Civ 11

Catalan International View

Issue 11 • Winter 2011-12 • € 5

A European Review of the World

The financial crisis and regulation

by Xavier Vives

Reflections on the Arab uprisings

by Antoni Segura

Farewell to violence in the Basque Country

by Jordi Armadans

The universality of Antoni Gaudí

by Daniel Giralt-Miracle

Dossier:

New Approaches to Religion

by Fèlix Martí, Joan F. Mira, Oriol Tunyí, Ramon M. Nogués Maria del Mar Griera, Prado Abdennur and Francesc Torradeflot Cover Artist: Josep Cisquella

SECTIONS: Europe · America · Africa ·Asia · Green Debate · Interview · Opinion Business & Economics · Science & Technology · Universal Catalans A Short Story from History · The Artist · A Poem

Editor

Víctor Terradellas

Positive & Negative

Contents

4......... Catalonia-Israel / Hungary and the EU

vterradellas@catmon.cat Director

To Our Readers

director@international-view.cat Art Director

by Víctor Terradellas and Francesc de Dalmases Europe

Francesc de Dalmases Quim Milla

designer@international-view.cat Head of International Relations

Marc Gafarot

marcgafarot@catmon.cat

Editorial Board

5......... From Barcelona to Shanghai via Edinburgh 6......... De Gaulle and the new two speed Europe

by Marc Gafarot

Business & Economics

12........ The financial crisis and regulation

Martí Anglada Manel Balcells Enric Canela Àngel Font Anna Grau August Gil-Matamala Montserrat Guibernau Guillem López-Casasnovas Manuel Manonelles Fèlix Martí Arcadi Oliveres Eva Piquer Ricard Planas Vicent Sanchis Pere Torres Carles Vilarrubí Vicenç Villatoro

by Xavier Vives The Americas

Chief Editor

Judit Aixalà Jordi Fexas

Language Advisory Service

Nigel Balfour Júlia López

18........ Impunity for crimes of the Franco era: a model for Colombia

by Laia Altarriba Africa

24........ Reflections on the Arab uprisings

Asia

by Antoni Segura

30........ Democracy as seduction

by Iris Mir

Dossier: New Approaches to Religion

34........ New approaches to religion

by Fèlix Martí

38........ The dissatisfied agnostic

by Joan F. Mira

42........ A contemporary reading of the Bible

by Oriol Tunyí

46........ The brain and religious experience

by Ramon Maria Nogués

Coordinator

50........ Europe: between secularization and desecularization

coordinator@international-view.cat

54........ The unique nature of European Islam

Maria Novella Webmaster

Marta Calvó Cover Art

Josep Cisquella

The reproduction of the artwork on the front cover is thanks to an agreement between Fundació Vila Casas and Fundació CATmón Executive Production

by Maria del Mar Griera

by Prado Abdennur

60....... From West to East: dialogical, non-dual and ineffable reality

by Francesc Torradeflot Interview

64........ Josep Maria Espinàs

by Eva Piquer Opinion

72........ Black Bread: from a film to a phenomenon

by Isona Passola

76........ Farewell to violence in the Basque Country 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.

Printed in Catalonia by

Vanguard gràfic Published quarterly

by Jordi Armadans

80. ...... Expectations and needs in the Basque Country

by Pernando Barrena Green Debate

84........ Waste: from rubbish to riches

by Pere Torres Science & Technology

88..........From Ictineu I to Ictineu 3

by Pere Forès and Carme Parareda A Short Story from History

94..........The Barcelona Conference and the codification of road signalling The Artist

96. ...... Josep Cisquella A Poem

98 ....... Passing-shot

by Joan Vinyoli Universal Catalans

100...... Antoni Gaudí

by Daniel Giralt-Miracle

Catalan International View



Positive & Negative

Future collaboration between Catalonia and Israel

The Beit Ha Nassir, the Israeli presidential residence, was the setting for a meeting between the President of Israel, Shimon Peres and Oriol Pujol, Deputy Secretary General of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (Democratic Convergence of Catalonia), the ruling party in the Catalan parliament. The meeting served to make the Israeli President aware of Catalonia’s political and economic situation, the Catalan Government’s intention to exercise its right to decide and the need for a fiscal agreement to allow Catalonia to raise its own taxes. Shimon Peres reassured Pujol that, ‘we are friends of Catalonia and we have an interest in working with you in as many areas as possible, whether they be political, economic or institutional’ and showed his particular interest in working in the field of nanotechnology and establishing business ties. Following Oriol Pujol’s presentation on the state of Catalan nationalism and how Catalan society changes day by day, Peres commented that,‘Catalonia and its people have old aspirations but find new ways to act’. With reference to the ArabIsraeli conflict, Peres stressed the fact that, ‘new leaders, new ideas and new solutions’ are currently emerging and that, ‘now that the old policies are over, we need new policies’. Meanwhile, Pujol expressed Catalonia’s desire to participate in global affairs as a well-known and respected country, as the name Catalonia, ‘is synonymous with Europe and the world’.

Hungary and the limits of the European Union

Hungary has set alarm bells ringing within the European Union. Legislative changes that have recently taken place have not gone unnoticed in spite of the political and economic crisis affecting the EU. In practice the reforms override the independence of its central bank, limit the powers of the Supreme Court and restrict the freedom of information to unacceptable levels. The authoritarian Hungarian manoeuvre has fortunately been met with a firm, coordinated response from all of the European member states. It is a response which has gone beyond mere formality and which caused the Hungarian forint to hit a record low against the euro last January. The European Parliament is aware of the strength given to it by article seven of the European Charter, which stipulates that in an instance of a violation of the EU’s basic principles the Council may impose sanctions, by mutual agreement, which can result in the suspension of the voting rights of the state in question. Europe also has the support of the United States as demonstrated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s meeting with the Hungarian premier in which she voiced her government’s ‘significant and well-founded’ unease with the law reforms. 

Catalan International View

To Our Readers

From Barcelona to Shanghai via Edinburgh

by Víctor Terradellas and Francesc de Dalmases

The Chinese multinational Hutchinson is about to complete a new container terminal as part of the Port of Barcelona. It represents an initial, strategic investment of three hundred million euros that should serve to strengthen the role of the Port of Barcelona as a gateway to goods entering Europe and confirm its place as the leading Mediterranean port.

We say ‘should’ because the terminal only makes sense if it has access to the necessary road and rail links. The Chinese multinational thought it could count on these transport links which had been decided upon by the Catalan authorities and the Spanish government, in an agreement reached a decade ago. Unfortunately, the latter was unable to complete the links on time and is still unable to set a date for completion in the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, during the same period Spain has had time to inaugurate several high-speed lines that were not even based on viability studies. This has led to some embarrassing consequences, with lines that failed to reach a daily average of nine passengers six months after their inauguration, resulting in them subsequently being abandoned as a disastrous investment. Spain also had time to build fifty-two commercial airports of which only eight are profitable.

If we ever ask ourselves why there are a group of nations in Europe that we call NEEWS (New Emerging European Western States) the answer is that most of the countries have their own language, culture and tradition,

but it is also due to political processes that have much to do with the inability of certain states to logically and coherently administer their infrastructure policies, and thus ensure progress and a viable future for their citizens.

Some European states are unable to separate their radial vision of planning from the need to serve and take into account the relevant European dimension Some of these states, and Spain is a perfect example, are unable to separate their radial and Jacobin vision of planning from the need to serve and take into account the relevant European dimension. The new cargo terminal in the port of Barcelona is a case in point.

It also serves to illustrate the Spanish government’s efforts to weaken European support for the Mediterranean corridor in favour of a far-fetched central railway line that in its delirium is supposed to tunnel under the Pyrenees as far as Zaragoza, with a price-tag which it’s impossible to pay, thus making it commercially unviable.

Catalonia, Scotland, Flanders, Northern Ireland and Euskadi do not see their respective processes of political emancipation as a means of European exclusion. Instead they invest their efforts in them in order to avoid missing the boat (or the train or plane) that has to establish them as an inseparable part of the European network and, in turn, the global network.

Catalan International View



Europe

De Gaulle and the new two speed Europe

by Marc Gafarot*

If de Gaulle were to rise from his grave he might well possibly recall the words of the Italian poet and novelist Manzoni, ‘it is better to be wracked with doubt than to wallow in error’. The doubt for de Gaulle, and for the current French political class, lies in knowing what power Germany is actually going to have in the Europe that is being created. The satisfaction lies in not having the United Kingdom within this hard nucleus.

The error, or rather the original sin, being Britain’s access to the community so often vetoed by the French statesman. Many French believe de Gaulle was right, and finally with the British more out than in, things are beginning to become clear. Although nowadays Germany fails to generate the fear it did some decades ago and everyone agrees its leaders wouldn’t be the traditional diktat, Europe still needs to be shown, at a time of crisis, that its intentions are entirely honest. If what it wants is to lead the group, Germany will have to be more loyal than Caesar’s wife and not leave a shadow of doubt. Many people recall that Germany itself (and France), the supposed guardian of the orthodoxy, was the first to fail to respect the rules regarding public deficit that Germany itself had called for when the Euro was born. That’s history for you, in a continent like our own, where forgetting still has its price and where stereotypes still carry weight.

In the past more than now, the United Kingdom has been a thorn in Europe’s side, hindering any consensus favouring greater integration. For one thing, it has remained outside the last two EU advances: access to the Euro and Schengen. For many Europeans, Britain’s exit from the solid core of European affairs is the logical outcome of certain attitudes which are unfavourable to promoting a project that now, more than ever, needs clear commitment rather than participants who specialise in spoiling the party. Many Europeans believe that for many years Britain’s European policy has reaped what it has sown. De Gaulle, who was always a great utilitarian of a Europe in the service of France, would be happy to see the outcome of the December 2011 European summit. Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman would be unlikely to be so happy, however. Both were French, like the general, and French pa

Catalan International View

triots like him too, founding fathers of a united federal Europe, seen as the great visionary instrument, forever freed of the divisions and miseries experienced on the continent. De Gaulle believed in Europe as a mere instrument where an understanding with Germany, which had declared war on France and occupied it a short time earlier, was much more necessary than sharing political leadership with a Great Britain which could never be dominated and which always counted on the support of America. De Gaulle believed in state logic while Monnet and Schuman saw reality as the voluntary union of all European individuals. Today a victorious de Gaulle would look favourably on an agreement between heads of state and government and would welcome Britain’s departure from the relevant power centres. He would probably complain of a certain loss of sovereignty that he, in all probability, would exagger-

Europe

ate to serve his own interests. Monnet and Schuman would lament both circumstances and also complain that the greatest integration comes from above by way of pacts between states and not from below through a strengthening of the Commission as part of a new European treaty. As always with the EU, two steps forward and one backward.

Or should we see Britain’s ‘departure’ as a step forward?

So here we have it, a part of Europe celebrates Britain’s ‘departure’, another eyes suspiciously the FrancoGerman alliance, while finally many French politicians and some Europeans are suspicious of a Germany which is emerging much stronger from a recession with large, serious political and institutional implications. We know that in European affairs it is impossible to please everyone. Nevertheless, the fact is that there were few alternatives on the negotiating table and once Britain

had settled on a negative, accompanied by the hesitant Swedes, Czechs and Hungarians and perhaps to be joined by another state in the future, the only alternative for the other member countries was to move forward with determination. The worst scenario would have been stagnation. This would have been bad for Europe and a bad signal to the unstable, fearful finance and bond markets.

Monnet and Schuman saw reality as the voluntary union of all European individuals The British, led by the indecisive, contradictory Cameron have left the European kitchen, since it appears they were unable to stand the heat, to paraphrase Truman. This dated yet wise statement is valid when expressing Britain’s peculiar relationship with Catalan International View



Europe

matters concerning Europe. Sometimes it has seemed that the British (perhaps we should say here the English as the Welsh and Scottish see things seem differently) have been forced to belong to the European club and blindly obey its directives. It appeared as if a black hand from Brussels forced them to join European institutions against their will.

Reality couldn’t be more different, as it was the British themselves who spent a decade during the sixties eager to gain membership, though they were unable to manage it until the seventies, along with Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. Obviously throughout this period the British were extremely angered by General de Gaulle who was increasingly strengthening his transatlantic alliance with the Americans. De Gaulle took no longer than strictly necessary to forget the Yankee (and British) role in WWII. He was never to forgive Britain’s betrayal and quite literally made its life impossible, in keeping with the desires of his own citizens. Thus, successive attempts

by Britain to join were all rejected. Once de Gaulle had passed away, his successor and former Prime Minister George Pompidou enjoyed less authority and less of a free hand than the general did 

Catalan International View

when it came to dictating public affairs.

He therefore gave in to the demands and Britain’s path towards membership and the first expansion of the Common Market was settled, though not without some financially tough conditions which were subsequently renegotiated by successive Thatcher governments.

This was the infamous British rebate, thanks to which many in Europe believe that the subjects of her gracious Majesty contribute much less money to European funds than they actually ought. It is worth noting that Thatcher, as with other British premiers before and after her, played different roles in this saga and was eventually devoured by a rebellion of Tory MPs favourable to the fractious island’s access to a single European currency. Britain became part of the EEC at the hand of a monochrome Conservative government led

by Edward Heath with the currently pro-European Labour Party in opposition. In case he is unaware of the full story, it would be good for David Cameron, a master of escape to learn the history of his own party and country and for him to accept certain consequences that perhaps he has failed to fully appreciate. For the first time since

Europe

the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland joined the EU they have remained outside a great European agreement. The country of Pitt, Wellington, Gladstone, Disraeli, Churchill and many others was always skilled in the art of pacts and pragmatism. It appears as if these are qualities and men of the past. Britain will remain sidelined from major European decisions and apparently does so due to the City’s supposed influence in the interests of safeguarding its financial services based on minimal regulations and the supposed national interest.

Leaders who depend largely on lobbyists and polls never cease to be apprentices or mechanics of politics and are never the engineers or architects. Now is the time for Cameron’s performance as a fake Tory just as Tony Blair represented fake labour. This is what a lack of leadership and a mission is all about.

A new Franco-German alliance and an economic aristocracy

The CEB’s president, Mario Draghi, and the major European leaders: the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, the presidents of the European Commission, José

Manuel Durao Barroso, and the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Sarkozy and Merkel. Together with the IMF’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, they all form the so-called Frankfurt Group, which has become the EU’s shadow government when it comes to finding solutions to Europe’s financial and banking problems. This could make us think that the new European Union will now become more technocratic and also more intergovernmentally integrated. The Commission’s role remains to be seen and the difficult balance of power with the Council may finally have shifted towards the latter. Fiscal union, a chimera before the debt crisis, has now become a compromise in exchange for greater community control over certain aspects of finance, labour and expenditure.

The German thesis is gaining ground and France risks coming unstuck and ensuring the survival and viability of countries like Italy or Spain which, were they to fall like Greece, would take France itself, and very likely the whole of the EU with them. Germany included. The new agreement also includes more fiscal discipline with stricter rules to control the deficit, budgets and efCatalan International View

The CEB’s president, Mario Draghi; the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy; the presidents of the European Commission, José Manuel Durao Barroso, and the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker; Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel.



Europe

The new European Union will now become more technocratic and also more intergovernmentally integrated fective sanctions for those who break the rules. The signatory states agree to be legally bound to the agreement, under the auspices of the High Court and with deficit reduction programs they will have to agree with the European Commission. However, some voices have expressed doubt as to whether the sanctions will be automatic and if the agreement is legally sound. Meanwhile, the CEB, to the distaste of the French and states such as Italy and Spain, is not changing sufficiently and so far has failed to become, as many wished, a new institution in the style of the US Federal Reserve. Once the treaty is signed, it remains to be seen whether the CEB will massively buy up debt in the form of bonds, as many investors and the markets are hoping. Meanwhile it appears as if the IMF will be an active instrument in this new European financial and fiscal order. Who would have said that we, the rich, would have to appeal to the IMF! The agreement, following the economic area, envisions an increase in the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM) rescue fund, which in principle is still controlled by the states.

This is not a revolution within the institutions but it is an important qualitative leap that should lead to greater

economic integration which, in time, could become policy. All this remains to be seen, though nowadays no one is particularly bothered about policy.

Ultimately, a new Europe will emerge.

With the new intergovernmental treaty to be signed before the spring, the socalled two speed Europe can finally be consecrated. Eventually we shall see which states remain outside the agreement and if the British refusal remains firm. Delors and many political leaders of the old continent originally rejected the variable speed project, but currently faced with the worsening economic crisis, Britain’s refusal and the misgivings of a small number of states, it is seen as the only and perhaps the last, opportunity. With this agreement the Franco-German axis emerges politically strengthened and it institutionalizes a leadership that, if the EU manages to survive the economic crisis, will set the form and pace of the European integration project. Europe won’t be able to do anything without joint French and German agreement and something which is not very democratic will be presented as an asset of efficiency. This will clarify the rules, facilitate decision making and, even more importantly, ensure the continent’s economic future. It remains to be seen how the new Europe will be affected. For now we need only welcome the old, revamped, French-German axis, and why not, surrender ourselves to God rather than the markets.

*Marc Gafarot Holds a degree in Humanities from the Universidad de Navarra, an MSc in European Studies from the London School of Economics and an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Liverpool. As a journalist and political commentator he has worked from London for Bloomberg LP, in Latin America for Summit Communications and served as a Parliamentary Adviser at the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. Gafarot is currently Head of International Relations for Catalan International View. He has written a book on Flanders and Federalism in Belgium called ‘La mort de Bèlgica? La gradual i pacífica emancipació flamenca’ (The Death of Belgium? the Gradual and Peaceful Flemish Emancipation) and co-authored The Student’s Guide to European Integration.



Catalan International View

From 2 February 2012 to 3 February 2013 In Sala 3 at Palau Robert (pg. de Gràcia, 107)

gencat.cat/palaurobert

107631/1049240 ®

PalauR obert

Centre d’Informació de Catalunya

Exhibition in Barcelona

Business and Economics

The financial crisis and regulation

by Xavier Vives*

The severity of the financial crisis which resulted from the bursting of the real estate bubble in the United States took analysts by surprise and caused a serious economic crisis. The recession brought on by the subprime loan problems in 2007 became systemic in the wake of the fall of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, putting the stability of the international financial system at risk. The magnitude of the crisis, the worst since the 1930’s, thanks to contagion in a global market and weaknesses in the regulation and supervision of financial entities, puts financial regulatory reform firmly on the agenda.

How and why have regulatory mechanisms failed? Have there been new deficiencies in the functioning of the market and institutions or are there similarities to previous crises? What can be learnt from the current crisis? The answer to such questions will clearly show the key issues to be taken into account when designing adequate regulation and will determine if a radical reformulation of the regulatory framework is needed.

All of the typical market failures are present in the financial sector: Firstly, there are the important negative externalities caused by the bankruptcy of a banking institution, especially if it is systemic, to the rest of the financial sector and to the real economy. Fragility, contagion and investors’ coordination problems are ubiquitous in the financial system. Secondly, information asymmetries in financial markets leave the 

Catalan International View

small investor unprotected and may lead to market collapse out of a fear that counterparties in a transaction will trade with advantage. Moral hazard and adverse selection are recurrent phenomena in the sector. Thirdly, the entities’ market power is an issue, since many banking sectors tend to be concentrated and there are barriers to entry.

