From PEPE to MASOUD

Green Farm; Jose Alberto Mujica Cordano, also known as "Pe Pe", a former member of the National Liberation Movement of Uruguay, started political work after being pardoned by the government (1985) and entered the government in 2009 as a representative of Congress, Senator and Minister of Agriculture of Uruguay. In 2015, he took power as the 40th president of Uruguay.

In this article, a mixture of dream, documentary writing and theoretical debate between the two presidents of the leftist of Uruguay and the religious of Iran has been implemented, which is worth reading.

6th of July 2024 and right in the evening of the day I was undergoing chemotherapy; I heard on the radio that there is a heart surgeon in Iran who supports the suffering people of his country.

I told Lucia to turn up the volume of the radio. In very short sentences, the announcer said: 70-year-old President Masoud Mezikian became the president of Iran in two stages with 16,380 and 1,000 votes and the support of 27% of the people, and then went on to other news.

When I finished chemotherapy, I asked Lucia to buy a newspaper with more about "you" when she goes to the city tomorrow.

On Monday morning, I was harvesting rice with two workers, and I remembered that when I was the Minister of Agriculture of Uruguay, our rice was also exported to your country. The last one that I remember is related to 2016 and the official export contract of 90 or 100 thousand tons of rice that was sent to Iran, and if my memory serves, it was agreed to buy red meat from us.

An hour later, I packed two or three boxes of fruit to take to the city for sale, and tired of work, I got ready to drink a cup of coffee.

I petted Manuela's head and ears and sat waiting, when Lucia came in with a the paper and on the first page it read: "Masoud specialized in heart surgery in North America and was a senator of the Iranian parliament for 5 terms and a minister for one term and now After he became the president, more disaffected, poor and protestors of the government voted for Massoud."

 

She shut the newspaper close and said: It seems to have similarities with your fate.

- Well, read more; I became interested in Massoud.

- That was it. Other newspapers wrote the same thing.

I told Lucia, let's go for a tour of the city, I prepared the car to take three boxes of fruit to the city and sell them, have a glass of cold punch in a restaurant in the suburbs, maybe Lucia will find more information.

At sunset when we returned to the farm; Lucia was eager to talk and I was eager to sleep!

Nevertheless, we opened the windows to the farm and turned down the TV, which was mixed with cricket noise, and Lucia said to me:

- Massoud worked in the fields of Iran for a short time in the previous government.

- Was he a farmer like me?

- No, but the military period in a northern city of Iran that has a rice farm; As a soldier, he spent his time in agriculture, but you are a farmer by profession and you are a villager.

- Well then, what similarity have you seen between us, Lucia! I was a guerilla of armed struggle for 40 years and I was shot six times, I rebelled many times against the government of the time and fought in favor of people's freedom. I took the property of government embezzlers and thieves and distributed it among the people. I was in prison for 12 years, of which seven years I was in solitary confinement and two years on the floor of an old manger; Because they wanted to destroy my character. But Massoud was an experienced urban doctor in North America and he never went to prison for his people and was not deprived of social rights, he was not a guerilla and...

Lucia said: "Drink your coffee and get bored, I searched a bit on the Internet, if you are looking for a guerrilla who has held a position close to the presidency in Iran; There is a person named Mehdi Bazargan, who was both a guerilla and the government's military courts had imprisoned him for a long time."

- I know him, he was short and unlike me, he was religious. I remember the seventies; But when Bazargan took over executive power in 1979; He was against the attack on the American embassy and said: This attack is harmful to the nation and it is damaging, and I think that is why he resigned and stayed at home.

At the same time, he was stylish and wore a tie, but I don't accept protocols, I prefer to wear jackets and jeans.

- In my opinion, a tie is extra fabric and a waste of money. Leaving aside the merchant's tie, he had the same mentality as me. I remember that not only did he not get a salary from the government, he also wrote a check to the government for the food his wife ate in the government office.

- Thank God, I didn't eat a government meal to make you in debt. I must say that Massoud was not a guerrilla, and after the 1979 revolution in Iran, he was on the right and in his youth he was a supporter of the strictness of the government, and he also supported the closure of science and knowledge, the stoppage of universities and the compulsory veiling of women at that time.

- Stop! Turn up the volume of the TV so I can't hear you.

But Lucia said: Restrain yourself. Every person can judge himself, evolve, change and choose a new path, just as you thought for two years on the floor of the old manger in prison, changed and abandoned the armed approach and became a politician. Masoud was also a member of Iran's parliament in the same years that you were a senator, with the difference that you had the Brood Front party, but I didn't read anywhere that he officially had a party, but Masoud's public works, surgery in government hospitals and healthy living and Far from business and wealth and his very simple and popular life brought him to represent the parliament.

