Sekai de ichiban mazushii daitōryō no supīchi

Yoshimi Kusaba, Gaku Nakagawa (ilustrador)

Choubunsha Publishing

2014

32 páginas

1h 4m

ISBN-13: 9784811320670

The Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development was held from June 20 to 22, 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A stirring speech given at the conference by President Jose Mujica of Uruguay is rewritten here in terms easily understood by children. Presented in picture-book form, his words ask profound questions about the true nature of human happiness.
The book begins by describing how delegates to the conference from around the world took their turns offering their views on the future of the earth. Despite growing environmental threats, no particularly new or promising ideas emerged. As the meeting neared its close, Uruguay’s turn arrived. President Mujica stepped onto the dais wearing a modest suit jacket and no necktie. This is the book’s titular character, a man who lives on a farm in the country instead of in the presidential palace, and who gives most of his salary to the poor. He works the land himself to grow flowers and vegetables, and drives himself to work in an aging Volkswagen Beetle in lieu of a chauffeured limousine. The people of Uruguay refer to him endearingly as Pepe.
President Mujica begins his speech. He asserts that the crises we face do not come from environmental concerns, but from our way of life and the model of civilization we have created. Drawing on the wisdom of the ancients, he notes that “a poor person is not someone who has little, but one who needs infinitely more, and more, and more.” He calls for a fundamental change in the hyper-consumption mentality that prioritizes economic efficiency and profit in the name of satisfying every personal whim, together with a fundamental re-examination of what it means to be happy. Declaring that development must work in favor of human happiness, and that human happiness is also the essential element in fighting for the environment, he closes his speech to rousing applause.