Regulation has attempted to alleviate market deficiencies with measures such as deposit insurance, the central bank acting as a lender of last resort, and prudential and supervision requirements. Regulation has side effects: the conflict of interest between shareholders and depositors leading to excessive risk taking is worsened by insurance and aid mechanisms aimed at avoiding the bankruptcy of systemic entities. The banking sector’s liberalization process has been accompanied by prudential requirements allowing banks to trust

Business and Economics

This should be possible by means of taxes levied on institutions according to their contribution to systemic risk.

Because of the presence of these institutions in global markets, regulatory standards should be uniform and accompanied by internationally coordinated supervision.

Fifth, a fragmentary approach to financial regulation does not work; it is necessary to consider both capital and liquidity needs and the degree of market liberalization combined; an alignment of incentives should be encouraged at all levels of the system, from the Board of Directors to the client, including executives, analysts, traders and credit rating agencies.

Finally, it is necessary to establish mechanisms to prevent delays in the supervisor’s intervention while the balance sheets of financial institutions deteriorate and capital declines. This has been a typical problem in financial crises, which only makes them last longer and increases the damage to the real economy.

The proposed international measures to reform regulations (Basel III, the Dodd-Frank Act in the US, EU directives and reform of the financial

their own internal models for assessing and controlling risk and demanding public disclosure of information on the part of financial institutions to encourage transparency and foster market discipline. This flexible view of prudential requirements, supervision and discipline is a pillar of the Basel II regulation. The whole regulatory framework has been called into question following the crisis.

The originate-to-distribute model and the inverted pyramid of complex

derivatives based on subprime mortgages were at the heart of the problems.

What past crises and the current one have in common is excessive maturity transformation in highly leveraged institutions, contagion due to interbank exposure, and coordination problems among investors. Market channels deepened the crisis and contagion: participants in the interbank market and in the commercial paper market did not renew their credit lines out of fear that others might not do so either. The Catalan International View

Lehman Brothers Rockefeller centre.

(August, 2008)

ďœąďœľ

Business and Economics

outcome was the collapse of the assetbacked commercial paper market (securitization). Wholesale funding worsened the fragility.

The globalization of financial markets potentially entails greater diversification, but also more chances of contagion with domino effects between entities and contagion due to information problems. It is here where the opacity of the new financial instruments of derivatives plays a crucial role: it leads to an underestimate of the huge systemic risk accumulated in the system, and it also brings about a very severe problem of adverse selection because there is no clear knowledge of the magnitude or the distribution of the exposures to the toxic products derived from the subprime mortgages.

This problem of asymmetric information paralyses interbank markets and renders them illiquid.

It is necessary to establish mechanisms to prevent delays in the intervention by a supervisor while the balance sheets of financial institutions deteriorate and capital declines Regulation lagged behind the process of liberalization and globalization of the financial sector which started in the United States in the 1970’s. Financial innovation in instruments such as derivatives and securitization, fuelled by a lax monetary policy, resulted in a credit and housing bubble. Historically, technological breakthroughs, such as the railway, the automobile or the internet, have been associated with speculative bubbles in a context of large information asymmetry. Financial innovation in derivatives has been no exception. At the same time, financial innovation has been accused of destabilizing the banking sector and financial 

Catalan International View

markets and of helping traders bypass regulatory requirements.

Inadequate regulation is at the heart of the crisis. First of all, dual regulation allowed regulatory arbitrage between the regulated sector of depository institutions and the parallel banking system of structured vehicles and investment banks. Secondly, insufficient levels of capital requirements in terms of quantity and quality and a disregard for liquidity needs resulted in a greater fragility of the system. Capital requirements have been pro-cyclical. Regulation has not considered systemic risk and the opacity of the parallel banking system and the over-the-counter derivatives market has contributed to conceal systemic risk. Finally, even though credit rating agencies play a key role in regulation (when determining capital needs, for example) they competed with each other to lower rating standards without the adequate supervision of the regulator. In general, regulation has not paid the necessary attention to conflicts of interest and has excessively relied on mechanisms of self-regulation and corporate governance. The influence of the financial sector and of investment banks in particular is not foreign to lax regulations.

Regulatory reform should be based on the following key principles:

First, central banks should have a mandate to maintain financial stability. In some cases, this mandate exists formally, but the current crisis makes it necessary to reconsider the role that quantities play in the financial sector’s balance sheets in order to head off potential speculative bubbles. Therefore, it is necessary to consider specific macro prudential measures which take into account capital and liquidity needs throughout the economic cycle. The Bank of Spain’s dynamic provisions are an example.

Second, any institution which fulfils the tasks of a bank is by its very nature fragile; it is subject to the potential panic of investors and needs the coverage of a safety net. Therefore, it cannot avoid supervision. Regulation and supervision should encompass all entities which carry out banking activities.

Third, expected losses of liabilities guaranteed by the government should be covered by a risk premium dependent on the risk assumed by the entity.

At the same time, the fact that banks which act under the protection of the safety net are subject to moral hazard makes it necessary to limit their range of activities (in particular, the riskiest ones, such as proprietary trading).

Fourth, institutions that play a key role in the financial system, where the TBTF (too-big-to-fail) doctrine is ap-

plied, should be regulated so that they are able to internalize the potential widespread effects of their bankruptcy.

This should be possible by means of taxes levied on institutions according to their contribution to systemic risk.

Thanks to the presence of these institutions in global markets, regulatory standards should be uniform and accompanied by internationally coordinated supervision.

Fifth, a fragmentary approach to financial regulation does not work; it is necessary to consider both capital and liquidity needs and the degree of market liberalization combined; an alignment of incentives should be encouraged at all levels of the system, from the Board of Directors to the client, including executives, analysts, traders and credit rating agencies.

Catalan International View

Lehman Brothers Building at 7th Avenue and West 49th Street, Manhattan, NYC. (September, 2008)

ďœąďœˇ

Business and Economics

Finally, it is necessary to establish mechanisms to prevent delays in the supervisor’s intervention while the balance sheets of financial institutions deteriorate and capital declines. This has been a typical problem in financial crises, which only makes them last longer and increases the damage to the real economy.

The proposed international measures to reform regulations (Basel III, the Dodd-Frank Act in the US, EU directives and reform of the financial architecture, the Vickers commission in the UK, ...) generally agree with the stated reform principles. However, several issues can be identified.

Regulation faces the challenge of making the financial system more resistant and stable without hindering economic growth, while protecting the public interest, innovation and globalization The first is whether the proposed reforms will go far enough. For example, it is yet to be seen if the Basel III proposals will end up setting sufficient capital and liquidity requirements without distorting them or how the parallel banking sector will be regulated. As regards reforms in the US, the DoddFrank Act leaves the implementation of regulation completely at the discretion of the regulator. This great freedom granted to the regulator may turn out to be problematic, if the experience of past crises is anything to go by.

The second is whether they will prevent implicit and explicit insurance mechanisms, together with limited liability from leading to excessive risk taking by banks. ‘Living wills’ and improvements in balance sheet transparency are palliative elements, but the problem may persist. A question 

Catalan International View

is whether the separation of activities proposed in the modified Volcker rule in the US will be enough. It may also be questioned whether corporate governance reforms can be effective without addressing the fundamental problem of shareholder incentives to take excessive risks from a social point of view.

A third issue is how to deal with systemic entities. In general, taxes that aim to correct the potential damage that may be caused by systemic institutions are superior to restrictions in the size of the entities since what matters are interconnections within the system more than its sheer size. However, governments favour taxes and levies as a source of revenue (and to recover the cost of bank bailouts) rather than to correct externalities. Another question is whether enough mechanisms to monitor conflicts of interests inherent in financial conglomerates have been put in place.

Finally, regulatory reform may have a substantial impact on the degree of internationalization of the banking sector. For example, the tendency to isolate the problems of entities in the countries where they arise may help the development of supranational entities as a collection of independently capitalized, regulated and supervised subsidiaries. In the EU, for example, replacing branch offices with national subsidiaries may act as a brake on European financial integration. This is over and above the need in the EU and the Eurozone in particular, to have mechanisms to resolve crises in panEuropean entities which establish ex ante burden sharing and which include deposit insurance at a European level.

The crisis has exposed major weaknesses in the regulation and supervision of the financial system and it leaves many issues unresolved. Financial innovation has played a controversial role by encouraging regulatory

Business and Economics

arbitrage (such as securitization abuse to avoid capital requirements). However, the real problem is inadequate regulation rather than innovation itself. Securitization is basically an innovation which allows risk transfer and diversification, hence in principle it increases the credit supply in the economy. Problems result from a chain of incorrect incentives associated with deficient regulation. In this case, the challenge is to set a regulation of the financial system which allows for the development of securitization with adequate incentives (in terms of capital requirements, for example).

Regulation faces the challenge of making the financial system more resistant and stable without hindering economic growth, while protecting the public interest, innovation and globalization. The financial system plays a key role in economic growth and there should be no contradiction between stability of the financial system and economic growth. The financial sector is faced with the need to recover confidence and reputation, and to adapt to a new and stricter regulatory environment. The challenges ahead for both regulators and financial institutions are formidable. *Xavier Vives

Holds a PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley. He is currently Professor of Economics and Finance at IESE Business School and is also affiliated with Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He has held positions at Harvard, NYU, the University of Pensylvania, INSEAD, and was the director of the Institute for Economic Analysis (CSIC) in the 1990s. He has published in all the leading international journals in Economics and written several books. He has also been editor of several journals, among them the Journal of the European Economic Association. He has been a Fellow of the Econometric Society since 1992, and of the European Economic Association since 2004. He has received several research prizes and was awarded a European Research Council Advanced Grant in 2009.

1 Year (4 issues) just 40 euros Name (please print)

Address payment enclosed

charge my:

mastercard

visa

Account # Signature

Date

Fonollar 14 · 08003 BARCELONA · CATALONIA · Europe · www.international-view.cat

Catalan International View



The Americas

Impunity for crimes of the Franco era: a model for Colombia

by Laia Altarriba*

Judge Baltasar Garzon landed in September 2011 in Bogota, several months before being disqualified from holding public office by the Spanish judiciary, and held an hour-long meeting with the Colombian Justice Minister Juan Carlos Esguerra. Why did this meeting take place? What does this Latin American country hold for Garzón? According to the press, Garzón was travelling as an advisor to the OAS’ (Organization of American States) Misión de Apoyo al Proceso de Paz de Colombia (Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia). He also went to help advance the process of resolving the conflict that has blighted the country since the 60s.

Beyond what we can read in the press, however, lawyers and organisations that monitor human rights claim that the Spanish judge was in Colombia to do the same thing he has been doing for the last decade: act as an advisor to the government of the country, yes, but with the undeclared aim of ensuring that during the process of resolving the conflict, those who have committed crimes will not be prosecuted. In other words, he was there to export the model of impunity that has allowed the Spanish state not to recognize the illegality of the Franco regime, not to do justice to the victims of the dictatorship and not to prosecute those who are guilty of such crimes.

It is not the first time that the Spanish state has been working to export this model to Latin America. Gregorio Dionis, president of Equipo Nizkor (an international organisation that defends human rights, focusing its activities on combating impunity, especially in Europe and Latin America), said that the Southern Cone countries (Argentina, Chile and Uruguay) tried to implement such procedures three decades ago in order to shield the leaders of their dictatorships when they began the transition process moving towards 

Catalan International View

democracy, and also later at the end of various armed conflicts in Central America (Guatemala and El Salvador).

What is new in terms of Colombia is that the measures are to be applied in a country where the armed conflict is still underway.

Garzón: legal advisor to the Colombian government

The president of Equipo Nizkor states that it is Baltasar Garzón who is working with Colombia on behalf of the Spanish state to implement this type of transitional justice: ‘The Spanish judge has been the senior advisor to the Colombia’s prosecutors in recent years, in coordination with the Spanish Foreign Ministry. ‘It started with Alvaro Uribe’s government’s Ley de Justicia y Paz ( Justice and Peace Law), passed in 2005 and more recently the current president, Juan Manuel Santos’, Ley de Victimas y Restitución de Tierras (Victims and Land Restitution Law) of July 2011.

Both laws have been criticized from within Colombia by organisations representing the victims of state crimes and supporters of human rights, and also by international organisations such as the Inter-American Court of

The Americas

Human Rights. As for the Justice and Peace Law, it was designed to give legal protection to the demobilization process of paramilitary groups. However, it received a great deal of criticism (including from the UN) because certain crimes committed by the demobilized groups went unpunished, it established insufficient penalties for the perpetrators and it ignored the victims.

As for the most recent law, it has been received more favourably by the organisations which defend human rights mentioned above, as its objective is to compensate the victims of the Colombian conflict (a conflict that, according to Movice, the Movimiento de Víctimas de los Crímenes de Estado [Movement for the Victims of State Crimes], has left 50,000 missing, more than 4 million displaced and over 30,000 killed).

According to the Colombian attorney Johana Silva, the national victims’ movement has welcomed the law as, ‘a significant step forward in the recognition of the conflict (something which former President Alvaro Uribe failed to do) and the rights of victims’, as it provides economic reparations for those who have lost their land, the victims of abuse and the relatives of those who lost their lives. Nevertheless, Johana

Silva also highlights the fact that many victims have been left out: ‘[The law] deals with them differently depending on when they suffered abuse or crimes; excludes the recent victims of paramilitary groups, with the excuse that they have been demobilized and that they have become ‘‘emerging gangs’’; and limits the victims to the ‘context of the armed conflict’, thereby excluding victims of socio-political violence, such as the 5,000 who were killed in the massacre suffered by the leftwing Unión Patriótica party in the mid 1980s’. According to Movice, the law makes it very difficult to ensure those who are accused of such crimes stand trial.

They are exporting a model of impunity that has allowed the Spanish state not to recognize the illegality of the Franco regime, not to do justice to the victims of the dictatorship and not to prosecute those who are guilty of such crimes For all these shortcomings, Johana Silva points out that neither law meets ‘international standards for the protection of the right to truth, justice and reparation, and they do not represent Catalan International View



The Americas

a fundamental advance in the resolution of the social and armed conflict in Colombia’. From his point of view, in essence these laws, ‘play more of a role of legitimising the Colombian political system, which is has been brought into doubt both nationally and internationally due to repeated violations of human rights and for being associated with state terrorism’.

Thus, Garzón will have advised the Colombian government on two laws which, inspired by the model of the Spanish transition, recognize that there are victims while forgetting the executioners. Juan Manuel Santos himself acknowledged the key role played by Garzón when, in July 2010, shortly after taking office as president, that the Spanish judge had helped the Colombians ‘to legitimize’ the process of demobilization of the paramilitaries and the Justice and Peace Law ‘before the international community’. Nevertheless, Garzón will have to return to Colombia because there are international organisations such as Human Rights Watch that continue to be critical of certain aspects of the two laws.

In Argentina, popular and international pressure has led to the amendment of laws allowing impunity and meant various military leaders from the dictatorship have stood trial Spanish-style impunity

The model of impunity that Colombia is currently applying began with the Spanish transition process of the 1970s, according to the criminal lawyer Miguel Muga (linked to Federación de Foros por la Memoria, the Federation of Forums for [historical] Memory), the process consisted of, ‘an agreement between the main left-wing parties and the Franco 

Catalan International View

regime to reach a pact of silence that abandoned the victims of the dictatorship and those who fought against Franco and also ensured that members of the Franco regime would not be persecuted or brought to trial’. He therefore adds that the transition did not respect international law which lays out what ought to be done during the political transition process in order to bring to trial those responsible for any crimes that may have been committed.

In what sense does the Spanish model not respect international law?

Firstly, because it does not recognize the illegality of the Franco regime (on the 9th February 1946 the United Nations General Assembly declared the regime illegal since it took power thanks to the overthrow of a democratic regime and for taking the side of the Axis powers during World War II); and secondly, because it neither pursued nor condemned the repressive acts conducted by the new state that emerged from the Civil War (i.e. the systematic acts of torture, atrocities committed against the civilian population and 150,000 or more kidnappings); and finally because the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (UN, 2006) establishes that states have to investigate them, whenever they happened, something which Spain has failed to do.

This unwritten agreement during the transition which allowed for the provisions of international law to be circumvented, has recently been put down on paper with the so-called Law of Historical Memory of 2007. Miguel Muga points out that once more a law that was initially meant to do justice to the victims, ‘is again based on the principle of reconciliation, fails to respect international law and human rights, and assumes the legality of the Franco regime’.

This means that over three decades after the end of the Franco regime no one has

The Americas

ever been tried for the crimes committed under the dictatorship.

Those who try to bring a prosecution, including Baltasar Garzón himself, have had to face legal proceedings (a case declared admissible in May 2009). In relation to the case brought against Garzón, many organisations which for years have called for an end to impunity and for the crimes committed under the dictatorship to be prosecuted, declared themselves to be opposed to the case brought against the then judge of the High Court. Nevertheless, they questioned the judge’s actions. In a manifesto signed by over 60 institutions from the Països Catalans (the Catalan Countries, including the Associació Memòria Contra la Tortura [Memory Against Torture Association], the Associació per a la Recuperació de la Memòria Històrica de Catalunya [ARMHC, Association for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of Catalonia] and the Fòrum per la Memòria del País Valencià [Forum for the Memory of Valencia]), considered that ‘a court which is a direct successor to the Francoist state (in reference to the High Court) and questioned by human rights organisations, with Garzón at its head, has no legitimacy or credibility for judging the crimes of Francoism’. It went on to state that, ‘under the auspices of this court, Garzón has brought High Court litigation designed as political persecution and has employed methods such as solitary confinement which are a form of torture, (...) as has been pointed out in various reports by the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the ruling by European Court of Human Rights on the arrests of a number of Catalans in 1992’.

The prosecution that has been brought against Garzón therefore shows the strength of the Spanish model of impunity. It is a legal framework

which the state wishes to implement in Colombia, at the hands of the very same judge, by adapting the model to a situation of an ongoing armed conflict.

The export of the model of impunity to Latin American

According to Gregorio Dionis, at the end of the dictatorship, the Spanish authorities found that the model faced a crisis of legitimacy: ‘Both the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Socialist Workers’ Party of Spain) and the Partido Comunista Español (PCE, Spanish Communist Party) were aware that this model did not exist anywhere else in the world. In a perverse solution they sought to export it, mainly to Latin America, in order to legitimize it by saying it was an established law and that the Spanish were not the only ones to apply it’.

The lawyer, Miguel Muga stresses the impertinence of highlighting the economic motivation behind the implementation of this type of transition, and that Spain itself has guided its implementation in South and Central America. ‘The Spanish state has always defended the export of its model of impunity, justifying it with economic interests and in a false reconciliation with the objective of enabling the market economy to function smoothly, leaving to one side the victims who fight against impunity’.

Another lawyer, Johana Silva, confirms Muga’s thesis as to the objectives of the application of the model, this time in Colombia: ‘The intention behind the recent Victims and Land Restitution Law, which is of an apparently progressive discourse, in a country that has historically denied the rights of victims of state terrorism, would be the activation of land markets, rather than genuine reparation for the victims, which in the case of the rural population would entail an outright Catalan International View



The Americas

return of their land with guarantees’.

Silva adds that the fact that the law restores ownership of the land, while failing to restore lost property (houses, livestock, crops, machinery, and so on) to the people who were displaced, is a hindrance to a genuine return to the land in order to farm once more. The law serves the purpose of, ‘stimulating the purchase and sale of land in order to promote a rural development policy designed to consolidate the agribusiness model and the corporate ownership of land for mining purposes’.

Dismantling the impunity model

Compensating the victims and prosecuting the perpetrators of murders and disappearances continues to be the goal of international criminal laws in relation to the processes of transition from dictatorships to democracies and

from armed conflicts to situations of peace. However, the model that Spain is trying to export makes such an aim more difficult. Therefore, the Spanish and Colombian states need to change the laws which prevent implementation of the dictates of international law.

