Catalan International View
Issue 25 • Winter 2016-2017 • € 5
A European Review of the World
Catalan independence and European democracy
by Víctor Terradellas
Dossier Donald Trump: presidential inertia versus an unexpected
change of direction Contributors: Pol Serrano, Elisenda Rovira, Majo Siscar, Laura Pous, Natàlia Vila, Joan Vicens Sard and Carme Colomina
The economics of multilingualism
by Ramon Caminal
Montserrat Roig: more than a writer, more than a feminist
by Aina Torres
Cover Artist:
Jo Milne
sections: The Americas · Europe · Africa · Business, Law & Economics · Sport beyond Sport · A Short Story from History · Universal Catalans · Green Debate · The Artist · Physiologus · A Poem
Good for you. Good for nature.
The water of your life
AigĂźes de Barcelona manages the complete water cycle. It ensures rigorous compliance with all the steps necessary to guarantee water with the highest health standards. It manages each step: from when it is collected, treated, transported, stored and distributed, until it comes out of the tap at home. Finally, it is returned to the natural environment under the best conditions. For example, we help to maintain the lagoons of the Llobregat Delta with reclaimed water. We preserve a water cycle which has become a worldwide benchmark thanks to its efficiency and health safety.
Contents Positive & Negative Editor
Víctor Terradellas
vterradellas@catmon.cat Director
4 A geopolitical role for Catalonia / Former president Mas barred from holding office by Francesc de Dalmases To Our Readers
Francesc de Dalmases
6 Catalan independence and European democracy by Víctor Terradellas
Editorial Board
The Americas
director@international-view.cat
Martí Anglada Enriqueta Aragonès Jordi Basté Enric Canela Salvador Cardús David Fernàndez August Gil-Matamala Montserrat Guibernau Manuel Manonelles Fèlix Martí Eva Piquer Ricard Planas Clara Ponsatí Arnau Queralt Vicent Sanchis Mònica Terribas Montserrat Vendrell Carles Vilarrubí Vicenç Villatoro Chief Editor
Judit Aixalà
Language Advisory Service
Nigel Balfour Júlia López
8 Dossier Donald Trump: presidential inertia versus an unexpected change of direction
10 Trump, Fifth Avenue’s cowboy by Pol Serrano 14 Trump signs the divorce papers between urban and rural areas in the US by Elisenda Roviraa Rovira
18 Trump, the piñata that has become Mexico’s nightmare by Majo Siscar 24 Glittering golden times for the anti-establishment by Laura Pous 28 Trump’s (economic) walls by Natàlia Vila 34 This is not the time to wait for Godot: the future of Sino-American relations under Trump by Joan Vicens Sard 38 Trump and Europe: confrontation between allies by Carme Colomina Europe
42 The economics of multilingualism by Ramon Caminal
Coordinator
Africa
administracio@catmon.cat
47 The active participation of local civil society in international cooperation projects by Natalia Riera
Ariadna Canela
Designer/Webmaster
Gemma Lapedriza Cover Art
Jo Milne
The reproduction of the artwork on the front cover is thanks to an agreement between Fundació Vila Casas and Fundació CATmón Headquarters, Administration and Subscriptions
Fonollar, 14 08003 Barcelona Catalonia (Europe) Tel.: + 34 93 533 42 38 Fax: + 34 93 319 22 24 www. international-view.cat
Legal deposit B-26639-2008 ISSN 2013-0716
© Edicions de la Fundació CATmón. All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, protocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Edicions de la Fundació CATmón.
Business, Law & Economics
52 Catalonia: first-class research in a competitive world Sport beyond Sport
6 Training capacities, training empathy by Ruth Gumbau 5 0 The FCBarcelona Photo Awards 6 A Short Story from History
64
Gonzalo de Reparaz by María del Carmen de Reparaz
Universal Catalans
68 Montserrat Roig by Aina Torres Green Debate
72 Land stewardship: towards nature conservation across
Europe’s landscapes by Marc Vilahur The Artist
78
Joe Milne
Printed in Catalonia
Physiologus
Published quarterly
86
With the support of: Departament de Presidència
by Carlos Pan
A Poem
87
Poetic Art by Josep Maria Fulquet
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Positive & Negative by Francesc de Dalmases
A geopolitical role for Catalonia Late last year, the Aula Magna of the University of Barcelona hosted a conference which is particularly relevant at the present time. It featured a speech by the president of the Fundació CATmón and editor of the Catalan International View, Víctor Terradellas i Maré. Entitled Geopolitical Approaches for Catalonia, Terradellas laid out a doctrine taking into consideration the fundamental changes that West-
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ern political systems will undergo this century. Terradellas argued in favour of the effectiveness and suitability of small and medium-sized nations compared with the majority of large states when it comes to providing services and proximity to their respective societies. In this sense, he predicted that the future Catalan Republic will be an example of the new European actors that will participate in and shape the twenty-first century.
Positive & Negative
Spanish justice bars former Catalan president Mas from holding office A special disqualification from holding public office and elected government functions for two years together with a fine of 36,000 euros for having disobeyed the Constitutional Court and for having continued to have an active role in the non-binding referendum that took place on 9 November 2014. This was the politically-motivated sentence against Artur Mas at the conclusion of the ‘9-N [9 November] Trial’, following a unanimous decision. The
court also found the former vice-president Joana Ortega and former education minister Irene Rigau both guilty of defying the Constitutional Court by pressing ahead with the non-binding vote. With this ruling, Spain is going ahead with its strategy of judicializing Catalan politics. The response of the current president, Carles Puigdemont, was unequivocal and emphatic, ‘What Spanish justice condemns, the people of Catalonia will pardon in a referendum to be held before the autumn’. Catalan International View
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To Our Readers
Catalan independence and European democracy by Víctor Terradellas
I
t is the year 2107 AD. Much of Europe is overrun by totalitarianism, populism and political apathy. Well, not entirely! A nation populated by indomitable democrats still holds out against the invader. The introduction to the classic Adventures of Asterisk cartoon is a perfect caricature of how Europe is feeling in relation to what is happening in Catalonia. Indeed, one of the most harmful effects of the political, economic and social crises which have been taking place in Europe since 2008 is the decline of more inclusive democratic choices in favour of populism and chauvinism. These go against the foundations of the European project and are often linked to the extreme right. It is happening on a global scale, it is true, but it ought not to be the norm in twenty-first century Europe. In contrast to this view, in Catalonia we are witnessing the approach of the culmination of a civic, peaceful, democratic process that has the referendum as its maximum expression. The referendum is the political option which has been chosen by a majority of Catalans in order to decide the political status they want for Catalonia. However, this process goes far beyond the referendum. It goes further because the process of calling for and being denied a referendum has highlighted two major factors. On the one hand, in an attempt to avoid a democratic debate, the Spanish
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government has opted for an increasing judicialization of everything associated with this civic, peaceful, democratic process. A sweeping judicialization which goes from the highest political office –prosecuting the former President of the Catalan government and the current Speaker of the Catalan Parliament– to the local political class, with the classic case of a city councillor from a typical Catalan town, Vic, who was arrested and transferred to the Audiencia Nacional de Madrid (a special tribunal, heir to Franco’s Public Order Court) for having used (wait for it!) a gastronomic metaphor during a council meeting: ‘you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’. This deterioration of the political climate has been greeted from the Catalan side with a growing determination to deepen essential democratic principles: the desire to negotiate, with stubborn offers of ongoing dialogue and of forums in which to hammer out the specific form and content of the referendum which is called for by Catalan society. In this regard, it is worth remembering that opinion polls indicate that over 75% of Catalans are in favour of the democratic route, by means of a referendum, to resolve the existing political conflict between Catalonia and Spain. What is even more telling are the figures which show that up to 80% say they will respect the outcome of any
To Our Readers
vote. In other words, not only is there support for a clearly political mechanism to resolve this issue –the referendum– it can be assumed beforehand that the result will not only fail to divide Catalan society, it will consolidate it as one of the places in Europe with the healthiest democracy. From this perspective, the political debate currently taking place in Catalonia is a good example of how Europe can learn from, accept and resolve political issues. It is an example of the values of civility and democracy which we wish to see as inherent in Old Europe, and which, unfortunately, are not the centre of the policies that we find within most European states. Also from such a perspective, the response on behalf of the Spanish institutions ought to be comparable to the standards of government which the EU recognizes. We are convinced that there is no going back on the path which Catalan society has chosen. We are convinced that democracy will prevail, we are convinced that the referendum on independence called for by the majority of Catalan society and a majority of the Parliament of Catalonia, as is to be expected, will go ahead. The question yet to be resolved, therefore, is the role of European institutions regarding this conflict. How will they offer their support and to whom, whether actively or passively. However, this question will not decide
the future of Catalonia, since this is a job for the Catalans themselves, rather it will serve to illustrate that we are one of Europe’s democratic strongholds, as if we were the last free village in Gaul, or we are part of a political space that in the doubts created by referendums and the denial of dialogue, offers an unequivocally democratic answer.
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Trump Dossier
DONALD TRUMP presidential inertia versus an unexpected change of direction
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Trump Dossier
T
he American presidential elections were held on 8 November 2016. Trump’s victory rocked public opinion both in the US and around the world. We at the Catalan International View decided to put his victory into context while examining its global implications. Thus, in the following pages you will find analysis from a European perspective at the hands of Laura Pous and Carme Colomina. You will also find a Central and South American viewpoint from Majo Siscar. Pol Serrano takes a closer look at the election itself and Elisenda Rovira
writes from New York of the disappointment felt by the city’s Democrats. Meanwhile, Natàlia Vila tackles the impact Trump’s victory will have on the economy. Finally, Joan Vicens Sard offers a look at the new American presidency from an Asian perspective. In short, though we were unable to foretell the future, we’d now like to offer a glimpse of a presidency that will undoubtedly become emblematic, and which is bound to be no stranger to controversy, thanks to the peculiar and unpredictable behaviour of the individual concerned. Catalan International View
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Trump,
Fifth Avenue’s cowboy by Pol Serrano*
In his New Nationalism speech, President Teddy Roosevelt asserted that although property rights were important, human welfare was even more important, and therefore, a strong federal government was needed in order to guarantee social justice. Roosevelt was against big corporations and he fought J.P. Morgan’s cartel. As the story goes, Roosevelt invited him to the White House, and the tycoon said to the President, ‘If we have done anything wrong, send your man to my man and they can fix it up’. The President’s Attorney General replied, ‘We don’t want you to fix it up, we want to stop it’. The statement epitomizes Roosevelt’s view of the relationship between politics and big corporations.
S
ome say Trump is cut from the same cloth. It might seem so, and important newspapers buy the resemblance. During his campaign, Trump spoke out strongly against the fact that, ‘companies and jobs are leaving the country faster than ever’. He criticized big corporations, the financial establishment, and the Federal Reserve. The latter being a pinnacle of financial capitalism. He also plans to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and scrap NAFTA, leaving traditional allies like Japan and Canada in an uncomfortable position when it comes to the stability of agreements. Notwithstanding the similarities in the ideological field, there are flagrant 10
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differences in the parallels between them. Roosevelt won a Nobel Prize, and a posthumous Medal of Honor. He fought in Cuba, in the Spanish–American War. He wrote 28 books and was an avid reader. The contrast with Trump is stark. The latter avoided going to Vietnam. At the age of 57, when Trump was notorious for appearing in a TV show yelling, ‘you’re fired’, Roosevelt was already president. Not to mention Trump’s contempt for a Muslim prisoner of war; or his appointments, most of his cabinet members are millionaires, some with close ties to the oil industry. All in all, Trump has pulled a ‘Don’t think of an elephant’ on the right wing. The more politically incorrect he be-
Trump Dossier
came, the more he subverted taboos. Like an ice-breaker, breaching the current ideological consensus. Thus, it is not that his voters think all Mexicans are rapists, thieves and murderers, neither does he. He is just delivering political incorrectness on a silver platter. And some Americans find it such a relief. Essentially because a growing unemployed segment of the population, think that policies like Affirmative Action have
Trump, though, is the result of the neoliberal view of politics, a view that criminalizes the professional politician gone too far. And taking into account that Trump’s plan to increase the salary of the working class involves curtailing immigration; some voters find Trump’s contempt towards minorities a relief. Catalan International View
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Trump Dossier
Thus, free trade, the main ingredient of the post-World War II order, is starting to lose momentum, as Trump wants to soothe domestic discontent among the industrial working sector by blaming big American corporations, China, Japan and immigration. Trump, though, is the result of the neoliberal view of politics, a view that criminalizes the professional politician. According to this view, the so-called professional politician is too entangled, too dependent on the system, and controlled by the ‘old guard’. Thus, harm12
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ing the craft of politics, and isolating the politicians from the people. In some ways, this may be a true reflection of contemporary politics. Perhaps it was once a more honest business, and the captains of industry used to get involved in politics more readily than nowadays; it was how it used to work, politics was mainly for the rich. However, politics has grown more and more complex over the years, and thus, the statesman needs to be immersed in politics to fully understand its intricacies. Meaning, no time for business. So
Trump Dossier
Trump represents the classical politician coming from the private sector, a kind of vigilante. Nonetheless, politics has always been the balance of the lesser of evils, and democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Therefore, seeking the purification of politics is not the best way of addressing new challenges. Reform is, however. And so far, all we have got from Trump’s campaign is a path towards a more protectionist, nationalist and militarist policy, at home, and abroad. Geopolitically, Trump seems to be a game-changer, and he is. He started the campaign with anti-war rhetoric, while also announcing that one of the main goals of his administration is to revamp the military, increasing its manpower. It’s still not clear for sure, but he seems to favour the stick rather than the carrot. In this sense, sending jobs abroad has had two main benefits –neither of them for the working class. The first for the financial elites, who have benefited greatly from the reduction in salaries; second, from a political point of view, foreign jobs compel foreign govern-
Trump is welcoming the nationalist era, the era of the National Interest, instead of the Globalist agenda ments to play ball with American strategic objectives. It is a geoeconomic operation with a geopolitical impact. The TTIP and the TPP are the same sort of operations on a global scale. Trump, however, has vowed to suppress these commercial treaties, and interestingly enough, has sought to increase military spending, both in hardware and in troop recruitment. Trump is welcoming the nationalist era, the era of the National Interest, instead of the Globalist agenda. Claiming he will discard the TPP and make Japan pay for the American military bases has left Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in an uncomfortable position faced with the Chinese threat. One thing is clear, making changes in America’s commitment to the Asia Pacific area only allows China to reshape its regional geopolitics. So buckle up, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
(*) Pol Serrano (Barcelona, 1988) holds a degree in Journalism from the Universitat Abat Oliba CEU and an MA in Politics and International Relations from the University of Kent. His dissertation was focused on defence and nation building. Currently a Research Fellow on European Affairs and Security Policy at the Fundació CATmón, he specializes in security and regionalism issues. He has extensive experience in the field of economic forecasting and geopolitical analysis.
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Trump Dossier
TRUMP
signs the divorce papers between urban and rural areas in the United States by Elisenda Rovira*
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Trump Dossier
The recent presidential election made the division between urban and non-metropolitan areas in the United States bigger than ever in the last century. New York City, where Clinton won 79% of the vote, awoke with a painful hangover of incredulity after seeing its son Donald Trump elected president. While analysts discussed the role of race, gender and education in the election, the lack of a connection between urban and rural communities presents new challenges for the country.
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his is the first protest Honey has taken part in in her short life and she made herself the banner she is carrying: ‘Donald Trump is a rapist. #notmypresident’. She is just 10 years old, but she is not the only protester today in 5th Avenue who is not old enough to vote –or who doesn’t have the right to. From shrill teenagers to forceful women in their late fifties, everyone in front of the Trump Tower today has plenty of reasons to protest against the man who won the presidential election less than 48 hours earlier. Here in Manhattan, where the skyscraper that Trump calls home is located, only 10% of the population voted for him. New York City is waking up after a long, painful hangover. The election results were a surprise across the country, but two days after the event, its largest city –with its population of 8.5 million– seems to be already starting to believe what happened. No one could foresee it. Not the white-collar workers talking about politics on the street when going for lunch, nor the walkers pointing at election-themed cookies in store windows in Chelsea Market. Not the Democrat volunteers who the
days before sent text messages to registered voters at swing states, and not the crowd in Rockefeller Plaza that cheered at the huge NBC screens on election night every time a Clinton victory was called in a state. Predictably, the state of New York, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Canadian border, also went blue. Democrats unsurprisingly won the 29 electoral votes which make this state the third-largest electoral college prize, together with Florida. No Republican presidential candidate has won here since Reagan in 1984.
Trump, the most urban candidate in American history, strengthened his campaign with the Republican strategy of ignoring the cities People who gathered in bars to watch the results would alternately stare at the TV, frantically refresh the New York Times app and order another beer to digest what only a few hours earlier had seemed impossible. Donald Trump was about to win the presidency of the Catalan International View
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Nowadays, only three of the 25 largest cities in America have Republican mayors United States. Most New Yorkers didn’t know a single person who had voted for him –or admitted to having done so. Four of the city’s five boroughs gave Hillary Clinton more than 75% of the vote: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens –where the new president was born. His future home gave him an even worse welcome: in the district of Columbia, where the White House is located, the Democratic advantage was the highest nationwide (89%) and he got only 4% of the vote. ‘People who voted for him are ignorant’, says Lorena, 25, in front of the Trump Tower, while writing ‘Don’t separate my family’ on a piece of cardboard. She has a temporary work permit but her parents, from Ecuador, are undocumented, and she fears they will be deported. ‘People wanted change. But if you are tired of the system you don’t select the worst possible alternative. He has offended women, Latin people, Muslims, the disabled… Our country is still a racist country’, says Debbie, 58, a registered independent liberal. In a restricted area surrounded by police agents, protesters shout, wave banners and hand out leaflets urging people to participate in a rally against the presidentelect in two days time. Meanwhile, passers-by slow their pace to see what is going on and tourists stop to take pictures. Some Trump supporters approach and the protesters try to harrass them with no success. 16
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‘It’s not because of race, it’s because of corruption’. Hugo, a New Yorker with Dominican and Venezuelan origins, explains why he supports the Republican candidate. And, especially, why he hates Hillary Clinton: the emails released by WikiLeaks or the support of the Rockefellers are some of the reasons. ‘Trump will deport illegal immigrants, but the law has to be respected’. Young, from an ethnic minority and living in Uptown, is himself an exception among Trump supporters, according to the data. A lot has been said about the role of race, age, gender and education in this election. But a closer look at the map clearly shows an underestimated factor: population density. A large expanse of red, speckled with a few small points of blue. Big cities, urban areas and college towns voted Democrat, while non-metropolitan areas supported the Republicans. This is what the results by counties show, in New York but also in other parts of the country. While Obama’s results in 2012 look much more evenly spread between red and blue, Hillary did much worse in rural areas. The decisive states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have a similar appearance: a sea of red interrupted by lonely blue islands in big cities. The same is true of most urban centers and white-collar suburbs. Hillary got more than 75% of the vote not only in New York City but also in counties such as Cook (Chicago) and Los Angeles. This was enough to win the popular vote by a 2.8 million margin, but not the election. The Democrats hegemony in metropolitan areas is incontrovertible, but so is the dominance of the Republicans in all the remaining areas.
