In Conversation: Interview with Mauricio Rabuffetti, Uruguayan journalist

 

Name: Mauricio Rabuffetti
Born: United States, 1975
Nationality: Uruguayan
Work: Senior Economic Editor at AFP news agency, freelance journalist, filmmaker, author.
Experience: AFP, The Guardian, New York Times, France 2, TV Globo, El Espectador (radio), NTN24, Univisión, El País (Uruguay)
Media routine: Daily media routine: El País (Uruguay), El Observador (Uruguay), New York Times, La Nacion (Argentina), radio programmes
Last books read: La democracia como problema, by Jorge Barreiro

Uruguay, as each country inevitably does after an election cycle, has entered a period of change. The ruling party (the Broad Front) may be the same, but the president is noticeably different. The sash is no longer worn by an iconic, shabbily-dressed, moustached former guerilla — it’s now worn by a smiling, politically experienced oncologist.

Former president Jose “Pepe” Mujica — a man whose extraordinary life seems almost to have been created in the offices of Hollywood screenwriters — drew the attention of countless journalists and op-ed writers to Argentina’s neighbour. But often, the resulting articles focused only on the man himself.

As a result, the most important parts of his presidency — his ability to govern, his effectiveness, his impact on Uruguay and its people — were ignored, playing second fiddle to the man whose story was larger than life itself.

Mauricio Rabuffetti, a Uruguayan journalist with experience far beyond the borders of the River Plate, is better positioned than most to assess the immediate future of his country and the legacy of Mujica’s time in office.

Now promoting the third edition of his sprawling “journalistic book,” Jose Mujica: La Revolucion Tranquila, Rabuffetti dropped into the Herald’s offices a short while ago to talk about the now-departed president, his impact on the region and what will change in Uruguay under the freshly-elected Tabaré Vázquez.

– – –

Tell me a little bit about what motivated you to write about Mujica.

Somebody called me (laughs). In truth, my first instinct was to say no, there are so many books about him. A publisher called me… he told me that what he wanted to do was prepare a different book, a book that was rich enough to be read by people in all of Latin America. My idea was then to approach Mujica more in a form closer to an essay… it’s a journalistic book with lots of information, analysis, and it’s an exercise in trying to understand the person. The idea was to explain why Mujica became a person with so much influence around the world — which is uncommon for a president of Uruguay…

It’s uncommon, for example, for much of the world to know a Uruguayan president…

Exactly.

I’m interested to know what you think are some of the biggest misconceptions or even disappointments about him. Because his name is so well-known, more than his policies…

I don’t know if they are misconceptions but the main thing that people know is that he was a fighter and he was in prison with his compañeros… but — independent of the methods he chose, whether you agree with them or not — he has always been a fighter for social justice. There is another… I don’t know if it’s a misconception but the influence of his speech against mass consumption (at a Rio + 20 summit on sustainable development, which drew worldwide attention) is really low in his own country…

As in, it hasn’t had as much of an impact as he would have hoped?

When you live in a country, it has some very urgent needs. We (Uruguayans) maybe don’t care as much as someone outside the country about messages. You need solutions. For the rest of the world, these moments were big things but for us, we have an old guerilla who decided to be a political leader, telling us that the way we are living is not sustainable and asking you why you are living that way. This is the point where my analysis starts. Why is Mujica so influential? Why is he so famous? A lot of people in Uruguay don’t understand why.

‘Why is Mujica so influential? Why is he so famous? A lot of people in Uruguay don’t understand why.’

What do Uruguayans feel about the way Mujica lives his life? It interests me because Tabaré Vázquez seems to be a very different man, despite being from the same party.

This is a very interesting question. His way of living is the way of living for the majority of Uruguayans. Now he’s a middle-class man, he’s not rich, nor poor and he lives in a very simple way. Some media like to say he’s the poorest president in the world, which is not true. I include in the book a summary of the amount of money he has, his wealth. He has more than US$200,000, which is considerable I guess. But he lives in his house, in a very simple way and the Uruguayan politicians in the majority are not people who…

Who show off their wealth?

The country is not like that. Now it’s changed a little bit – with cars, with cellphones – but people generally don’t want to show off their wealth.

I would consider that different to here (in Argentina).

We have a shared culture with Argentina but it’s very different. Rich people that decide to start a political career, don’t wish to show it off. Mujica has 60 years of… political activity, let’s put it that way…

When you see profiles of Mujica, written in other newspapers, are there a lot of inaccuracies? A lot of romanticizing the truth, say with the Tupamaros?

Oh yeah. Maybe not with the guerillas, you have many versions of that history but with Mujica, there is romanticizing but I understand that. If you come from a country with politicians living in a bubble, surrounded by luxury goods — and I’m not speaking about European countries only…

Oh yeah. Maybe not with the guerillas, you have many versions of that history but with Mujica, there is romanticizing but I understand that. If you come from a country with politicians living in a bubble, surrounded by luxury goods – and I’m not speaking about European countries only to…

No, but I’m thinking of mine as you say that (laughs).

