Paraguay is the most happy country, according to research. And also one of the most unfair

Children walk through the neighborhood of Santa Rosa del Aguaray, 250 kilometers from Asunción, one of the poorest regions of the country; President Horacio Cortes inaugurated on site 99 housing units


Ignorance Is Bliss "(Thomas Gray, English poet)



Happiness has become an industry. Does not seem to go a day without some government department, a university, a philosopher, economist and blogger propose what purports to be a re-examination or a practical plan to achieve the dream that we all desire. Do a search on Amazon: there are 14 384 books on the achievement of happiness.

But what if happiness exists not only in our minds or hearts, but in one place? And if this place is Paraguay? Yes, Paraguay, a country closed in the geographic center of South America which reached German communities, Irish, American, Australian, Finnish for 150 years - or more, if we include the Jesuit missionaries of the 17th century -, convinced that here discover utopia; a country that in the last three years in a row was, according to global research by renowned Gallup agency, the happiest on earth.

I traveled to Paraguay to see if I could discover the secret and found a land that seemed to have everything. Practically empty (7 million inhabitants, almost twice the size of Germany), land is so fertile that the mangoes rot in the ground, people give avocados for the pigs eat, export more beef than Argentina, and water from their major rivers is so abundant that not only surpasses all agricultural and human needs, but also thanks to the gigantic dam of Itaipu, has nearly ten times more renewable electricity - and eternal - that their people need.

In traditional indigenous theology, Guarani, there is the concept of paradise "land without evil". It would seem that they had found. But scraped a little and saw that humans still had something to do.

It turns out that in the absence of a remotely serious justice system, corruption pervades the political and state institutions from top to bottom, from judges to police, ministers to civil servants.

The poor also are becoming poorer day and the rich, richer, including the current president and tobacco tycoon, Horacio Cartes, which, according to told me one of his acquaintances, once confessed that got into the part in politics because they do not I know what to do with their millions.

But then, if Paraguay is one of the most unjust countries, most corrupt and most unequal on Earth, and we are almost all agreed that injustice, corruption and inequality are the great evils that afflict us, why its inhabitants say They are so happy?

First, as a Paraguayan columnist wrote a few weeks ago because "one of the most connoted characteristics of our idiosyncrasy" is "obsessed".
Staring in the imaginary land without evil, many refuse to see the real evil that surrounds them. The most striking example I found was the paternal hero, Francisco Solano López, whose anniversary of death in 1870, is celebrated as National Day.

The self-appointed marshal Lopez was a despot whose deification and tyranny would not be overcome by any of the Latin American dictators who followed him. In his eight years in office, López ordered the torture and execution of thousands of people, including close relatives, and led his country to a demented war against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, which ended with 85% of the Paraguayan population, leaving the country without men.

Today the main avenues of Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital, bear the name of Lopez and his Lady Macbeth, the no less sinister Irish concubine of the dictator, Elisa Lynch.

The second reason why the Paraguayans believe to be happy is the custom they have, related to not examine very carefully the past, live in the moment. It was explained to me that an entrepreneur named Víctor González during a car ride through the countryside around Asuncion.

As I saw for myself the extraordinary richness of the land and the apparent tranquility - mate in hand - with living inhabitants, González told me in Guarani language that nearly all Paraguayans speak, there is no word for "tomorrow" . The one closest to the concept is "Koera" which means "dawn." What translates into an attitude of not grieve for what might happen in the future mentality that González, who is now rich but grew up in a poor family environment, recalls with nostalgia.

González and other Paraguayans I spoke with commented that unhappiness comes when the person creates expectations we can not meet.

This is shown by studies at Harvard University, thesis it is shown in Paraguay with a given dramatic: every day commits suicide on average a young person between 15 and 25 years. Each of them decides that it is better if there is no tomorrow because, in most cases, are people from very poor rural families whose parents aspire to more, that mix - for example, moving to the outskirts of Asuncion - with young people They have Lacoste shirts, Nike shoes or cell phone last generation.

The sudden happiness is to acquire previously unnecessary artifacts, which can not see, and corroded by a lacerating jealousy, end up with their lives. Of course the Gallup did not interview this particular sector of the population, and those interviewed preferred to depart from view these woes.

What lessons from Paraguayan experience? That happiness is possible if the person close his eyes to the inevitable evils of life, live in the present, to conform to the essential in order to live and achieve enormous luxury of not having to worry about money.

But lack an ingredient that Paraguay is the earthly paradise. Before the living afflicted by the crisis and other penalties the rest of the world follow the steps of utopian dreamers of old, it is essential to ask something to the minority of wealthy governing Paraguay who install the "sine qua non" of a democracy, the rule of law; that justice is equal for all. When that day comes, yeah, let's go there. Everything else they already have.