Gregorio Dionis suggests how to do so when he cites Argentina as an example.

Popular and international pressure has led to the amendment of laws allowing impunity and meant various military leaders from the dictatorship have stood trial. Therefore, for the lawyer Miguel Muga, the means to reverse the situation in Spain can be found both in society and in parliament: ‘While there is no pressure on the institutions and the political parties continue to defend the transition, the current impunity will fail to come to an end’.

*Laia Altarriba Is a freelance journalist who works for several Catalan media organisations. She regularly contributes to Ara newspaper, L’Accent and ONGC magazines and also with Mèdia.cat (Critical Observatory of the Media). She is a member of the Ramon Barnils’ Journalists Group, which has produced several reports on the current state of the media. Altarriba specializes on topics related to human rights and solidarity, and the fight against social exclusion and the abuse of power, both in Catalonia and around the world.



CatalanInternational InternationalView View Catalan

Tel. +34 977 757 473 · +34 977 756 265 • Fax +34 977 771 129 Camí Pedra Estela, 34 • 43205 Reus (Baix Camp) www.demuller.es

Africa

Reflections on the Arab uprisings

by Antoni Segura* Photos by Helena Olcina

A year ago, the Western world looked to Tunisia and Egypt with surprise. Europe failed to recognize the telltale signs of revolution toppling the old order on the southern shores of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, as they had done two centuries before on their own continent. Aside from the surprise of unexpected revolts came the fear that the media would reject the changes that might occur and that in the heat of the uprising this would favour the Islamist option. Al Qaeda triumphed in the Western media following the demise of Osama bin Laden, while the discourse of violent religious radicalism was defeated in Tahrir Square and on the streets of Tunis. For a decade public opinion had been held hostage to a fear of attacks by Al Qaeda in exchange of freedom for a supposed security while forgetting that, firstly, the discourse of jihadi radicalism has always been a minority among Muslims and that, secondly, the majority of victims of such discourse are to be found in Muslim countries, in a wide spectrum of attacks ranging from Indonesia to Mauritania. An inability to read and understand what was happening became apparent in the weeks following the start of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

Greater sensitivity and attention to the opinions of experts, and Arab public opinion, might have helped prevent the surprise in the West. Experts had long warned that it was evident that the situation in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia was explosive, while the Europe dignitaries bent over backwards to support Hosni Mubarak and Ben Ali, and even applauded the antics of the eccentric Muammar Qaddafi. They were unable to see that the Arab world (a concept that homogenises very different situations and circumstances) and their people continue to refuse to resign themselves to perpetuating dictatorships that base their legitimacy, in the eyes of the West, on curbing the rise of Islamism. A growing unease began to establish itself in these societies, especially among the youth without a ďœ˛ďœś

Catalan International View

future, where a lack of freedom was exacerbated by an increase in inequality caused by corruption and nepotism among the ruling elite. The protests had occurred for some years endorsed by social movements (unions, the youth, unemployed women and graduates and so on) and finally, in 2011 riots broke out.

The unrest began in Tunisia against the backdrop of the Gafsa mining uprising of 2009 which enjoyed the support of local branches of the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT).

On the 17th December 2010 the events led to the death of Mohamed Buazizi in Sidi Buzid. In Egypt, the Kifaya movement has brought together activists from social movements since 2004 and a general strike was called in April 2008 in support of workers at the Ma-

Africa

halla textile factory. Social networks played a key role in the success of the strike. The catalyst came in June 2010 with the killing by police of the blogger Khaled Said in Alexandria. The ‘We are all Khaled Said’ movement led to mass concentrations in Tahrir Square calling for an end to the Mubarak regime.

In Libya, the families of victims and human rights activists, kept alive the memory of the 1,200 prisoners killed in the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli in the summer of 1996. An opposition movement arose from this memory and spread thanks to the social networks. In February 2011, the arrest of an activist in Benghazi led to the first protests in which Gaddafi called in the army. Their response was to bomb the protesters, sparking a civil war. The Arab uprisings were thus the result of a combination

of the actions of social movements and opposition via new media (‘the Arab revolts were not caused by Al Jazeera, but it is almost impossible to understand them without Al Jazeera’, Marc Lynch, The New York Times, 27-12011) and the use of social networks.

At the same time, the Arab riots are part of a recently initiated process, which is part of a historic global cycle which has not ended. 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall) and 1991 (the collapse of communism in the USSR) saw the end to four decades of the Cold War and centuries of a system of checks and balances that governed relations between the great powers. The new model of international relations and world power has still to be defined. The neo-conservative attempt to impose unilateralism under US hegemony Catalan International View



Africa



Catalan International View

Africa

ended in the legacy of Afghanistan and Iraq. Nowadays, a form of diffuse multilateralism seems to reign, where new emerging powers compete with others in decline in order to become regional and global players. We find ourselves in a less stable world in which the people are rebelling against the roles that seemed predestined for them.

These revolts are therefore part of a wider process that brings together social movements and new technologies in which the demonstrators have shared objectives and characteristics: a rejection of dictatorship and repression, calls for free elections, a youth which call for a dignity which has been stolen by markets conditions which condemn them to emigration, unemployment and poverty. Nevertheless, it is also a heterogeneous process that will take different paths depending on the peculiarities, the context and the combination of forces in each case. The process will be a long one, with advances and setbacks, and we can only state that it will be irreversible because the geopolitics of North Africa and the Middle East will never be the same.

Right now everything is still to be decided. In Tunisia, the army has not interfered in the process of transition and elections were held on the 23rd October for a constituent assembly where the victory of the Islamist Enahda party was clear, with just over 40% of the vote and 90 out of 217 seats. Enhada is akin to the Muslim Brotherhood or Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party.

Its leader Rachid Ghannouchi has insisted that Enahda advocates democracy and, therefore, respects the rights acquired by women and rejects corporal punishment and the establishment of Islamic courts. Nonetheless, doubts persist as to the democratic credentials of the Islamists. In order to dispel them

Enahda has negotiated a coalition government with the two centre-left parties: the Congress for the Republic (30 seats) and Ettakatol (21).

Situations like those found in Egypt and Tunisia were explosive, while the European dignitaries bent over backwards to support Hosni Mubarak and Ben Ali, and applauded the antics of the eccentric Muammar Qaddafi In Egypt, the transition process is supervised by the Army, who are afraid of losing their privileges and their role in the country’s leading public and private companies. The first round of elections were held late November 2011 (voting was by district and the results were not finalized until January) with a convincing victory by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, with 40% of the votes, followed by the Salafist Al Nour party, which together with other fundamentalist groups could gain between 20 and 30% of the votes. According to Mahmud Ghozlan, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, his party represents a ‘centrist, moderate Islam which does not impose anything by force. The changes we defend will take place gradually’ (AFP, Cairo, 5-12-2011). Meanwhile, demonstrations have begun again in Tahrir Square, organised by a population that is suspicious of the intentions of the army which may seek to continue the regime without Mubarak and with the social hegemony of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Libya is the only country where there the elite have truly been replaced as a result of civil war and Qaddafi’s violent end. The future is a mystery. The National Transitional Council (NTC) Catalan International View



Africa

is planning to hold elections in 2012 and is in the process of drafting a constitution. In a country with no democratic tradition no one dares to make electoral predictions. The weight of kinship and tribal connections remains to be seen or how territorial imbalances between Cyrenaica (the cradle of the resistance) and Tripolitania (home to the Qaddafi regime) will be overcome.

In any case, we can expect an increase in violence (kidnappings, drug trafficking, assaults...) in the country’s south, in the Sahara and the Sahel, where a large part of the former Libyan dictator’s mercenary army has relocated.

In tandem with the riots in Tunisia and Egypt, the Feb20 Movement called for constitutional reforms in Morocco. Constitutional reforms made by a committee appointed by Mohamed VI were approved by referendum on 1st July. This represents the granting of a new constitution and not one aris

Catalan International View

ing by democratic means (parliament), comprising another step towards establishing a true democracy. It is a promise which remains incomplete thanks to the privileges which the Crown continues to enjoy. Last November elections were held with a clear victory for the Justice and Development Party, which will have to form a coalition government with the second most voted political force, the traditional nationalist Istiqlal party, due to its lack of an absolute majority. For the first time the prime minister will be nominated by the largest party and not appointed by the king.

Finally, in Bahrain the revolt was crushed by the forces of the Gulf Cooperation Council (belonging to Saudi Arabia) and the Sunni minority remains in power. No voices were heard denouncing the oppression of the revolt in Pearl Square, perhaps because Saudi interests are more important than the

Africa

interests of the Shiite majority and because Bahrain is home to the US Fifth Fleet. In Syria, the civil war appears inevitable, but the international community and the Arab League seem unwilling to go beyond economic sanctions.

This may be because, unlike Libya, the military is much stronger in Damascus, the regime is not so internationally isolated (it counts Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah as its allies) and it is feared that a radical upset could further destabilize the Middle East. Lastly, Yemen is a failed state with many fronts still open (tribal rivalries, the secessionist movement in the south, the presence of Al Qaeda) which could derail the revolt.

Here are some thoughts by way of a conclusion: 1. A process of political change always carries a risk, including the risk that everything will stay the same, but with new faces. For this reason the West’s fears are unfounded, since if we accept the need for change (as in southern Europe in the mid-seventies) we must also accept the risk that is associated with such change.

2. The societies of these countries wish to independently decide their future. In an apparent contradiction to the alleged incompatibility between Islam and democratic values, this could lead to the establishment of systems and hegemonies that are

In Bahrain the revolt was crushed by the forces of the Gulf Cooperation Council (belonging to Saudi Arabia) and the Sunni minority remains in power not always to the EU’s liking. Nevertheless, while the election process is as transparent as in Tunisia, there exists a need to accept new partners, because the mistakes of the past, Algeria (1992) and Palestine (2006), must not be repeated undoubtedly as in many countries the first elections will benefit the representatives of political Islam, since they are the ones who most suffered repression (dictatorships were portrayed as a brake on the rise of Islam). Nonetheless, by working underground they were able to create networks that were strong enough to offer the social support that the State did not provide.

3. Finally, the EU needs to acknowledge the new geopolitical scenario in the Mediterranean area, where a new player has appeared which could become a new regional power.

At the same time it may serve as a model for political Islamist groups which up until now have been backed by funds originating in Riyadh. Perhaps by not taking so long, Brussels will regret having prevented Turkey’s entry into the EU.

*Antoni Segura Is a professor of Contemporary History and co-director of the International Centre for Historical Studies at the Universitat de Barcelona. He lectures on the contemporary history of the Arab world, the modern world, and conflict and convergence in the modern world. Regarding the Arab-Islamic world he has led and participated in courses at several universities, has collaborated with various institutions, participated in conferences and courses and has published numerous books on the Arab-Islamic world (El Magreb: del colonialismo al islamismo North Africa: From Colonialism to Islamism, 1994; El món àrab actual, the Contemporary Arab World, 1997; Aproximació al món islàmic, des dels orígens fins a l’actualitat, Approximations to the Islamic World, from its Origins to the Present Day, 2000) on the world (Historia Económica Mundial y de España, World Economic History and Spain, 1993 and 1995, El mundo actual. De la segunda Guerra Mundial a nuestros días, The Modern World. From World War II to the Present, 1995, 2nd ed. 1998) and numerous articles in professional journals.

Catalan International View



Asia

Democracy as seduction

by Iris Mir*

Change appears to have taken centre stage in Burmese politics. There have recently been a series of waves of releases of political prisoners; a national human rights commission was established; media censorship was eased; labour unions will be allowed under a new law; and the pro democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is not only free and allowed to meet the president and relevant ministers, but also she will contest a by-election in April. None of these moves could have been considered as either credible or possible when the Military Junta was in power before the orchestrated transition to a civilian government, in March 2011.

However, opinions are divided on whether current developments are the result of a true commitment by the new administration headed by President Thein Sein to genuine democratization, or if it is simply putting on a show to boost legitimacy. When the new government came to power many in the opposition dubbed it ‘the military in plain clothes’. The change in leadership was indeed the result of a need to reshuffle the administration in order to ensure the generals do not lose the privileges associated with holding power. Others are more confident and they see these steps as signs of a gradual transition to democracy, especially when compared to Indonesia’s transition in the late 90s (which is usually used as an example of the model the Burmese government could follow in order to achieve a peaceful and successful transition from military rule to democracy).

Nevertheless, important differences can be seen if instead of analysing these developments individually they are considered as part of the overall 

Catalan International View

strategy of political reform contemplated by the military. Many consider the release of political prisoners, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s increasing role in politics, as more than welcome, but not enough. As members of Indonesia’s parliament pointed out during a meeting with Burmese authorities in Jakarta last September, Burma is directing the transition from the top, which means that civil society has been excluded from the process. Burma’s current civilian government is the result of a ‘7 step road map to a disciplined and flourishing democracy’ that started in 2003. It was chosen by the military junta to guide political reform coming from above top and directed by the government.

Democratization was seen as a means to put an end to the chaos created by the 1988 student revolution and the landslide victory won Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party in 1990.

The process was only speeded up by the challenge brought about by the bloody repression of the Saffron Revolution in 2007. Moreover, the leading party

Asia

backed by the Junta, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), came to power following an election that was deemed by the international community not to be free and fair. In short, the entire roadmap was designed by the military to ensure the nation did not disintegrate. The ultimate aim was to avoid losing its grip on power.

With this purpose in mind they tailored the constitution in order that it granted the military 25% of the seats in state assemblies and the upper and lower houses of parliament. Burma’s history is one of waiting and hoping for democracy. Meanwhile the people have suffered the repression of one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships.

In a situation of distrust, the government knows that it must boost its credibility to prove that changes are

genuine. To improve its international reputation it needs to send positive signals. This is especially necessary if it wants to downplay the West’s efforts to establish a UN Commission to enquire into crimes against humanity in the country. So far the strategy of making minor changes to get mainly Europe and the United States hopeful of remarkable changes has worked for them.

Amnesty International has deemed Europe’s ‘wait and see’ approach to the Burmese leadership as ‘irresponsible’.

Indulgence and economic sanctions, which have only resulted in a stifled economy, are no longer an option. Independently of what is on the new government’s agenda with regard to democratization, some sort of direct action and an enquiry are needed as a Catalan International View



Asia

reaction to the government’s brutal violations of human rights.

Nevertheless, the international community seems to trust the reforms.

The ASEAN regional bloc has finally approved Burma’s chairmanship in 2014 on the grounds that substantial positive developments were taking place in the country. It represents a different stand to the one taken in 2006 when the group decided not to allow Burma to hold the chair amid fears of the bad publicity resulting from including a brutal regime among its members.

Opinions appear to have changed and the international community is responding positively to the civilian administration’s commitment to democratization. The United States is lifting diplomatic sanctions and there is to be an exchange of ambassadors between Burma and the USA. The EU will also be lifting the bans on leading Burmese politicians entering the EU.

Many consider the wave of reforms as actions that, in spite of being welcome and meeting the demands for national reconciliation, are not enough Equally important are the relations with the democratic movement. Freeing the Nobel peace prize winner after keeping her under house arrest for 15 of the last 20 years was a wise move. It sent a positive message to the international community and it was seen as a sign of commitment to national reconciliation. But with the pro-democracy leader holding political meetings and appealing to the hearts and hope of the Burmese, the government needs to make sure they send a message of dialogue and inclusiveness to the population. Nonetheless, with regard to all the fronts mentioned above, legitimacy is critical. Only if they prove their true commitment to developing a civilian 

Catalan International View

government can they avoid further revolutions taking place as a result of popular discontent. Burma’s flourishing and disciplined democracy was conceptualized to ensure the nation’s prosperity was not hampered by external or internal forces.

The government knows that the international community is watching and waiting to see what happens at a time when too many issues are at stake.

As reported by the opposition magazine edited by exiled dissidents, The Irrawaddy, the UN special rapporteur on Burma’s Human Rights issues, Tomás Ojea Quintana, said that, ‘he continues to receive allegations of systematic human rights violations in Burma. Measures to ensure justice and accountability, including access to the truth, are essential for Myanmar to face its past and current human rights challenges and to move forward towards national reconciliation’. Mistrust abounds. Regional human rights groups have already claimed that the government’s actions may prove to be a lot of noise with no substance.

Upon the release of political prisoners in October , the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma (AAPP) issued a statement entitled ‘prisoners release lacks sincerity’. They claimed that the prisoners’ amnesty by Thein Sein’s administration was only aimed at ‘appeasing the international community’. The AAPP argued that the, ‘use of amnesties by past regimes has come at times of mounting international pressure and been used as tokens of change rather than substance of change’. A stance that reflects that of the report on the release of political prisoners issued by Burma Campaign UK which also highlights that there has never been a release of all the political prisoners in the country. Indeed, the releases are usually followed by renewed detentions. Burma Campaign UK notes that the superstitious Bur-

Asia

mese leaders believe that good actions like granting amnesties are rewarded by good Karma.

Law, order, peace and development were the 4 pillars upon which Burma’s style of democracy as a modern country was conceived. Pillars that were aimed to reach a degree of national reconciliation in order to ensure that economic prosperity and social harmony were achieved. Under this plan the civilian government is so far a new face for the military. Unless they prove otherwise in the long term, current developments could be seen as mere actions to boost credibility for a government that is still run by the military from behind the scenes. Thein Sein has declared that the new government, ‘has no intention of drawing back on reform’. But it still has to show how it will react to Aung San Suu Kyi’s call for changes in the constitution. The international community is very keen on believing that such intentions are true. In a country rich in oil, gas, hydropower and mineral resources, foreign companies see Burma as a new, fresh market for investment in the region. Investments which that by the same token will be very well received by what is one of the poorest countries in the world. Meanwhile, the United States is especially keen on stepping in and watching the situation closely given that Burma has a very close relationship with China.

At this point only the outcome of the internal tensions between the conservative and reformists sectors of the government and how the democratic movement mobilizes the population will decide whether modern Burma will be a democratic one. The long

fight for democracy has fragmented the opposition. Many activists are either in exile or at one time or another have been in prison. The democratic movement anchored its political discourse on values that are no longer appealing to the younger generation.

Events such as the killing of the independence hero, Aung San; or the non-recognition of the NLD’s victory of the 1990 elections are part of people’s fight for democracy but they are not powerful enough to move young hearts. Aung San Suu Kyi herself is an icon. Many carry her portrait in their wallet or purse as a way of reminding themselves that they wouldn’t give up their fight for freedom. Nevertheless, now that she is allowed a certain degree of freedom, political discourse should change from one of aspirations to one of specific steps in order to find a way to make the younger generation engage with the country’s plea for democracy.

The democratic movement anchored its political discourse on values that are no longer appealing to younger generations With the paramount need of reviving a moribund economy the military, the pro democracy parties and Aung San Suu Kyi herself have gone into the business of seduction. Whether the new government is a civilian one in more than name alone, will depend on whether the parties involved finally find the way to like each other and hand in hand take comprehensive steps to national reconciliation and democratization. *Iris Mir

She holds a degree in Media Studies from the Universitat Ramon Llull (Blanquerna Faculty of Communication Sciences) and a Masters in Political and Social Science, specialising in contemporary democracies from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She focused her research on democracy in Southeast Asia. She has been living in Asia since 2006 working as the Asia Pacific correspondent and reporter for various media outlets such as COMRàdio, El Temps, Ara and Radio Netherlands Worldwide. She is currently working in Beijing, as the media and communications officer at the Instituto Cervantes.