Trump Dossier
And here lies the paradox. Trump, the most urban candidate in American history, who amassed a personal fortune with real estate projects in large metropolitan areas, strengthened his campaign with the Republican strategy of ignoring the cities. ‘Not only have recent Republican candidates neglected the cities, but they’ve also run against them, casting urban America as the foil to heartland voters’, according to Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui in The New York Times. At the same time, Democrats became detached from the struggles and hopes of the working class in rural areas, according to some analysts. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, who spent a decade studying the American far right, long before Trump went into politics, spoke plainly in an interview: ‘The Democrats, the working party, are bleeding to death. Working people are abandoning the party en masse and the left is becoming a stranger in its own land’. In the 2016 election, the division between the city and the countryside became bigger than ever since 1920 –when for the first time, the census recorded more people living in urban than in non-urban areas. As Ronald Brownstein wrote in The Atlantic: ‘This campaign crystallized the long-developing separation between a Democratic Party centered
in the urban areas at the forward edge of growing racial diversity, new family and sexual arrangements, and the transition to a globalized information economy; and a Republican Party consolidating a deepening hold on the non-metropolitan places where many view those changes with suspicion, if not hostility’. Nowadays, only three of the 25 largest cities in America have Republican mayors. And Republicans from dense urban congressional districts have almost disappeared from the House of Representatives. A few days before the election, most people in New York didn’t seem to take seriously a man who they considered to be a blatant misogynist. In the city where Hillary Clinton called half of Trump supporters ‘deplorable’ at a fundraising event last September, thinking that Republican voters are simply stupid or wrong proved to be a poor tactic for winning the election. To see Trump supporters as nothing but a bunch of illiterates doesn’t seem to be the best way to resolve the country’s divisions either. But this will be a difficult task, at least in a city where, two days after the election, one of the oldest bookshops in town, The Strand, established in 1927, was selling banners making fun of Trump’s electoral slogan: ‘Let’s Make America Read Again’.
(*) Elisenda Rovira (Sant Llorenç Savall, Barcelona, 1985) is a journalist. She currently coordinates Mèdia.cat’s Yearbook of Blackouts, an investigative journalism project which publishes articles that have been silenced by corporate media outlets. She also works as a freelancer. She is a board member of the Ramon Barnils Group of Journalists. She has worked in TV, radio, the print media and institutional communication.
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TRUMP , the piñata that
has become Mexico’s nightmare by Majo Siscar*
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Trump Dossier
It is little more than a meter high, but it has the same unruly comb-over as the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump. It has been smashed to pieces at business dinners, family gatherings and parties. Mexico’s cathartic response to the new US president is shaped like a child’s piñata and has been a bestseller that has displaced the traditional villains like the current Mexican president or the infamous drug lord ‘El Chapo’ Guzman.
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he Mexican government is blindly flailing about, faced with the Trump steamroller, which is no laughing matter. Mexico had never before played such a prominent role in the American presidential elections. Trump repeatedly raised the issue of America’s relations with its southern neighbour and economic ally, starting with his speech announcing his decision to run for president in July 2015. And he did so based on insults, branding undocumented Mexicans crossing the border as criminals, drug dealers and rapists. Later he promised a wall of cement to protect the border and accused Mexico’s industries of stealing American jobs. A case of ‘anti-diplomacy’, or the arrogance of a bully who knows that no matter how much they mistreat their victim, they cannot live without them and can’t fight back.
In late August, the then Republican candidate made a virtually unannounced appearance in Mexico. The Mexican government had formally invited both candidates on a Friday, but the following Tuesday, when the Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton had yet to reply, Trump’s team broke with protocol by publicly announcing that their candidate would visit Mexico the following day on the way to Arizona, the most anti-immigration border state. The Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto resorted to Twitter to hastily confirm the invitation. A meeting with a head of state and the subsequent joint press conference –in which Mexico failed to ask for an apology for having insulted its population and did not even put a stop to the issue of the border wall– gave Trump the air of a statesman while helping him Catalan International View
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Trump Dossier
During his campaign, Trump wasted no time in using the Mexicans, Muslims and those who are different to channel people’s fears win some votes. However, in Mexico it caused a political crisis, not solely for having hosted Trump’s visit without him actually being president but for his outburst of tweets and his subsequent rabble-rousing speech in Arizona, in which Trump showed the meeting had done nothing to reduce his animosity towards his southern neighbour, on the contrary. Peña’s Minister of Finance and right hand man, Luis Videgaray, who had arranged the visit, was forced to resign. In effect, Trump’s first political victim was Mexican, two months before he won the election. When one lashes out blindly, one can also end up striking friends. It appears as if this particular piñata does not contain sweets. During his campaign, Trump wasted no time in using the Mexicans, Muslims and those who are different to channel the fear of unemployment, insecurity and the loss of traditional values that is felt by a certain cross-section of Americans who have borne the brunt of the economic crisis and the neoliberal cuts. And once Trump became presidentelect, he wasted no time in pursuing this policy. He signed an agreement with Carrier, the air conditioner manufacturer, to preserve a thousand jobs in Indianapolis that the company had intended to move to its Mexican plant. Trump thereby kicked off with a protectionist model that clashes with traditional 20
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Republican policy and fulfils the promise to defend American working-class interests against manufacturing powerhouses such as China and Mexico. During his campaign, Trump repeated time and again that Mexico is the new China, in terms of its massive sales to the US. It appears that when he visited the former Aztec country they didn’t take him sightseeing. Trump is proposing a double wall between the US and Mexico: the first, of brick and mortar, some three thousand kilometres along the border to prevent the entry of immigrants. The second, in the form of tariffs, to restrict the entry of products. The first is not a new idea. It was invented –surprise surprise!– by the Clinton administration, in 1994, as part of an attempt to restrict the movement of immigrants. Yes, the same year that a free trade agreement was signed between the two countries the US also began to build a steel fence over a thousand kilometres long, a third of the border’s length. Restricting access to the border has failed to prevent the arrival of Mexican and Latin American immigrants, but it has made the process more expensive and more dangerous, largely benefitting local mafia groups in recent years. Mexico has ceased to be the country that took in Catalan exiles in 1939 or refugees fleeing South American dictatorships in the 70s, to become a staging post –behaving like Morocco or Turkey with respect to the European Union– absorbing over 300,000 Central American immigrants that try to cross the country each year on their way to the US.
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Many of them succeed. According to State Department figures, in the past 12 years alone, five million immigrants illegally crossed the border, making the total of undocumented Latinos in the US currently at around 11 million. It should be noted that when the Americans talk about Mexicans, they mean all Latin Americans, from whichever country. During his campaign, Trump promised he would kick them all out, ignoring the fact that many arrived in
the US as children, have grown up and studied there and belong nowhere else. It now appears as if Trump has watered-down his proposed policy, partly out of economic necessity, declaring that he will only eject two to three million people. This much lower figure is the same number as Barak Obama has deported in his two terms. However, if Trump fulfils his promise in four years, it would have an economic and social impact on Mexico, which would have Catalan International View
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to cope with double the current flow of returning migrants, and equip border areas with the necessary infrastructure to receive and relocate the returnees. Trump has run up against his own concrete wall, and he will have to pay a price to make it materialise. Nevertheless, he has more subtle policies, such as his proposal to revive the practice of stop-and-frisk, initially introduced by Republican mayor Rudy Giuliani in New York and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court for hav22
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ing initiated a witch hunt against blacks and Latinos. With a Republican majority in the Senate, the practice could be revived in border states such as Arizona and Texas. In fact, at the end of November fake ‘wanted’ posters began to appear in cities such as Seattle, offering rewards for providing information leading to the arrest of illegal immigrants. They carried the Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement seals. The government was quick to deny the rumours, but it gives
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one an idea of the beast that has been unleashed by Trump’s rhetoric. In terms of its impact on trade, things are not looking good for Mexico. While Trump played up the role of its southern neighbour in the US economy as part of his electoral strategy, on the flip side there is a degree of dependency. Solely in terms of the licit economy, Mexico buys more from the US than France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and the UK combined. America is the main source of Mexico’s imports but it is also the biggest consumer of its exports. It is also the main source of the 10 billion dollars of direct foreign investment in Mexico, some 30% of the total. Every day a million people legally cross the border in both directions. Plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) could seriously affect the Mexican economy. In fact, on 9 November, following Trump’s victory, the peso was further devalued with respect to the dollar, reaching a low of 22 pesos to the dollar, when two years ago it had remained stable above 14. The challenge for the Mexicans, therefore, is to stop blindly flailing at the piñata and build one themselves.
The Mexican government has the opportunity to make an agreement with their other NAFTA partner, Canada The Mexican government has the opportunity to take the initiative, to make an agreement with their other NAFTA partner, Canada, and get one over on Trump in the negotiations. At the end of the day, the president is a businessman and in spite of his incendiary talk he will sit down to talk if business is at stake. Nevertheless, such an approach necessitates a strong, committed government to take the lead. So far, Peña has not shown that he is made of such stuff and his credibility is already at a low thanks to domestic problems. First ‘El Chapo’ Guzman managed to escape from a maximum-security prison along a ventilation shaft, then Trump scored a goal with an air conditioning company. The next time he takes a shot at goal Mexico shouldn’t wait for it to happen with its eyes shut. Either Mexico gets its act together or the piñata will fall on top of it, filled with cement and tariffs.
(*) Majo Siscar (Pego, La Marina Alta, 1983) holds a degree in Journalism from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a Masters in Latin American Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Since 2009 she has covered Mexico and Central America for international media organizations such as Deutsche Welle, Newsweek, 5W, El País, Público, El Universal and El Temps. In 2011 she won the European Award for Excellence in Journalism in Sexual and Reproductive Rights.
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GLITTERING GOLDEN TIMES for the anti-establishment by Laura Pous*
Donald Trump and Nigel Farage laughing hysterically in front of a glistening golden door flanked by marble walls has now become an emblematic image of a new era in politics. A new era in which so-called ‘anti-establishment politicians’ tweet from penthouses in New York’s Fifth Avenue, promising to work in the interests of the left-behind voters, those that got forgotten by ‘the ruling elites’, who are totally out of touch with reality. Because, of course, standing in front of a glistening golden door flanked by marble walls one can perfectly understand the concerns of blue-collar workers both in Europe and America.
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onetheless, their joint photo op was also living proof that two of the worst nightmares of moderates around the world have now become a reality: Brexit and the election to the office of president of the USA of an inexperienced candidate accused by several women of sexual harassment, who wants to build a wall between his country and Mexico and expel millions of immigrants. A wake up call that, despite its stridency, appears unable to stop the momentum enjoyed by extreme right and populist movements across Europe. 24
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AUSTRIA DOES NOT GO EXTREME… FOR NOW
In December 2016, the European Union celebrated the election of Alexander Van der Bellen as president of Austria as a huge victory. Don’t get me wrong, I’m relieved that Van der Bellen won, but the fact that 46% of Austrian voters feel comfortable with Norbert Hofer as president is no reason for the EU to celebrate. On the contrary. EU leaders should not be complacent, they should start working on a positive, exhilarating pro-European message, while also being aware of and acknowledging
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the huge flaws in the current project and the need for reform, to make it more accountable, less bureaucratic and, at the end of the day, more credible. Depicting Van der Bellen’s victory as an EU victory against populism and the extreme right is wholly premature and, to a certain extent, naïve. Populism and anti-EU sentiment have not been put back in their box, although Mr Trump’s surprising victory in the United States may have helped, this time, in mobilising voters who are afraid of the rise in extremism.
However, can EU voters truly hold back this extremist wave for much longer without appropriate, realistic solutions from traditional political parties and Brussels? Trump’s victory seemed to serve as a wake up call for Austrian voters, but is it having any real longterm effect on the strategies of traditional politicians? I’m afraid not. Or at least, not yet. With the support of 46% of the electorate, Mr Hofer and his Freedom Party, with its links to Nazism, could easily become the leading force in the next Austrian parliamentary Catalan International View
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Can EU voters truly hold back this extremist wave without realistic solutions from traditional political parties? election, which is much more strategic than the presidential. Opinion polls already show him as having a comfortable lead. Speaking shortly before the Austrian presidential election, the Austrian Green MEP Michel Reimon declared that it is ‘quite credible’ for the FPO to ‘lead the next government’ in Austria and become ‘the biggest party’ in the country. In fact, Reimon was almost certain that ‘there will be a national election in the spring of 2017’ since the current coalition led by the social-democrats ‘will break up’. ‘This is what we are more concerned about. Austria could become the first country in Western Europe, and France with Le Pen the second, to have a farright leader. And they are both working for the destruction of the European Union’, he added. ‘I didn’t think that Trump could make it, I didn’t think that Brexit would happen, so I don’t know what will happen’, he admitted, aware of the complacency of many mainstream politicians in regard to the threat posed by populism. In fact, there is a resounding and concerning message that is now echoing across the Atlantic: voters are so fed up with traditional politicians, with political correctness and the promise of a better life that never seems to arrive, that they would rather have a clown in the White House than elect an experienced 26
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woman that they have seen in the political sphere for almost all their life. Voters are so afraid of the challenges posed by migration, the economic crisis and terrorism, and hear so few positive, exciting alternatives to this scary, inward looking nationalism, that they end up buying into it. LESSONS FROM THE US
To counteract this phenomenon, EU leaders should stop burying their heads in the sand in the hope that the voters will come to their senses and choose ‘the right option’, whether in France, the Netherlands or Hungary. There is nothing more alienating to citizens, especially those that feel ignored by the traditional political class, than to keep telling them that they are voting the wrong way. Voters should not simply be discredited as misguided lunatics, even if they do make dangerous choices. They should be offered proper alternatives in reply to their concerns. The European Union should learn from the mistakes and the complacency of the Clinton campaign in the United States: it is not enough to simply state how bad or dangerous your political rival is. It is not enough to be permanently on the defensive. A proper challenge to populism, racism and extreme-right movements has to offer clear, alternative solutions to the concerns that fuel them. And we are not seeing them right now: not in Brussels, not in Paris, not even in Berlin. Many hope Angela Merkel will be able to fight back against the extremists: but she cannot do so alone. And almost all her friends are gone, while more and more of Putin and Trump’s friends are entering the arena.
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LE PEN, ‘LESS ISOLATED’
The leader of the Front National, Marine Le Pen, was actually one of the first to congratulate president-elect Donald Trump last November. In an interview with CNN, she said he had ‘made possible what was presented as completely impossible’ and gave ‘a sign of hope for those who cannot bear wild globalization’ and ‘the political life led by the elites’. ‘I feel less isolated today because of the multi-polar world defended by Donald Trump, but also by Theresa May and Vladimir Putin’, she stated. In Italy, the resounding ‘no’ to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in the constitutional referendum was painted by Le Pen and Farage as a vote against Europe and the Eurozone, and capitalised by Italian populist forces such as the Lega Nord. ‘Viva Trump, viva Putin, viva la Le Pen e viva la Lega’, tweeted the extreme-right party’s leader, Matteo Salvini. Even if the ‘no’ to the constitutional reform was due to many, and in some cases entirely legitimate concerns surrounding an attempted recentralisation of power, only populist extremists capitalised on the result. Presenting themselves as an example of a world-changing movement that now has the support of the new president of the United States, Le Pen in France, Salvini in Italy or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands are trying to bolster
A proper challenge to populism, racism and extreme-right movements has to offer clear, alternative solutions their presidential image. Le Pen, faced with the conservative François Fillon, who was prime minister under Sarkozy, might reinforce her anti-establishment rhetoric and appeal even more to working class voters. She will certainly learn from what happened in the race between Trump and Clinton. Let’s just hope her rivals do too.
(*) Laura Pous (La Jonquera, 1986) is EU correspondent for the news agency ACN in Brussels and presents the weekly EU-affairs TV show Via Europa, broadcast by El Punt Avui. She was a UK Correspondent in London for six years and has also worked for Deutsche Welle and RAC1.
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TRUMP’S (economic) walls
by Natàlia Vila*
‘Building a wall would save us a lot of money’. The tycoon Donald Trump uttered this phrase last July at a rally in Texas, close to Mexico’s border, while aspiring to be the Republican nominee in the race to the White House. At the time, Trump spoke of immigration, but the walls he has promised to raise now he is the president, will not only have social implications or in terms of migration, but also significant economic effects.
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ccording to the former business tycoon Trump, fulfilling his campaign promise to ‘Make America Great Again’ involves protecting Americans and, above all, their jobs and their wallets. The one thing the Republicans learnt in the nineties (with Clinton’s unexpected victory over Bush) was that what really mobilises the American electorate is ‘the economy, stupid!’ Meanwhile, protecting, or shielding the economy from liberalism is a tough challenge: ‘The combination of liberalism and protectionism is a highly potent combination, while being a contradiction in terms from the start’ according to the analyst and founder of Blackbird, Joan Marc Ribes, ‘however, leaving personalities aside, in the
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short term, there are economic aspects in which this twofold approach could work’, adds Ribes. To achieve such an end, Trump has made certain concessions: on one hand he has promised to deregulate the financial sector and lower taxes –the essence of classical liberalism– while on the other also promising to protect the nation’s businesses through trade protectionism, i.e., raising a ‘wall of laws’ to protect American companies, even if it means intervening directly in the economy or reducing foreign spending to focus on the US economy. This position goes against many of the policies that Barack Obama introduced over the last eight years. Trump has spoken openly against investing more money in a public health system
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(i.e. Obamacare) or combating climate change. Instead Trump is in favour of increasing public spending on the country’s infrastructure (with a plan costing half a billion dollars) to rely on its own resources with respect to oil, to encourage the private sector in the field of health and increase spending on defence. As a result, it could lead to the repeal of a series of laws drafted by Democrats during the last two legislatures, with the corresponding legal instability this will entail for businesses.
