Transcript
24 September 2025
Remarks by the President of the Republic, Yamandú Orsi, during the event In Defense of Democracy: The Fight Against Extremism, held on September 24, 2025, in New York, United States.
“I’m going to tell you how this came about. In the hallways, at various meetings, we realized there were things we no longer talked about. We stopped talking about issues that were not only slogans in the past, but the very reason for our political struggle.
When people wish me success or ask, ‘What are you hoping for?’ or ‘What does everyone expect from your government’s results?’, one tends to think of GDP, balance of trade, international standing, and technological advances.
But, in reality, we should be asking ourselves—and we should all keep in mind—whether, after the years we spend leading a country, as any of us might, people are happier or less happy. I don’t believe that can be solved simply through GDP or geopolitical indicators.
And the other thing that comes to mind, from what Lula [Luiz Inácio da Silva] said, is this: Do democracy, our people, our citizens, really understand how it solves their problems? And what are those problems? What is it that our people expect from politics or from governments?
Here, we must revisit what we learned from some of our teachers. Pepe [José Mujica] always said that what characterized the entire Western world was discontent.
I think that to discontent, despair has now been added. And when we look at electoral behavior, what we see, again and again, is a lack of hope or a state of constant dissatisfaction—of course, with good and clear reasons.
So, I believe, as Lula said, that we must once again bring democracy to the forefront. I also think we must revalue and reclaim the banner of freedom. I began my political life in my teenage years, when the doors of freedom opened. We came out of the dictatorship, when we were not allowed to do anything, and that first breath of wonderful air marked me forever.
Freedom is something extraordinary, and I believe that not only have we, from different schools of thought, stopped talking about it, but we have also allowed that banner to be taken from us. And we speak of it less and less.
Those slogans from the 19th century, once deeply rooted, have faded into the background. I believe we must restore their value. And today, of course, there is the United Nations Declaration, but those same principles that inspired Latin American revolutions remain as relevant—if not more so—than ever before.
Because it is meaningless to go through life as a slave—whether to a political regime that prevents you from acting, even if it is economically successful, or to the endless toil and excessive rigor of work, all for the sake of having more resources and gaining access to more and more things.
In truth, what we lack—and here I miss being able to talk with Pepe—is time: the time to do the things that, anthropologically, we need to do in order to be happy. And that lies at the very root of our democratic conception, one that I believe includes the left, but also other liberal currents of thought with whom we may often argue and contend.
But we always understood that the battle of ideas and the struggle between political sectors are ultimately meant to ensure that our people are the ones who decide which governments and which political forces should guide their destiny.
As we reclaim and reaffirm that principle, without a doubt, we will achieve what Lula just reminded us of: to restore the value of democracy and to bring back to the table not only the most modern or trending issues, but also those old, essential ones—the ones that had, as their ultimate goal, the happiness of human beings.”
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