Brutal honesty of President of Uruguay surprising Rio +20 summit speech

[Magda Hassan]

Found an English transcript for it!

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To all of the authorities present here,

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from every latitude and organization,

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thank you very much.

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I want to thank the people of Brazil

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and Mrs. President.

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Thank you all for the good faith

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undoubtedly expressed by all of the speakers that preceded me.

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We hereby express our innermost will as rulers,

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to adhere to all the agreements our wretched humanity, may chance to subscribe.

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Notwithstanding,

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let us take this opportunity to ask some questions out loud.

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All afternoon long, we have been talking about sustainable development,

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about rescuing the masses from the claws of poverty.

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What is it that flutters within our minds?

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Is it the model of development and consumption, which is shaped after that of affluent societies?

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I ask this question: What would happen to this planet if the people of India had the same number of cars per family as the Germans?

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How much oxygen would there be left for us to breathe?

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More clearly:

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Does the world today have the material elements to enable 7 or 8 billion people to enjoy the same level of consumption and squandering as the most affluent Western societies?

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Will that ever be possible?

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Or will we have to start a different type of discussion one day?

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Because we have created this civilization in which we live: the progeny of the market, of the competition, which has begotten prodigious and explosive material progress.

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But the market economy has created market societies.

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And it has given us this globalization, which means being aware of the whole planet.

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Are we ruling over globalization or is globalization ruling over us?

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Is it possible to speak of solidarity and of "being all together" in an economy based on ruthless competition?

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How far does our fraternity go?

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I am not saying any of to undermine the importance of this event.

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On the contrary, the challenge ahead of us is of a colossal magnitude

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and the great crisis is not an ecological crisis, but rather a political one.

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Today, man does not govern the forces he has unleashed,

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but rather, it is these forces that govern man; and life.

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Because we do not come into this planet simply to develop, just like that, indiscriminately.

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We come into this planet to be happy.

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Because life is short and it slips away from us.

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And no material belonging is worth as much as life, and this is fundamental.

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But if life is going to slip through my fingers,

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working and over-working in order to be able to consume more,

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and the consumer society is the engine

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because ultimately, if consumption is paralyzed, the economy stops,

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and if you stop economy, the ghost of stagnation appears for each one of us,

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but it is this hyper-consumption that is harming the planet.

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And this hyper-consumption needs to be generated, making things that have a short useful life, in order to sell a lot.

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Thus, a light bulb cannot last longer than 1000 hours.

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But there are light bulbs that last 100,000!

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But these cannot be manufactured,

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because the problem is the market, because we have to work

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and we have to sustain a civilization of "use and discard",

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and so, we are trapped in a vicious cycle.

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These are problems of a political nature,

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which are showing us that it's time to start fighting for a different culture.

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I'm not talking about returning to the days of the caveman, or erecting a "monument to backwardness."

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But we cannot continue like this, indefinitely, being ruled by the market,

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on the contrary, we have to rule over the market.

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This is why I say, in my humble way of thinking, that the problem we are facing is political.

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The old thinkers. Epicurus, Seneca and even the Aymara put it this way,

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"a poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more."

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This is a cultural issue.

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So I salute the efforts and agreements being made.

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And I will adhere to them, as a ruler.

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I know some things I'm saying are not easy to digest.

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But we must realize that the water crisis and the aggression to the environment is not the cause.

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The cause is the model of civilization that we have created.

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And the thing we have to re-examine is our way of life.

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I belong to a small country well endowed with natural resources for life.

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In my country, there are a bit more than 3 million people.

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But there are about 13 million cows, some of the best in the world.

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And about 8 or 10 million excellent sheep.

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My country is an exporter of food, dairy, meat.

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It is a low-relief plain and almost 90% of the land is fertile.

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My fellow workers, fought hard for the 8 hour workday.

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And now they are making that 6 hours.

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But the person who works 6 hours, gets two jobs, therefore, he works longer than before.

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But why?

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Because he needs to make monthly payments for: the motorcycle, the car, more and more payments,

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and when he's done with that, he realizes he is a rheumatic old man, like me, and his life is already over.

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And one asks this question: Is this the fate of human life?

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These things I say are very basic:

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Development cannot go against happiness.

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It has to work in favor of human happiness, of love on Earth, human relationships, caring for children, having friends, having our basic needs covered.

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Precisely because this is the most precious treasure we have.

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When we fight for the environment, we must remember that the essential element of the environment is called human happiness.

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Thank you.