MARKETS, THE FIRST TO REACT
This political U-turn was reflected in the financial markets weeks ago, which –since late December 2016– began to show certain trends. Trump’s victory sent the value of companies that supposedly stand to benefit from his policies skyrocketing even though they are yet to be introduced. On the stock market, the S&P 500 Index (which tracks the 500 largest companies in the United States) rose in excess of 6% between election-week and the end of the year, according to an analysis Catalan International View
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Trump’s arrival in the White House has financially benefitted the banks, oil companies, construction companies and the health sector business undertaken by the Solventis financial group for this publication. In monetary terms, it represents a 10-figure number: ‘6% more means that the companies that make up the S&P 500 are now worth $1.2 billion more than in the days leading up to the election; or in other words, in 45 days, these companies have increased in value on the stock market a sum equivalent to the entire Spanish economy in a whole year’, according to Xavier Brun, Professor of Economics at the UPF and Solventis’ director of investments. Such figures show that Trump’s arrival in the White House has financially benefitted the banks, oil companies, construction companies and the health sector business: ‘The investors reflect the situation, the attention and money have centred on these sectors’, says Brun. The volume of money moved by these companies on the stock market grew between 7% and 25% up to the end of December 2016. 30
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Since the election, private banking and investment companies have gained 22% overall, being the sector with the highest growth: these entities are now worth $355 billion more on the stock market than before Trump’s victory. This is the first direct consequence of the tycoon’s deregulation plans for the sector: the entrepreneur –and now president– wants to pave the way for large banks by eliminating the Dodd-Frank law, promoted by Obama, which currently forces them to separate retail banking from the large investment banks, to protect household savings as a result of the crisis. The same is true of oil companies. Plans by the new US government to promote its American oil reserves have boosted the value of these companies by almost 10% (an increase of $111 billion). By contrast, the ‘clean’ energy companies, the renewables, have been the worst hit by Trump’s declarations and since the elections, have so far racked up losses of over 8%. Another sector which has grown in value with the Republican victory is healthcare: the insurance and health companies combined are now worth $87 billion more than in early November. In this case, the investors are eagerly rubbing their hands together, since if
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While the investors applaud and adopt positions, outside its borders, concern for the shift in America’s attitude is apparent Trump shrinks the public health system, more people will opt for private insurance. Building companies have also grown in value by 20% ($3.3 billion) as a result of plans for investment in public projects; while the fight against terrorism and the quest for security has led to growth in the arms industry: which rose by 8%, representing profits approaching $33 billion. US RETREATS WHILE THE WORLD HOLDS ITS BREATH
While the investors applaud and adopt positions, outside its borders, concern for the shift in America’s attitude is apparent. Economists agree that given an economy which is more shut off from the exterior, combined with a reduction in taxes (both for the country’s private individuals and companies), consumption will pick up again, though only internally, and the effect will remain within the United States, as Trump wants. This isolation could have a counterproductive effect: causing a dangerous increase in prices at home, while simultaneously devaluing 32
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the dollar, due to a lack of interaction with the exterior. An interaction which will also be hampered by the former tycoon’s repeated threats aimed at companies which leave the country or invest abroad, with a tax of around 35% according to Trump’s tweets. In fact, diplomatic relations, with China and Mexico in particular, also worry analysts, economists and politicians around the world. Donald Trump has surrounded himself with a government team with a distinctly ultraconservative, Christian profile. It is the richest cabinet in history: all its members are billionaires, the offspring of tycoons, businessmen and Wall Street bankers. Some of them, like the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, even have numerous lawsuits for racism on their resume. It is a team which complicates international relations and which Europe is observing uneasily. Not only thanks to its conservative, anti-globalization, and climate change denying ideology but also wary of its impact on the TTIP, the trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, which – following three years of complex negotiations– has become more deadlocked than ever. In fact, a few hours after learning the outcome of the elections on 9 November, the European Commission suspended all meetings until the
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THE ‘TRUMP EFFECT’ ON THE AMERICAN ECONOMY Changes in the enterprise value (percentage/millions of dollars) of Wall Street’s* major sectors
Private banks + Investment banks:
+22%
+$355,000 M
Oil companies:
+9.7%
+$111,000 M
Insurance:
+10%
+$52,000 M
+7%
+$35,000 M
Construction companies:
+19.8%
+$3,300 M
Weapons manufacturers:
+8%
+$33,000 M
Health companies:
(* between 7 November and 21 December 2016)
new interlocutor took possession of the White House and got down to business. But beyond this agreement, isolationism is worrying: according to the economist Xavier Brun ‘these policies could all adversely affect companies outside of the US who wish to do business there’, adding: ‘On the other hand, companies like Grifols, which has plants there, stand to benefit’, since Trump intends to retain production within its borders. Uncertainty, mistrust, isolation and a government losing its grip on the econ-
omy. On 20 January, Donald Trump entered the White House with an economic outlook which, according to economic indicators, is healthier than when Barack Obama took office, but with one danger, isolated in its own bubble, of debt of overvalued and oversaturated markets. Blackbird’s analyst, Joan Marc Ribes, warns: ‘It’s not the same as 2008, but the US stock market is inflated and this will be one of the first economic challenges Trump will have to overcome’, he concludes.
(*) Natàlia Vila (Barcelona, 1984), a journalist specializing in economics and conflict resolution. She currently works for ARA newspaper and contributes to BTV Ràdio. Formerly she headed the business section on 8TV’s current affairs programme 8aldia amb Josep Cuní, for which she covered the economic crisis. She has been a special correspondent in Greece, Cyprus, Brussels and Strasbourg and has also published articles in Público newspaper.
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THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO WAIT FOR GODOT:
the future of Sino-American relations under Trump by Joan Vicens Sard*
The Chinese Communist Party has been growing since 1949, evolving in response to the multiple transformations which the country has undergone. Until now, it has been able to cope with the changes, obstacles and new circumstances with increasingly complex political manoeuvres which seek to avoid the radical changes in policy of the early years of the republic, which were agitated and confused. China has mainly focused its strategy on the pursuit of stability: at the local level, in spite of facing colossal challenges; regionally, in an area which is politically unstable; and even at the global level in an international system in which China has gone from being of little significance to playing a key role. During these years, its domestic and foreign policies have taken shape, creating an orthodoxy and unique patterns which are meticulously analysed, particularly by the United States and Europe. And China, besides its government, in addition to being the most populous country in the world, represents for numerous more or less political reasons, otherness: that which is apparently different.
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n the United States, from the first decades of Maoism, these interpretations of China –ill-informed due to a lack of contact, experience and mutual understanding– constantly suffered from the Cold War tendency to over-simplify events into a Manichaeistic struggle between good and evil. Such logic seemed to have vanished or diminished with the arrival of the supposed ‘end of history’ but it has recently been revived. Tiananmen and, above all, the so-called Chinese Miracle, however, have meant that, in recent decades, mistrust between 34
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the two countries has grown and has buried the strategic normalisation of relations of the seventies, together with a longed-for democratization process that was seen as a consequence of the reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping. Since then the vision of China as a rival has been seeping into American political discourse. And the sum of the consequences of the Bush administration’s incoherent policies, together with the sinking of the neoliberal system in 2008 mean that this way of thinking has become dangerously powerful, with the idea of a foreseeable
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transition, in which China will inevitably overtake the United States, taking root in international political discourse. Thus begins the debate surrounding Thucydides’ Trap, which states that there are few precedents in which such successions do not end in war. So, while the US adopts a discourse of development cooperation with many countries, with Beijing the narrative is completely different. A good example are the negotiations for China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, concluded in 2001, with conditions which China initially found difficult to accept. Even fifteen years later, and despite President Trump’s declarations that international trade is skewed in China’s favour, the People’s Republic has been refused the status of a ‘market economy’ in the WTO as it would require reducing tariffs on many Chinese goods. Contrary to what these narratives indicate, the Communist Party is perceived and presents itself as an actor which does everything within its power to adapt to international regulations and that only now, when it sees that the system is strangling its development, is it seeking alternative solutions, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. This political background during the campaign propelled Donald Trump to the post of President of the United States, in which he projects the image of a tough, unforgiving leader, in contrast to the obnoxious image of the Democrats and, in particular Obama, as weak in terms of foreign policy and trade. Trump seems to be the height of Neoconservativism (to date): hypersensitivity and (partisan, selective) historical amnesia, exaggerated patriotism, trade protectionism and a (fictitious) decrease in state spending –depicted as a bottomless pit of taxes. Nevertheless, in many ways there is nothing new in Trump’s election: the nation’s history is punctuated by isolation-
ism, essentialism and exceptionalism, and the tensions they produce –the United States became a superpower in historical circumstances which are unlikely to be repeated, and changed their way of acting only when not doing so would have been foolish. There have always been parochial, nationalist voices, calling for Washington to be cut down to size, which focus on the defence of the state, while refusing to continue to play the role of the world’s policeman. And such voices favour Trump, who with fear, prejudice and xenophobia as his rallying cry attacks anything that stands in his way in order to further his cause. In terms of foreign policy, apart from the infamous wall that puts Mexico at the centre of the storm, China –from his point of view a competitor and a free rider– is used as a punching bag, indiscriminately struck at will with little concern for the veracity of the information. In fact, a closer look at the reality of US foreign policy reveals an attitude Catalan International View
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which is not as lenient as Trump makes out. The Obama administration’s move towards Asia in order to contain China’s growth has been nurtured by commercial and diplomatic efforts aimed at improving bilateral relations with the PRC’s neighbours while also trying to find solutions that do not antagonize them and using a non-confrontational discourse, involving concepts such as ‘cooperation’ and the ‘construction of areas of common interest’, in order to avoid possible conflict between the two countries.
The threat of raising tariffs on Chinese products is of concern, not only for China, but for American companies themselves Here lies the fundamental difference between Obama and Trump who, for now, seems set on changing the tone of the dialogue with China. However, it is unclear to what extent it is purely rhetoric and bragging on Twitter, or whether he truly intends to make good on the promises he gave during his election campaign. Nonetheless, China does not seem unduly worried by a relationship with a stronger US –a situation that the Party has seen before– or a weaker one –in which China could substantially increase its influence in the international arena. However, the instability created by an inconsistent leader, the fact that it is hard to decide whether their conversation with the president of Taiwan was a faux pas or a strategic change in diplomacy between the two nations, is
what appears to worry Beijing. Before Trump’s phone call to the President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen, China hoped that he would not interfere so much in what the Communist Party considers to be domestic affairs. Trump also does not seem to be keen on pursuing a human rights agenda or continuing to press China with the TPP. Nevertheless, the threat of raising tariffs on Chinese products is of more concern, not only for China, but for American companies themselves, who would also suffer the consequences of such policies, since China is a major market for many large US corporations such as Apple and Boeing. Such inflammatory rhetoric also negatively affects the confidence of America’s Asian allies, who have spent decades confronting the dilemma of choosing between a Pax Americana or a Pax Sinica. Following America’s election results, many voices were raised throughout China mocking the democratic option, comparing it unfavourably with the Party’s infallible management. Indeed, Trump’s presidency begins a new era in the erosion of the concept of democracy on a global scale. Curiously, Trump is also well thought of by many Chinese citizens who find his Berlusconi-like character appealing: a self-styled winner, an extravagant billionaire married to a younger woman. With his ethnocentric policies and historical amnesia he is an archetype of the new breed of nouveau riche Chinese. Indeed, at the end of the day, certain elements of the Chinese and Americans dreams may have more in common than the differentiating, exceptionalist national narratives would initially suggest.
(*) Joan Vicens Sard (Cala Ratjada, Majorca, 1984) holds a degree in Business Administration from the Universitat de Barcelona, an MA in International Relations from the Macquarie University of Sydney and an MA in Chinese Studies from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. A passion for contemporary politics led him to live for a time in Sydney (Australia), Nuremberg (Germany) and Kaifeng (China). In late 2016 he settled in Hong Kong, where he works in the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Chinese Studies. His interests include the theory of international relations –particularly with reference to post-colonialism and international security–, Chinese foreign policy and the relationship between the state and margins.
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TENS FAMILIARS O AMICS QUE VIUEN FORA DE CATALUNYA? JA S’HAN INSCRIT AL REGISTRE DE CATALANS RESIDENTS A L’EXTERIOR?
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SÍ o NO?
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Decidiran de forma directa sobre el que passa al nostre país
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TRUMP AND EUROPE:
confrontation between allies by Carme Colomina*
Since Donald Trump took office the feeling of insecurity in Europe has been on the rise. Transatlantic uncertainty has increased, hastening the debate surrounding the need to rethink European defence. An EU in crisis, internally divided by the rise of populism and the persistence of economic inequality, wishes to cling to the idea that Trump’s victory offers it the opportunity to redefine itself on the outside.
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I
n the summer of 2001, when New York’s Twin Towers were still standing, at the White House George W. Bush was preparing his first official visit to Europe and two wellknown British experts had been invited to a meeting. The president asked: ‘Do we want the European Union to succeed?’ Seeing the consternation of the two Brits, he chuckled and told them he was just teasing. The historian Timothy Garton Ash relates the event in his book Free World. Bush was simply voicing the same doubts that have dogged many US administrations since World War II, especially Republican. During his father’s time in office, while Washington was debating the possibility of military intervention in the Balkan War, the Secretary of State James Baker’s right-hand man declared in a meeting that it was better for the Europeans to take care of it: ‘They’ll fail, and it’ll teach them a lesson’, he said, according to the stenographer present in the room. Transatlantic mistrust did not originate with Donald Trump. The difficult legislative journey of the failed free trade agreement between the US and the EU, the TTIP, was not only provoked by opposition from the European public, it was also caused by a lack of trust and differences of opinion between the two negotiating parties –according to certain members of the European team that participated in the negotiations. However, with Trump’s election, the divide between the two sides of the Atlantic is no longer defined solely by
mistrust but rather by a genuine questioning of the international order. Trump’s world is one of competition between superpowers in which the United States prefers isolation to multilateralism. During the campaign, the then Republican candidate questioned Europe’s role as a key ally for the US, a relationship that no American president had dared to challenge so openly since the Second World War. Trump warned NATO members that ‘those who want security need to pay for it’ themselves; he criticized the French, Belgians and Germans for how they have dealt with immigration and the threat of terrorism. And when in an interview he was reproached for lacking knowledge of geography and international politics, Trump replied that ‘Belgium is a beautiful city’.
Trump’s world is one of competition between superpowers in which the United States prefers isolation to multilateralism Now that Trump has taken office, however, with all his contradictions, it has caused some upsets surrounding this question. In February, Trump’s new team was dispatched to Europe to try to iron out any problems: Vice President Pence stated in Brussels that the United States would maintain a ‘strong commitment’ to the European Union, while the Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the Munich Security ConCatalan International View
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ference that NATO (which Trump has branded ‘obsolete’) is ‘the best alliance in the world’, while calling for Europe to make a greater contribution to deal with the costs involved. For years, the United States have called on their transatlantic partners to increase military spending which has also suffered cuts as a result of the crisis. In 2014, at a summit between the allies in Wales, the Europeans agreed to increase spending up to 2% of GDP within 10 years. However, this is yet to be put into effect. TRUMP AS AN OPPORTUNITY
While the EU is internally divided, due to the rise of populism and the persistence of economic inequality, among other problems, Trump’s victory in the US is an opportunity for it to redefine itself on the outside.
The challenges facing the EU are more than the transatlantic connection. They are political, diplomatic, territorial, economic, cybernetic and involve people’s security Transatlantic uncertainty has led to a new rapprochement between Berlin, Paris and London, and a new debate as to the need to rethink European defence. In fact, the first step in this direction was a reaction to Brexit, rather than the threat of Trump. In October 2016, four EU governments –France, Germany, Italy and Spain– sent a letter to their EU counterparts stating that 40
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they wished to use a mechanism that already exists in the EU treaties that allows a core group of countries to cooperate more closely on military matters. Over a year earlier, the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker declared in an interview that the EU needs a European army. At the time, it didn’t look as if Juncker was worried about Washington, but rather Moscow. The conflict in Ukraine gave Europeans the opportunity to have an insight into their own political weakness and Juncker deduced that, with a military force behind them, the EU could really convince Russia that it is truly willing to defend European values to the end. The argument proved to be false. The 28 already have as much of a military capacity as Russia, if not more. The Kremlin’s military spending is only slightly higher than the UK’s. Strength lies not with tanks but with credibility. Even Barack Obama, in an interview he gave to The Atlantic before leaving office, criticized the allies for being ‘free-riders’ who benefit from the world order thanks to the protection provided by the United States. The real question the Europeans ought to be asking themselves isn’t who will defend them if Trump cuts the transatlantic ties, but what the EU has to offer the world. It’s not a question of investing more in military spending: according to Frances Burwell of the Atlantic Council, in the Trump era ‘political coherence is even more important’. A reserved US and a Russia strengthened by a change of roles in the old duel that adopts
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Cold War posturing and rhetoric, leaves the EU open to the possibility of deciding for itself which threats affect it and what its response ought to be. For this to happen, however, the EU partners first need to adopt a genuine common foreign policy, a unique view of the world, of alliances and interests which they wish to prevail. Meanwhile, however, each capital views the world differently. The perception of Moscow, for example, changes as one moves across the EU from east to west.
‘The current debate depicts a Europe threatened from the east and abandoned by the west’, according to Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm Institute for Peace Research (SIPRI). However, this view of the situation exaggerates the role of defence and disregards other aspects key to regional security, Smith declared at an interview with Carnegie Europe. The challenges facing the EU are more than the transatlantic connection. They are political, diplomatic, territorial, economic, cybernetic and involve the security of its population.
(*) Carme Colomina (Ripollet, 1970) is a columnist for ARA newspaper in Barcelona and Associate Researcher on European Affairs at CIDOB, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs. She has worked as a consultant on various communications projects in Europe and the Mediterranean area and headed the Secretariat of Interregional Cooperation at the Government of Catalonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has lectured on the EU’s institutional dynamics and policies and since 2015 has been Professor of International Journalism at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Universitat de Vic. She is also visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. She regularly contributes to various media organizations as an expert on European current affairs.
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Europe
The economics of multilingualism by Ramon Caminal*
Evidently, we live in a multilingual world. There exist more than 6,000 distinct languages, some of them widely used and many others spoken only within very small communities. Indeed, the size distribution of first language speakers is extremely skewed: the top 16 languages account for half of the world’s population, each language with more than 100 million native speakers. Also, the top 400, each one with at least one million speakers, account for 99% of the population. Moreover, more and more individuals learn at least one second language throughout their lives. In fact, multilingual individuals already outnumber the monolingual and their relative weight will continue growing along with the extent of globalization.
