to serve that idea, do not let yourself be enslaved by the market. The world that we will have will be the one that we are capable of achieving, and because we Latin Americans have to be, because we have arrived late and from behind, a reservoir of the best of human civilization, a continent of peace, a continent of justice, a continent of solidarity, a continent where it is beautiful to be born and die, a continent that says yes to justice, a continent without hatred, a continent without revenge, a continent that dignifies the existence of man above the Earth, as an animal that cares for the marvelous of creation that means this ship of life that is the planet. Give content to existence, because if you don’t do it consciously, the content will be the fee you have to pay every end of the month, for the new gadget you have to buy and so on until the end of your days, until one day the bones do not rise, and goodbye, there is not of you, neither the memory nor the breath.

There are other things besides youth, the irreverence of looking in the mirror, and committing to reality. For that you can be young, old, middle-aged, you don’t have to divide the world into men, women, blacks, and yellows; It must be divided into two sectors, those that commit, and those that do not commit. And to commit is to embrace a cause.

I know that I am getting closer to time, for one to leave, at any moment you left, that’s right. I still have not been able to believe in the afterlife, or in God. I respect all the religions in pile, do you know why? Because I have seen in a hospital ward, the enormous service that they render to the good by dying, and for that reason if I cannot believe, I do not laugh at religions, I respect them. They have made me think; for its validity in all times and in all ages, and in all corners of the history of man on the planet who always believes in something, that there is no more utopian creature than man, for that reason, because he is capable of build the need for an afterlife.

One of these days I will be less than dust, perhaps, there will be a dove circling, on someone’s head.

Thanks Ecuador, a hug to all. “