Although he did not have a party during his representative days; But he was more inclined to the left. He repeatedly defended the rights of the oppressed and protested to the ruling body until he was first removed in the next parliamentary elections.

- Okay now we're talking! please continue.

- I read somewhere that in 2000, Massoud was the minister of health and treatment in the reformist government of Iran, and you also remember that you became the minister of agriculture in Uruguay. But Massoud first became a minister, then a senator, but you first became a member of parliament and then a minister.

- Yes, but what difference does it make? Both of us got our hands dirty with governance. Although I have never seen Iran, let me give some information about my countries and Masoud's that I remember from the time of the presidency.

My country has three million and 500 thousand people, which is 4% of the population of Masoud's country; Masoud used to export rice and meat to the country of 85 million people. Last year, we exported more than 12 billion dollars to the world; But his country, which has the most oil and gas resources in the world, imports gasoline. Not counting oil exports, less than 50 billion dollars, that is, only four times more exportion than my country, which has 25X the population.

- From these differences in management and the looting of people's resources, or working for the people or against the people, many things happen, but the interesting thing is that based on what I saw on the sites, Masoud has changed since becoming a representative and communicating more with the classes of society.

- Just as I changed while I was a prisoner.

- Yes, sometimes Masoud raised his voice during his 16 years as a senator; Sometimes he criticized the unpopular plans and little by little; he became a new face who was looking for a big change.

Not that he was against the government, but he was a politician and senator who gradually became a supporter of freedom of expression. He defended the rights of women and children. Just as you would give your salary to the poor or rush to help the needy in the middle of an official interview, Masoud received the minimum government salary for medical services and heart auctions, and I have read that he did not receive it in some cases and even paid for their medicine. While some doctors in Iran demanded up to 20 times his salary.

I read somewhere that he said: We must be the voice of the poor and the marginalized who have no voice. We must put our feet in the people's shoes.

- Speak quieter so that we can walk in the dreamy atmosphere of the farm with Massoud.

- As I have read; From the beginning of 2024 and the fifth senatorial term, and maybe before that, Masoud was probably recognized as a kind of conciliator and savior from the government's point of view, that's why Masoud had the opportunity to unabashedly defend the rights of the people.

Of course, once in 2014 when you were fighting for the presidency; Massoud also registered in the presidential election; But in favor of another candidate, he refused to continue.

once again in 2022 to become the president of Iran; Enrolled in election campaigns. But since in Iran the candidates have to go through special pro-government filters, and maybe at that time, the government had not yet found this new feeling towards him; He was not allowed to compete. But to everyone's surprise, this time the government allowed him to campaign and campaign and accompanied him.

But what authority advised him to register for the presidency this term and encouraged or supported him? Until he was disqualified in 2022, this time he was approved and then won, silently.

It seemed that Massoud had now become a political man and a supporter of the people, and like you 25 years ago, he saw all his attention in the people. He supported the privacy of men and women. He criticized the detention, torture, killing and imprisonment of protesters by the government.

He did not hide his concern about the imprisonment of politicians, journalists and freedom fighters and openly challenged the government.

 

More interestingly, due to being born and growing up in a city where the population was from Iran's ethnic and religious minorities, between different Kurdish communities and ethnicities with different religions and seeing the difficult conditions that the government imposed on them; He also supported the need to improve their living conditions in the election campaign. He even wanted to bring ministers from other religions and women to his cabinet and cross the ideological red line of the government.

- Lucia! But I am not satisfied with his votes. Iran has a population of 85 million or more, and about 60 million people should vote, so why 16 million fans, I am surprised.

- Pe Pe! They wrote on a site: If Massoud had not come, the actual votes would have been much less and maybe half. But apparently, some people have given hope to Massoud, with a healthy election now that he has become the president.

- Tell me if Masoud is protocol-acceptable; Or does he wear a jacket like me or a tie like a businessman?

- He wears a jacket and jeans, but I have heard that he was asked several times to wear a suit, but he refused. They wrote on Iranian websites: Masoud, it is a simple life. Like us, he has a small house. It has nothing to do with the air conditioner. He is an athlete and a mountaineer.

He likes football. Apparently he is a fan of the team, "Tractor". He is Indifferent to protocols, dislikes formalities and believes in freedom of speech, freedom of the government and freedom of students, and of course believes that Iran has neglected interaction with the world for a long time. Also, I heard that he follows the American elections seriously.

- It's good that you said he rides tractors! What does he plant in his farm?

- Pe Pe! You should show your ears to the doctor. There is a football team in Iran whose name is Tractor, I'm not talking about the tractor machines!