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hus, the fact that multilingualism has also attracted the attention of economic researchers will come as no surprise. Over the last few decades the fact that language skills affect economic outcomes has been extensively documented. For instance, immigrant workers fluent in the local language obtain a sizeable wage premium. Similarly, knowledge of foreign languages significantly affects the pattern of international trade. These are examples of what we can label as ‘narrow’ questions. The researchers involved have considered the role of languages to the extent to which they affect market outcomes (prices, production and trade). It is well known that the intellectual curiosity of economists is not always confined to the realm of purely economic questions. These days it is very easy to find articles on issues ranging from child nutrition to political violence, and from religion to suicidal behavior in 42
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economic journals. For some observers (and to many social scientists) such invasions are simply further evidence of the economists’ legendary arrogance. For others (including most economists) the modern toolkit developed by economists can be very useful not only in studying purely economic questions, but also a wide variety of social issues. Back to multilingualism, it is not immediately obvious whether economists can effectively provide useful answers to ‘broad’ questions like the following: What is the role of languages in society? Is linguistic diversity a blessing or a curse? How does the existence of multiple languages affect the pattern of social interactions? What is the relationship between languages, cultures, and identities? How should linguistic policies be designed in order to improve social welfare? In the remainder of this article I shall argue that economists’ contribu-
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tions to some of these issues has so far been modest, and in some cases the discourse may well have been misleading. However, after paying more attention to the work of sociolinguists and political scientists, the economists’ perspective, together with the on-going developments in economic methodology, can make a difference. The empirical evidence on the ‘narrow’ questions has been rationalized by appealing to the role of languages as communication devices. Production, trade, and other forms of social interaction, require message exchanges and hence the use of a particular code. If all individuals involved in a certain activity do not share a common language then they must use translators and middlemen, which may considerably increase production and transaction costs and reduce the reliability of communication. This is clearly a key mechanism by which language skills may affect mar-
ket outcomes. This basic idea has been formalized in some game-theoretic models ( Jonathan Pool and Reinhard Selten1, for example) that aim to study the incentives involved in acquiring a second language. These models deliver a simple but highly significant insight: ceteris paribus, the greater the number of speakers of a language, the more profitable it is to invest in it. Thus, to employ some economic jargon, we can say that individual learning decisions generate positive (network) externalities. If I learn Japanese, I will be able to communicate with Japanese speakers (this is my private benefit). However, I also generate value for all Japanese speakers who will now be able to communicate with me. Thus, the social return on my investment in learning a second language is higher than my private return. Consequently, individuals tend to invest too little with respect to the social optimum. A subsidy on learning a second Catalan International View
1. Selten, R., and J. Pool (1991), The distribution of foreign language skills as a game equilibrium. In R. Selten (ed.) Game Equilibrium Models vol. 4, pp. 64-84, Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
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language could generate a social return that exceeds its monetary cost. Another important insight is that if learning decisions are exclusively left to individuals then we might face a serious coordination problem. The emergence of a lingua franca (a language systematically used between individuals with different native languages) is a natural and desirable phenomenon. However, the choice of the particular language that is adopted as a lingua franca may not be the right one. It has been argued that if, instead of learning English as a second language, we all learn an artificial language like Esperanto, then life would be much easier for most non-English speakers and total learning costs could be significantly lower. But of course, very few people find learning Esperanto attractive given that its current number of speakers is so low, and its future prospects do not look much brighter. In other words, the role of English as the lingua franca is probably quite stable (at least, for now), even though a superior alternative might exist, since its implementation would require formidable coordination efforts.
The emergence of a lingua franca (a language used between individuals with different native languages) is a natural and desirable phenomenon Hence, theories that focus exclusively on the communicative value of languages have certainly provided simple, yet very important, insights and have identified potential sources of inefficiencies when decisions are decentralized: network externalities and coordination failures. Moreover, they have provided solid reasons for supporting direct public intervention as well as some sort of explicit coordination. 44
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The problem arises when we use theories that portray different languages exclusively as interchangeable communication vehicles as a means to approach a wide range of topics, including certain delicate policy issues. For example, consider the best short-term policy in a bilingual society. If (a) there are more native speakers of language A than of language B, (b) learning any second language is equally costly, and (c) these decisions are left to individuals, then learning A for a native B speaker is more attractive than learning B for a native A speaker. Hence, as often confirmed by the empirical evidence, it will be easier to find bilingual individuals in the smaller (B), rather than in the larger (A), community. As a result, the strong language will be more frequently used in inter-community exchanges. As mentioned before, since individuals do not take into account the positive network externalities they generate, then they will tend to underinvest in second languages. If we take a utilitarian perspective (as we typically do when we discuss optimal taxation or anti-trust policy) then the optimal form of intervention would be a subsidy scheme that will tend to magnify the gap between the two languages. That is, the optimal policy intervention will confine language B to even more of a corner (essentially, restricting its use to intra-community exchanges) and will establish language A as the lingua franca, commonly used in inter-community exchanges. The logic is simple: paying for the learning costs of native B speakers (a smaller group) is cheaper than paying for the costs of native A speakers. Moreover, the previous argument is reinforced by the fact that as more B speakers become bilingual the return for an A speaker to become bilingual decreases. In other words, if everybody learns my language then I do not need to learn any other language. If, instead, we take a long-term perspective then we should ask our-
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selves about the effects of globalization on the dynamics of the distribution of language size. Drastic improvements in communications, and the internet in particular, have significantly raised the frequency of interactions between individuals endowed with a different language background. The private and social returns from learning and using a globally popular language have increased dramatically. How different speech communities will react to such powerful incentives will of course depend on the role of languages in different societies. However, if languages were pure communication devices, then it is hard to imagine how relatively small speech communities can avoid the temptation to learn, use, and eventually transmit to future generations, a global language, instead of their native tongue. Some of the formal models used to study language dynamics (and, in particular, the work of Andrew John) have clearly put forward that, if languages are interchangeable communication devices, then the survival of languages with a small number of speakers is only possible if the community remains isolated, or as an accident resulting from poor coordination. In other words, as globalization advances we should expect a consolidation in which the largest languages increase their population share at the expense of the rest. Moreover, from a normative point of view, and still focusing exclusively on the communication benefits, the death of languages can only be seen as a welcomed event. In a nutshell, multilingualism is a curse, as exemplified by the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel. The world would be a better place if only one language existed. Of course, such a clear principle does not necessarily imply that the transition towards such an ideal state will be smooth sailing. For instance, speakers of a minority language that is less exposed to globalization may be negatively affected when
the rest of their community stops using the local language. Nevertheless, these negative effects may be negligible compared to the social gains of accelerating the convergence towards a single language, through public policies and explicit coordination efforts. This view is rather popular among economists, and eloquently expressed by Eric Jones2. David Clingingsmith has tested whether globalization is leading to language consolidation3. Quite surprisingly, he finds that only the bottom 4000 languages, each one with less than 35,000 native speakers show clear signs of decay and hence may be prone to the risk of extinction throughout this century. What is remarkable is that more than 2,000 languages, with a number of speakers between 35,000 and one million do not appear to be at any systematic risk of survival. Future studies using different databases may confirm or modify the general message. But so far this evidence is hard to reconcile with theories that portray languages as interchangeable communication devices. It is easy to conjecture that small and medium-sized languages are resisting the successive waves of globalization because they play a more complex role in society. Aside from the communicative aspects, sociolinguists and political scientists have also emphasized the role of
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2. Jones, E. (2000), The Case for a Shared World Laguage. In M. Casson and A. Goldley (eds.), Cultural Factors in Economic Growth, pp. 210-235, Berlin: SpringerVerlag. 3. Clingingsmith, D. (2015), Are the World’s Languages Consolidating? Dynamics and Distribution of Language Populations. The Economic Journal, forthcoming. 4. Caminal, R., and Di Paolo, A. (2015), Your Language or Mine? Barcelona GSE working paper 852.
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There are also other economic studies that link certain characteristics of languages to economic behavior languages as repositories of cultures, the close link between a language and an identity, or the emotional attachment to a particular language that most individuals develop throughout their life. However, we know very little about the relevance of all these other aspects, with respect to the communicative benefits of sharing a common language and the costs of acquiring an additional language. We could make some progress by considering to what extent individual behavior is affected by these noncommunicative dimensions. Together with Antonio Di Paolo I have recently examined the effect of language skills on intermarriage, using a database from Catalonia.4 In fact, Catalonia offers a unique opportunity to test whether language skills matter beyond communication. First, basically all its residents speak Spanish, hence the ability to communicate is not at stake. Second, the education reform started in the 1980’s introduced Catalan as a language of instruction, which considerably improved the oral proficiency in Catalan of native Spanish speakers without affecting other oral skills. In other words,
the reform has ‘exogenously’ improved language skills that are redundant from a communication viewpoint. We show that those additional language skills have significantly raised the frequency of linguistically mixed couples. More specifically, if the Catalan proficiency of a native Spanish speaker rises by one point (on a 0-10 scale) then his/ her probability of being matched with a Catalan speaker rises by 7%. The significance of these results can be illustrated by the following projection. If all native Spanish speakers were to acquire full oral proficiency in Catalan, then the Index of Linguistic Endogamy (an index of segregation along linguistic lines) would fall from the current level of 45% (already lower than before the education reform) to 31%. There are also other economic studies that link certain characteristics of languages (such as the extent to which they grammatically associate the future and the present or mark gender distinctions) to economic behavior (savings, labor market participation). Although it is hard to determine the most relevant direction of causality, these studies show that languages are not interchangeable communication devices. They also demonstrate that economists can contribute to our understanding of the role of languages in society and to the design of better language policies.
(*) Ramon Caminal is a Research Professor at the Institut d’Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC). He is also an Affiliate Professor at the Barcelona GSE and Research Fellow at the CEPR. He holds a PhD from Harvard University. His most recent research lies in the fields of Industrial Organization, Bargaining Theory, and the Economics of Languages.
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Africa
The active participation of local civil society in international cooperation projects: essential for a real and lasting impact by Natalia Riera*
In this article I intend to highlight the importance and leading role of society in the process of identifying and implementing strategies and actions for development. Without the participation and therefore ownership of these processes by the population of the areas in which such actions take place it is almost impossible to achieve the intended results with a lasting impact at the local level, in order to achieve global development.
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ince the First High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Rome (2003), the international debate on development has shifted its emphasis to improving the quality of aid and its impact on development. The Paris Declaration (2005), a significant international agreement, established a roadmap of practical commitments organized into five basic principles: a) Appropriating development cooperation: recipient countries exercise their leadership, coordination and implementation of development strategies and their own development strategies; b) The alignment of strategies, systems and national development procedures: donor countries align with the strategies of partner countries receiving aid; c) Harmonization of policies and actions of donor countries; d) Managing
for results; and e) Mutual accountability: donors and partners are accountable for development results. The Accra Agenda for Action was drawn up in 2008 with the intention of accelerating and deepening the implementation of the Paris Declaration, adding the basic principles of transparency, accountability and gender equality, among others. The participation of civil society organizations in meetings and forums as observers, acknowledged their role as development actors. Accra highlighted the need for donors and countries which receive help to improve the conditions in which organizations work in order to improve their effectiveness on the ground and reach a greater number of people through the development actions which they conduct. Catalan International View
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Africa
In 2011 the Fourth High-Level Forum was held in Busan. The Global Partnership for Development Cooperation was created with the objective of taking stock of progress in improving the quality of aid based on the principles of aid effectiveness established in the Paris Declaration in 2005 and
The Global Partnership for Development Cooperation was created with the objective of taking stock of progress in improving the quality of aid subsequently revised in Accra in 2008. Its aim was to intensify development cooperation as one of the main drivers behind poverty reduction, social protection, economic growth and sustainable development. From this moment on 48
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the international structures based on a country-led approach changed their strategy, recognizing the diversity of participants and the various functions and roles that each plays. With the Busan Partnership, common goals of sustainable development were consolidated, restructuring development cooperation around four principles: 1) The appropriation of development priorities by developing countries; 2) A focus on results; 3) Inclusive, integrative partnerships for development, based on mutual trust; and 4) Transparency and shared responsibility. Thus, shared principles and differentiated commitments were established. How can we achieve these common development goals? From my point of view, by making every effort to ensure participation, one of the commitments made in the Busan alliance, which remains crucial: civil society must act in
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an environment that enhances its participation and its contribution to development. To this end, a presence on the ground is key, aside from the role played by agencies and research centres, both nationally and internationally, in the promotion, analysis and dissemination of new perspectives capable of improving the impact of cooperation. One of the functions carried out by people who work in the field is facilitating the participation and ownership of strategies and actions by the population themselves and establishing systems and mechanisms of accountability. Civil society and the different contexts of inequality must exercise leadership and not develop and implement these strategies and actions through projects designed in offices in the organizations’ headquarters. I believe that one of the most important roles that the people who work in different countries must carry out, in my case in Senegal, is to facilitate and accompany this significant change in the model. To contribute both within our own organizations and the organizations with which we collaborate in various countries, so that they begin to truly work under the paradigm of cooperation for global, transformative justice based on a rights approach. In order that an actual change occurs in the nature of power relations, from donors to recipients, involves relationships of responsibility in development actions and horizontality in these relationships as rights holders (individuals / the general public), holders of obligations (authorities and public institutions) and holders of responsibilities (NGOs, organizations, the media, businesses and so on). I would like to address in more detail what I see as the key elements: participation, ownership and accountability. These should be an integral part of our daily practice and applied to all phases of our work: identification, de-
sign, implementation, monitoring and the evaluation of projects and cooperation programs. It is necessary to encourage continuous processes for promoting the active participation of local civil society through inclusive, participatory and living processes, ensuring and integrating the participation of women in the decision-making process, as well as putting the most vulnerable sectors of the population (children, minorities and so on) at the centre of groups and ensuring coordination between the various stakeholders (rights holders, obligations and responsibilities) while maintaining their autonomy in making decisions and recognizing the diversity and complementarity of their roles.
It is necessary to encourage continuous processes for promoting the active participation of local civil society Such responsibility is linked to the second key element or component, which is ownership: putting people at the centre as active agents of change and the transformation of their community, while raising awareness of their responsibility. Abandoning the logic of donors and recipients / beneficiaries of aid, from subjects of needs to subjects with rights, strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations or local partners with whom we work and collaborate to jointly contribute to inclusive and sustainable empowerment of the population, to independently lead their own development process by enhancing their means. Strengthening the capacities of rights holders to be aware of, claim and contribute to the fulfilment of rights, while providing capacities and sufficient resources to holders of obligations and responsibilities to fulfil their duties Catalan International View
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and commitments and build relationships among the three groups taking into account the political, economic, social, cultural and legal framework which determines the power relations between them, while positioning rights holders at the centre of these relations. In short, perceiving processes as their own and not as models designed from outside. Encouraging such participation and ownership involves establishing clear mechanisms and channels of accountability, based on transparency and shared responsibility, generating trust, respect and mutual learning. It involves evaluating processes in a participatory way and incorporating and promoting empowerment and capacity building. Accountability combined with resultsbased management as a means to enforce rights. Placing the focus on participation, ownership and evaluation and the implementation of accountability processes at every stage can ensure lasting impacts in both the short and long term.
Around 25 ethnic groups and nationalities live in the Kolda region Along with many other organizations and institutions I recognise the importance of moving from theory and discourse to action, to focus the interventions, actions and projects on the people involved in order that they can truly become active participants in their own development. In my case I have worked in cooperation programs and projects in Senegal since 2011. I have worked mainly in the capital, Dakar, and two of the three regions of southern Senegal, Ziguinchor and Kolda, and recently in the north, in the Podor Department (Saint-Louis region). The process of identifying and designing interventions, despite involv50
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ing the same country, have to be adaptable to each of the realities, the scope of the project, traditional practices and the socio-political, cultural, religious and economic context. Developing projects in the north or in the south of Senegal is not the same. This is true even in the same area, such as southern Senegal, the Casamance region in which I am currently based, where the diversity between one place and another is such that there are many differences. At this point I should like to return to the idea of the need to improve the working conditions both of organizations with a presence in the field and organizations and / or local teams, to ensure that when it comes to addressing inequalities they truly conduct processes with a view to adapting the action and participation to the multiplicity of contexts and differences. To achieve results with a lasting and sustainable impact it is necessary to surround oneself with a knowledgeable local team, people who not only know the language but also the realities and social and cultural norms, as well as ways of relating to the different territories in which we work. For example, in southern Senegal, in the Kolda and Ziguinchor regions, these processes of participation, ownership and accountability, despite the proximity of the two regions, need to be adapted. Once more I would like to mention the fundamental role played by local teams, whose presence is invaluable. Both are border regions, characterized by great diversity in their ethnic and multicultural make up. Differentiated diversity. Around 25 ethnic groups and nationalities live in the Kolda region: Fula (75%), Mandinka (7.31%), Wolof (7.22%), Soninke (2.33%), Jola (1.36%), Serer (1.1%), and so on. Ziguinchor region is characterized by a different ethnic composition: Jola (57.8%), Mandinka
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(11.10%), Fula (10.5%), Wolof (3.9%), Manjacks (3.5%), Ballantest (2.9%), Serer, (2.70%), Mankanya (2.4%), and so on. This plurality imposes different codes and concrete ways of addressing actions in a very specific way which is appropriate to each area of action. A presence on the ground is therefore important to accompany the processes of identification and construction of appropriate action, getting to know and respect this diversity and cultural uniqueness and the various models of economic, social, political development. Strengthening the participation and ownership of action by the whole population, counting on the cooperation and involvement of local teams, which facilitate the active participation of the various groups involved, the rights holders, the obligations and responsibilities, women and men, members and representatives of the grassroots organizations that facilitate the various meetings, workshops, assemblies, knowledge of the languages of the areas (Wolof, Fula, Jola, etc.) contributing through methodologies which are adapted so that the groups and people take ownership of their processes and actions, through the analysis of the problem and subsequent design of the intervention, taking into account the particular context of each area, adapting processes to conditions and involving all members of society, administrative authorities, leaders and community leaders, traditional and religious authorities, associations and women’s groups, and the local and international organizations which are present in the area. Connecting with people, building trust with people who work and collaborate in the various organizations
we support through cooperation projects. I built such a bond of trust over time with a team of Senegalese who collaborate with NGOs, organizations (especially women’s) and other groups. Their support throughout the process ensures smooth coordination and high quality teamwork, engaging in actions and identification missions and project design, ensuring participation and ownership by all stakeholders: meetings with authorities and institutions which are involved in one way or another. To consolidate spaces for appropriation, especially rights holders, the implementation of activities and achievement of results. Making them feel increasingly involved in their own processes. Integrating everyone in the process of continuous monitoring and evaluation, and providing them with a voice in areas of accountability. We need time to adapt, in order to get involved and to acquire knowledge. Adapting these realities to the rhythms of the projects is a challenge, and in the field one ends up working with the help of local partners who teach one how to proceed. This ability is due to their work, effort, involvement and constant support, building genuine relationships, which allow us to maintain a steady pace of cooperation, and achieve results and developments which in the long term are bound to make an impact. We must reaffirm our commitment to development cooperation, transformative cooperation as a catalyst for the reduction of poverty, for social protection, economic growth and sustainable development, while promoting the development of proposals and alternatives from the local context. Homegrown, adapted to each unique context.
(*) Natalia Riera (Barcelona, 1976) holds a degree in Policy Science and Administration from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has gained extensive experience in the field of international cooperation since 2007. She is currently the Head of Projects for the NGO Xarxa de Consum Solidari.
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Business, Law & Economics
Catalonia: first-class research in a competitive world Research is a global pursuit and the Catalan system has managed to capture the attention of the international scientific community through indicators such as the following: with 0.1% of the world population, Catalonia is responsible for publishing more than 1.3% of its scientific output. International rankings also reflect the excellence of Catalan research, placing centres such as the Catalan Institute of Chemical Research (ICIQ), the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in the lead in their respective fields. Behind this achievement, lies a clear commitment. The promotion of talent and the autonomy of the institutions are key to the success of a Catalan research model that has been developed in spite of the restrictive legislation imposed by the Spanish state.