Catalan International View



Dossier

New approaches to religion

by Fèlix Martí*

We are pleased to offer readers of our magazine a dossier on religion in contemporary societies. These articles have been written in one of the European territories most affected by the phenomenon of secularization. In Catalonia the religious arena was monopolized by the Catholic Church until the time of Vatican II (19621965). However, over the last fifty years there has been a dramatic decline in both the strength of religious practice and the number of priests serving the Catholic Church. Hopefully the analysis provided by our experts will help us understand the profound changes affecting religion in the majority of countries in Europe and on other continents.

Developments in beliefs and religious practices have aroused renewed interest from a cultural perspective and the events are monitored by political leaders, often with a degree of concern. The crisis facing the old ecclesiastical institutions has coincided with the emergence of spiritual movements inspired by the same sources or from entirely different cultural backgrounds.

Religiosity has once more come to have a notable presence on public life. This has led to a debate surrounding how best to interpret the established secularism of the constitutions of democratic states and proposals for positive models of coexistence among believers and non-believers and between the 

Catalan International View

various religious denominations. A broad consensus exists against political practices which seek to use religious ideologies and the use of religion to justify violence. People are critical of certain aspects of modernity such as the predominance of economic power, scandalous inequalities in the distribution of wealth, a lack of environmental responsibility and an excessive reliance on technology. Nevertheless, they do not want forms of religion which are inconsistent with the Enlightenment or the culture of human rights.

Analyses of the religious act pay insufficient attention to the ability of religions to adapt to new circumstances while remaining faithful to their origi-

New Approaches to Religion

nal insights. The Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Küng has published major studies describing changes in the paradigm of the great religious traditions and a series of investigations into Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He outlines the significant changes these three religions have undergone in their historical evolution and their adaptation to cultures that are different to the ones in which they originated. It is to be expected, therefore, that the various religious traditions in Europe develop their own profile as part of a dialogue

with the values held by European citizens. It appears that Europe is favourable to intellectually open religiosities that are against fanaticism and radicalism, while favouring religious freedom and pluralism and also a respect for ideological and ethical choices which distance themselves from religion.

One cannot ignore religious options which promote ideas and aggressive behaviour towards cultural Enlightenment, science, critical philosophy, interfaith coexistence, the secular nature of public institutions, religious freedom Catalan International View

The articles in the dossier are accompanied by images of the Sagrada Família, one of the most famous works by the architect Antoni Gaudí



Dossier

and conscience, women’s rights and human rights in general. Societies must do their utmost to discredit such forms of religiosity and legally censure groups and individuals that do not respect the rights of other citizens. Fortunately for Europe, unacceptable behaviour associated with religion is very rare and the religious communities themselves condemn them. The incidents that often appear in the media reveal a high degree of ignorance as to the religious life of new immigrants and the continued existence of old prejudices that hinder coexistence. The transition from monotheistic to multi-faith societies is always a time of mutual adaptation.

It also seems clear that fundamentalist and sectarian regressions affect all religious traditions, even those which are the most entrenched in Europe.

Therefore it would be unfair to list the dangers associated with minority or imported religiosities while ignoring culturally negative and politically dangerous developments in significant sectors of the more institutionalized or majority religious communities.

We hope this issue helps us to understand contemporary aspects of religion in Europe from a Catalan perspective In what follows, the reader will find a series of articles that are in effect new approaches to religion in Europe. The writer Joan Francesc Mira, one of the most notable figures in Catalan literature, who defines himself as a dissatisfied agnostic, examines the confusion experienced by many cultured people living in the realm of ‘cold’ agnosticism or ‘warm’ agnosticism. The old ideologies of non-believers evolve at a similar pace to the ideologies of believers. The sociologist Maria del Mar Griera explains the difficulties facing social scientists in seeking to answer 

Catalan International View

the question as to the crisis facing religion in Europe and she joins those sociologists of religion who do not believe that religion is incompatible with modernity. She echoes the point made by Professor Joan Estruch, that we are witnessing a metamorphosis of religion. The biologist Ramon Maria Nogués, a specialist in neuroreligion, analyses the genetic component of the religious experience, explains how the validity of mystical experience can be measured and offers a Darwinian explanation to the fact that religions have had a remarkable cultural success worldwide. Nogués is part of the circle of leading international researchers in this field. Relations between Eastern and Western spirituality are explored in a pioneering article by Francesc Torradeflot, a researcher in the field of interreligious studies at the UNESCO Centre of Catalonia. He argues that the East and the West are fundamental and intrinsic to every human being and that identities are not fixed, static or permanent, and as a result fundamentalism can be avoided. Torradeflot reminds us of Raimon Panikkar, the learned Catalan scholar who carried out ground-breaking work in the field of intercultural and interfaith dialogue.

Also included are two articles on developments in two universal religions that are the subject of special attention.

The first, by Abdennur Prado, a member and scholar of the Islamic tradition, refers to contributions by many Muslim researchers who contribute to Europe’s re-evaluation of Islam: they distance themselves from dogmatism, favour a plurality of interpretations and believe in the advantages of living in democratic, secular and religiously plural societies. He proposes a synthesis between the best Islamic tradition and the liberating elements of modernity.

In the second article, the biblical scholar Oriol Tunyí recounts the incredible adventure of the re-reading of the

New Approaches to Religion

Bible that has taken place in both the Catholic and Protestant world over the last fifty years. Since 1994 the Catholic Church’s Pontifical Biblical Commission has introduced modern methods of interpreting the Bible and has excluded literal and fundamentalist readings. The Vatican sets a fine example in this field and helps to establish similar approaches to the sacred texts of other religious traditions.

We hope this issue helps us to understand contemporary aspects of religion in Europe from a Catalan perspective. This publication is not intended to serve as religious propaganda or to compare the merits of the various religious families. The editorial board is made up

of people with different beliefs and a profound love of secularism, pluralism, science and cultural and ethical values whether they come from a religious background or a non-religious, humanist tradition. We believe that evolution in religious practice is vital in our society and we dare to talk about it. We would also like to point out that the relationship Catalans have with religion differs from that of most Spanish people, but this will have to be the subject of future articles. Perhaps it can be said that compared to the Spanish we are less emotional, in other words more rational, more pragmatic and naturally more sceptical or, as professor Mira would say, more prone to doubt.

Fèlix Martí

Former president of the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (Pax Romana), from 1975 to 1984; director of Catalonia magazine (1987-2002), a publication printed in four different languages, aimed at disseminating Catalan culture; director of the UNESCO centre of Catalonia (1984 to 2002) and later its honorary president (from 2003). 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 promotes 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 honorary president thereafter. Wrote his memoirs Diplomàtic sense estat (Diplomat Without a State), published by Edicions Proa in 2006. Was awarded the UNESCO Human Rights Medal in 1995 and the Generalitat de Catalunya’s Creu de Sant Jordi (St. George’s Cross) in 2002.

Authentic Catalan cuisine +34 934 874 765

Catalan International View



Dossier

The dissatisfied agnostic

by Joan F. Mira*

Let’s start at the beginning: rationally questioning the existence of a supreme God or gods, is nothing new in the history of thought and ideas, or at least in Western thought. In fact, atheism, the denial of God or gods, or of the value and meaning of religion, like so many other things, is an invention of the Greeks. In the sense that it had for them and that it has for us: that rituals do not have the meaning or value they claim to have and that the gods, whether one or many, are Man’s invention. Socrates was accused (and defended himself ) of practicing a ritual and ‘political’ atheism, rather than a rational or philosophical atheism. It wasn’t so much a denial of the existence of the gods, as a failure to sufficiently pay homage to them. When Greek atheism took a more ‘materialistic’ conception of nature and the ultimate consistency of the universe, through atomism, for example, it was quite another matter entirely, and Europe was to ask itself a very similar question throughout the eighteenth century. It is a small leap from a denial of the existence of God or the gods, to a methodical doubt as to the reality of their existence, and the paths inevitably intersect and merge.

Nevertheless, a systematic, consistent, reasoned and public, written and published denial of God is a relatively recent phenomenon, which began to spread with the Enlightenment. It continued with the nineteenth century philosophers (from Feuerbach to Nietzsche, so to speak), and truly took hold with Marxism and with the rationalism associated with the progress of science itself. The denial of God, then, is seen as a battle in favour of reason, and also in favour of Man’s (metaphysical) autonomy.

Thus emerged a fundamental assertion: we must understand reality, whether physical or mental, without resorting to an explanation outside of itself. In other words, science has no need for transcendence. A second assertion: Man’s 

Catalan International View

full dignity as Man, the independence and freedom of human beings, is incompatible with a submission to the will or the designs of any God. Now, if one carefully considers these principles of contemporary thought, neither one nor the other necessarily implies the direct and radical denial of the existence of this God that neither science nor human freedom requires. Science has to do without God, human autonomy simply can do without God. This is one of the key points.

Dispensing with God means that if there were a God, He would be completely irrelevant to explaining the world. In addition, depending on how one looked at it, He could be seen as an obstacle to Man’s self-fulfilment.

New Approaches to Religion

Therefore, while one of the more poetic or prophetic lines of the Scripture states that “only fools say in their hearts, ‘there is no God’”, and while a not entirely canonical doctor of the Church (Tertullian) is credited with the equally striking phrase, ‘credo quia absurdum’, it is also true that Anselm of Canterbury, a rather platonist saint, plainly stated: ‘credo ut intelligam’: ‘I believe in order to understand’. A contemporary reaction would be more or less the following: only fools can believe in God, and believing in Him is utterly absurd. In other words, either God is not only true but necessary, or God is not only unnecessary but impossible. Accompanying this reaction there would be another, overturning St. Anselm: I would

like, at least occasionally, to understand in order to believe.

In the midst of this range of positions between the two irreducible affirmations and the doubts of those who do not choose a particular side, we find the genuine, passive indifference of the majority. This is true for the believers of any religion, since belief in the divine (or its equivalent, such as popular Buddhism) simply forms a part of one’s inherited culture, and in any case only manifests itself during specific ritual practices, customs or devotions. It is also true for non-believers, since they have also inherited a world view without a divine realm, and rarely feel the need to look for faith. In between is the position of those who rationally or Catalan International View



Dossier

passionately doubt, of the perplexed, of those who are caught between two extremes they find equally unsatisfactory.

Or rather they find them unsatisfactory for different reasons: if all cosmic and human reality is reducible to astrophysics and biochemistry, accepting such a limit can be somewhat distressing. If this is not the case, we would like to know what lies beyond this limit, but we do not know it. Faith, for the doubtful and the perplexed, is a condition which is simultaneously desired and rejected. The result of such a contradiction is rather unenviable.

A systematic, consistent, reasoned and public, written and published denial of God is a relatively recent phenomenon, which began to spread with the Enlightenment Actually, we agnostics can ask ourselves now and then the inevitable question: if there were a God, what would happen? The question is a simple incitement to bewilderment, a recourse to classical rhetoric, a way of revisiting a very old topic. Those who read this who are believers, who think or believe that God exists and acts, supposedly don’t need to ask themselves this question: for them, there is a God, and they know what happens. They know it thanks to human or sacred history, thanks to the scriptures where it is assumed that God has spoken, and they probably also know it as a form of experience, as a presence in their life. Perhaps they even ‘feel’ the act of the divine presence. I must declare that I am unable, for now, to feel this presence. I should also confess that I envy them somewhat, because God creates many problems, but He also provides a lot of security. We who don’t belive with any certainty also have many problems, largely the same as believers, but we have very little security. I mean ‘metaphysical’ security, 

Catalan International View

the assurance that life has a meaning that can be understood and that it fits into that dimension which classical terminology defines as ‘transcendence’: something is out there, it embraces us and perhaps it explains us and awaits us (would we therefore like to ‘believe in order to understand’?). Those who read this while firmly convinced that there is no God and that He couldn’t exist, are probably thinking that it is simply a question with no real or rational basis, that it is pure fiction.

I do not know if this age-old problem is experienced or thought about the same way by the ‘agnostics’ who have always been so because they have never received a religious education or faith, and by those who come from a childhood and an adolescence of family faith and perhaps a faith lived intensely.

An agnostic, in the strict etymological sense, is one who thinks we cannot know what is there (if indeed there is anything) beyond experience and therefore we cannot know if there is or is not anything ‘on the other side’. The agnostic may have always ignored the question, not having ever considered it a vital issue, with an answer which has real consequences. This would make them a ‘cold’ agnostic: ultimately the question fails to truly interest them because they are not closely engaged with it. Or perhaps they have repeatedly asked themselves the question, but every time they feel like they are failing or the answer escapes them: they would like to know but cannot, they would like an answer but the answer does not come. Needless to say, those who at one time had a belief find it more difficult not to believe. Among other things, aside from ideologies and philosophies, this is so because they know what it means to believe, what effects faith had on their life, and therefore they also know what effect the absence of that certainty has at present. This would be a ‘warm’ agnostic, an agnos-

New Approaches to Religion

tic that suffers from an absence, an at times somewhat feverish agnostic. They know what would happen if there were a God: they know they would have to experience their life differently and perhaps live it differently. The first one is sceptical, the second is perplexed.

Perplexity, returning to the root of the word, means folding or recoiling. It also means dilemma, and it also means confusion. It is not a state of contemplation from a distance such as scepticism: it is active doubt, but without a visible solution. It is indecision due to a lack of clarity of one form or another.

Then the question becomes why, if there is a God, does He leave the fundamental question unanswered. I know that this naive approach is both classic and utterly unoriginal, and that vast quantities of theology, philosophy and books have been expended on it. But the question’s naivety fails to weaken its heft or power: if there were a God, He would have to respond to those who ask after Him. To say that God keeps quiet, that He is empty and silent, is all very nice for those who already believe: it may even be a very deep level of the mystical experience. However, for those who do not believe, and who sometimes desperately need to believe yet cannot, it is an unacceptably cruel idea.

The ‘problem of God’ is not usually a problem for those who have an inherited belief: they do not usually question what they already know about Him as a profound certainty. Neither is it a problem, in general, for those who have

never thought about God: there is no biological, genetic or instinctive factor which makes Homo sapiens, a member of this particular species of mammals with hypertrophied brains, to spontaneously ask themselves whether or not there is a God or gods out there somewhere. Faith has nothing to do with genetics, in spite of some fanciful theories about a ‘God gene’. This is because God belongs to culture and not to biology.

Neither does He form part of physics: to say that the famous Higgs boson would be the ‘God particle’ is no more than poetic licence, even though physics (particle physics, astrophysics, quantum mechanics) has become the contemporary version of the old metaphysics: its object is the ultimate reality of being. In any case, for someone who has not received via cultural transmission the ideas and emotions, images and words that give weight and meaning to the thought and feeling of God or gods or their equivalent, it is hard to believe that they would personally, spontaneously come to ask themselves the great question. The ‘God question’ is only a problem when it has previously received many answers. An agnostic is someone for whom none of these answers is entirely satisfactory. If one is a ‘warm’ agnostic, then one is also an unhappy agnostic, since it is hard to believe that Wittgenstein’s famous seventh thesis (‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’) is a satisfactory answer to an agnostic’s profound dissatisfaction. *Joan Francesc Mira

(Valencia, 1939). Writer, anthropologist, and professor of classics. He has worked at the Collège de France with Claude Lévi-Strauss, and has been a Visiting Professor at Princeton University. His work as an essayist includes his research on national culture, and language, power and national identity, such as in Crítica de la nació pura (A Critique of the Pure Nation, 1985), an approach to the concept of nation from an anthropological perspective. As well as other essays such as Hèrcules i l’antropòleg (Hercules and the anthropologist, 1994), or Sobre ídols i tribus (On Idols and Tribes, 1999).In addition to his creative side -- nine volumes of fiction published to date--, his work as a translator, for which he has received numerous awards, is also worth a mention.

Of particular note are his versions of Dante’s Divine Comedy (2001), the Evangelis (Gospels) (2004), Homer’s Odyssey, and El tramvia (the Tram), by Claude Simon. He has received the Creu de Sant Jordi (St. George’s Cross, the highest honour awarded by the Catalan government), the Medaglia d’Oro of the city of Florence, and the Premi d’Honor de les Lletres Catalanes.

Catalan International View



Dossier

A contemporary reading of the Bible

by Oriol Tunyí*

It is not difficult to identify the historical setting in which the books that form the Bible, i.e., the sacred books of the Protestant and Catholic traditions, began to be read with different (one could say ‘modern’) eyes. It is when theology dispensed with the doctrine of the books’ verbal inspiration. To be more precise, it was when theology no longer maintained that the books of the Bible had literally been dictated to the human authors

by God. This was a very important step, which was taken by the Protestant tradition in the course of the 19th century and by Catholic theology in the first half of the 20th century.

The reasons for this step are, obviously, manyfold. Nonetheless, two factors can be seen as decisive: first, the development of hermeneutics, the science of interpretation, which has a strong bearing on the reading and understanding of ancient documents. The second factor: the many archaeological, linguistic and historical discoveries which took place in the second part of the 19th century. There is no room here to enter into details as to some of the significant steps in this lengthy process, but they should be borne in mind for they play a very important part in the change of perspective.

There are two immediate consequences of this new stage: on the one hand, and speaking strictly, God is not the author of the books, but rather the originator of the writings, in so far as He is at the heart of the development 

Catalan International View

and structuring of the religion of Israel in the first place, and subsequently of the Church role in promoting the books is, one could say, more fundamental than literal, more theological than psychological. It should not be imagined as a momentary action upon an individual author. It could be seen as a continuous assistance of the many contributors of a book which was written in the space of two, three or more centuries (such as the Pentateuch, the Book of Psalms, the Prophecies of Isaiah in three parts, etc).

On the other hand, and this brings us to the second consequence, this new reading of the Books of Scripture, is seeking to detect and pin down the real contributions by the human authors.

The reason being that the main thrust of the new approach is that human authors are, indeed, authors and not only

New Approaches to Religion

material co-operators (as they were in the old doctrine: they were like a pen in the hand of God, and therefore, not the real writers). Therefore, they have their own language, own culture, own history and their own personality. All these factors condition and shape the texts of the Books they produce.

Therefore, the new approach to the reading of the books of the Bible is much the same as the reading and interpreting of any books and documents from the past, but with one proviso: the books not only convey a human message, they also offer the message of God in human words. This is why the books which form the Bible are considered sacred books while others are not.

Once we have outlined what can be labelled a change of paradigm in the reading and interpretation of the Bible, we can proceed to describe the

methods and approaches that emerged in present times. I can only point out the main methodologies, since there is insufficient space to go into more detail than a brief outline of the principal lines of their respective contributions.

The basic insight of the modern approaches to the reading and interpretation of the books of the Bible is what is generally called the historical-critical method. This methodology is based on the study of the history of the text, or what some Bible scholars call a diachronic approach to the reading of the Bible. The aim of the method is to detect the origin of the texts, looking for their birth in the different facets of the life of the groups that are behind them.

Some texts were borne out of the social life of the different groups involved, other texts generated within the cultic life of the communities; a third kind of Catalan International View



Dossier

texts were the fruit of a long standing tradition, and so on. Once a text has been located in its vital context or setting in life (what the Germans call the Sitz im Leben of a text), its history can be traced through the different stages of its diverse moments: this is known as the history of the tradition of a text.

The last stage of this methodology is a study of the text in its final form: in the context in which it has received its ultimate meaning and the central message of each text or book.