- Lucia! You should show your eye to the doctor. I read a while ago that his favorite football team is Trakhtor, not Tractor, and it is possible that Pepe, the former player of Real Madrid, will also join the team in Iran. By the way, I was inspired by Cheguara, who do you think Massoud is inspired by?

- There is no information in the news yet, his positions show that he does not agree with climbing the wall of the American embassy and attacking the British and Saudi embassies; While his electoral rival agreed with these actions and pushed Iran back. Another position is that Massoud was against calling Karkari for Europe and basically for the world. In my opinion, he does not trust the neo-communists of China, Russia and North Korea; But he does not have the courage to plan it yet.

His words on a phone conversation with 30 or 40 presidents of Western countries have also touched their hearts to some extent, and many have invited him for an official visit to their country, because there are no sanctions, he can travel to all countries and they will not arrest him.

We should have waited to see whether in his speech at the United Nations, he talks about war with the world and the export of ideology and its spread in the world, and whether he is looking for harmony and interaction with the world, like his doctrine inside the country; But in Massoud's speech at the General Assembly, I was surprised to see that in half of his speech he spoke instead of the president of Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, and of course, in the second half, he addressed Iran's issues, which was still a reason for hope.

His invitation to the head of the Atomic Energy Agency to visit Iran shows that he does not want to be at war with the world.

He doesn't seem to have a problem wearing ties and bow ties and even respecting people's privacy; Because his fellow doctors in Iran mostly use ties.

- But I have a problem with ties and I do not agree with Masoud. I think what you said is the beginning of the story. Maybe it's because of you; The first days of the presidency, when I was returning from the farm; I had a world of good ideas and wishes for the people of my country; But my wishes were so much mixed up in government paperwork that I didn't feel any desire for the result myself. But I never accepted the show of power and pressure from the parliament and other powers to the people and immediately informed the people about anti-people movements and pressures. Because I had promised them not to lie and I preferred clarification to expediency.

Aside from political affairs, expensive ceremonies and bodyguards who scattered people around me; I was evasive. the same two security policemen who were beside me in the field; If possible, I would leave.

When I was sick, I would avoid examination and treatment in the presidential or private hospital and I would sit in line at the public hospital. Do you remember that despite the insistence of the government and the approval of the purchase of a private jet and ceremonial plane for the president, I opposed it and traveled with the military plane It was not easy for me to travel; Although you also wanted to buy it. But with the allocated credit, I bought a helicopter and a field hospital with advanced surgical facilities and equipment from France so that the patients of the villages and remote areas, the destitute and those whose voices do not reach the capital and are deprived of facilities, can use it.

Do you remember how much you insisted that we change our 37-year-old Volkswagen Beetle with a salary of 12,000 dollars? But I only took a thousand dollars a month for living expenses and returned the rest to the treasury; to spend for the poor Except for two sets of formal suits that I sometimes had to use during meetings with heads of other countries; Only two or three jackets and jeans were enough for me.

I allocated the presidential palace, the villa and the presidential summer house to accommodate orphans and displaced children for whom the government is forced to find accommodation. I lived simply, although I never preached poverty, but I did not imitate the rich minority either.

I was trying to tell myself by continuously working in the field: "Hey! You will find meaning with this Messier Ferguson tractor and the farm and Lucia and Manuela and the memories of the struggle against tyranny and tyranny, not the presidency." I know that I may not wake up tomorrow and I might turn into a heap of worms, so I must be there for my country and people.

- Pe Pe! How impatient are you, Masoud doesn't have a wife? His wife died, he doesn't have a farm, because he is not a farmer, he doesn't have a Massey Ferguson tractor either, because some farmers in their country still farm with World War II Romanian tractors.

Instead of manufacturing heavy, modern, smart tractors equipped with modern knowledge and producing garden tractors, agricultural tractors, heavy tractors, etc. to meet the diverse needs of farmers, the tractor factory of their country is more involved in football and entertaining farmers. Even the dog doesn't like it when you show off the three-legged Manuela.

- Lucia! I got bored too. Let's have another cup of coffee and call about my chemo tomorrow.

Indeed, if you can, send an email to the Iranian embassy in Montevideo or Massoud and congratulate him as the poorest president in the world, according to the words of an old guerrilla who has experienced the president's unfaithful table. Remind him to be consistent and stay truthful. If they don't let him work according to his heart and desire (which they don't), he can give up power. If medicine and surgery do not work; Come to my farm so that we can have two presidents working on the same farm. If the people do not deal with the government; keep its simplicity and not accept protocol; He must be among the special presidents of the world, like Abraham Lincoln; That too for centuries.