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atalonia’s research system is one of the most productive and successful in Europe. In fifteen years, it has taken a spectacular leap forward, going from almost complete invisibility to becoming a leader and creating a knowledge hub in southern Europe. While being home to just 1.5% of the European population, Catalonia generates 3.7% of its scientific output. Our research system also ranks second in the European Union (EU) with regard to attracting grants awarded by the prestigious European Research Council to top researchers. THE BACKGROUND
The foundations of Catalan science policy were established nearly 40 years ago 52
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on the back of a university system that was consolidating and increasing potential. From the year 2000, after making an excellent system of higher education accessible to the entire population, a series of initiatives were put in place which led to the first-class system that Catalonia currently possesses in the knowledge field. THE KEYS TO SUCCESS
The Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and the Research Centers of Catalonia network (CERCA) are the two instruments responsible for the level of excellence of Catalonia’s research system. Both, unique to the Catalan model, are flexible and focused on internationaliza-
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tion as well as on attracting and retaining talent. In order to stimulate the attraction of international talent, ICREA has been operating a program for the last 15 years which ensures an open and competitive process, recruiting individuals at the international level involving experts from all over the world. Thanks to ICREA it is possible to employ outside talent while retaining local talent. There are currently 255 ICREA researchers working in 50 institutions throughout Catalonia. Scientists hired by ICREA choose their destination and are subject to a double evaluation: one involving the institution where they carry out their research and another by ICREA itself. On average, every ICREA re-
searcher generates seven highly skilled jobs, thanks to the funds they attract on a competitive basis. For every euro the government invests in ICREA salaries, these researchers attract 2.7 euros from various competitive funding sources. Catalonia’s system of research centres operates under the acronym CERCA [a term that refers to Centres, Research and Catalonia, and also means ‘search’ in Catalan]. The CERCA model is characterized by flexible organizations, focused on excellence and internationalization, with policies of complete autonomy on scientific activity and talent recruitment, and based on ex-post accountability. The advisory boards of CERCA centres are made up of international experts, and the 43 CERCA Catalan International View
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centres undertake periodic evaluations of their mission and performance, based on international standards. LARGE INFRASTRUCTURES
To complete the consolidation of the system, the project also counts on large scientific and technological facilities unique in southern Europe: the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC) and the ALBA Synchrotron. Together with the National Centre for Genome Analysis (CNAG) and other unique facilities, they constitute a system of research infrastructures that enables Catalonia to participate in major international programs and projects, often occupying a prominent position in the leading consortia. This is the case of one of the 47 projects (chronic lymphocytic leukaemia) led by the International Cancer Genome Consortium, where the CNAG participates in a leading position, or the FET Flagships, research projects receiving the highest funding level in the EU’s history, with a dozen Catalan centres and universities taking part in the core groups leading two of those initiatives: Graphene and the Human Brain.
A key component of Catalonia’s research system is that it is based on the concept of ‘people, not projects’
THE CATALAN RESEARCH ECOSYSTEM
The Catalan research ecosystem consists of a group of twelve universities 54
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-open, internationalized and globally focused on research, accompanied by 60 research centres, 43 of which belong to the CERCA system. Along with university hospitals, large infrastructure projects, technology centres and science parks, the ecosystem employs around 45,000 people, including more than 26,000 researchers, both public and private, representing 1.3% of the workforce. It is built upon 1,651 research groups (receiving the Catalan Government’s recognition label) based at research centres, university departments and institutes, and large infrastructures. AN EFFICIENT, COMPETITIVE SYSTEM
One of the main features of Catalonia’s research system is efficiency: the more competitive it becomes, the more efficiently the system performs. Thus, while representing just 1.2% of the European Research Area’s (ERA) population, Catalonia has so far obtained about 3% of the Horizon 2020 funding. This is just an example, since most indicators show that Catalonia outperforms between 50% and 100% of what would be expected considering its weight in the European population. FUTURE CHALLENGES
The challenge now is consolidating the quality of the system and taking a leap in the transformation of knowledge into social benefits and economic growth. The challenge is to place research at the heart of the economic model. Currently, the overall volume of cooperation between the research ecosys-
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tem and the production network is over 200 million euros per year. However, alongside the system’s proven ability to promote the transfer of knowledge, the Catalan government is focusing on three major areas: orienting the workforce’s skills, promoting legal and fiscal incentives, and leveraging private funding. In terms of the workforce’s skills, the government introduced its Industrial PhD Plan in 2012, to encourage Catalan universities to develop their doctoral theses within a company. With more than 200 firms involved and 280 research projects, the plan has been of great value to ensure that PhD-holding professionals are integrated into the business world. In terms of providing incentives through legislation and taxation, a key measure is tax relief between 30% and 50% on regional income tax for business angels investing in universities and research centres’ spin-offs. Limitations to such measures largely arise from restrictions on its scope (regional income represents 50% of all income taxation). Finally, the Knowledge Industry program is the main activity in the field of finance. In terms of stimulating the generation of science-based companies and encouraging investment, the program is intended to mobilize up to 30 million euros over five years for the various stages of development of a project: from the birth of an idea to reaching the market. All the steps which have been taken to encourage the spread of knowledge to the market are aimed at bringing the
Catalan research is closely linked to universities, hospitals and research centres, in order to benefit our society Catalan research policy into line with European projects over the next 10 years. In short, we are facing the challenge of ensuring that investment in research leads to innovation. The challenge is to create more and better jobs on the basis of a new economy based on knowledge. The challenge is for our country to join the most advanced countries with higher levels of social welfare. THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING OUR OWN STATE
The challenge of placing research at the core of the economic model necessarily entails employing policies as a state. In this respect, the independence of Catalonia will boost the Catalan research system and encourage measures such as the development of a fiscal policy aimed at leveraging private investment to ensure that knowledge reaches companies and the market. Currently, successfully tackling the next step would mean having control over legislation regarding taxation (especially in the field of corporate tax) as well as the power to regulate credit operations, mechanisms for venture capital and angel investors. We should also have the ability to influence labour regulations and to have a presence in international organizations with our own voice. Such steps are only possible if Catalonia becomes a state. With regard to the continued participation of Catalan institutions in European funding, there’s no doubt that either as an associated country or through specific bilateral agreements, Catalonia will continue to lead most competitive EU funding attraction rankings.
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Sport beyond Sport
Training capacities, training empathy by Ruth Gumbau*
Thousands of people in Catalonia have a disability. Yet it doesn’t stop them from participating in sports. Some of them do it for purely health reasons; others, to be able to become part of a group, while some of them simply want to compete and be the best in their chosen sport. Adaptive sports, however, are not as well known –let alone recognized– as regular sports. This is why the Catalan Sports Federation for the Disabled teaches adaptive sports to non-disabled children. The empathy that it creates will hopefully lead these children to normalize the situation of people with a physical or mental condition.
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hope when one of these parents is in a hurry and needs to park their car, they don’t park it on the pavement, obstructing someone in a wheelchair. That’s what this is for’, Lluís Turró speaks almost as if he were making a wish. He is a trainer for the Catalan Sports Federation for the Disabled (FCEDF) and runs the Adaptive Sport at Schools (EAE for Esport Adaptat a l’Escola) programme every year, which takes various adaptive sports to Catalan schools, so that children with no disabilities can come into contact with these activities, appreciate how difficult they are and thereby empathize with the disabled and understand what they go through in their daily life. The EAE programme has visited a dozen schools
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every year since 2009. Some of them are public, some are private, but usually there is not a single disabled child in the schools where it is held and yet it has been a great success as they bring these kind of sports closer to children who have never dealt with such problems. Lluís Turró himself and other trainers are the ones who teach the students the specific rules of their sports, usually wheelchair basketball and handbike (a hand-pedalled bicycle). Furthermore, EAE is not only taken to schools but to the Barcelona Childhood Festival (Festival de la Infància). Begun in 1963, the fair takes place every year during the Christmas holidays and involves activities and games for children. Wheelchair basketball is
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one of the sports that children can play at the Festival. The Federation takes ten wheelchairs to the facility and the trainers and coaches encourage inquisitive kids who approach the court to have a seat on one of the wheelchairs and bounce the ball. Not only are boys and girls curious, their families are, too. This is actually one of the few activities in the whole fair where one can see parents –and grandparents, too– playing games. ‘As a parent, this is one of my favourite activities at the fair. We play wheelchair basketball every year as it teaches us certain values. It helps us realize how difficult things are for some people. In fact, this is something that could happen to any of us’, explains José Antonio Montota, father of Oriol
and Noel. They are all regular attendees at the fair and also at the FCEDF stand. Noel was shocked as to how much his hand hurt after having played for only 20 minutes in the wheelchair. ‘Imagine what it’s like for someone who needs to use it all the time’, his brother Oriol observed. Turró also works with groups other than schools. He runs a programme called Hospi Sport, in which he teaches and plays sports with people who have recently suffered a spinal injury. Obviously, it is far from easy for them. Most are still in a state of shock as they have just learnt they’re not going to be able to walk again. They are still patients in hospitals like the Institut Guttmann, a specialist neurorehabilitation facility in Catalan International View
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Badalona, a town near Barcelona. Turró knows that these patients are still in the ‘why me’ phase and taking them out of the hospital and having them play sports is the only way of taking their mind off of their trauma, even if it is only for a few hours. Wheelchair basketball and rugby, swimming, boccia –similar to lawn bowling– and sitting volleyball are some of the sports they can participate in. Sergi Grabulosa is another technician at the Federation and he is also at the Festival playing with the children. He is not disabled but he can manoeuvre and spin the wheelchair as if he had been doing it all his life. He also works with disabled people, some with a physical condition, others with cerebral palsy. He helps them take part in sports and games like wheelchair basketball, wheelchair roller hockey and frisbee. ‘The most important thing is that they work out’, Grabulosa smiles as he is aware he is an important part of these people’s lives. ‘Sport is a very important tool for inclusion, perhaps the best, since it combines enjoyment with physical activity’, he adds.
The Catalan Sports Federation for people with Cerebral Palsy also unites a group of athletes under its umbrella The FCEDF currently has 500 members. The number has decreased in recent years, which may seem odd since more disabled people play sports every year. ‘We are the only federation in 58
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which decreasing the number of members is actually a good thing’, explains Turró, ‘less disabled children are born every year due to medical advances, and less people suffer from spinal injuries as drivers are more careful behind the wheel’. Furthermore, ‘forty years ago, if you were disabled, you didn’t know how to play sports, so you had no other option than to become a member; now, however, any person in a wheelchair can go to the gym or to the swimming pool and they don’t need us, which is good’. The FCEDF is not the only adaptive sports federation in Catalonia, however. The Catalan Sports Federation for people with Cerebral Palsy also unites a group of athletes under its umbrella. It’s not rare to see them participating in athletics, swimming, boccia, football, futsal or basketball. Everyone is encouraged to play sports; but the way they play will vary depending on the severity of their condition: for instance, a player with a mild form of cerebral palsy will be able to throw the ball themselves when playing boccia; while another player with a more severe form can push the ball with their head down a pipe. The Catalan Sports Federation for the Blind is another of the associations that promotes adaptive sports. One of the most popular is goalball. It has been a regular practice for blind people since the 1940s, when visually impaired World War II veterans played this new version of football as a part of their therapy. It is a sport in which people run after a ball and have to score a goal. Sounds familiar? Yes, it’s very much like regular football ex-
Sport beyond Sport
cept, in goalball the ball contains a bell. By following the sound it makes as it moves, the players can detect how far away the ball is and can thereby catch it and try and score. Skiing is also a sport that disabled and blind people can do. Skier Gabriel Gorce and his Catalan guide Arnau Ferrer won a bronze medal at the super combined race in Sochi 2014 Paralympic Games. Gorce (who has lived in Catalonia for ten years) and Ferrer are not the only Paralympic Catalan medal-winners. Sarai Gascón, for example, is one of the world’s top Paralympic swimmers and she also won several Paralympic medals: one in Beijing ’08, two in London ’12 and three in Rio ’16. But their achievements are not as well-recognized as they ought to be. In fact, the COE (the Spanish Olympic Committee) rewards Olympic medalwinners with three times more money than Paralympic medal-winners. Turró laments this situation: ‘We live in a world where you have to be a young, white, straight man to live comfortably’. He is also firmly opposed to labelling: ‘I’m not a disabled person. I’m a normal person who happens to have a condition, so I refuse to be treated like a poor disabled guy. I have so much to offer. I can’t climb Everest, but I can do many other things’.
Perhaps we are mistaken in thinking that we are all the same, perhaps we should embrace the idea that each and every one of us is different and we are all valuable no matter our gender, religion, age, sexual orientation or physical or mental condition.
(*) Ruth Gumbau (Barcelona, 1978) is a journalist. She was awarded with an Erasmus fellowship in the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), where she studied courses on Human Rights, Peace Research and International Conflict Management. She is currently majoring in Criminology. She has worked in TV since 1998 and has codirected and presented the news and other programmes for Ràdio Televisió d’Andorra and La Xarxa [a network of local Catalan TV stations] since 2003. She is an Assistant Professor in the Departament of Journalism at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
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Sport beyond Sport
The FCBarcelona Photo Awards The FCBarcelona Photo Awards are an attempt to reward work that consciously reflects the positive values that are inherent in sport. The awards aim to recognize these values, as seen through the lens of contemporary photographers.
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y emphasizing the positive values which are common to sport and culture, FC Barcelona’s photography awards aim to create a global photographic platform to publicise the importance of these universal values and the contribution they make to contemporary society. They also seek to provide support for the photography sector, creating a favourable environment for the development of world-class projects. The jury for the awards consists of internationally renowned figures. Individuals such as Vicente Todolí, former director of Tate Modern in London, and Ayperi Karabuda Ecer, vice-president of Pictures at Reuters, support the club’s ambitious project, which was created by its Department of Institutional Relations. FC Barcelona is working hard to spread word of the awards and the winners internationally. To do so it is holding a number of promotional events in several cities in Europe, the Americas and Asia. In the words of the club’s vice-president Carles Vilarrubí, ‘one of the objectives of the Board of Directors is to make
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FC Barcelona more global and ensure it is a world leader in every area, in addition to its sporting aspect. Our main challenge is to win awards on the pitch, but we also need to adopt a global vision which helps us preserve our unique model of a football club’. Vilarrubí went on to say that ‘with the FCBarcelona Photo Awards and photography’s role as a platform for global connection we wish to be the first football club in the world to undertake an initiative bringing together art and sport at the highest level of excellence’. CATEGORIES, AWARDS AND THE JURY
The FCBarcelona Photo Awards consists of two categories. The first is the Photo Award. This is aimed at photographers who have a proven track record in the media, photo agencies or the art world. It will be awarded to the photograph which best expresses the positive values of sport, with an emphasis on non-professional sports. There is a first prize of €40,000 and 29 runners up prizes of €1,000. The winning photograph, together with the
Sport beyond Sport
finalists, will form part of an exhibition to be held by FC Barcelona from April to June 2017. The jury will consist of Vicente Todolí, director of Tate Modern (2002-2010) and currently artistic director of Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, Azu Nwagbogu, founder and director of the African Artists’ Foundation (AFF) and Sandra Phillips, SFMOMA’s senior curator. The second category consists of the Project Awards. These are aimed at photographers who have a proven track record in the media, photo agencies or the art world, together with experience in project development.
The winner will receive €40,000 with which to carry out the photographic project that best expresses the values which are inherent in sport and its contribution to contemporary society. The winning project will be undertaken from March to October 2017 and will be exhibited alongside the photographs from the Photo Awards 2017 category. The jury that will adjudicate on this prize will consist of Ayperi Karabuda Ecer, vice-president of Pictures at Reuters, Alex Webb, who has been a full member of Magnum Photos since Catalan International View
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1979, and Stephen Mayes, with over 25 years’ experience managing projects and artists from different sectors.
The Photo Awards were presented at the Aperture Foundation in New York by Carles Vilarrubí, FCB’s vice-president PRESENTATION IN NEW YORK
In November 2016, to great acclaim from the world of art and photography, the FCB Photo Awards were presented at the Aperture Foundation in New York by Carles Vilarrubí, FCB’s vice-president of Institutional and International Relations. Among those present at the event were two members of the jury of the first photography competition organized by FC Barcelona, as well as several fa62
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mous names from the world of photography. The event began with the presentation of the moderator for the round table debate, Chris Wiley, a journalist specializing in photography who has worked as a curator of numerous photographic exhibitions in Europe and the United States. Wiley was attracted by the fact that a sports club such as FC Barcelona was the driving force behind such an ambitious photographic contest as the FCB Photo Awards. All those present were extremely enthusiastic about the awards, especially at a time when photojournalism is facing some tough challenges. Nevertheless, Stephen Mayes declared that it was an exciting time for the world of photography thanks to new technology that makes things possible that only a short time ago would have been beyond the reach of most people. Meanwhile, Gail Buckland, curator of the Brooklyn
Sport beyond Sport
Museum’s exhibition Who Shot Sports, reminded those present that up until a few years ago, sports photography was considered by most professionals to be second-rate. Though, thanks to the photographers who follow rock artists, this general perception changed some time ago. Jean-Denis Walter, former director of Photography and editor-in-chief of L’Équipe magazine, recalled that during his career he had seen many sports photographs that were true works of art thanks to the authenticity that professional photographers were able to capture in different sports. Azu Nwagbogu, a member of the jury, explained what they were looking for and what would be taken into consideration when it came to selecting the winners among the photos received before 30 December. The authenticity of the moment and the ability to reflect the values of sport through an image are some of the
factors that members of the FCB Photo Awards will have in mind when rewarding the best photographs. Carles Vilarrubí, FCB’s vice-president of Institutional and International Relations outlined the club’s decision to create the award with the following: ‘Somehow everything that has been done so far has been linked to Catalonia: whether in the world of dance, theatre or films. So we asked ourselves what we could do in a more global sense, especially thanks to the great influence that FC Barcelona has all over the world, and also what form of artistic expression could be better and more quickly spread via Barça’s presence on social media. Finally we decided it was photography. And this is why we focused on a photo contest; on an artistic level and in terms of photojournalism, keeping in mind the hard time the sector is going through, promoting artistic activity in this area’. Catalan International View
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Curated by María del Carmen de Reparaz
A Short Story from History
Gonzalo de Reparaz Ruiz The twentieth century was only one year old when Gonzalo de Reparaz Ruiz was born in France in 1901. Of Portuguese nationality, with Spanish ancestry, at heart he was from the Iberian Peninsula and above all a citizen of the world. With an integrating spirit and a great observer of his surroundings, a man of principles and convictions, he made life his teacher; He made geography and humanity his passion, throughout a long and eventful life.
1. His father Gonzalo de Reparaz Rodríguez, geographer, politician and diplomat (1860 – 1936). 2. English, Portuguese, French, German, Italian and a working-knowledge of Arabic.
