Writer Mario Vargas Llosa in a file photo. EFE//José Jácome
Writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature Mario Vargas Llosa expressed alarm at Vladimir Putin’s offensive against Ukraine in an interview published in the Chilean newspaper La Tercera. “We are in a dangerous moment because Russia has become a dictatorship again with Putin. Putin is a bloodthirsty dictator,” he warned.
According to him, the way it acts in Ukraine “reveals it in all its wickedness, in all its antiquity, in its lack of modernity”. And he explained: “He criticizes Ukraine for being an independent country and not a satellite of Russia, and it cannot be that today in the 21st century, it is unacceptable. Putin’s madness has opened the eyes of many countries…”
For Vargas Llosa, “No one has made the European Union as successful with his stupidities as Putin.”
In addition, Putin asserted: “He is a leader with obvious symptoms of insanity, as Stalin had or had … like the satellites he has formed around himself.”
And he warned:There is always a danger that when he feels defeated or stunted in his ambitions, he will try to fall back on the nuclear factories that Russia has, which could threaten the survival of humanity. That would be a catastrophe for humanity, let’s hope it doesn’t come to such barbarism.”
In addition to analyzing the geopolitical scenario in Europe, Vargas Llosa expressed his particular concern for Latin America. And not just because of the situation in his country, Peru, with a president he describes as “illiterate” and “ignorant,” but because of the general panorama of the region. “Our continent is falling behind at a time when the rest of the world is prospering,” he lamented.
Vargas Llosa believes that the pandemic has been more dramatic in the case of Latin America than in Europe or Asia, where there is social and economic development and, above all, a very advanced process of democratization. “On the other hand, there has unfortunately been a proliferation of populist, demagogic and very irresponsible governments in Latin America that, above all, do not know how to run a country’s economy.. So we have reason to worry that our continent is falling behind at a time when the rest of the world is prospering,” he said.
When journalist Juan Paulo Iglesias asked why, the writer asserted that basically because the best Latin Americans don’t engage in politics, “they despise politics, they have an anti-political attitude, because political life is a very corrupt life , a life highly infected with corruption and beyond because, shall we say, they do not feel that they can do important things for the progress of the countries”.
“Peru isn’t winning, it’s trapped because it voted badly, because it elected an absolutely illiterate president, a person who, shall we say, does not have the necessary information and a government which already shows many symptoms of corruption, misgovernment, irresponsible management. About 70% of Peruvians want it removed,” he said. And he added: “I have a suspicion that he will not complete his tenure.”
For Varga Llosa, the case of Peru is the case of Venezuela, the case of Nicaragua, the case of Cuba, both totalitarian dictatorships.
He also spoke of Argentina as a very dramatic case because it is not moving forward: “There is a rivalry between the president and the vice president who elected him, which does not allow this country to function, which was like the example of Latin America Time of the Liberal Presidents”.
And he remembered that in his neighborhood, in Lima, people weren’t talking about Paris, but about Argentina. “The boys wanted to study at Argentinian universities. We writers would have liked to live in Argentina. Y that Argentina, which was a model for Latin America, is disappearing“.
The catastrophe has a name for writing: “It is Peronism.” “It’s very difficult for me to understand this kind of romanticism that exists in Argentina with Peronism, which was the source of all its ills,” he said.
In his analysis regional exceptions can be found in Ecuador and Uruguay, they are making progress. “Uruguay is much faster than Ecuador because it has a greater democratic tradition than the rest.”
“But Latin America is doing very badly in general. The democratic models are the ones to be followed instead of persisting in this romantic, outdated and ineffective vision of nationalization and press censorship. None of this is successful,” he said.
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