The biblical books have their own public in mind: they are addressed to a specific group, with a common culture, a shared religion and beliefs This outline of the method should suffice to get a picture of the different stages involved in this type of study of the text. The main aim of the study is to clarify the vital context in which the core of a text was born. The means to attain this objective is to trace the dynamics of the text. Finally, the literary context reveals the final message of the text. The centre of interest of this methodology is the placing of the text in a context which should give clues as to the sense and interpretation of the text. It is well known that a text without a context becomes a pretext, and a pretext can be shown to say whatever the reader wants it to say. In the end, the historical-critical method tries to give the meaning intended by the biblical texts themselves.

Following a study of the Bible in the light of such a method, the second step to occur is a classification of the biblical texts. This kind of classification of the books of the Bible has taught its readers not to interpret a thanksgiving hymn as a story, neither should they read a discourse as a poem, or a novel as a chronicle. The classification of the 

Catalan International View

biblical books has been a point of reference in the modern and contemporary reading of the sacred books of the Bible.

The main reason for this being that the biblical books have their own public in mind: they are addressed to a specific group, with a common culture, a shared religion and beliefs. They are meant to have an impact on their intended audience. They seek to deliver a message.

It is important to be able to define this context and to also see the impact the different books have had alongside their history as books of Christianity or Judaism. This is what the Germans call the Wirkungsgeschichte, the history of the impact of the books on their readers.

The historical-critical method has later enlarged its perspective in so far as it has developed an interest in the sociological setting of the books’ intended audience, in their (implicit) cultural anthropology, which can shed light upon aspects which had not been taken into account in the historical-critical analysis. Psychological and psychoanalytic structures have also lent their schema and frameworks to an understanding of the biblical stories, which in some cases have shown very deep psychological references.

In the broad range of points of reference used to interpret the biblical books in the last fifty years, we have also to take into account the liberationist scheme, especially the Exodus pattern, which has been extensively used to interpret not only the story of the Exodus but also the prophetic oracles of some of the classic prophets of Israel (Isaiah, Amos, Hosea and Jeremiah) and some relevant texts of the New Testament. Neither can we overlook feminist sensitivity as a tool which has also shed unexpected light on some of the texts, not only of the Old Testament, but also the New Testament in particular. A feminist reading of some passages of the Bible offers unexplored points of reference which would have

New Approaches to Religion

never come to the fore in the male interpretation of its stories, plots and characters.

Now that we have mentioned all the relevant traits of modern and contemporary approaches to the Bible, it is only proper to emphasize that the synthetic reading of the books and of the literary units of the Bible has also taken into account the dynamics of the books of the Bible as books. That is to say, it has deepened the literary slant of each book or unit, its capability to communicate its plot (in the case of a narrative), or to put across its message or teaching (if the work has a rhetoric of the transmission of a message). This synthetic approach to the New Testament books has been particularly fruitful over the last twenty years.

We have tried to summarise what can be said in broad terms of the contemporary readings of the books of the Bible. It should be obvious that these different approaches are complementary and are meant to be a help in our reading of the Bible. To conclude, I would like to point out two aspects which are of special interest in a summary like the present one.

From what I have said in this brief exposition, the conclusion is that modern and contemporary methods of reading the books of the Bible has greatly enriched our understanding of the biblical books. We are in a much better position to grasp the central message of the books and to catch the more subtle overtones of the texts, than was the case some sixty years ago. Contemporary publications on the matter show a degree of clarity and depth that could not have been imagined only a few years

before. This says a lot in favour of the contribution of the methods developed in the last century and opens up a horizon of hope for a better and more fruitful understanding of the biblical texts.

Moreover, the experience of more than a century of critical study of the Bible has made us much more humble. If not for any specific reason, then at least because we know that our appraisal of the biblical texts will undoubtedly be deepened and enlarged in time to come.

Finally, it is worth stressing that in a document solemnly issued by the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1994, on the ‘Reading of the Bible in the Church’, all the above mentioned methods are explained and analysed. They are all praised, although not without some critical remarks. Nonetheless, the only reading which is excluded in this document is the literalist and fundamentalist reading of the Bible. A reading which takes the text in all its literalist details and is not prepared to interpret any part of it. For this type of reading, the stories of the books of the Bible are like videotapes or CDs and its exhortations have to be taken literally, down to the last detail. The objection to such a reading is that it does not accept that the Word of God has entered the human realm and is addressed to the readers as human words, which have a setting in culture and time. Therefore, the Vatican document is a defence of the modern and contemporary methods of reading the Bible, while excluding a reading which implies that one can dispense with any interpretation of the texts. This point of view, being the doctrine of a document of an official Vatican entity, is rather significant, and rather impressive. *Oriol Tunyí

Jesuit, holds a degree in philosphy from the Universitat de Barcelona and is a New Testament professor emeritus in the Faculty of Theology of Catalunya with a doctorate in theology from the Pontificia Università Gregoriana di Roma. He has published numerous books and a large number of articles in specialized magazines, the majority on the Gospel according to St John. His latest work is El do de la veritat ( Jn 1,17). L’evangeli segons Joan com a revelació de Jesús [The Gift of the Truth. The Gospel According to St John as Jesus’ Revelation], Barcelona 2011, col.: Col·lectània St. Pacià 98, Facultat de Teologia de Catalunya.

Catalan International View



Dossier

The brain and religious experience

by Ramon Maria Nogués*

A preoccupation with establishing a possible correlation between religious experience and the structures or functions of the brain needs to be seen in the context of what is now known as ‘neuroculture’ (Mora. F. Neurocultura. Alianza Ed. 2007). ‘Neuroreligion’ is considered in those contexts which also include neuroethics, neuroesthetics, neuropolitics, neuroeconomics and neuroeducation.

Religion is therefore revisited from the perspective of having been subject to the ‘stress-test’ of modernity for many years, with its severe philosophical analysis and the new social and political situation arising from the French Revolution. Large sectors of European culture came to believe that religion had its days numbered. The revolution (according to Lenin) also saw religion as being definitively consigned to the dustbin of history, along with other worthless relics. Such prophecies have not come true and we are witnessing an unexpected revival of religion on a global scale (although it is not exempt from ambiguity) in a context in which Europe will soon constitute a small (but hopefully significant) minority.

This renewed interest in religion is now undertaken with novel parameters which seek to distance themselves from ideological evaluations which are characteristic of modernity, in order to provide a more scientific dimension. Two of these parameters have much to do with life sciences: the first is the study of evolution; the other is neurology. 

Catalan International View

From an evolutionary point of view, and a classical Darwinian perspective, something which is such a spectacular cultural success as religion, must have an adaptive component which facilitates the survival of the human species. According to E.O. Wilson (a self-confessed atheist), religion should therefore have a positive evolutionary influence, and together with science constitute one of culture’s most important achievements. Nowadays this approach is being studied by many researchers (Rossano. M. J. Supernatural Selection. OUP. 2010. Nogués. R. M. L’evolució darwiniana de les religions ‘vertaderes’ [The Darwinian Evolution of the ‘Real’ Religions]. Cruïlla, 2008).

Having established this hypothesis the next step is to try and establish which cerebral structures or functions can explain or help to interpret the religious tendencies that predominate in humans. This is the work of neuroreligion. The first question which needs to be answered is whether religious transcendence is a rare, unique epiphenomenon in the human brain, or whether it

New Approaches to Religion

is simply one more of the dimensions of transcendence which enrich human mental capacity. Indeed one of the most prominent features derived from having overcome stereotypical animal behaviour (achieving satisfaction via the predictable realisation of highly channelled neural programmes) is the ability to achieve a degree of freedom that

makes ‘transcendental’ dimensions possible, i.e. those that go beyond the needs of instinctive satisfaction, and activities that constitute a luxury that affect everyday life. These dimensions include aesthetics (the search for beauty), ethics (focusing on the establishment of justice), religion (which involves the ultimate meaning of everything), transcenCatalan International View



Dossier

dental love (which concerns the value of the ‘other’) and a national sentiment (which includes the values of the group as a whole). Religion is not therefore an abnormal phenomenon, but rather it is one of several phenomena which break with and enrich the animal stereotype.

There are many writers who stand out in the study of the neural aspects of religious phenomena (Mc. Namara P. (Ed). Where God and Science Meet. (vol 3) Praeger, 2006; Newberg A. & E. D’Aquili, Why God Won’t Go Away.

Ballantine Books, 2001). Their fields of research cover different areas.

The mystic has the increased quality of life of the individual as a testament to the validity of religious attitudes The first issue to consider is the study of the social brain, which is to say, how human evolution has organically recorded specific ‘circuits’ in the brain which account for certain sociocultural behaviour. It involves a process of a kind of self-domestication similar to the processes of neural domestication that occurred in the animals that humans use for their own ends: over millennia their brains have undergone certain changes in order to adapt to the new behaviour resulting from domestication. In the case of humans this type of process would explain some general characteristics (for example, the universality of religion due to the prosocial identificatory benefits it entails), or some cultural characteristics (such as the more individualistic nature of Western cultures or the more communal nature of Eastern cultures). Some aspects of religiosity may have been recorded in certain brain circuits as a result of a positive activity which has accompanied human progress.

In the field of genetics there have been attempts to determine whether 

Catalan International View

there are certain genetic predispositions which facilitate these so called religious experiences. An eminent American geneticist (Hamer D. The God Gene. Doubleday, 2004) has investigated the role of polymorphisms of the VMAT2 gene, a monoamine regulator, on inclinations related to the inner world, a clear basis of spirituality and religion. Hamer believes he has found significant correlations between variants of this gene and religious inclinations.

In terms of brain structures that might have more significance in relation to religious experiences, F. J. Rubia has published a condensed collection of several contributions (La conexión divina [The Divine Connection].

Crítica, 2003). Religiosity is mostly related to the central autonomic nervous system (which connects the brain to the internal organs), the limbic system (a structure with a significant role in controlling the emotions), and the temporal lobe, which in some cases is closely related to mental experiences of a highly religious nature. These aspects have been known for some time (W. James had already begun a serious experimental study of these issues in the early twentieth century). The temporal lobe, for example, has been repeatedly associated with certain features of epilepsy in which there is a notable religious content, although this is just one part of the religious experience when observed in its entirety.

The role of certain neurologically active molecules has also been seen to play a part in religious experience.

The use of hallucinogenic substances in primitive rituals to achieve a state of ecstasy has long been documented.

Other substances, such as certain neurotransmitters and hormones, are also cited in relation to religiosity. Endorphins, for example, naturally produced endogenous opioids, are associated with certain altered states of conscious-

New Approaches to Religion

ness. Some other hormones such as oxytocin, specifically related to peaceful states and positive relational attitudes, may also be involved in mental phenomena of internalization.

The more structural and physiological aspects associated with religious experience have as their validation criteria (positive effects on behaviour) an analysis of how religious attitudes translate into internal benefits. In other words, the mystic has the increased quality of life of the individual as a testament to the validity of such attitudes. In this respect all of the researchers stress the fact that the validation of a religious experience observed in its structural and physiological aspects must ultimately prove its benefits in an analysis of certain mental and behavioural parameters. In this regard they highlight certain features resulting from a positive religious experience. These may include: a) an improvement in the experience of the self, an avoidance of egotism, b) a positive sense of connection with the totality of reality, c) a sense of realism, accompanied by positive contact with others and an effective means of resolving human relations, d) a certain depth of perception and a profound intuitive feeling, e) profound and responsible feelings of peace. Overall, these are improvements in an individual’s mental and behavioural state.

In terms of experimental proof, one of the areas which has led to more objective, positive results in relation to religious experience has been the analysis of states of mental concentration and meditation which are characteristic of all great religious traditions and wis-

dom. These states have been recorded with scientific instruments which have allowed us to witness the benefits of such practices. There exists high-quality scientific literature on this subject (Austin J.H. Selfless Insight. MIT Press, 2009; Wallace B.A. Contemplative Science. Columbia U. Press, 2007). These studies clearly show for all serious religious traditions, that religious practices of a meditative nature have provided clear benefits on all levels (structural, physiological and mental). These benefits include: training the attention, a deepening of an understanding of the self, mental maturity, more relaxed relationships, the cultivation of positive emotions and so on. These parameters have been documented in rigorous scientific studies and nowadays scientific publications related to these issues are common.

One final comment on this brief overview of the topic. We should insist on the use of the term neuroreligion rather than neurotheology which is sometimes used. Religion is a fact which can be analysed experimentally and which in many of its aspects can be subjected to scientific analysis. By definition, however, ‘God’ is not a proposition which can be analysed by experimental methods. Therefore, we are unable to speak of the proof or otherwise of the existence of God by neurological science or any other science. The debate surrounding God is a strictly philosophical question in the broadest sense. Therefore, we can conduct neuroreligion from a scientific perspective, but to speak of neurotheology makes no sense.

*Ramon Maria Nogués (Barcelona,1937). Professor emeritus of biological anthropology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He has studied pedagogy, philosophy and theology and holds a doctorate in biology from the Universitat de Barcelona. He conducts research on population genetics, specifically in relation to isolated human populations. He has studied evolutionary neurobiology and collaborated with neuropsychiatry interdisciplinary teams from the Vidal i Barraquer Foundation. In this context he has investigated issues related to the neurobiology of religion and participated in bioethical studies and official commissions on this topic. He has been a member of the Piarist order since 1955.

Catalan International View



Dossier

Between secularization and desecularization: what is the future for religion in Europe?

by Maria del Mar Griera*

One of the ironies of secularization (however the term is defined) is that it does not necessarily mean that religion becomes unproblematic. My argument (...) is that, on the contrary, religion becomes more controversial precisely at the time when it is in the process of losing its significance as a force shaping social and cultural life (Beckford, 1999:55)1 .

[1] Beckford, J.A. (1999).

The Management of Religious Diversity in England and Wales with Special Reference to Prison Chaplaincy. International Journal on multicultural Societies, 1(2). Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesc oorgimages/0014/001437/ 143733E.pdf#page=19

ďœľďœ˛

The debate as to the present and the future of religion has been given a strong impulse within the sociology of religion and all the social sciences in the last decade. The paradigm of secularization, which predicted a future without gods, has been brought into question and new research has revealed that religion, far from disappearing, is undergoing a revival in many parts of the world. However, in this context, most researchers agree that the big question is understanding the evolution of religion in Europe.

For decades social scientists saw the gradual and steady growth of people abandoning the ranks of the Christian churches in Europe as a direct result of the continent’s modernization. In other words, following a line of thought that gained momentum with the Enlightenment, it was believed that the advance of science, the industrialization of societies, urbanization and improvements in the quality of life were Catalan International View

incompatible with belief and religious practice. In short, being modern was synonymous with a lack of religion and therefore the future of religion in Europe was expected to be brief and with little impact. If today we were to look at the quantitative data related to the percentage of people who claim to believe in God or who regularly attend mass it would seem as if these predictions were not mistaken. Indeed, Christian churches are much emptier than in the past, civil marriages are increasingly popular and it is increasingly rare for someone we know to tell us they are considering becoming ordained as a priest or a nun. At first glance, therefore, it may appear that the predictions made by the English theologian Thomas Woolston, who stated in around 1710 that by the twentieth century Christianity would have disappeared, or as Voltaire stated in a letter to Frederick the Great, that Christianity would not last more than fifty years,

New Approaches to Religion

have finally come true, with some delay, and modernity has proven to be irreconcilable with religion.

Can we therefore state that the dreams of the secularizers of the Enlightenment have become a reality and religion’s days are numbered on the European continent? Not everything is what it seems and nothing is so simple.

It is necessary to go beyond appearances to understand the complexity associated with the processes of secularization and understand the implications of the transformations in religiosity on the European stage.

The European exception and market theory applied to religion

The theory of secularization assumed without question that the loss of the faithful by European churches had a clear and easily identifiable cause: the modernization of society. From this starting point they inferred that as the rest of the world’s nations joined the

train to social and economic progress and underwent modernization, secularization would become the norm everywhere. Europe was at the forefront of a process that, eventually, would spread throughout the globe. However, one need not be particularly astute to realize, as did the American sociologist Peter Berger in his book entitled The Desecularization of the World (1999), that currently, ‘the world is as furiously religious as it ever was’. The resurgence of Islam, the unexpected and exponential growth of evangelical Christianity in Asia and Latin America and the revitalization of Orthodox churches in Russia and many other phenomena prove that we can hardly keep supporting the thesis that modernity implies the end of religion. The Israeli sociologist Shmuel Eisenstadt proposed the need to overcome the idea that modernity comes in a prefabricated mold of European origin that is reproduced all around the world. He used the concept Catalan International View



Dossier

of ‘multiple modernities’ to emphasize that modernity is the result of the overlap between many specific factors (historical, political, cultural, social and so on) that make up a specific model that is unique and differentiated in every territorial space and that the role religion plays in each of these models can vary considerably. In short, modernity is not necessarily incompatible with religion. Therefore, if modernity is unable to account for the secularization of the continent, where we can we find the causes?

Can we therefore state that the dreams of the secularizers of the Enlightenment have come true and religion’s days are numbered on the European continent?

[2] Berger, P., Davie, G., & Fokas, E. (2008). Religious America, Secular Europe?: A Theme and Variations. London: Ashgate Pub Co. [3] Stark, R., & Finke, R. (2000). Acts of Faith.

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.



The British sociologist Grace Davie, together with Peter Berger and Effie Fokas2, argue that it is time to be aware that Europe is not secular because it is modern and neither is it modern because it is secular, but, paradoxically, it is secular and modern because it is Europe. In other words, the degree of secularization in Europe is due to the existence of specific internal and external dynamics in Western European Christianity which have redrawn the continent’s unique characteristics from the Middle Ages to the present day.

From a very different perspective, there are a number of American sociologists linked to theories of rational choice who strongly claim that anyone who observes the US situation will realize that modernity does not cause a greater or lesser degree of secularization.

Moreover, they state that in the US, advances in modernity have been paralleled by a growth in religious adherence and practice. For example they show that in 1776 only 17% of the population were involved with a church, while two Catalan International View

centuries later, this figure stood at 62% (2000) (Stark and Finke 2005:23)3. So how can we explain the difference between the US and Europe in religious matters? According to sociologists like Stark and Finke, we need to forget modernity per se as the crux of the matter is to be found in the market. In most European countries traditional churches have held monopolistic positions, strongly supported by their respective governments. This is to say that the state has significantly limited competition in the ‘salvation of souls’, thus hindering the emergence of a religious market.

They claim, therefore, that in Europe secularization is not an irreversible trend. The key element is supply and as the Christian churches lose power and new religious providers can compete on equal terms, religious belief and practice will significantly increase in Europe. It is an application of the neoliberal recipe to the religious sphere.

This perspective has received numerous criticisms, most of which are justified, but it is worthwhile keeping it in mind because it alerts us to the need to take a critical look at theories which rely on a simplistic equation between modernity and religion.

‘When a finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger’

Professor Joan Estruch, paraphrasing the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, argues that no religion is immortal, but there is no reason to believe that humanity cannot create new ones.

He adds that we live in a time of religious crisis, but it is a crisis in the sense that a metamorphosis is taking place in religion, and not in the sense that religion itself will be abolished. That is, while it is obvious to all that there is a serious crisis at the heart of the great religions, whether said crisis is an indicator of the decline of religiosity in Europe is questionable. Therefore, in

New Approaches to Religion

spite of the fact that those who define themselves as non-Christians in surveys is rapidly on the rise in Europe, this does not automatically mean that all these people can be considered ‘non believers’ or non religious. Numerous surveys indicate that between 20% and 30% of young people in Western Europe claim they believe in reincarnation, while a greater number say they believe in something as ethereal as ‘energy’ is on the rise, as is the number of those who claim they see themselves as spiritual but not religious. In recent years Europe has become fertile ground for the growth of movements which, half way between philosophy and religion, promote new forms of spirituality. There is something for all tastes and degrees, but most share some common features, which include: the rejection of traditional religious institutions, the syncretism of elements from different philosophical, religious and spiritual traditions, and an emphasis on the need to experience and live spirituality.