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‘My education and my experiences were accumulating: Paris and San Sebastián, Tangier, and the interior of Morocco, Portugal and the Congress of Tourism, Paris again and the sea once more… Brazil and Argentina… With them I was forming my spirit, whose basic lesson was constituted by the spiritual environment transmitted by my father, a man of clear ideas, a generous spirit, an exceptional connoisseur of the world and of history –according to his memoirs, Las aventuras de un geógrafo errante [The Adventures of a Wandering Geographer]1’. This is how Gonzalo was to recall, at the end of his life in Peru, the highpoints of the first 21 years of his life, which left an indelible impression on him and marked his entire existence. An only child, blessed with extreme sensitivity, in 1919 he accompanied his parents on the return journey to Europe from Buenos Aires, after having
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lived between Brazil and Argentina for six years. The encounter with a Europe devastated by the First World War began in Holland, and ended in Berlin, where Gonzalo was to begin his studies in geography, while his parents settled in Switzerland, awaiting a decision as to what the final destiny of the family would be. In 1922 the whole family settled permanently in Barcelona, a city with which his father had maintained numerous contacts, since he began to collaborate with the Barcelona press many years earlier, in 1878. Gonzalo’s arrival in Barcelona at age 21, with a fascinating background in seven countries, and mastery of six languages2, allowed him not only to adapt, but also to learn Catalan very quickly, turning it into his language, to the point where he began to write articles and to publish books in Catalan. These merited public recognition in an environment
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© Universidad de Piura
where culture was valued at all levels of society and geography was beginning to be seen as a discipline in its own right. In 1977, thirty-eight years after Gonzalo left Barcelona, he published an article in Peru entitled Autonomous Catalonia, which states ‘Why did I write in Catalan? Very simply; because the Catalan language seemed easy for me to assimilate with the help of the other Latin languages that luckily I already knew’. From that moment on he had a very close relationship with Catalonia and its cultural milieu. The young Gonzalo found the necessary stimuli to develop both in his profession and in his hobbies. Thanks to the work of Catalan geographers, over the years I, his daughter, have begun to discover what Catalonia meant in my father’s life and how important his work was during the 18 years he spent in Barcelona. The geographer Oriol Nel·lo identifies
his work as related to three fields: first, the History of Catalan-Aragonese cartography, an area of research that was to be completely renewed thanks to pioneering studies such as my father’s book Catalunya a les mars [Catalunya on the Seas]; second, regional geography, with special mention for La Plana de Vic (1928), among others, perhaps his most well-known work in Catalonia which was rereleased in 1982 by Editorial Eumo. Thanks to this book he is considered one of the pioneers of modern geography in Catalonia, in addition to his work on Spain’s hydrology and climatology; and third, Political Geography (with less well-known contributions in which he analysed the societal-territorial relationship of his time, in Pobreza y atraso de España [Poverty and Backwardness in Spain] for example. Soon difficult and painful moments arrived, marked by the final separation,
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A Short Story from History
when Gonzalo and his parents had to leave Catalonia in 1939, choosing exile in France. His parents continued on to Mexico where they died the same year, while Gonzalo settled in Prades with his family, where he hoped to find a new source of income. He eventually obtained the position of professor at the University of Bordeaux, lecturing on the History of the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries and the Ibero-American Economy (19401947). World War Two brought air raids and famine, but the end of the War brought new opportunities. As a result, the family moved to Paris in 1947, where Gonzalo was to obtain an important post in UNESCO that was to give him the opportunity to return
Gonzalo’s arrival in Barcelona at age 21, with a fascinating background in seven countries, and mastery of six languages, allowed him not only to adapt, but also to learn Catalan very quickly, turning it into his language, to the point where he began to write articles and to publish books in Catalan to the continent where he spent his youth. Thus, he arrived in Peru in 1951 to lead UNESCO’s Technical Assistance Mission, a position which he was to hold for almost 10 years. With the energy and enthusiasm that was characteristic of him, he quickly came into contact with Peruvian society, which enabled him to make significant contributions to the field of technical assistance, as well as in relation to arid zones and their rivers.
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It is thus that Peru, a country of his choice and liking, continued to be a source of inspiration and object of investigation, both for his field trips up and down the country and also for his extensive research involving documents from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries covering the economic and social history of the period. At the same time he was invited by German and French universities to present the findings of his research. No stranger to the traveller’s spirit, Gonzalo was one of the pioneers in publicising Peru’s attractions as a unique tourist destination. He was a great promoter of its archaeological, historical and geographical riches. He wrote Peru’s first guidebooks for tourists, and published postcards with photographs taken during his trips and adventures studying the capricious rivers of the Peruvian coast. Following a fruitful life, days before dying in 1984 he received the highest award from the Peruvian government, the Order of the Sun of Peru, in recognition of all the contributions that such a distinguished citizen of the world had made to Peru. Finally, I would like to share the emotion that Gonzalo experienced when in 1982, two years before he died, the publisher Eumo de Vic reprinted his book La Plana de Vic. After 43 years, his work was still relevant… and he recounted in Catalan numerous incidents with deep affection. Before ending I don’t want to omit a very important fact, which is the return of certain books and papers that left Barcelona in 1938 and that can all be found at the Institut Cartogràfic and Geològic de Catalunya (ICGC) since 2005. Several projects have been organized in celebration of his life, such as the photographic exhibition in 2007
Barcelona Echoes
© Universidad de Piura
entitled El Perú de Reparaz held at the ICGC; and a documentary on his life and work, launched in 2008 by the production company Manual and broadcast by TV3 de Catalunya. And more recently, in 2014, the ICGC together with the University of Piura released his previously unpublished work Los ríos de la zona árida peruana [The Rivers of the Peruvian Arid Zone], which wasn’t published in the late 1960s and thanks to the ICGC was finally read after some forty years. Today, at a time when the words modernity, vision, globalization, and innovation, among others, are key to the twenty-first century in which we find ourselves, I admire the man who walked hand in hand with the turbulent
twentieth century, surviving its vicissitudes, as a studious, tireless researcher. As a Peruvian politician said in his honour after his death: ‘Don Gonzalo (how appropriate it feels to refer to a man who was a true gentleman of the old school) was a mixture of the blood and ideas of Portugal and Spain. A true European, before the Community was invented and, above all, a genuine Iberian… whoever might wish to match him in such feats, must repeat the indefatigable steps of this illustrious Lusitanian. In such an endeavour, they will have as solid and illustrative references the guides written by this wise man, an Iberian without frontiers and a distinguished admirer and scholar of the arduous geography of our nation’.
(*) María del Carmen de Reparaz Zamora holds a degree in Tourism and Hotel Management and has studied History and Education, specialising in Cultural Management and Tourism, with more than 20 years’ experience in the public sector of Peruvian tourism. She worked for the Committee for the Promotion of Peru for Export and Tourism - PROMPERÚ for over 11 years, serving as the Director of Promotion of Tourism from 2011 to 2014. She was subsequently appointed Deputy Minister of Tourism at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, where she remained until 2016. She is the daughter of Gonzalo de Reparaz.
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Š libreria berkana
Universal Catalans
Universal Catalans
Montserrat Roig, a living memory by Aina Torres*
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the death and the 70th anniversary of the birth of the Catalan writer and journalist Montserrat Roig. But who was Roig exactly and why should we celebrate her life at this precise moment in time? Montserrat Roig is undoubtedly one of the most emblematic individuals of her generation. She was a successful writer and media personality thanks to her frequent TV appearances and the publication of her newspaper articles on a regular basis. Roig is seen as the first all-round writer. A multifaceted woman who created novels, narratives, essays, biographies, written and audiovisual journalism, and also theatre. Her output totalled more than thirty books in a career spanning twenty years.
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oig became a spokeswoman for anti-Franco, progressive values. Feminism was a vital part of her ideology; and in both her life and work she struggled against forgetting the crimes of the Franco dictatorship. Montserrat Roig, who some have called an ‘unwilling child of the Franco era’, wished to contribute to the restoration of Catalan culture which had been forcibly removed. Furthermore, she fought for historical memory, at a time when it appeared to be unimportant. Free, brave, rebellious, combative, committed, critical… these are some of the adjectives that define Montserrat, a feminist voice, anti-Franco, anti-fascist and pro-Catalan independence. AN OVERVIEW OF HER LIFE
Montserrat Roig was born in 1946, in the post-war years, in Barcelona’s Eix-
ample district. Her mother, Albina, was a writer and journalist. However, she was unable to pursue her vocation since she had to raise seven children, Montserrat among them. Montserrat’s mother was politically on the left, a feminist and pro-Catalan independence. She was a woman ahead of her time: she learnt to drive and took a degree in Catalan when she was in her sixties. Monserrat’s father, Tomàs, conservative and Catholic, was a writer and lawyer. Roig enrolled at the Adrià Gual School of Dramatic Art at the age of 15. She studied acting and met people who were to influence her and accompany her throughout her life: writer Maria Aurèlia Capmany, one of the school’s founders (an icon of a free, feminist woman), the photographer Pilar Aymerich (one of Roig’s best friends with whom she collaborated on numerous Catalan International View
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news stories) and the playwright Josep Maria Benet i Jornet (also one of her best friends, to whom she was to turn for literary advice throughout her life). Montserrat Roig went on to attend university, where she studied philosophy and art and began to write her first stories. She left them on the desk in her father’s study intending for him to see what she had written, in a plea for attention, since she was one of seven children. Montserrat also became involved in politics, joining the PSUC just before her twenty-second birthday. Roig won the Víctor Català Prize at 24 years of age, allowing her to publish her first book Molta roba i poc sabó… i tan neta que la volen [So Much Washing and Not Much Soap… and they Want it Clean] (1971), a collection of short stories. She found out she had won the prize while taking part in a sit in at Montserrat Monastery to protest the so-called Burgos Process, which handed down death sentences to six members of ETA. Roig claimed that she entered the Montserrat Monastery a ‘graduate’ and emerged a ‘writer’, since the Víctor Català Prize carried with it a certain prestige. Roig subsequently took one of the most important decisions of her life: to become a professional writer. Perhaps precisely because her mother had been unable to do so, she fought for what she really enjoyed: writing. She persevered despite having to raise her two children alone, in certain instances without the help of her partner. In spite of such difficulties, Roig was a prolific writer. Her literary output: five novels and two collections of short stories. Her first book was followed by the novels Ramona, adéu [Goodbye Ramona] (1972), El temps de les cireres [The Time of the Cherries] (1977), L’hora violeta [The Violet Hour] (1980), L’òpera quotidiana [The Everyday Opera] (1982), La veu melodiosa [The Melodious Voice] (1987) and a collection of short sto70
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ries El cant de la joventut [The Song of Youth] (1989). In addition, she published many non-fiction books such as Els catalans als camps nazis [Catalans in the Nazi Camps], which still remains the most comprehensive work on the deportees. While writing this last book Roig was pregnant with her second child, Jordi, and many of her friends feared that listening to such disturbing accounts from survivors of the camps would result in her losing the baby. They say that Roig wrote Els catalans als camps nazis with blood, sweat and tears. She also published L’Agulla daurada [The Golden Needle], recounting the German army’s siege of Leningrad. Roig pursued a career in journalism to finance what she really enjoyed, writing. She saw herself as her own patron. She worked as a journalist until she had earned enough money to take herself off outside Barcelona in order to write her next novel. As a journalist Roig dared to do what many women were unable to at the time: stand in front of the TV cameras, direct a TV show and write opinion pieces without mincing her words. She was known for her regular articles in the newspapers El Periódico and Avui. On her chat show Personatges [Personalities] for TVE Catalunya, she interviewed people from the world of culture who had hitherto been silenced in front of the camera (Ovidi Montllor, Neus Català, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, Vicent Andrés Estellés and Joan Fuster, for example). TVE decided to cancel the program due to Roig’s political leanings (accusing her of including questions of a clearly ideological nature). TVE once again vetoed her when it banned the broadcast of an interview with her editor Josep Maria Castellet and Vicent Andrés Estellés. Which all goes to show that Montserrat Roig was a courageous, committed investigative journalist.
Universal Catalans
In 1990, while Roig was teaching a literature class at a university in the United States she was taken ill, forcing her to return to Barcelona. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died on 10 November 1991, at 45 years of age. WHY IS ROIG IMPORTANT NOW?
There is a need to rediscover the figure of Montserrat Roig because she has not received the attention she deserves. She died with the feeling that she was undervalued in her country of birth. She received undeservedly negative reviews, from certain male literary critics, who accused her of writing autobiographical novels. A common practice for many writers. She was also accused of writing novels exclusively for women since she spoke about women, while male writers are seen to write for everyone. We need to rediscover Montserrat Roig because with her literature she brought a woman’s viewpoint, one that had hitherto been silenced. She opened the doors of the houses so we could get to know what the women who had been shut up inside them throughout history actually thought. With her writing we know what women of the seventies thought and what Barcelona was like at the time. She was a chronicler of her time. Nevertheless, ensuring that her name is among the writers of set texts in schools is not an easy task. We need to rediscover Montserrat Roig because she decided to write in Catalan at a time when it was not easy. ‘If you ask me why I write in Catalan, I think of three reasons: first, because it is my mother tongue; second, because it is a literary language; and third, I write in Catalan because I feel like it’, she said.
We also need to rediscover her because her brave, committed form of investigative journalism serves as an example. Nonetheless, it is not studied on university journalism courses. Montserrat Roig is a significant figure because she believed in culture’s emancipatory capacity. ‘Culture is politics and politics is culture’, she declared. She understood that in the long-term culture is the most revolutionary political option. Furthermore, she also defended decent working conditions for those who work in culture, a concern which is still highly relevant, considering the precarious nature of employment in the sector.
Free, brave, rebellious, combative, committed, critical… these are some of the adjectives that define Montserrat Roig We need to rediscover Montserrat because she addressed the issues which affect us all, women in particular, because women continue to suffer discrimination. We still live in the patriarchal society she criticized. We need Montserrat Roig because she gave a voice to the weakest and most vulnerable. She showed that another way of seeing reality is possible, in order to see the gaps in history and to struggle to fill the silences. Montserrat Roig made an effort to rediscover the writers and intellectuals that preceded her. It is right that we do the same with her. Therefore, we need to rediscover Montserrat Roig because the fights she started continue to this very day.
(*) Aina Torres (Barcelona, 1984) is a journalist and writer. Author of the book Montserrat Roig. La memòria viva [Montserrat Roig. Living memory] (Sembra Llibres, 2016).
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Green Debate
Land stewardship: towards nature conservation across Europe’s landscapes by Marc Vilahur*
In the current global context, it has become increasingly apparent that environmental policies need to be wide-ranging in terms of their approach and the territory which they involve. In recent years, in most instances, government policies have focused on creating protected areas, either due to their uniqueness and biological richness or their vulnerability, which requires special attention and regulation of the activities carried out in them.
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n spite of the usefulness of these policies, it has been shown that the problem of biodiversity loss is a complex issue, which is closely connected to social factors. In other words, geographically and conceptually it goes beyond the protected areas themselves. It must be dealt with in a harmonious, symbiotic way, in the framework of the human-environment relationship. ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LAND STEWARDSHIP
Land stewardship is a product of social collaboration which consists of reaching an agreement between a territorial actor (the owner or manager of the land) and an organization dedicated to environmental conservation or sustainable management (known as the steward of the land). Land stewardship originated in the Anglo-Saxon countries as a private initiative aimed at preserving places of natural interest that do not necessarily have official protection, but which have certain natural values of general interest. In other words, we are looking at a grassroots initiative, through which society is organized on an individual level 72
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or in small communities to work for the common good, thus generating mutual trust. These connotations imbue this tool with a long-term vision, which seeks to profoundly modify the role of the public in the preservation of natural values. Such stewardship, which has a long history in the USA, has been incorporated into conservation methodologies practiced in Catalonia, since the structure of ownership in our country (which is largely private, even in places declared Areas of Natural Interest), makes it particularly suitable and effective. This led to the creation of the Fundació Natura [Nature Foundation] and the Caixa Catalunya’s Fundació Territori i Paisatge [Territory and Landscape Foundation] in the late 90s, the first two major private entities to include land stewardship among their aims. Associations such as NEREO, Associació Hàbitats-Projecte Rius [Habitat Association-Rivers Project], Grup de Natura Freixe [Ash Nature Group], ADEPAR, La Bassa Roja [The Red Pond] and GOB Mallorca [GOB Majorca] were also involved in land stewardship projects during the 90s and even earlier.
Green Debate
For Catalonia, the most significant milestone in terms of land stewardship took place in November 2000, when the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera (formerly Caixa Catalunya’s Fundació Territori i Paisatge) held an International Seminar on Land Stewardship at Montesquiu Castle (Osona). The seminar culminated in the Montesquiu Declaration on Land Stewardship, a key document in promoting land stewardship in Catalonia. One of the other significant developments at the seminar was the decision to establish the Land Stewardship Network [XCT in Catalan], which occurred in 2001.
local and supramunicipal administrations, companies and research centres together with members of the public, with a total of 159 members, also has the continued support of the Catalan government’s Department of Territory and Sustainability. This allows it to carry out consultancy work for organizations involved in stewardship, to prepare materials and establish guidelines
THE XCT, THE NETWORK WHICH PROMOTES LAND STEWARDSHIP IN CATALONIA
for good practice and generally ensure the growth of the conservation of nature with a civic base as well as ensuring the legal and technical quality of land stewardship agreements.
The XCT, which currently consists of 77 stewardship organizations, over 50
We are looking at a grassroots initiative, through which society is organized on an individual level or in small communities to work for the common good
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To ensure this work is conducted with the required level of expertise, the XCT has developed its so-called working groups, which bring together organizations and experts around a certain topic to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience, establish the methodologies to be followed by the proponents of stewardship initiatives, as well as evaluating the role of the authorities and the impact of public policies. In the time that it has existed, the XCT and its member organizations have done a great deal in this field by developing stewardship agreements in 74
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forestry, agriculture, river and marine environments. The work has mainly focused on conservation, though it has also involved research, the promotion of sustainable management and the involvement of volunteers. It has carried out actions to improve the state of the fauna, flora, habitats and landscapes. As a result of such initiatives, in excess of 42,000 hectares of land in Catalonia are currently under stewardship, in areas that are distributed across the whole country and where work is carried out to ensure the continued, long-term conservation of the unique natural features of each of these areas.