The fact of having a country where the president is walking from his office to a restaurant for lunch… that’s the reason why all the profiles start with ‘Mujica is like this.’ It’s because it’s so different. We all have that image of a president surrounded by lots of people, with incredible chauffeured, armoured cars. Mujica was in a small humble car and always in the front seat. Never in the back.

This book, I tried to be very neutral. It’s important to do an exercise of explanation. It’s someone who has dark sides and very wonderful sides – in my opinion, it was absolutely necessary to be in the middle of the cancha. As neutral as possible. That allows me to explain a lot of what he does that was very welcome and other things where he failed.

And what have been the biggest failures, for you?

The main failure: education. No-one in Uruguay agrees with his idea of having a deep reform of education.

What percentage of people are in private education in Uruguay? Is it high?

I don’t have it right here but the number (of people in private education) is growing, the number of people going to private schools. In Uruguay the education system is key to integration. To have a society where equality is a value applied to real life. It’s the most important ways of giving people the same opportunities when they start. In the case of Uruguay, that has been changing for years and more and more are going to private schools, private universities. I mean, I went to a private school – I went to a French school to ensure I learnt French – but it wasn’t because of problems is the system of private education. But now, more and more middle-class families are sending their kids to private schools.

And Mujica made big promises to overhaul this?

His main promise when he came to power, his inauguration was ‘Educacion, educacion, educacion.’ And he promised, not literally of course, to write ‘educacion’ a hundred times a day. He couldn’t do the reform.

Why was that?

Part of his party simply didn’t follow the same path he took. He couldn’t bring them (along). Negotiations failed, the unions were responsible too. Nobody in Uruguay, many in the political system, the teachers… they didn’t know where they wanted to go with the reform. It’s really a huge problem, because no one knows exactly what they want. That’s my opinion, my reading.

What will change this time, under Vázquez? He comes across as a much more traditional politician.

Absolutely. You know what happened when after Lula, Rousseff took power? I was covering Brazil at the time then and the first thing that happened was many correspondents asked themselves ‘What are we going to do for the next four years?’ Because they had covered a president that received every political leader in the world, a president who spent right years in power, who had charisma, who travelled the world with a crazy frequency, the economy… that was the main thing that happened that January.

All the correspondents left?

A lot of the foreign correspondents saw Dilma, a technocratic leader, with a low-profile. They asked whether she was a leader or a manager.

But at least now you have someone that’s been there before.

Of course, I don’t mean to compare that change to this. It won’t be the same as that. But Mujica has such a high international profile that that is the first thing that will change. Vazquez is not worried, he’s not trying to have an international profile. I’m not saying Mujica is trying to be famous, but he is internationally famous. Vázquez will be much more concentrated on internal things — on infrastructure, on education.

Are the changes in the Congress going to affect him a lot?

He will have the absolute majority in both chambers. But Mujica has the most important number of representatives and chambers which means he will have a lot of power. And Mujica is a senator. The way they use their power is very different. Vázquez is very quiet, very strategic. He has a lot of people who he has confidence in to manage. Mujica is much more like “everything” — (but) you don’t have all the time to be everywhere.

‘Vázquez is very quiet, very strategic. He has a lot of people who he has confidence in to manage. Mujica is much more like “everything” — (but) you don’t have all the time to be everywhere.’

Will Vázquez alter foreign policy? Mujica is quite keen on the Mercosur and supporting other regional presidents, like Brazil, Venezuela. Will Vázquez be just as forthcoming?

It’s a good question. Mujica had the idea that Brazil was very important to help him. With Vázquez, I think he will be more firm with some things. For him, with the markets, the Mercosur is not working, clearly not working and he has already said that he and his minister will try and get the Mercosur open to other markets, open to other countries. Uruguay is trying in a non-direct way to approach the Trans-Pacific Partnership through the alliance of Colombia, Mexico and Chile. There’s another difference too — Vazquez will make a politician be in charge of foreign policy, Mujica kept a diplomat there. When you are a politician, you have more possibilities. A diplomat is more the function of a strategy.

Diplomats tend to be more loyal.

Exactly. Diplomats tell me that one of the problems of Mujica is that he wasn’t concerned enough about foreign policy strategy at all. I think with Argentina, that’s the case. It wasn’t a strategy. The only strategy was to try and get it to work.

What’s Vazquez’s big legislative hook? What will he be desperate to push through?

He did a lot first term, but his first presidency concerned abortion and also, the time when the political system decided to do something about smoking. He decided to proceed with executive action, as a doctor, he wanted to do. Some argued it was against personal liberties… I was very surprised how easy it was for the country to adapt. This time, I really think he will have a huge challenge in two main areas — one is security…

That’s really interesting to me. Having lived in capital cities all of my life, I often find people’s perceptions of crime to be way higher than crime levels are.