It will take several years to see whether such movements take hold and decide if they are anything more than a passing fad. Nevertheless, it would be intellectually highly inconsistent to fail to take into account that in Europe there is a diverse range of yoga, reiki, personal growth and transpersonal philosophy schools which spread new forms of spiritual transcendence aside from institutionalized religion.

Demography, migration and religious diversity

The increase in immigration from the southern hemisphere has led to a di-

versification of the European religious map in recent years. The growth of Islam is the most visible sign but we should also take into account the rapid growth of Pentecostal churches and the increased presence of Orthodox communities, Hindus and Sikhs across the continent. For many new Europeans these communities play a central role in articulating the beliefs and religious practices of their faithful while simultaneously serving as a space for socializing and a meeting place. It remains to be seen how this religiosity will be transmitted from parents to children and if the loss of adherents facing traditional churches will spread to these new communities or whether they will remain immune to the European secular tradition. In this context, it is also still unknown whether those who face the emergence and visibility of Islam in the public sphere by reviving the existence of a supposed European Christian identity will provide content for this viewpoint or if the debate will run out of steam.

In short, if when speaking about the present and the future of religion in Europe, we only measure religiosity by adding and subtracting the number of people who attend mass, we will have little else to say. Modernization has indeed left the balance of religiosity in Europe in the red. But if we go beyond this perspective and take into account the different elements mentioned in this article, it is evident that social scientists still have much work to do in order to make sense of the present and the future of religion in Europe. *Maria del Mar Griera

PhD in Sociology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) (2009). Currently associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the UAB and member of the ISOR research team and research associate at the Centre de Sociologie des Religions et d’Éthique Sociale at the Universitat Marc Bloch (Strasbourg). Throughout her career as a researcher she has participated in and coordinated several research projects on various topics related to the sociology of culture and religion and has published numerous books and articles on this area.

Catalan International View



Dossier

The unique nature of European Islam

by Prado Abdennur*

Bismil-lâhi ar-Rahmani ar-Rahim (In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate) The growing presence of Muslims in Europe has a special significance, which I shall attempt to analyze in this article. Firstly, it is important to note that European Islam belongs to two worlds, which are often presented as opposing and/or mutually exclusive:

teristic of a given space and time, while also connected to its origins, rooted in Reality, here and now.

First, it is necessary to briefly develop the two key points mentioned above.

1. It belongs to the Ummah, the transnational community of believers.

2. It develops within the heart of contemporary Western society.

It is vital that European Islam is viewed in the broader context of the Ummah, the transnational community of Muslims connected by shared beliefs, rituals and symbols, and also, in the majority of cases, by blood and background. These connections generate the solidarity and understanding that the position of contemporary Islam calls for: opposition to Islamophobia, support for the Palestinian cause and so on.

The very presence of Islam in Europe is the result of a global phenomenon: the expansion of Islam. By expansion we are not referring here to any planned program, but the fact that in the last century Islam has experienced an unprecedented growth in adherents (from 200 million in 1900, to 800 million in 1970, and 1.5 billion in 2010), and that its members are no longer limited to the so-called ‘Islamic world’. This expansion

This dual membership introduces a characteristic tension within European Islam, being both the source of many difficulties and also many possibilities.

The response to this tension is crucial to the future of multicultural Europe and the future of Islam in the world as a whole. The response is inseparable from a consideration of the meaning of the Ummah and Western modernity itself, which leads to a series of debates on a range of issues. In this article I would like to highlight one particular aspect, alluded to in the title: to what extent can European Islam be unique? That is: original, genuine, exceptional, charac

Catalan International View

1. Membership of the Ummah

New Approaches to Religion

leads us to a world of inter-religious tensions and intense cultural exchanges, in which Islam and the West’s rediscovery of each other is central.

Most Muslims living in the European Union are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. In many instances they maintain continuous contact with their countries of origin, leading to an ebb and flow of ideas. This is significant due to the fact that the major part of Islamic thought in the twentieth century was in essence seen as opposed to ‘the West’. This Manichean division has a lot to do with the processes of decolonization and the attempt to counter ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism, and it determines the normalization of the presence of Islam in Europe.

It is a form of colonization which still

persists, mainly because of new colonial strategies: • The military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupation of Palestine, as well as tensions with Syria and Iran.

• Support for pro-Western dictatorships in Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and (until recently) Tunisia and Egypt.

• The imposition of economic policies, via the International Monetary Fund, which dismantle social services, thus generating mass poverty and the enrichment of native oligarchies and large multinationals.

• Islamophobia promoted by Western think tanks linked to economic interests and as part of the system’s Catalan International View



Dossier

ideology with respect to Islam and the Islamic world.

This brings European Muslims into conflict with the policies of the states in which they live and can lead to a rejection of the dominant culture and a closing off of their identity. In the case of political consciousness, a European Muslim is often to a certain extent a dissident, which favours their alignment with the global justice movement.

European Islam is inevitably highly politicized. There is nothing unique in this, however!

The very presence of Islam in Europe is the result of a global phenomenon: the expansion of Islam 2. Islam in democracy

[1] Geertz, Clifford, 2005, Shifting Aims, Moving Targets: On the Anthropology of Religion.

Royal Anthropological Insitute, 11:1-15.



According to Clifford Geertz1, when religions are separated from the places and social formations from which they emerged they become a negotiable, mobile instrument of public identity.

Individuals reflect more on their own beliefs when they are in the minority.

Likewise, this tendency decreases in a context in which being a Muslim is ‘normal’. In addition, European Muslims find themselves at a time in which Islam is the constant object of criticism and scrutiny, further forcing them to seek answers.

The political conditions of contemporary Europe favour debates which would be difficult to reproduce in countries with a Muslim majority.

Freedom of expression and conscience foster a questioning of the inherited dogma and the emergence of alternative interpretations of important issues: the role of Sharia, gender justice, the rights of religious minorities, the issue of homosexuality, the place of the ulama, the meaning of the revelation itself and so on.

Catalan International View

We are witnessing the emergence of many Western Muslim intellectuals (many of whom have their origins in Asian or African countries, as well as converts to Islam) whose speeches are heard in countries with a Muslim majority. Here we find some of the notable bridge-builders, who may serve to overcome some of the mental barriers inherited from colonization. I can list a few names here: Muhammad Asad (Austria), René Guénon (France), Martin Lings (Great Britain), Muhammad Hamidullah (India), Nasr Hamid Abû Zayd (Egypt), Ziauddin Sardar (Pakistan-GB), Youssef Seddik (Tunisia-France), Khaled Abou El Fadl (Egypt- USA), Abdullahi anNaim (Sudan-GB), Parvez Manzoor (Sweden), Charles le Gai Eaton (GB), Amina Wadud (USA), Reza ShahKazemi (GB) and Hashim Cabrera (Spain).

The sum of the contributions of these intellectuals to the task of rethinking Islam is impressive. More so if we include all those working in other areas of knowledge, such as sociology, history, science and cultural studies.

We should also add the implementation of numerous Sufi brotherhoods in Europe, which have undertaken the remarkable job of translating and publishing the classics. Then there is the existence of thousands of exiles and dissidents from Muslim countries.

The result is a rich, intriguing intellectual life, emerging within a context in which Islam is a minority religion which is questioned, and uncensored.

According to Murad Hoffman in an interview with Islam Online, ‘There is much more Islamic intellectual life in the West than in the East’.

Here we find a contradiction that deserves a mention. What in the Islamic context is supposedly forbidden to believers, a radical questioning of Islam as an inherited religion, can be expressed fully in a secular space. In as

New Approaches to Religion

much as they avoid the imposition of dogma and promote the plurality of interpretations, democracy and secularism they favour the overcoming of the ‘religion of our ancestors’ with all the intergenerational tensions it implies.

Through this questioning, religion transforms and enriches us, it succeeds in becoming adapted to respond to new situations.

3. Transmodernity and tradition

Here we are on the way to understanding the uniqueness of European Islam, its more unique possibilities. This word is synonymous with indigenous, native.

Since Islam is unique in its essence, the originality of any of its manifestations can only be due to it taking root in the place where it develops. In the case of Europe, we speak of modernity and also of postmodernism and, finally, of transmodernity: 1) In relation to modernity: European Islam constitutes one of its most persistent critics. We are far removed from the unnatural attempts to ‘adapt Islam to Western modernity’, which have had such disastrous results. This task was planned by the great modernist thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Rashid Rida, Muhammad Abduh, Sayeed Qutb. All of whom were opposed to the colonization of their countries

by Western powers, while calling for the reform of traditional Islam. They tried to ‘purge’ Islam of everything the Orientalists saw as degrading: the superstitions, the diversity, the tribalism, the mysticism of the Sufis, the centrality of mystical experience versus the doctrine, the taste for anarchy and so on. Reformers, on the other hand, insist on the dogma, rationality, morality, the normative, the group discipline and so on. The reformist project focuses on adapting Islam to the paradigm of a scientific-technological civilization,

with the idea of the domination of nature and the control of society by the state. In the end, we realize that this is the paradigm that prevails today in countries with a Muslim majority, even those which see Islam as a sign of identity. The most ironic example is the Islamic Republic of Iran, with a violent containment of Islam within the framework of a modern nation-state, based on the standardization, control and disciplining of society through prisons, clinics, barracks, schools, academies and so on. Institutions which explain the emergence of the concept of biopolitics2.

2) In relation to postmodernity: the critique of imperialism and corporate globalization extends to the ideological foundations on which it rests: the idea of progress, the scientific-technical paradigm, racism, Eurocentrism, Orientalism, the supremacy of the state...

Ironically, this brings European Islam closer to the ideas of many postmodern thinkers.

There is a false criticism of modernity, which calls for a return to a pre-modern past, suitably idealized: tradition is converted into an ideology which is used to serve the modern nation-state.

However, there is another view that engages with the aforementioned task of rethinking Islam as a living force capable of giving meaning to people’s lives. To the critical task must be added the creative task, from the recognition of Western modernity as a ‘dual movement of slavery and freedom’ (Foucault)3.

3) Let us speak at this point of transmodernity as a ‘transfer of modernity from the edge of chaos towards a new social order’4. European Islam is working to overcome the false dichotomy between tradition and modernity, in which tradition is assimilated into inane immobility and modernity into deCatalan International View

[2] Foucault, Il faut défendre la société (Society Must be Defended, 1976).

[3] Foucault, Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique - Folie et déraison (Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason 1961, p.480).

[4] Ziauddin Sardar: Islam and the West in a Transmodern World, in Islam Online.



Dossier

velopment and progress. This improvement calls for the creative grounding of traditional Islam, considered as a source of inspiration and a nourishing strength, and not as an untouchable burden of laws and doctrines.

There is a false criticism of modernity, which calls for a return to a pre-modern past, suitably idealized: tradition is converted into an ideology Islamic tradition provides the necessary keys to achieving a creative synthesis, which in turn constitutes a source of inspiration for the transformation of Western societies and a stimulus to predominantly Muslim societies. The keys are essentially the following: • Individual Caliphate: The moral agency of all the members of the community. The Qur’an links the caliphate to the fact that every individual is accountable for their acts and for taking care of their surroundings, and they cannot delegate the burden for their behaviour to another.

• ‘Ilm: The Qur’an calls Muslims to use reason and the pursuit of knowledge, to reflect on Creation, to scrutinize and discover its mechanisms.

• Ijtihad: The interpretive effort of contextualizing the norms and values of Islam in every new situation, as one of

the principles of Islamic jurisprudence.

• Shura: The Qur’an defines the assembly as a place for making decisions on collective issues and decision-making by consensus (ijma).

• The Qur’an presents religious pluralism as positive, considering all the great traditions of humanity as legitimate means to salvation, emanating from the One God, with no distinction between the prophets sent to mankind

by God. • Tawhid: everything integrated into a unitary and holistic conception, whereby every part forms an integrated whole.

It is therefore necessary to recover those key ideas at the heart of the Qur’an’s message which have been displaced by the dichotomy between traditionalists and modernists. In this sense, the creative critique of modernity ties in perfectly with the original Islam, proposing a synthesis between more genuine Islamic tradition and the liberating elements of modernity (democratic values, social justice, gender equality, freedom of conscience, ecology and so on), pointing towards a new global paradigm, that emerges as an alternative to corporate globalization.

This is the task facing European Islam, if it really wants to respond to the original message of Islam and what the current situation demands of it, thereby achieving its own uniqueness as a destination. But Allah knows best.

*Prado Abdennur Muslim poet and thinker. President of the Catalan Islamic Council and Director of the International Congress on Islamic Feminism. A defender of the civil rights of Muslims in Europe and committed to interfaith dialogue. His work is based on a return to the principles of the Qur’anic scriptures and the experience of the revelation on the here and now.

He is the author of Los retos del islam en el siglo XXI (The Challenges Facing Islam in the TwentyFirst Century), El islam como anarquismo místico (Islam as Mystical Anarchism), El lenguaje político del Corán (The Political Language of the Qur’an), El retorn de l’islam a Catalunya (The Return of Islam to Catalonia), El islam anterior al Islam (Islam Before Islam) and El islam en democracia (Islam in Democracy), as well as numerous articles in newspapers and magazines. He was director of Webislam.com.

Since 2002 he has spoken at over one hundred conferences.



Catalan International View

We do what no other advertising agency, no other copywriter can do

Catalan International View

ďœśďœą

Dossier

From West to East: dialogical, non-dual and ineffable reality

by Francesc Torradeflot*

In the 1980s it still made some sense to speak of the East and the West. Oriental studies had flourished and become established for decades and Western experts in Orientalism tried, with greater or lesser success and recognition, to draw comparisons and highlight similarities and differences. One of these experts was a Catalan, born of a Catalan mother and a Hindu, Indian father. His name was Raimon Panikkar, an intellectual whose work deals with the West and the East ,who became an internationally recognised figure in the field of intercultural and interreligious dialogue. He was professor of comparative philosophy of religion in California for many years where he developed a series of innovative hermeneutic instruments and criteria that allowed for cultures and religions to be compared while emphasising their irreducibility1.

[1] R. Panikkar, formulated imparative philosophy, for example, which allows one to constantly ‘learn’ from others, or homeomorphic equivalence theory, which states that there are concepts which have an analogous function in different cultural universes, such as, for example, Brahman and God or justice and Dharma in the West and East.

For his philosophical thought see Pigem, Jordi, Raimon Panikkar: interdependence, pluralism, interculturalism, Institute of Catalan Studies, Barcelona, 2007, for his theological thinking, see Torradeflot, Francesc, La Théologie des Religions- De John Henry Newman à Jacques Dupuis et à Raimon Panikkar, Centre d’Histoire des Religions, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2005.

[2] ‘People should know what the wonderful multiculturalist doctrines have done to Europe:



Now that globalisation has taken hold, it appears as if comparisons are less relevant and as if the boundaries between the East and the West are fading. The East has penetrated the West and the West is present in every town and village in the East. Nevertheless, certain enemies of multiculturalism, such as Sarkozy and Merkel and certain friends of ethnocentrism, such as the perpetrator of the outrages in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik2, appear obsessed by defining its limits. They still believe there are ‘closed’ or fixed identities, and even dare to claim that Europe is Christian, as if Christian was a ‘cultural’ adjective stripped of religious connotations (people are religious, but are states religious?).

Catalan International View

The truth is that what was once meant by West and East can now be found everywhere. What was previously said of the geographical and cultural East is now said of the symbolic East.

The symbolic East, which can now be found in the most Western city on the planet, is a spiritual space, often presented as the intimate relationship between two levels of reality: paramarthasatya or the ‘supreme reality or truth’ and samvriti-satya or ‘conventional or phenomenal reality’ (Madhyamika and other Buddhist schools of thought). In fact the East sees these two ‘levels’ as a unique reality which an individual attains via the paths of knowledge-wisdom (jñana), love (bhakti) and selfless action (karma). This reality is non-dual

New approaches to religion

(advaita); in which Nirvana (extinction, liberation and enlightenment, in any case the highest level of realisation) and Samsara (‘the cycle of existence’ or of suffering) are the same. Brahman (divinity) and Atman (the soul) are non-dual. The East sees fulfilment not as exclusion but rather as inclusion, the conjunction or implication of opposites. To conceive of something as diverse is an error, the fruit of ignorance (avidya) resulting from the illusory world (maya). Wisdom, the intuitive knowledge which is global and profound, is non-dual and sees everything in its profound unity, beyond the apparent diversity of phenomenal reality.

It comes down to uni-duality or advaita: nature and culture. Everything is One. The problem is perception, not reality.

Shankara, one of the great philosophers of the Hindu advaita Vedanta, claims that dualist philosophies (predominant in the West) ‘are incomplete and fail to eradicate mundane existence’3. The East is knowledge versus suffering4. The lack of wisdom or ignorance (avidya), which is also dual knowledge (subject-object), and merely empirical, leads to suffering; thus the importance of developing spirituality as a path to unifying wisdom.

The symbolic West, which thanks to globalisation can be found in the very heart of India, is the home par excellence of material, of the phenomenal world. It proposes replacing a unity with the dialectical (God-world; inside-outside; class struggle-accord). It is progress by division, exclusion, disjunction, negaCatalan International View

the systematic destruction of European Christendom, of its traditions, its culture, its national identity and sovereignty. (...)

These political mechanisms have only led to the Islamization of Europe’ (A. Behring Breivik at www.Document.no) [3] Cfr. Sankara, Sri, The Bhagavad – Gita – With the commentary of Sri Sankaracharya, trad. Per A. Mahadeva Sastri, Ramaswamy Sastrulu & Son, Madras, 1918, p.294, commenting on BG, 18, 20-22.

[4] Morin, E., Els 7 coneixements necessaris per a l’educació del futur (The 7 Skills Needed for Tomorrow’s Education), UNESCO Centre of Catalonia, Barcelona, 2000, p.28.



Dossier

[5] Subject-object, soul-body, spirit-matter, quality-quantity, purpose-causation; feelingreason, freedom-determinism, existence-essence (cfr. Morin, E., Els 7 coneixements necessaris per a l’educació del futur (The 7 Skills Needed for Tomorrow’s Education), UNESCO Centre of Catalonia, Barcelona, 2000, p.21-22).

[6], ‘Energy’, ‘light’, ‘material’, ‘water’, ‘air’, etc. are not more or less mysterious beings with a life of their own and freedom, but rather scientific parameters, ‘nature’ (ie. birth and origin) which are not important, but which we can ‘know’ or predict the behaviour. This move from words to terms has allowed Man to get a clear view of the world of objectivity, which is a positive and extraordinary gain.

The downside comes when Man falls into the psycho-sociological trap of considering the objective world as the only important and ultimately real world and / or the philosophical temptation of assuming that objectivity is the only truly precise and knowable reality, ultimately the only reality’ (cf. Panikkar, R., ‘Words and Terms’, in Freedom, Progress and Society- Essays in Honour of Prof. KS Murthy, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, p.334).

[7] Cfr. Bhagavad Gita, 18, 3132. 34-35.

[8] Cfr. Garaudy, R., ¿Hacia una guerra de religión? (Towards A Religious War?), PPC, Madrid, 1995, p.57. 67. 84ss.