Green Debate
The Council of Europe’s report entitled Private or Voluntary Systems of Natural Habitat’s Protection and Management (Shine, 1996) shows the scope of this conservation model in Europe and the work of conservation organizations in countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland and Germany. Founded in 1895, the British National Trust can be seen as the prototype of stewardship organizations in Europe. Soon after, other organizations followed its lead, such as Natuurmonumenten (1905) the provincial Landschappen in the Netherlands, and later France’s Coastal Conservatory (1975). Currently, DVL (Germany), Legambiente Lombardia (Italy) and CSOP (Czech Republic) are also leading organizations in Europe in terms of land stewardship. AGRICULTURAL STEWARDSHIP (An example of the harmonization of agricultural production with the conservation of nature)
The Agricultural Stewardship Working Group (GTCA) is an example of a working group that conducts more direct work in territorial management. It consists of several organizations whose
main focus is the management of agricultural areas and the biodiversity they host or on which they depend. Currently, the group consists of more than 30 organizations working in various fields of agricultural stewardship and, crucially, it is dedicated to improving agricultural practices to make them compatible with biodiversity and its improvement; to restore agricultural heritage (ponds, banks, ditches, buildings, etc.) that often are not only part of the humanized landscape, but also a refuge for biodiversity; to promote and restore agro-biodiversity, both in terms of local breeds of animals and plants, and in terms of cultural practices for the management of agro-ecosystems; to promote the adaptation of the field at large to facing global environmental challenges, such as desertification, nitrification and excessive levels of phosphate in soils and climate change. One of the foundations of the current approach to agricultural stewardship is the stimulation of land access as a guarantee of the necessary generational renewal of small and medium-sized farms in a manner consistent with the conservation of natural resources. To this end, the XCT, together with other institutions Catalan International View
1. Die Agronauten (Germany), Terre de Liens (France), AIAB Lazio (Italy), Terre en vue (Belgium), Soil Association (UK), Ecoruralis (Romania), among others. For more information: http://www. accesstoland.eu/-Members-
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Land stewardship is a methodology based on the specific management of the natural values that must be preserved in each unique case across Europe1, promotes an international program of land access: Access to Land, which, among other measures, puts pressure on the European institutions to recognize the problem, and carries out work in various areas (the media, local government, agro-ecology, shared management, etc.) to provide solutions. It is also of note that the GTCA has worked closely with the Catalan government to find innovative ways to include land stewardship in the various planning tools for the sector; they have developed the Catalan Rural Development Plan and a series of other measures in order to include land stewardship in the implementation of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), especially in the chapters related to conservation, known as Greening proposals. In spite of such efforts, there is still a long way to go in including land stewardship in Catalonia’s planning and land management. Nevertheless, the 76
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prospects are positive and encouraging, arising from an increasingly necessary agricultural management aimed at the conservation of the soil, water, biodiversity and natural resources. At a more local level, the GTCA not only works on aspects of planning, or as part of the conservationist lobby, but also in promoting products produced on the estates with stewardship agreements as part of the Stewardship Market Project. The latter is aimed at making the produce from these areas more visible in a unified way, grouping them under a common label and marketing them through the most profitable sales channels. THE RECOGNITION AND SCOPE OF LAND STEWARDSHIP
Since stewardship involves transformation and social involvement, it is a slow, expensive process, which requires a certain robustness on behalf of the organi-
Green Debate
zations that carry it out. The lack of financial resources is the main limitation on stewardship organizations, which in certain cases are unable to adequately deal with managing stewardship agreements and satisfying the interests of the property they are responsible for. It is also worth noting that to make stewardship more attractive, it is necessary for society to recognize the gesture made by the property’s owners. The XCT is working in conjunction with the DTES to obtain tax incentives for land stewardship in Catalonia. It might appear as if land stewardship is purely the result of private initiatives, but this is not the case. In Catalonia there also exists the phenomenon of stewardship agreements with public properties, as long as the property and the steward share conservation goals. This means that many public spaces which are in disuse or lacking in planned management can be more effi-
ciently managed and planned by stewardship organizations. In short, land stewardship is a methodology based on the specific management of the natural values that must be preserved in each unique case. To this end, the XCT seeks to bridge the gap between government institutions (from the European level to the local) and members of public and private properties, in order to promote conservation strategies which address the major challenges facing the European Union in terms of sustainable development, combating climate change and promoting the preservation of biodiversity. As such, it is a tool which acts in total harmony with the objectives of the EU’s LIFE Programme. (*) Marc Vilahur President of the Land Stewardship Network
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Beyond the invisible: painting and the estrangement of visualization in Jo Milne’s art by Octavi Rofes
‘I would never have come to this form by myself ’, Jo Milne says as she plays with a green, polyurethane, resin object in her fingers, the shape of which makes one think of a fragment that has fallen –or rather, been torn off of– a larger piece. The piece –not significant enough for us to infer its total entity– is composed of three irregular, consecutive, prismatic parts, whose upper surfaces are covered in grooves, furrows and stepped areas. The three parts form an almost square U shape, that rise up from the base, in the form of ramps, with two arms at each extreme. A fourth element emerges from one of these elevated extremities, a plane that initially resembles a layer which has been separated from the surface of the body it covered, as if forcefully pulled upwards. As the piece rises up and arcs back towards the base of the U, it breaks up into filaments, that initially run parallel, but gradually become increasingly entangled, until at the end of the arc the original plane, now unrecognisable, has turned into a flake of cantilevered lines. The elevated and dishevelled section, incongruent with the generally compact, solid form of the piece, makes one think a violent gesture has removed the fragment from a complete form, the coherence of which it is impossible to restore. In reality, however, the object Jo Milne has in her hands is not the remains of a destructive action, so much as the 78
contrary, an unfinished form that is the consequence of an inconstructive action, designed to create forms that –as she says– she would not have reached on her own. What are the circumstances that have given rise to an object of these characteristics? How does Jo Milne arrive at forms that, she admits, she could not create by herself ? And what does it tell us about her work as a whole, the fact that the small green object is not to be found exhibited in Jo Milne, no faig prediccions sinó excuses [ Jo Milne, I don’t make predictions just excuses]? The search to answer these questions, has led me to place them in the differentiating light of three types of facility: a citizen’s laboratory, a university seminar and an artist’s studio. To confront them with the activities realised there as much as with the ways of assembling materials, people, codes and ideas that happen in each of the scenarios where the singularity of the work has been shown, be it through technical innovation, the development of knowledge or artistic creation. It is not, however, about retracing the path of a linear process to describe a ‘production line’ of artistic objects, so much as about detecting the ruptures, the misunderstandings and changes in meaning propitiated by the emergence of elements differentiating from traditional conventions.
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29 March 2016. The computer engineer, Bernat Romagosa, extracts a half-finished object from the Sintron RepRap printer at Citilab, a centre for citizen-based digital innovation in Cornellà (Barcelona). The printer had broken down while trying to carry out an impossible action: drawing in the air, depositing a bioplastic extrusion with no surface to support it. For the engineer, the result was an error in the calculations, a lack of foresight that could have been avoided if more prismatic pieces had been added to support Jo Milne’s proposal to print a bundle of lines emanating in different directions from a common starting point, like the three that had materialised. But in fact it turns out that this impromptu result is beneficial since the aim of this collaboration with the artist is to detect problems in the Beetle Blocks program that Romagosa is developing, along with Eric Rosenbaum and Duks Korschitz. Proposals such as Milne’s –which are less predictable than those from the fields of design or architecture– are useful for the pro-
grammers because they propose situations not envisioned in the initial set up of Beetle Blocks. But for the artist, the cause of the error, as well as its beneficial nature, is not just a problem of execution, of the relation between the digital codes of the algorithmic geometry in three dimensions and the limitations of their physical materialization in different printing systems. Whereas the aim of the engineer is to improve the digital tools that facilitate the creation and fabrication of objects, the aim of the artist is to establish a link between, on the one hand, the difficulties of physically executing certain geometric forms, and, on the other, the difficulties of visualizing descriptions of the material world expressed in science, in the form of mathematical relationships. To distinguish between the two visions of the problem, we agreed to use in our conversations the distinction proposed by Paul Kockelman between two forms of translation, when he states: In some sense, then, this essay is about two kinds of translation (or ‘mediation’) that may be loosely characterized as material translation (or channelling between signers and interpreters, qua circulation) and meaningful translation (or
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coding between signs and objects, qua interpretation). That is, just as codes relate signs to objects (or messages to referents), channels relate signers to interpreters (or speakers to addressees). At Citilab, the engineer’s work focuses on improving the channels of circulation of material translation whereas the artist’s aim is to create a relation of relations: linking the difficulties posed by the material translation of certain geometric forms to the difficulties involved in visually interpreting the codes used in the communication of certain scientific theories. When the green object passes from the engineer’s hands to the artist’s, a change occurs in the fields of meaning of which it forms a part. The ascertainment of a problem with the material translation is shared by both, but the same cannot be said of the meaning given to this problem. In Milne’s hands, the incomplete object serves not to evidence an error that opens the way to improve a computer program so much as a figure with which to extend the analogy with a field that may seem distant to us: the visualization of invisible structures. The analogy between the problems that arise in the channels of material translation and those that relate to the codes of visual interpretation of scientific theories forms the basis for the ambitious artistic project that Jo Milne has developed in the last three years. This exhibition reveals the depth and subtlety of the results. It seems necessary therefore, prior to dealing with the nature of the artistic objects on show to try to synthesize the general ideas with which they originate. Regarding the material translation, Jo Milne has explored various production techniques from digital modelling, a range of three-dimensional printing processes, laser cutting, cyanotype and crochet. Her attention has been focused on the potential of each of these techniques but also, and perhaps even 80
more so, on their limitations and incorrect usage, or unconventional use, which makes it possible to arrive at unforeseen results. Whereas the codes, with which scientific theories and speculations are ‘made visible’, is where she has advanced her academic research that gave rise to her doctoral thesis. It is important to remember that the meaning of the artistic project is not situated in either of these fields –given that it does not actually deal with either the channels for material translation or the codes for translation of meanings– rather, the establishment of an unconventional relationship between materialization and meaning. *
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18 April 2016. I take part in a seminar, ‘Imatges que fan mons’ [Images that make Worlds], at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, which is dedicated to Jo Milne’s work as part of the training activities for doctorate students called Research methodologies. We have displayed the artwork in the room in a way that is more akin to the way you would find it in the studio than in an exhibition space. On a central table, you can see and touch a dozen three-dimensional objects, that lie somewhere between sculptures, prototypes and working models, among which is found the unfinished green piece. Directly above the table, hanging from the ceiling, is a partial version of Manifestly Manifolded, a thick cloud of intertwined crocheted loops. Finally, three adjoining walls show in succession a completed painting, a painting in progress and, on the wall furthest from the door to the room, a collection of images, which form the visual corpus of the thesis. As participants, we are placed within a double zone of transition. On the one hand, between the two facing walls: one with the source references, the other
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with the completed painting and in between, a work in progress. On the other, between the three-dimensional objects and flat images which occupy, respectively, the centre and the perimeter of the room. This arrangement invites us to make connections and think about the work as whole in terms of pathways, and the control over these pathways, one consistent with the theme of the workshop that, as we recall, was dealing with research methodologies. Following the tradition initiated by the art historian Aby Warburg, Milne thinks of her collection as an ‘atlas’, thereby avoiding the rigid rational structure typical of an archive. It is compiled of representations of the structures that are invisible to us because of their scale, too large or too small for the human eye, or due to the fact that they are hypothetical figures of theories expressed in a mathematical language. In her research into the forms and methods used to visualize the invisible, although Milne identifies –in scientific as much as in artistic contexts– the recurrence of visual resources, compositional patterns and operational procedures, she also emphasizes a marked divergence in their aims. Based on a confrontation of the studies by Bruno Latour on science, technology and society, with the anthropology of the art of Alfred Gell, Milne proposes distinguishing scientific images from artistic ones with a formula that occupies a central place in her discourse: if in the sciences inscriptions are produced of actions that are made material to become instruments of persuasion, the indexes of artistic intention give rise to material agents of enchantment. During the course of the seminar, the atlas wall was a space for persuasion to which Milne often pointed, to reinforce her words and indicate the characteristics of, for example, ‘natural diagrams’ or ‘heuristic mod-
els’. That the images produced by science are persuasive does not mean, however, that they are endowed with veracity. Their persuasiveness is arrived at by means of stylization and generalization that are patent enough for the scientific models to be considered as idealizations, fictions, or as Milne says –borrowing an expression from Catherine Z. Elgin– felicitous falsehoods. From here we understand a second essential point in the distinction which Milne establishes between the scientific and the artistic image: the former uses persuasive ‘falsehoods’ to attain an increase in the degree of familiarity, whereas artistic enchantment is, in contrast, a product of defamiliarization.
Following the tradition initiated by the art historian Aby Warburg, Milne thinks of her collection as an ‘atlas’ Scientific representations are cognitively useful when they manage to bring us ‘falsely’ closer to what they represent. Accordingly, Milne observes how the visualizations of nanostructures or particle trajectories evade the strangeness and counter-intuitive nature of these phenomena, offering instead ‘inoffensive, soft and brightly coloured’ images. A domestication through the use of images of the most unsettling aspects of scientific speculation reinforced by the proximity to a digital aesthetic that avoids showing the ‘turbid, viscous and muddy’ qualities, inherent in the worlds they represent. Qualities banished from their representations, but ones, which in contrast, Milne claims are specific to the field of painting. In the seminar room, right in front of the persuasively familiar mosaic made up of pages
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of techno-scientific atlas images, Pentaquarks perduts per un fil enchants with the strangeness of its surface of 152 by 147 centimetres of Mylar and acrylic paint. It is easy to establish connections between the two images. On the painting, the combination of the white lines that contrast against the background of shades of blue to slate-grey, reminds us of the traces of subatomic particles detected by nuclear research instruments, of which there are examples in the atlas. In the same way, the nested mesh of intertwined tubes that occupies most of the surface of the painting brings to mind a visual translation of string theory when it postulates the existence of fundamental one-dimensional components, that vibrate at different frequencies in an intertwined ten-dimensional space-time arena. Finally, the second arrangement of lines, those that extend on the periphery of the former, that are made up of flat segments ordered to form pentagons and hexagons, is very similar to the conventions used in the representation of organic chemical molecules. However, any identification of these original references for the painting brings little to its enchantment, which stems more from its configuration, from the way these objects appear, than for the objects themselves.
We become aware of the importance of details, such as the coincidence of the thickness of the segments Why is an encounter between a continuous tubular structure and a fragmented polygonal grid, on the same surface, so fascinating? The fascination comes about, in the first instance, because the divergence between these 82
two structures corresponds to the distance, which Tim Ingold considers to have an enormous ontological consequence, manifested in the verbal expressions ‘between’ and ‘in-between’. Each segment of lines in the network of pentagons is a bridge between two terminals in a meshwork of static connections, between diverse interacting entities. In contrast, the tube places us in-between a continuous movement of generation and dissolution without articulation. Despite the continuous presence of external accretions and interstitial differentiations –of the between of the joints and the in-between of the knots– we rarely confront the pure meaning of these structures in our daily lives because we are immersed in our usual habits and routines. It is thanks to the way in which, in the painting, the rigid forms of the external face-to-face joints of the network of polygons and the flexibility of the encounters within the knots enter into friction that our estrangement in front of the image is triggered. We become aware of the control that Milne has over the whole of the composition and her capacity to achieve the fascination of the defamiliarization of basic forms, when we pay attention to the ‘fabrication’ of the image itself. Then, we become aware of the importance of details, such as the coincidence of the thickness of the segments of the polygons with that of the contours of the tube, a discovery that provokes us, at times, to perceive the flat segments as if they were entering into the cylindrical body of the big snake. And this same awareness also leads us to value the internal logic of a space where, in general, the pentagonal network appears to be below the tube, except in the top left where it sticks out, or the centre of the trapezium at the top of the composition where, in contrast, the two structures seem to intertwine into one sole plane.
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This instability in the attribution of the relative positions of the elements contradicts the initial impression when the pentagons were perceived as a base substratum transformed by the emergence of an arterial universe that decomposes it. And the more we are captivated by the image, and the more attentive we are to identifying the source of the fascination provoked by its construction, the further we get from the academic research and the research methodologies that had earlier been the focus of the seminar. Would the painting have managed to produce the same effect if the starting point had been, for the sake of argument, a plate of spaghetti? Is there a necessary relationship between the two activities, the thesis and the painting by Milne, apparently integrated into one project? And –paraphrasing the opinion of the physicist, Richard Feynman, on string theory, which provides the title for the exhibition– does the relationship between the painting and the study of techno-scientific visualizations offer predictions or just provide excuses? *
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3 June 2016. I visit Jo’s studio, accompanied by the writer and designer, Víctor García Tur. He also took part in the seminar at the Fine Arts faculty, and since then the three of us have wanted to continue the conversation we began that day. Jo shows us three new, large-format paintings that she is finishing and which are as yet untitled. Coffee. We discuss the arrangement of the artwork in the exhibition. As became clear in the seminar, endowing the paintings with a high degree of autonomy, or emphasizing the account of the working process, are two equally valid possibilities but ones which lead us to relate to the work in very different ways, depending
We are captivated by the image and attentive to identifying the source of the fascination provoked by its construction on how they are arranged. In this sense, the small three-dimensional pieces play a key role given their ambivalent nature. Jo sees them as experiments with the limitations inherent in each technique, models that later serve for the development of the paintings but which, at the same time, are entities in themselves, and cannot be equated to scaffolding erected during the process of creation which can later disappear. Neither do they have a sufficiently direct connection with the paintings for them to be shown as merely early phases, in the way sketches and preliminary studies would be exhibited. The solution would be, she tells us, to give them their own space where they relate more between themselves than directly with the paintings. The decisions about the three-dimensional pieces not only affect their arrangement in the room, they also lead to the exclusion of the unfinished green object. ‘Are you sure? – Yes, yes… totally, it can’t be there!’ The small object, which was present at the seminar, ceases therefore to be integral to the whole and it won’t be possible to see it as significant part of the work. This doesn’t mean to say that it is no longer interesting to continue considering it as a means to access the meaning of the project, even though this consideration has to be redefined to find the appropriate key to give us access to it. The exclusion of the piece from the whole exhibition means it stops being an object for elucidation. In other words, we have to be clear that if in the future it ends up be-
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ing an archaeological relic (assuming the life of the polyurethane permits it), it would not serve, on its own, to restore the meaning of the artwork. However, even if it stops being the object it could still be an excellent instrument for elucidation that enables a differential interpretation. In the same way that in order to isolate a force we need a speed differential, to isolate the meaning of the artwork we need a differential in artisticity, and this comes with the warning this is not a work of art that now hangs from the green piece. What do the other pieces have that it does not? Jo Milne’s experiments in digital printing techniques have led her to explore forms which, to be produced, need auxiliary support elements. These can be integrated into the process of designing the object or can be generated automatically, allowing the program to calculate the form, quantity and placement. The green object forms part of a series that originated with a representation of the Big Bang, this is the invisible entity Jo proposes to visualize as a bundle of lines expanding in all di84
rections from a common centre. From this cosmological figure, the requirements of different printing systems have given rise to diverse results. In some cases, the auxiliary supports create a structure of pillars, interconnected with crosspieces, an exoskeletal labyrinth that hides the printed object within a dense grid that blocks it from view. In other cases, it creates an organic membrane that unifies, like a stretched elastic fabric, the endpoints of the lines. The combination of different systems creates complex combinations –like membranes within membranes supported by structures of pillars– that make it progressively harder to see or even infer the original design. Even though the Citilab engineers recommended Jo cut off the extra pieces to ‘clean up’ the piece, the result produced by the printer is, precisely, the desired form that she would not have achieved otherwise. It is the point where a double invisibility meets: that of the scientific speculations that blur when they are inscribed in persuasive images, and that of the materialization of code when it is hidden by the requirements of the channel of translation. The painting brings together the frictions of transit between worlds and registers the problems, the errors and the incompatibilities to allow a space to emerge where the strange veracity of art occupies the place of the felicitous falsehoods of scientific representations. How is this outline constructed? Why doesn’t the green object form part of it? Why hasn’t this error resulted in a painting? What makes it different from the other projects that have arisen from the same process? At Citilab, while we were waiting for a second Big Bang to be printed out, I sketched the one that had remained unfin-
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ished. I drew it fitting the proportions and volume into a frontal, conical, perspective which made it appear like a public city square monument from the mid-twentieth century, with three sides closed off by buildings, one of them crowned with a monumental sculpture, a rather unsettling combination of Tatlin, Leandre Cristòfol and an orchid mantis. Even though the representation system is adequate to explain the characteristics of the object, the result is far from the relationships between background and figure that we find in Jo’s paintings. It may be useful to remember how she once recommended to me –in order to find alternatives to the ‘holes’ of the habitual vanishing points in my drawings– that I search for a piece of glass where it’s possible to see the outside, but which at the same time, reflects the inside. ‘Try and draw the two faces of the glass on the same piece of paper, as if it were part of a whole, as therefore you will have to decide which lines to include and which not’. I have not yet tried it, but if we use this recommendation as a guide to interpretation that could be applied to Jo’s paintings, we see that, in them, the three-dimensional models carry out the function of the glass that enables us to see in two directions; they are lattices, which situate you in two places at the same time. Unlike the other models, the discarded object in its final state is too dense and compact to see through it, while all the others enable us to visually travel from the inside to the outside and transfer this experience to the painting. This can be verified in a very direct way in Cosmological configuration, X, where the support membrane of a Big Bang model can be seen as fragments of a curtain, visible from both the inside and the outside, that are inte-
grated into the whole as another element of friction. In contrast, in Cosmological configuration, Y, the latticework plays a more complex role and provokes a discontinuity in the space cutting it into regular bands that only incorporate some lines while others maintain the unity of the frame. In all the paintings, the background is a flat surface, more of a screen than a naturalistic space, or, if you prefer, a strangely naturalistic representation of the conventions of an ontology without an inside, where everything is visible on the surface.