Not all Uruguayans feel like that but certain kinds of crime — the statistics back this up. Society, obviously you can’t compare Uruguay to Mexico but if you compare it to 10 years ago, you have different types of situations and it has changed. Vázquez is showing signs he will do something with education and security.

It’s interesting, the opposition definitely made that a theme during the election.

Yeah, sure, but you have to think that even if Vazquez didn’t decide not to participate in the debates – normally, he doesn’t particularly like to – he will have to deal with a demand that is concentrated in Montevideo and the Frente Amplio has been in charge there for years. He will keep the same interior minister and that’s very surprising because he was one of the most-criticized ministers on Mujica’s team. My question for Vazquez would be are you doing that because you really trust him, or because the opposition criticized him so much and the coalition so much and you want to show it’s not as bad as they say. I don’t know. Maybe he trusts him, it’s definitely not because of statistics.

It’s definitely going to be a very different style. Vazquez is more of a manager, Mujica is more social-orientated. One of the main, the key things to understand the success of Mujica is his incredible capacity to communicate his ideas in different situations to different type of people. Different people with different needs. I use an example from after the Luis Suarez incident at the World Cup with the Italian, Mujica can adapt his speech to different audiences.. according to some Tupamaros, he took the stage after coming out of prison because they decided in a very informal way that he wasn’t a leader – he was a military leader of a group, not a political leader…

And they just decided on him then?

According to some of them, they just decided ‘Ok, you made speeches before, and you love to speak, so go ahead and explain what we want to explain.’ And he took the stage and he did a speech – I have a copy of the original page, the words, where it was first published in a magazine – and it’s very interesting because the speech, in 1985, he defines a lot of things that he still says today. And the way he put things saying ‘we are out of prison, we don’t know what happened for the last 20 years, we need to learn…’ – can you imagine to be for years without reading a newspaper, knowing what happened? And that, according to his companeros, they said ‘Hey, Pepe, you go and explain this.’ And then, history changed, his personal history changed. Now, every president exerts some influence….

Yes, but not every president has cushions with his face on it being sold in Punta del Este

(Laughs) Yes, not everyone has Swedish newspapers publishing interviews with pictures of his car, yes.

The resettling of the Guantanamo detainees was very interesting outside the country because it looks like someone kind of, in an admirable way, standing up for someone that’s been in a similar situation. How is it seen in Uruguay?

The public is divided. This is just a perception, but most of Uruguayans don’t care about having them here. They don’t think it’s a bad idea, nor to receive kids in Syria. For people interested in politics, some journalists trying to explain why, the political and humanitarian reasons, but I don’t have the feeling that people have a huge worry about having these people here. Something interesting is that people have realised that we have 100 people living as refugees in Uruguay and it’s something that we’ve not thought about!

The most interesting thing for me for seeing how many Muslims live in the country!

We have people from Middle East descendants in certain parts of the country. The number of Muslims is very low, but Uruguay is a very secular country. The numbers are low compared to Argentina. We didn’t receive as much immigration as say Brazil. We have mostly Italians, Spanish, French, some British, Argentines, Brazilians, now more from Peru, Bolivia, Chile, there are more jobs as the economy does well.

If I address the ‘hot topic’ internationally… will you still have a marijuana law in five years?

I hope so. I never smoke marijuana in my life. But I really hope we have that law. It’s a very interesting experiment in a part of the world that’s the centre of drug-trafficking, so if that experiment works, maybe the region could learn something about how to cope with drug consumption and drug-trafficking.

I find it very interesting that a doctor, who banned smoking in public places when president, is now going to have to cope with the consequences of a law that wasn’t his idea.

A lot of Uruguayans think like you! There is a difference… the decision of Vazquez to ban smoking in public spaces was a decision for public health, as is the marijuana law, but the marijuana law has other aspects, which is to try to deal with trafficking in a different way, to see what happens. I think, in my personal opinion, it will be very interesting to see what happens. Vazquez is not so convinced about the law, but he has already said he will keep it and he will accept it. There is a logistic problem, the details… production, distribution still need to be worked out. But a huge part of the chapter has begun. The legalization is already in process. Actually, it was legal during the dictatorship. Even if the law in the future is changed, some things will not change. Like the people that grow, that aspect will stay. This is already law and is going. The clubs of people that grow together, they are already functioning and working.

If we were going to sum up Mujica’s presidency, what would come to mind?

A president with a good way, a man who learned a lot during his life and a president who learned that failure is not always a negative thing.
Will he be president again? Or his wife, Lucia Topalansky?

No. He’s almost 80 and he’s not a man who wants power beause he wants power. I don’t think he will be considered as the most important president but he will be remembered by my generation and people over 50. I would like some aspect of his messaging, say frenetic consumption, to get through. Those aspects I agree with.
@urlgoeshere

Originally published in the Buenos Aires Herald, on Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Link: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/188415/%E2%80%98mujica%E2%80%99s-main-failure-education%E2%80%99.