[9] Cfr. Boff, L, Ecologia, Trotta, Madrid, 1996, p. 39. 41ss.

tion5. It is the realm of a form of technoscience that often falls into nominalism6.

In philosophical classification following the Hindu tradition (specifically the Shamkhya), the West is the realm of the knowledge of tamas or tamasic (a quality of nature which is darkness, blindness and ignorance) and rajas or rajasic (a quality of nature which is activity, avarice and daring)7. This exaltation of the material and the world of phenomena has been accompanied by a clear affirmation of the primacy and centrality of the individual and their body and its conflict with nature, with God and with the other. The approach and promotion of such positive values as human rights, for example, from a clearly Western perspective, while an emphasis on the importance of equality, fail to develop universally because they are seen as colonial impositions, instead of giving them the profound sense and the transcultural foundation they have, for example, from a perspective which sees the non-dual nature (advaita) of reality as a source of equality between individuals. There is a diverse and complementary understanding of human rights which goes beyond the individualism and the Western concept of a person: Islam and African cultures place more value on community while the East values, for example, the non-duality of nature.

The symbolic East is a spiritual space, often presented as the intimate relationship between two levels of reality: paramartha-satya or the ‘supreme reality or truth’ and samvriti-satya or ‘conventional or phenomenal reality’ In its paroxysmal affirmation of its difference and otherness, the West is the expression of monotheism, the latest manifestation of which is market monotheism which excludes other reli

Catalan International View

gions and worldviews8. If the East is the wealth of expressions and manifestations of maternally received divinity, the West is the intense paternal compromise, passionate and absolute with only one expression of divinity as otherness and the total submission and immersion in it. This has often meant that, carried to an extreme, it leads to a unique rationality, a single thought, that tolerate dissent with difficulty, despite a formal assertion of the freedom of thought, conscience and religion and the freedom of expression.

Vivekananda, of the Ramakrishna Society, tried to combine the two traditions, as if to combine male and female, culture and nature, identity and difference, and so many other opposites, in a harmonious unity or Tao. The list of thinkers who proposed formulas for a fruitful relationship beyond any separation or conflict is endless. Thus, for example, a theologian and liberation philosopher as prestigious as Leonardo Boff speaks of a hologramatic physical principle: everything is in the parts and the parts are in everything. We must distinguish without separating. He says that knowing a being is to know its ecosystem and the path of their relationships. Holism, and the pan-relationality that comes from it, is the new paradigm.

In this sense it speaks of logic, complexity and ineffability9. Another example of Western self-criticism that brings us to the East or the presence of the symbolic East is Morin, who criticizes the compartmentalized knowledge that fails to consider the whole and divides reality in all its complexity. He criticizes the unique rationality: ‘The twentieth century has lived under the reign of a pseudorationality built on a single rationality, which has atrophied understanding, reflection and our long-term vision. Its failure to address the most serious problems has been one of the biggest problems for humanity.

Hence the paradox: the twentieth cen-

New approaches to religion

tury has produced gigantic progress in all areas of scientific knowledge and in all areas of technology. Meanwhile, it has also produced a new blindness to global problems, both fundamental and complex, and this blindness has generated countless errors and illusions among scientists, technicians and specialists, to begin with. (...). The division and compartmentalization of knowledge creates an inability to grasp’10.

According to Morin, Man is complex and encompasses these antagonisms: ‘The twenty-first century must abandon the unilateral view that defines human beings by their rationality (Homo sapiens), their technology (Homo faber), utilitarian activities (Homo economicus), and their obligations (Homo prosaicus).

Human beings are complex and carry within them these antagonistic characteristics: Sapiens and demens (rational and raving) Faber and ludens (worker and player) Empiricus and imaginarius (empirical and imaginary) Economicus and consumans (economic and spendthrift) Prosaicus and poeticus (prosaic and poetic)’ 11 The West and the East are fundamental and intrinsic to every human being, as are diversity and identity. The West carries within itself its own East and vice versa. The key to the mutual relationship is a healthy integration, simultaneously simple and complex, of the diversity that exists within in order to integrate the diversity of others

The West and the East are fundamental and intrinsic to every human being, as are diversity and identity. The West carries within itself its own East and vice versa in an undivided, untraumatic harmony.

To avoid the ‘shock’ we need interculturality or cultural diversity in dialogical dialogue. A dialogue from the essential, from that part of every culture and religion that is unity and unification (yoga and advaita, boundless love for oneself and for others). If we always maintain a dialogue, we shall see the need to recognize that identities have always been dynamic and fluid, which is not to say inconsistent and liquid, as postmodernism appeared to suggest. The human being is in its dynamism vital, ineffable and unattainable. This vital dynamism is present in cultures and religions, in beliefs and convictions, and, therefore, in identities. For this reason it is incorrect to state that there are fixed, static, permanent identities. It is more of a wish than a reality. As a desire, it is a response to impulses and interests which are often as difficult to confess as those of Huntington’s, but it is not a reverential expression and observation of reality as it truly is. To understand and affirm that identities are dynamic will make it harder to fall into the trap of exclusive fundamentalism, culturalism and exclusive nationalism and will make the legitimisation of the culture of a common reality of dialogue between the Easts and the Wests which we all possess both essential and inevitable.

[10] Cfr. Morin, E., Els 7 coneixements necessaris per a l’educació del futur (The 7 Skills Needed for Tomorrow’s Education), UNESCO Centre of Catalonia, Barcelona, 2000, p. 38-39.

[11] Cfr. Morin, E., Els 7 coneixements necessaris per a l’educació del futur (The 7 Skills Needed for Tomorrow’s Education), UNESCO Centre of Catalonia, Barcelona, 2000, p. 50. The author decided not to speak of Homo religiosus, as have Mircea Eliade and Julien Ries, among others. When speaking of rites he seems to value ambiguity: on one hand, he sees them as a fully human expression and on the other, he labels them as a ‘waste of time’ (Ibid, p. 52). But it is important to consider the new role that religions play in the West that seemed to be moving decisively towards more ruthless secularism and which has seen the religious act, without being moved or changed, taking on a new significant momentum (Cfr. Taylor, Charles, A Secular Age, Belknapp Press, Cambridge, 2007).

*Francesc Torradeflot (Lleida, 1958) holds a doctorate in Theology from the Catalonia Faculty of Theology and a degree on the History of Religions from the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve. He is professor of Mystic Christianity at the Centre d’Estudi de les Tradicions Religioses (Centre for the Study of Religious Traditions) in Barcelona. He is currently secretary of the UNESCO Association for Interreligious Dialogue and heads the Unescocat Area for Interreligious Dialogue.

Catalan International View



Interview

Josep Maria Espinàs ‘Mankind progresses: when it retreats it is in order to gain momentum’ Interviewed by Eva Piquer*

Photos by Xabier Miquel Laburu

Josep Maria Espinàs (Barcelona, 1927) has written a newspaper column for the last 35 years, published 85 books, received numerous literary awards and has been awarded the Premi d’Honor de les Lletres Catalanes (the Catalan Letters Prize of Honour). His books have been translated into German, English, Spanish, Euskera, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese and Czech. At the height of the Franco era he was a founder of Els Setze Jutges (The Sixteen Judges), the group behind the Nova Cançó (New Song), a attempt by musicians to reclaim the Catalan language and denounce the injustices carried out by the regime. He is also the co-founder of La Campana publishing house. ‘I’m neither tired of living nor of writing’, he told me. As to the future, he dares to make but one prediction: that he won’t be there to see it.

You are a writer that, thanks to the historical context, has found yourself doing other things. For example, you founded The Sixteen Judges and recorded records in spite of not being a professional musician...

You are perhaps the first person to tell me that so directly. I appreciate it, since it’s the truth: I found myself doing the things I’ve done. People always attribute intentions to our actions. I published ten novels, one of which won the Sant Jordi Prize, and I suddenly stopped writing novels, although they sold well and worked. Why? I don’t know. I found myself doing other kinds of books. I’ve never planned things. One day I found myself writing some songs, an activity that I had never done before, but circumstances led me to do it. Another day I found myself doing a play: it was put on, was successful, received good reviews, and I stopped doing theatre. Another day I found myself mak-

ing journeys on foot and writing books in the form of chronicles, and I’ve written a lot. Commentators and encyclopaedias have a tendency to attribute deliberate intention to one’s actions, but I haven’t decided anything. People find it hard to believe that a writer doesn’t plan things. I take my hat off to people who can say why their life has taken the path it’s taken.

Writing was not a conscious decision either?

When I was eight I wrote a poem about a swallow I’d seen flying around, at fifteen I wrote a really bad novella, in Spanish. I used to get up at six in the morning while my parents were still asleep, wrote a chapter and then went to the Escolapis school [run by a Catholic educational order], like any child. I don’t know why I did it, I found myself writing without having planned it.

Catalan International View



Interview

The first novel you wrote as a teenager was in Spanish, but your literary language is Catalan. Did you also just happen to write in Catalan or in this instance did you make a conscious decision?

When I wrote my second novel I wanted the characters in my neighbourhood to speak, and I realized that they didn’t feel real in Spanish, it didn’t sound right. Franco was very much alive, but I found myself changing the language.

It wasn’t a political decision, then?

No, no. I agree that later on it had political consequences. But the decision to change the language, like the decision to write songs, appeared just like that. I have no particular merit, it was fate. I haven’t done anything that hasn’t emerged naturally.

Reality gives me the information I need to live and write You firmly believe in fate.

I’m going to make a sweeping statement, although I ought to write a book about sweeping statements (since they deceive, they don’t follow any logical reasoning): I believe that, in general, people are doomed to be whatever they are. There’s room for some modification, naturally enough, but not much. A singer is suited to singing a particular type of music thanks to their voice. The same thing happens to a writer: they have a way of writing, and it’s their own. We should acknowledge this limitation on everyone’s possibilities: you have a framework in which you can move with a certain degree of efficiency and a certain tpye of behaviour, and if you step outside of this framework you’re bound to fail. If a serious novelist tried to write one of the bestsellers they criticise, they’d fail.

Is being a newspaper columnist a way of life, a way of seeing the world?

I write an article every day because a journalist, Josep Faulí, told me they were about to start a newspaper in Catalan and asked if I would write for it from time to time. I told him I couldn’t imagine writing an article every three weeks. ‘But if you want me to do an article every day, then I’ll have a go’. And I did. I can’t spend a week thinking about what to write in a weekly article, I live 

in the present. Right now, for me, there is nothing but you and me. There’s only what I do, what I see, what I read. I don’t prefabricate, I don’t consider, I don’t program, and I don’t regret. I am very keen to observe and to make associations. There ought to be a subject at school that teaches you how to make associations. I really enjoy letting myself get carried away by observations, and from them I construct an article or a story. That’s what my journeys on foot are all about: stepping out of one’s skin and into a place I don’t know, which I know nothing about, without the intention of visiting a cathedral, but simply to live every day, come what may. Reality gives me the information I need to live and write.

Maybe you stopped writing novels because you realized that reality was more interesting than fiction...

That’s partly true. It’s also true that I never saw myself as a great novelist. I wrote novels that were successful, but unconsciously perhaps I never thought I would be a great novelist. After winning the Sant Jordi, I stopped writing narrative fiction and began to take an interest in reality, the non-fiction which surrounds me. And I started to write observational books.

As a person with a public image, are you aware of your social responsibility?

It’s a bit of an exaggeration to talk about social responsibility. While we were developing the Nova Cançó, it became clear that we could influence the mood of society and the country as a whole with music. Many people felt that they could protest against the dictatorship through music. But I have no social influence in the strictest sense of the term. It is also true that during the immediate post-war period, writing in Catalan was a rarity, and the fact that I was doing it might’ve encouraged someone else to do it.

Do writers have to publicly align themselves with certain causes?

I don’t think they have an obligation to do so.

They’re free to take sides or not to do so. I’m agnostic on this point. Neither a writer nor a carpenter need take sides if they don’t want to. We have a spirit inside of us that makes us do certain things.

You lived through the Civil War and the post-war period. When did your anti-Franco conscience become awakened?

Catalan International View

When I was eighteen or twenty years old. When I was younger I was unaware of the Franco regime. I came from a middle class family in Barcelona that lived well. The post-war period was a blow. Suddenly there was no money coming in, but I wasn’t really

aware that we were going through a difficult period.

One day, a police patrol came round looking for my father and they took him away. My father had never been involved in politics, but he had administered the estate of a woman they were after. They left him

Catalan International View



Interview

in a field and told him that if they didn’t come back in fifteen minutes he could go. After half an hour he walked back home. He was lucky; most of the people they took away never came back. When I was in my first year at university, studying law, I was approached by a man who punched me in the face, knocking me to the ground. He was from the SEU, a pro-Franco union that pursued and attacked catalanistes at the university. I had no political affiliation, but when I was there my political and linguistic consciousness was awakened. I understood that it was necessary to fight this injustice and this lack of freedom.

Critics should be modest rather than using the review as a showcase to display their brilliance Is writing in Catalan a hindrance to reaching an international audience?

It’s easy to say ‘yes’ if you ignore the fact there are a hundred thousand French and English writers who have no international presence. I think we need a general, relativistic view of the world, before making certain statements. During the Franco era, Manuel Pedrolo told me: ‘If we were English writers...’.

I disagreed with him and said, ‘Maybe you’re one of the three hundred thousand English writers that don’t get published’. I happen to live in a country and in circumstances in which if I publish a book it arouses public interest. And in 1961 I even published a novel in the United States.

How did it do?

Thanks to an agent, Carmen Balcells, Pantheon Books (which at the time was a prestigious independent publisher) published my novel Tots som iguals (By Nature Equal). I had more reviews of that book than all the others I’ve ever published.

All the major newspapers in the US reviewed it, I was shocked.

Do you think you’ve received sufficient recognition, as much as you deserved?

For me, I’ve had enough. I don’t know if it’s what I deserved. If someone knows how much recognition they deserve, then good for them. It’s typical of artists to want to feel important and significant. I have had the success necessary to continue to be a writer, 

writing one book after another. I was lucky enough to receive social acceptance, and this is a privilege.

The writer Thomas Merton said that the conditions needed for success are to have a strong desire (what pedants call ‘a vocation’), have a certain degree of aptitude (if you don’t, you won’t be successful, and if you have too much, there’s a risk that you’ll end up falling in love with yourself ) and that the circumstances are not too unfavorable. In a somewhat pretentious interview I was asked to define myself in three words. I said: ‘guy with glasses’, because in the army that’s how they referred to me ‘the guy with the glasses’. That’s how I am. It’s not false modesty.

I’m fine, I’m very happy, I don’t feel in the least frustrated and neither am I vain: I’m someone who does a job they enjoy doing in the life they happen to live. I’ve been lucky, I’m not a victim, I don’t feel triumphant... This all means that I don’t have any special interest. I don’t fit into a literary society in which everyone believes themselves to be special.

‘I’m working on a book...’, they say, and after eleven years they still haven’t done anything. I’m the opposite; I write books without wanting to. I haven’t produced a ‘body of work’, I’ve written books.

What do you think of literary critics? Have they allowed you to see aspects of literature you were unaware of?

It amuses me when serious critics tell me of the influences that I have received from books that I’ve never read. For a long time literary criticism has consisted of praise or criticism without analysis.

The majority of reviews simply reflect the subjective opinions of the person who has written them.

I’ve never seen objective literary criticism. They’re either very kind to me and attribute many qualities to me or say ‘Espinàs is a fool’, instead of saying that my book is a mess for this, that, and the other. If they told me, maybe I’d learn. Reviews are too personal and insufficiently analytical. There are reviews where, after reading seventy lines, you still don’t know what the book is about. Critics should be modest rather than using the review as a showcase to display their brilliance. Analyse, by all means, but don’t qualify.

Your most translated book is also one of your most personal, El teu nom és Olga (Your Name is Olga).

I wrote this book because my daughter has Down’s syndrome, but I don’t know why I wrote it when I

Catalan International View

Interview

did, in the mid eighties. I could have written it ten years earlier and I didn’t, but one day I found myself writing an essay about my daughter, and another the next day, and without realizing it I had written a book about her. I could have gone without speaking about Olga forever.

Having a daughter with Down’s syndrome has made you a better person?

This ‘better person’ makes me feel uncomfortable as it means admitting that you can be a good person and a bad person. We all have a good side and an evil side. Having Olga has taught me a lot and it has enriched me. I’ve come to appreciate the relative importance of certain things, it has increased my respect for everyone. It has helped me to see things that with my intelligence would have been more difficult to see. My daughter knows how to live in society. She’s discreet, quiet, she knows how to make good observations. Until now we didn’t have sufficient experience of adult life for people with Down’s syndrome because they used to die young.

Knowing that the intellectual limitations can’t be overcome, with Olga I have found that social learning is perfectly possible.

Is Olga happy?

Extremely.

What’s the link between intelligence and happiness?

Intelligence can make us happy and it can make us very unhappy. You don’t need to be intelligent to be happy. Olga is probably happier than she would be if she were to have a series of problems which come from being normal. Olga is happy and, above all she brings happiness. Harmony, respect and happiness surround her. She spends half the week in a centre and half the week at home. I think it’s good for her, because at home she’ll never be superior, while at the centre she’s quite a bit superior, and this may balance her attitude towards life. All the things that can be done to improve the performance of people with Down’s syndrome are great, but an excessive obsession to make them progress intellectually can lead to frustration.

You wrote the Barça anthem, which is sung and is known worldwide...

It’s the most popular contemporary Catalan folk song, and a vital part of its success is how it’s written. I’ve written verses since childhood, since I was

Catalan International View



people trying to predict the future. Oil was supposed to have run out in 1971, I’ve got the newspaper cutting that says so. That was forty years ago.

Experts have made four or five prophecies about the end of oil, none of them have been proven right. The only sure thing about the future is that I won’t live to see it.

You can’t predict the future of Catalonia either then...

No, no. I’m no clairvoyant, and no one has ever seen the future. Did the first settlers in America see the future of the USA? A year earlier nobody was able to predict that Hitler would do what he did. It’s hard enough tying to spot a taxi on the street. If you want to entertain yourself publishing books on futuristic philosophy help yourself. But I’m incapable of doing so. young I’ve had the ability to write songs. With the Barça anthem, each verse is the realization of an idea. People sing it because it’s easy, every line holds a self contained idea. After sweating so much writing book after book after book, my most international text is the Barça anthem. It’s hilarious.

When you’ve promoted your books abroad, or in your role as a Catalan publisher at international fairs, have you often had to explain what Catalonia is?

When we started going to Frankfurt with La Campana, Catalan was a surprise for other publishers. But after a few years, when we asked if a book was out of copyright, they asked us if we wanted the rights in Catalan or Spanish. Something had changed.

Wisdom means not having what you don’t need How do you see the future of the Catalan language?

I don’t see it. I don’t see my future either! I’ll die in an ideal state: Catalan functions quietly, I write in my language and I’m not upset by anything. You can’t predict what might happen in fifty or a hundred years. A language can fall into decline, but I don’t know to what extent this can be foreseen.

When it comes to predicting the future, I’m useless.

What’s more I’m lazy, maybe because I see so many 

Would Catalan independence make sense?

Yes, it would make sense. In the same way as family independence or the independence of various forms of association which exist around the world make sense. Like the European Union makes sense, whether it works well or not.

Do you believe that humanity progresses, nevertheless?