The latticework plays a more complex role and provokes a discontinuity in the space At the end of the conversation with Jo and Víctor, we discuss a recent article about Turner, by the curator and writer Oriol Fontdevila, which begins by recalling how, for Oscar Wilde, fog did not exist in London, even though it was a regular presence, until Turner had invented it. Maybe the forms of visualizing invisible structures or, the different apparatuses for over visualization that surround us, did not exist either until the paintings, that now surround us, invented them. Maybe, as with the fog painted by Turner, techno-scientific visualizations are not just a theme but also an experience of contemporary worlds, associated with new forms of sensible knowledge. ‘Perhaps –Jo said at the end of the defence of her doctoral thesis– all this comes from having grown up in a country immersed in fog’.
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Physiologus
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Curated by Carlos Pan
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A Poem
Curated by Enric Bou Professor in Iberian Studies, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia
ART POÈTICA
POETIC ART
Per la transgressió dels mots comuns, il·luminar espais poc coneguts del ser, i aprendre el que hem viscut, esforç d’una memòria. Tornar a la pàtria per uns camins perduts, endins del bosc. Entrar en el misteri, divers, de tot origen per la paraula.
With the transgression Of common words, Illuminate spaces Little known of existing, And learn what we have lived, Effort of a memory. Go back to the homeland Through hidden paths, Inside the forest. Enter the mystery, Diverse, source of all Through the word.
[Translated by Enric Bou]
Josep Maria Fulquet (Barcelona 1948) studied Philosophy and Letters and holds a PhD in Romance Philology from the University of Barcelona. He was co-editor of Tarotdequinze (1972-75), a poetical journal. He has taught at University Ramon Llull. An excellent translator from English, French and Italian, he received the 2000 Crítica Serra d’Or prize for translation for his version of Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters. He is the author of a limited quantity of poetry, but with great value. He has published four books, Perillosa riba (1978), Platges del temps (1980), De plata pur (2007) and Morir com un riu (2016), winner of the 2016 Miquel de Palol poetry prize. His poetry is a solid, almost philosophical, reflection on time and the ability of poetry to summon up the passage of time, time past, memory, pain and sorrow, death. As indicated by Vinyoli, for a poet it is less important to be close to poetry in the abstract than to craft a perfect poem. Fulquet attains the latter with great success.
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Editorial Board Martí Anglada Former foreign news editor at TV3 (Catalonia Television). He has been foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Italy and Great Britain (1977-1984) for the Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia and TV3’s foreign correspondent in the United States (1987-1990), Brussels and Berlin (2009-2011). He has also been an international political commentator. His books include Afers no tan estrangers [Not So Foreign Affairs] (Editorial Mina, 2008), Quatre vies per a la independència: Estònia, Letònia, Eslovàquia, Eslovènia [Four Ways To Independence: Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia] (Editorial Pòrtic, 2013) and La via alemanya [The German Way] (Brau Edicions, 2014). He was named the Government of Catalonia’s new delegate for France and Switzerland in September 2014.
Enriqueta Aragonès A research professor at the Institut d’Anàlisi Econòmica (IAE-CSIC) and affiliate professor at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. She holds a degree in Economics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a PhD from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Most of her research takes place on the frontier between economics and political science. In particular she examines questions concerning political science using the instruments of economic analysis and game theory. Her articles are published in leading journals in both political science (American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science) and economics (American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory).
Jordi Basté (Barcelona, 1965). Journalist. He worked at Catalunya Ràdio, collaborating on Joaquim Maria Puyal’s football broadcasts (1982-2004). He also r eported on basketball matches and presented the programs La Jornada and No ho diguis a ningú. Later he joined RAC1 radio station, where he presented the sports programTu diràs (2004-2007). S ince then he has been the director and presenter of the morning magazine El món a RAC1 (currently the leading program in Catalan radio history) f or whichhe received the Premi Nacional de Radiodifusió in 2010 and the Premi Òmnium Cultural de Comunicacióin 2012. O n TV, he has w orked on Basquetmania and a s a c odirector and presenter of Gol a gol for Televisió de Catalunya (2001-2003). In 2010 Basté received the Protagonistas award f or communication and in 2011 he r eceived an Ondas award i n recognition of his distinguished career in broadcasting.
Enric Canela (Barcelona, 1949). Holds a degree in Chemistry from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and a PhD in Chemistry, specialising in Biochemistry. He has taught at the UB since 1974, where he is currently professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and collaborates on research into intracellular communication. He also conducts research on theoretical Biochemistry and regularly publishes in scientific journals of international repute. He is a member of numerous scientific societies. Between 1991 and 1995 he was vice-president of the Catalan Society of Biology. Between 2007 and 2009 he was president of the Circle for Knowledge. Between 2007 and 2011 he was a patron of the National Agency for Evaluation, Certification and Accreditation (ANECA) in Spain. He is currently vice-rector of Science Policy at the UB.
Salvador Cardús (Terrassa, 1954). PhD in Economics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, Cornell University (USA) and Queen Mary College of the University of London. Currently he is professor of Sociology at the UAB and the former Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology. He has conducted research into the sociology of religion and culture, media, nationalism and identity. His published works include, Plegar de viure [Giving Up on Life] with Joan Estruch, Saber el temps [Understanding Time], El desconcert de l’educació [The Education Puzzle], Ben educats [Well Educated] and El camí de la independència [The Road To Independence]. In the field of journalism he was the editor of the Crònica d’Ensenyament magazine (1987-1988) and was deputy editor of the Avui newspaper (1989-1991). He contributes to ARA, La Vanguardia, Diari de Terrassa and Deia newspapers. He is a member of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. www.salvadorcardus.cat
David Fernàndez (Vila de Gràcia, 1974) is a journalist at La Directa and a member of Coop57. He has been a member of alternative social movements since the 90s, is a member of the Amical de Mauthausen, the Intersindical Alternativa de Catalunya, Entrepobles, and the Coordinating Committee for the Prevention of Torture. He was an MP for the CUP-Alternativa d’Esquerres in the parliament of Catalonia during the 10th Legislature (2012-2015), where he chaired the Commission of Inquiry on Tax Fraud and Corruption. He currently works in the fight against poverty and social exclusion and as an activist is involved in the anti-corruption project llumsitaquigrafs.cat. He is the author of numerous books, including Cròniques del 6, Cop de CUP and Foc a la Barraca.
August Gil-Matamala Has been a practising lawyer since 1960, specialising in the fields of criminal and labour law. He has taken part in numerous cases in defence of those on trial for their demands in favour of people’s rights, as well as hearings before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Gil-Matamala fought the first successful case against the Spanish state for the violation of basic rights. He is a founder member of the Commission for the Defence of Individual Rights of the Col·legi d’Advocats de Barcelona [the Barcelona Bar Association] and the Catalan Association for the Defence of Human Rights, which he presided over from its foundation in 1985 to 2001. Gil-Matamala has also been president of both the Fundació Catalunya and the European Democratic Lawyers organization. In 2007, coinciding with his retirement, he received the Creu de Sant Jordi (St. George’s Cross, the highest honour awarded by the Catalan government).
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Montserrat Guibernau Professor of Politics at Queen Mary College, University of London. Holds a PhD and an MA in Social and Political Theory from the University of Cambridge and a degree in Philosophy from the Universitat de Barcelona. She has taught at the universities of Warwick, Cambridge, Barcelona, the London School of Economics and the Open University. Guibernau has held visiting professorships at the universities of Edinburgh, Tampere, Pompeu Fabra, the UQAM (Quebec) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Currently she holds a visiting fellowship at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics. Montserrat Guibernau is the author of numerous books and articles on nationalism, the nation-state, national identity, and national and ethnic minorities in the West from the perspective of global governance.
Manuel Manonelles A political scientist specialised in international relations and human rights, he has been Director General for Multilateral and European Affairs of the Catalan Government since June 2014; a position he combines with that of associate professor of International Relations at the University Ramon Llull (Barcelona). Member of the Steering Committee of the Jean Monnet Centre of European Excellence on ‘Intercultural Dialogue, Human Rights and Multi-level Governance’ located at the University of Padua (Italy), he has participated in the work of the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development (2009-13) under the coordination of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in support of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty (2011-2). He has been special advisor to the Co-chair of the UN High Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations, as well as director of the Foundation Culture of Peace and the World Forum of Civil Society Networks (known as the Ubuntu Forum). He has been an international electoral observer and supervisor for the OSCE and the EU on many occasions, and has participated in several international intergovernmental and non-governmental processes. He is currently the Government of Catalonia’s Director General of Multilateral Affairs.
Fèlix Martí Former president of the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (Pax Romana), from 1975 to 1984; director of the Catalonia magazine (1987-2002), aimed at disseminating the Catalan culture around the world; director of the UNESCO centre of Catalonia (1984-2002) and subsequently its honorary president. From 1994 to 2002 he was editor of the Catalan editions of the yearly reports of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, L’Estat del món [The State of the World] and Signes vitals [Vital Signs]. He promoted the Declaration on Contributions by Religions to a Culture of Peace, signed by leaders of the great religious traditions in 1994. President of the Linguapax International Institute from 2001 to 2004 and its honorary president thereafter. He published his memoirs Diplomàtic sense estat [Diplomat Without a State] in 2006. His latest book is Déus desconeguts. Viatge iniciàtic a les religions de l’Orient [Unknown Gods. Journey of Initiation Through the Religions of the East], published in 2013. He was awarded the UNESCO Human Rights Medal in 1995 and the Catalan government’s Creu de Sant Jordi award in 2002.
Eva Piquer (Barcelona, 1969).Writer and cultural journalist. Works for several newspapers and magazines. Has been a lecturer at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a New York news correspondent. Won the 2002 Josep Pla prize for her novel Una victòria diferent [A Different Victory]. Also author of several books, including La noia del temps [The Weather Girl], Alícia al país de la televisió [Alice in Television Land] and No sóc obsessiva, no sóc obsessiva, no sóc obsessiva [I’m Not Obsessive, I’m Not Obsessive, I’m Not Obsessive]. Her latest book is called La feina o la vida [Life or Work].
Ricard Planas (Girona, 1976). Journalist, art critic and cultural promoter. Studied Philology and the History of Art at the Universitat de Girona. In 1999 he founded the magazine Bonart, dedicated to the contemporary art scene in the Catalan Countries. More recently he created and directed the Catalan art fair INART in 2005 and 2006. Has worked as the curator for exhibitions by important artists such as Arranz-Bravo, Lamazares, Formiguera, Cuixart, Ansesa and Grau-Garriga. Ricard has collaborated with Ona Catalana, Catalunya Ràdio, iCatfm and Onda Rambla radio stations. Has also worked for the Diari de Girona, El Punt and El Mundo newspapers, among others.
Clara Ponsatí Professor of Economics at the University of Saint Andrews. Holds a degree in Economics from the Universitat de Barcelona, a Masters in Economics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and a PhD from the University of Minnesota. She is a research professor and director at Institut d’Anàlisi Econòmica-C.S.I.C., affiliated faculty and research fellow at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. She has been senior researcher at C.S.I.C., associate professor and assistant professor at UAB and Postdoctoral research associate at Bell Communications Research, Morristown, NJ. She is a member of the editorial boards of The International Journal of Game Theory and The Review of Economic Design.
Arnau Queralt Holds a degree in Environmental Sciences from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and a Masters in Public Management from ESADE, the UAB and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Since October 2011, he has been the director of the Advisory Council for the Sustainable Development of Catalonia (CADS), an advisory body of the Government of Catalonia attached to its Presidential Department. Since October 2012, he has been a member of the Steering Committee of the European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils (EEAC). From May 2010 to October 2011 he was secretary general of the Cercle Tecnològic de Catalunya foundation. He has been on the board of the Catalan Association of Environmental Professionals since 2004 and was its president from 2010 to 2012.
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Vicent Sanchis (Valencia, 1961). Holds a degree in Information Sciences from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In his career as a journalist it is worth highlighting that he has worked and collaborated on many publications and with numerous publishers; he is director of El Temps magazine, and he has been director of Setze magazine, the Catalan supplement of Cambio 16, and director of the newspapers El Observador and Avui. He has also excelled as a scriptwriter and director on different TV programmes. At present he is president of the editorial board of Avui, and vice-president of Òmnium Cultural. Vicent is also a lecturer in the Faculty of Communication Sciences at Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona.
Mònica Terribas (Barcelona, 1968). Holds a degree in Journalism from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Stirling (Scotland). She is a lecturer at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. From 2002 to 2008 she presented and subsequently directed the current affairs programme La nit al dia for TV3 (the Catalan public television). From 2008 to 2012 she was Director of TV3 and the following year, the CEO and editor of the newspaper Ara. Since September 2013 she has presented El matí de Catalunya Ràdio, Catalonia’s public service broadcasting flagship current affairs programme.
Montserrat Vendrell (Barcelona, 1964). Has been BIOCAT’s CEO since April 2007. As a cluster organization, BIOCAT’s goals include promoting the development of biotechnology companies and research institutions. Vendrell has been the Chairwoman of CEBR (the Council of European Bioregions) since 2012. She holds a PhD in Biology (Universitat de Barcelona), a Masters in Science Communication (UPF) and a degree in Business Administration (IESE, PDG). Before BIOCAT she was linked to the Barcelona Science Park, where she held several posts such as Scientific Director (1997-2005) and Deputy Director General (2005-2007). Among other tasks, Dr Vendrell led the design and implementation of the Park’s Strategic Plan, as well as the organization and management of scientific activities and technological platforms. She was a member of the Steering Committee of the Park’s Biotech Incubator, and in charge of international relations.
Carles Vilarrubí (Barcelona, 1954). Businessman. He is currently Executive Vice-President of Rothschild Spain Investment Bank, specialising in key mergers and takeovers in the financial sector on an international scale. President of CVC Grupo Consejero, an equity and investment advisory firm, with a portfolio of shares in consulting and service companies from the world of communications, the media, marketing, technology and telecommunications. President of Doxa Consulting Group, independent consultants on technology, media and telecommunications, leaders in the sector and with a presence in Spain and Portugal. He is a member of the advisory board of the Catalan confederation Foment del Treball Nacional [National Employment Promotion] and patron of the Fundació Orfeó Català - Palau de la Música. He has also been a member of the governing council of ADENA WWF (World Wild Fund for Nature), and sat on the boards of the Fundación Arte y Tecnología, Fundesco and Fundación Entorno. He is vice-president of F.C Barcelona.
Vicenç Villatoro (Terrassa, 1957). Writer and journalist. Holds a degree in Information Sciences. He is director of CCCB (Barcelona’s Center for Contemporary Culture). Former president of the Ramon Trias Fargas foundation and the former director of the Institut Ramon Llull. As a journalist he has worked for numerous organizations. He was the editor of the Avui newspaper from 1993 to 1996 and head of the culture section of TV3. Between 2002 and 2004 was director general of the Catalan Radio and Television Corporation. He has contributed to a range of media companies, such as Avui, El Periódico, El País, El Temps, Catalunya Ràdio and COM ràdio. He has written a dozen novels.
Francesc de Dalmases (Director) (Barcelona, 1970). Journalist and consultant in humanitarian aid and cooperation and development. Has been president (1999-2006) of the Association of Periodicals in Catalan (APPEC); coordinator for the delegation to the Spanish state of European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (1995-1999); coordinator for the third conference of the CONSEU (Conference of European Stateless Nations) (1999); and coordinator for the publication Europa de les Nacions (1993-1999). Has acted as a foreign expert in aid projects in such diverse locations as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia, Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mexico, Guatemala, Morocco and Congo. He is a member of the Cooperation Council of the Catalan government. In 2011 he joined Barcelona’s Council’s Aid Commitee and is a board member of the Federation of Internationally Recognized Catalan Organizations.
Víctor Terradellas (Editor) (Reus, 1962). Entrepreneur and political and cultural activist. President and founder of Fundació CATmón. Editor of Catalan International View and ONGC, a magazine dedicated to political thought, solidarity, aid and international relations. Víctor has always been involved in political and social activism, both nationally and internationally. The driving force behind the Plataforma per la Sobirania [The Platform for Self-Determination] as well as being responsible for significant Catalan aid operations and international relations in such diverse locations as Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Pakistan and Kurdistan. He is the former General Secretary of International Relations for Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya.
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