I once went to Germany and they put me in a Mercedes-Benz. The door weighed about 3,000 kilos. They put 40 motorcycles in front and another 40 in back. I was ashamed. Jose Mujica, in the New York Times.
Jose Mujica, former President of Uruguay and my hero. As president, he refused to live in the palace and continued to live in his tiny tin-roofed home. He drove to work every day in a Volkswagen Beetle.
“I was ashamed.”
He is mortally ill with cancer and chooses to reflect, eloquently, on our consumerist world. I am an absolute heretic on world leaders and their phalanx of bodyguards and bullet-proof limousines. I want my leader to drive his own car or ride his own bike and shop for her own groceries and get stuck in traffic like the rest of us. People will tell me that’s not possible. I believe it’s “not possible” because nobody does it, and one of the reasons some delusional idiot wants to take a shot at a leader is precisely because he has never seen him pay for his own groceries.