Of course, human progresses and will continue to progress: if it retreats it’s in order to gain momentum. To some generations it may look like we don’t, that we’re going backwards. If someone says ‘we’re going the wrong way’ it always depends on the scale one wants to look at. We’re better off now than we were a hundred years ago and much better off than a thousand years ago. Life expectancy is much longer than it used to be, we’ve found cures for many diseases that were once incurable. There are many people who starve, but we don’t know how people used to live in the twelfth century...Technology is a breakthrough that can cause uncomfortable and unpleasant consequences, but it is a form of progress.

It’s like the child that starts to run. Maybe they’ll fall over, but at least they’ve started to run.

Social mobility has broken down: it’s possible my children will progress less than I have.

It is possible that we have lived through a few privileged years, and maybe now we’re entering one of those periods when we need to step back a little

Catalan International View

Interview

to gather momentum and move forward again.

Olympic runners have to bend a leg back if they wish to go forward. I am a historical optimist. I’ve seen people my age who judged reality according to their own dissatisfaction. They were envious of others, saying that the youth are a mess, because they were over eighty years old, were about to die and refused to believe that the world they were soon to leave was in a good state. It’s an instinctive reaction: if I’m coming to an end, so is the world.

I find that the youth of today are fantastic, they’re worth more than those of forty years ago.

Why have you resisted using a computer?

I have absolute respect and admiration for technology. But I have my reasons: I don’t use a computer because I don’t need to. I’m told that with a computer I can correct my work, but I hardly make corrections. They tell me that I can change the order of paragraphs: but I’ve never changed a paragraph in my life. The Olivetti company, based in Turin, has put the cover of my book in one of its publications, as they were pleased that there’s a Catalan writer who still types on one of its machines. I don’t have internet. Do you know how much time I save by not having email? I must be the only writer in the world who can carry on working when there’s a power cut.

Wisdom means not having what you don’t need.

Nowadays, with the recession, we must learn to give up these false desires.

Why do we want a camera that tells what time we took a picture, when for the last twenty years we didn’t care when the picture was taken? It would be good to return to a degree of austerity. It is not sacrifice, though: I enjoy eating a lot, I love life. But we shouldn’t face problems that we don’t need to face, we have enough problems already. Life should be lived, we shouldn’t worry about what time a photo was taken.

Do you think that with time justice prevails and everything falls into place?

I’m very sceptical about that. Who can guarantee that a hundred years from now the people who

highlight certain works that have been forgotten will be right? I don’t write for posterity, I write to develop a particular idea at the time, it’s my job. In fact, I write to think.

What are the positive aspects of aging?

Aging doesn’t have anything positive. Some people may wish to feel self important by saying that you gain experience. But I’ve seen old people do so many crazy things... There are people who are thirty years old and have as much experience as a man of eighty. For those who love life, becoming old has nothing but drawbacks. The time you have to do things, to hug, to sleep, to do what you want, is running out. You see that it’s coming to an end.

Yes, you can become wiser, but it can also make you more stupid, you can become more tender, but you can also become more unbearable...

Is the feeling of having more of a past than a future distressing?

I live in the present, with all its consequences. I never think about my past or my future. It’s now noon and the evening doesn’t exist yet.

The older we get, the more we are forced to live in the present, precisely because the future is running out.

Many old people don’t see it this way: they’re very nostalgic. I’m not at all. I don’t have nostalgia for myself, because I’m not that ten year old child: I’ve evolved and I’ve became another person. That’s why I don’t write about my childhood, because it wasn’t at all dramatic.

During what you call ‘extra time’, is life lived more intensely?

No. I rarely think I’m going to die. I’m more than aware of the fact, but I don’t constantly think about it. I’ve made the most of life. I’m about to go to London for a week, walking around there is an injection of life. I am one of the few men who like looking in shops, I enjoy it more than looking at scenery. I much prefer a high street to the Himalayas. *Eva Piquer

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).

Catalan International View



Opinion

Black Bread:

from a film to a phenomenon

by Isona Passola*

On the 18th of January we learnt the names of the nine films which had been chosen by the Academy to compete for the Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category. Pa Negre (Black Bread), a TV3 co-production, failed to gain a place among the semi-finalists. With this decision, Agustí Villaronga’s film missed the chance of being chosen by the jury on the 24th of January to be among the 5 finalists, thereby allowing its protagonists to walk the red carpet and for a Catalan film to be nominated for the golden statue for the first time. Far from a disappointment, Black Bread is a wonderful example of how to do a magnificent job in the field of cinematography. The following article was written by the film’s producer, Isona Passola.

When I asked Emili Teixidor for the rights to Black Bread I told him to trust me and that the director I had in mind for the project would turn his book into a good film. Villaronga was able to share Teixidor’s world because he is a specialist in capturing the most extreme human emotions, such as humiliation, and even more so when they appear in childhood which later goes on to inform a person’s adult life.

Agustí understands Andreu, the main character in Black Bread, as if he were his own son. The wickedness of the good and the goodness of the bad... he is a master in such matters.

Cinema has always used literary adaptations, whether of a novel, a play or a short story, as one of its major sources of material. The stylistic mechanisms that turn writing into literature by way of the written word, manifest themselves in films through images and action. Metaphor and poetry are always resolved visually. This is the great difficulty of literary adaptations. It is important that the film retains the spirit of the novel but above all, it must work as a film. 

Catalan International View

While the novel contains Andreu’s inner thoughts, these were impossible to portray on screen. Likewise, the superb dialogues between the children which in the novel take place while they are sitting in a plum tree needed to be converted into action, hence in the film they occur while the children are running through the woods.

Like any great writer Teixidor often revisits the same theme and from the short stories ‘Sic Transit Gloria Swanson’ and Retrat d’un assassí d’ocells (Portrait of a Bird Killer), both of which are on a par with Black Bread, we took the first scene of the film with the spectacular shot of the cart plunging off a cliff. This places the film at the level of a great film and along comes the second, more complex scene in the script which called for a series of events to occur in order to keep the viewer’s attention.

The treatment of language has also been key in Black Bread. In films the dialogue which the actors speak obviously needs to be credible.

Our difficulty was to make the dialogues between the children of peasant farmers in the 1940s appear credible.

Opinion

Catalan International View



Opinion

This became another of our obsessions which we resolved by going directly to villages in the Osona area to cast the children in the film in order that their speech was as authentic as possible.

Time is often the key to the success of a good film. Days and hours are worth much more than the technical aspect or the presence of superstars I think this is one of the things that our audience has appreciated most and that the richness of the dialogue is also one of the attractions of Teixidor’s novel. Perhaps this aspect will be lost once the film is subtitled, but undoubtedly what will be detected is the freshness and authenticity of the performances, 

Catalan International View

which serve to enhance the film’s artistic coherence.

From the outset we did not want Black Bread to become a conventional post civil war film. All of the numerous locations were real places. We left them essentially unaltered, with any changes being made solely to add to their air of authenticity and realism. The costumes were handmade, artificially aged and drawn from a palette of colours, with cooler or warmer colours used according to the emotion of the sequence. The special effects were highly complex in order to provide the spectacular aspect that a great production deserves. The cast of young actors came from the Catalan interior and were chosen from over a hundred hopefuls in order that they would be entirely credible. The boy who plays the main character spent

Opinion

many hours in rehearsal with Agustí.

Time is often the key to the success of a good film. Days and hours are worth much more than the technical aspect or the presence of superstars. As Hitchcock said, an ounce of preparation is worth ten tons of improvisation.

Black Bread was baked slowly and with a great deal of love.

All these complicated aspects were only possible because behind everything there was a solid script and a great director backed by an excellent team. Such high production values were made possible thanks to our coproducers: TV3 (Catalonia Television) with the participation of TVE (Spain’s national TV company), the Generalitat (the Catalan government) and the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Their commitment ensured that Black Bread is a truly European film in terms of its commercial potential.

Black Bread was released in October 2010 after its presentation at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where Nora Navas won the Concha de Plata (Silver Shell) for Best Actress. Three quarters of the film’s audience were initially from the Catalan-speaking countries, though it has since gone on to break box office records across Spain. 130,000 DVDs of the film were sold in one month alone when it went on sale with newspapers at newsstands. This is a record in the Spanish state. Black Bread is the third most highly decorated film in the history of the Spanish Academy’s Goya Awards, having won 9 awards in total, and it is the first film in Catalan to be awarded the prize for Best Picture. The film also won 13 Gaudí awards, Fotogramas magazine’s Silver Award, the Túria Award and a Sant Jordi Rose Award. In addition Agustí was awarded a National

Film Award and finally members of the Spanish Academy chose the film to represent Spain at the 2012 Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

A subtitled version of the film has successfully been released in France in 40 towns and cities. Black Bread has been sold to China and Japan and its march continues with an intense promotional tour in the US, thanks to the support of the Ramon Llull Institute, Catalan Television and the Generalitat.

Black Bread has become a phenomenon and marks a before and an after for Catalan films, for reasons beyond the historical circumstances of the past when Catalan films received massive audiences as a novelty following the repression of the Franco era.

Black Bread has seen the normalization of a form of Catalan cinema which seeks to explain ourselves as a collective. Normality begins with local stories which contain human emotions which are always universal in nature.

Good movies and the media impact they generate are the best means for a country to present itself to the world.

The Catalan public understands this and has responded by opening a path of hope to the last branch of Catalan culture that needed to be normalized: the film industry.

Audiences all over the world have understood this in another way too. At a time when globalization standardizes everything, the people are calling for their language and culture to be rooted in concrete reality. If we are more aware of these realities we will be more inclined to resort to dialogue, to become more respectful, more generous with each other and above all to contribute to the enrichment of our planet with our burgeoning diversity. *Isona Passola

Producer, scriptwriter and director. Executive director of Black Bread.

Catalan International View



Opinion

Farewell to violence in the Basque Country

by Jordi Armadans*

Last October, ETA announced the end of its armed activity. It was a great opportunity to put an end to the cycle of violence in the Basque Country and the start of a new era in which peace, dialogue, reconciliation and an open debate as to future political options are to be the main protagonists.

In 1939 Francisco Franco’s coup overcame the resistance mounted by forces loyal to the republic. The dictatorship was a grave attack on political and social rights and liberties throughout the Spanish state. In addition, it led to systematic linguistic, cultural and national repression in the Basque Country and Catalonia.

In such a context of dictatorship and repression, ETA was formed in the Basque Country in 1959. It was intended to be an organisation that fought against the dictatorship from a Basque independence, Marxist perspective. Nine years later they carried out their first assassination. Contrary to what one might have expected, with the coming of democracy the armed option became increasingly radicalised.

Not only did they employ more violence, it became increasingly more indiscriminate: initially they solely acted against members of the security forces, but from the mid-90s they broadened their objectives to include politicians, journalists, intellectuals and so on.

The human cost of ETA’s struggle is staggering: more than 800 killed and more than 2,500 injured. In addition, one must add the hundred individuals who were kidnapped, the extortion of businesses, intimidatory acts in the street and so on. Then there is the gen

Catalan International View

eral climate of fear that many experienced throughout the years of violence.

It is calculated that over 2,000 people (including politicians, business people, journalists and so on) required bodyguards in order to have a degree of protection.

Unfortunately, to this backdrop must be added the anti-terrorist policies of successive Spanish governments which have not always been exemplary in terms of human rights. These have ranged from the endorsement (or at the very least the tolerance) of armed groups that threatened ETA members and people in the Basque national movement, to cases of torture and mistreatment by the police. In 2000 the Spanish government, out of a desire to sever ETA’s links to society as a whole, initiated repressive measures that, in many cases led to the persecution of individuals and initiatives linked to the independence movement, even when they had no connection to ETA. This led to the closure of pro-independence newspapers and magazines, the disarticulation of certain groups and organisations and other unfortunate consequences. Furthermore, the government undertook an offensive against the izquierda abertzale (the Basque nationalist left, the political force most closely ideologically aligned to ETA which has

Opinion

received a 15% to 25% share of the vote in elections) resulting in the illegalisation of up to ten electoral coalitions.

How have we reached the end of violence?

There are many and varied factors which have led to the current situation in which we find ourselves. Some are background or external factors: Fatigue: in many armed conflicts, one of the factors which most affects people is the conviction that the situation of violent confrontation could continue indefinitely without any hope of change. The armed group continues to go about its work, but without achieving its objectives, and the state government maintains a certain degree of control but without being able to put an end to the armed group. This eternal stalemate forces the participants to find alternate solutions.

ETA’s progressive isolation: the founders of ETA saw their struggle reflected in the Algerian anti-colonial struggle, the fight for Irish independence and the extreme left-wing terrorist groups in Germany and Italy. Nevertheless, these all ended some time ago. ETA was the last example of organised armed violence in Europe.

The appearance of jihadist terrorism: the force, brutality and media impact

of the attacks of the 11th of September 2001 in New York, the 11th of March 2004 in Madrid and the 7th of July 2005 in London, among others, undoubtedly undermined the classic model of terrorism, which has become increasingly obsolete and outdated.

Guernica (1937)

by Pablo Picasso

Contrary to what one might expect, the armed option became increasingly radicalised with the beginning of democracy In addition there are more specific factors related to the development of the conflict itself: Improved police collaboration and effectiveness: increasing participation by the French police in the Spanish government’s fight against terrorism led to numerous arrests of ETA’s military and political leaders, resulting in the structure and operating capacity of the organisation to become seriously weakened.

Developments in the abertzale left: asphyxiated by the policy of illegalisation; conscious of ETA’s isolation in the European context; aware of the public’s rejection of violence, convinced that without ETA the abertzale left could become a key political Catalan International View



Opinion

player in the Basque Country; suffering from the split resulting from a part of the leadership and members leaving to form a clearly non-violent party (Aralar); aware of the peace process in Northern Ireland, while observing the growing influence of Catalan independence (which has always been of a non-violent nature) on Catalan politics, in later years the abertzale left began to work on the assumption that ETA would eventually lay down its arms.

It will be necessary to combine two extremely complex processes, almost simultaneously: recognition and compensation for the victims of violence and the social reinsertion of former members of ETA Undoubtedly, ETA couldn’t ignore the abertzale left’s role. Ultimately the guidance and encouragement provided by the South African mediator Brian Currin since 2009 began to give fruits: the abertzale left undertook a public rejection of violence, the Brussels Declaration, by mediators and internationally respected individuals, ETA’s declaration of a ceasefire, a conference held by international personalities and so on. Finally, in October 2011, ETA publicly confirmed that it was unilaterally, unconditionally giving up violence.

Above all, we should emphasise the crucial role played by the Basque public in the whole process: during the 70s and early 80s, the population did not socially express its rejection of violence, either out of a historical sympathy for anti-Francoism, the struggle for independence or simply out of inertia and fear. In 1986, however, Gesto por la Paz (Association for Peace) was created, an organisation that was to broaden and promote ETA’s social delegitimisation.

Later on, Elkarri (which gave rise to 

Catalan International View

Lokarri), an organisation associated with the abertzale movement, looked for new ways to put an end to violence and move towards a peaceful resolution to the conflict. These developments brought about the emergence and increased visibility of a public conscience actively committed to peace. The abertzale left and ETA were unable to indefinitely ignore these changes.

A decisive step?

In the last two years, both the abertzale left and ETA have taken numerous, incremental steps towards distancing themselves from violence. Every new step or gesture which emerged was received with a great deal of scepticism by both politicians and the media. Nevertheless, those who were aware of and understood the true state of affairs were conscious that we were facing a new, serious, consolidated process. This has proved to be the case.

It now looks unthinkable that ETA will change its mind. Meanwhile, since no divisions have occurred within the armed group, one of the abertzale left’s greatest fears throughout this whole process has been avoided.

Nevertheless, if violence were to once more emerge for any reason, one thing is clear: the abertzale left has taken a definitive, clear step and it would firmly condemn any subsequent return to violence by ETA.

Dialogue, reconciliation and the peace process

In any armed conflict once the violent phase has ended, numerous measures need to be taken in order to consolidate the fledgling peace.

ETA will have to move towards its formal disarmament and ensure that it can be independently verified. It will also have to outline the steps that will lead to its ultimate dissolution. The government, for its part, will have to

Opinion

put an end to the geographical dispersal of ETA prisoners and show some leniency.

It will be necessary to combine two extremely complex processes, almost simultaneously: recognition and compensation for the victims of violence and the social reinsertion of former members of ETA. Ultimately, however, the road map required to move towards a peace process is more or less clear. In the field of both the theory and practice of the peaceful resolution of conflicts and diplomacy, sufficient experience has been accumulated in order to allow us to outline the path which needs to be followed. In all instances of genuine peace, the difficulty lies not in defining these steps (which are undeniable) but rather the order, pace, intensity and the moment in which they have to be put into practice.

It is vital, therefore, that we take into account all the participants involved in the management of the conflict, assess the dangers and possibilities of a crisis, find imaginative solutions at every turn and above all that we refuse to despair when the first difficulties appear. In a conflict which has resulted in so much suffering and pain, complications and crises there are bound to be such difficulties. Nonetheless, reconciliation must be promoted for however many years are required, together with the leadership provided by younger genera-

tions that have not been contaminated by the cycle of violence.

A final point: violence and political conflict

ETA’s declaration represents a great step forward in the eradication of violence in the Basque Country. Nevertheless, the end of ETA does not necessarily mean an end to the political conflict centred on the national question. What is more, it is certain that in the absence of the scourge of violence and all the terrible circumstances that it generated throughout all these years, political conflict will flourish more than ever.

For any neutral, external observer, it is clear that in the Basque Country a significant segment of the population lacks a feeling of Spanish national identity. It is clearly neither possible nor logical to avoid and ignore this reality. When it is time to address it, we must do so without rigid preconditions of any kind (in terms of Spanish unity or Basque independence). The only a priori factor to be taken into account is a scrupulous respect for the will of the people. After all, an ethical and practical way to prevent conflict and consolidate peace is the consolidation of democracy. Therefore, the Basque Country, once it has overcome the violent stage, should in the future be whatever its citizens want, decide and agree it should be.

*Jordi Armadans Is a political scientist and journalist. Director of the Fundació per la Pau (Foundation for Peace), a Catalan NGO working to promote a culture of peace, disarmament and the peaceful resolution of conflicts. He is president of the Consell Català de Foment de la Pau (Catalan Council for the Promotion of Peace) and member of several networks and global campaigns for disarmament: Control Arms Campaign, International Network on Small Arms and Cluster Munitions Coalition. He was a member of the Steering Committee of the International Peace Bureau. In relation to the Basque Country, he is one of the 50 signatories in the Spanish state calling to respect the Brussels Declaration and was founder and spokesman for the Comitè Català de Suport a la Conferència de Pau per al País Basc (Catalan Support Committee of the Peace Conference for the Basque Country) in 2002.

Catalan International View



Opinion

The expectations and needs arising from the new political situation in the Basque Country

by Pernando Barrena*

The Spanish general election of November 2011 outlined a political landscape that few could have foreseen barely a year ago. The municipal and provincial elections in May last year also demonstrated that something which once seemed impossible is now a reality: those on the left who want sovereignty and independence are leading the struggle in the polls, as has been demonstrated in the two last elections.

The new political situation is not easily understood without paying attention to the evolution of the political positions of the Izquierda Abertzale (IA, the Basque Nationalist Left), particularly over the last two years. The IA has unilaterally chosen an important political path where opting for the democratic process is only the starting point, a deliberate choice which is itself the outcome of a strategic political debate. We could say, therefore, that the IA has taken the steps it considered appropriate from an entirely unilateral position and as the result of its own convictions, in order to acquire an effective strategy for moving towards achieving statehood for the Basques. The unilateral aspect is essential to understanding the development of events and is itself the best possible guarantee of the irreversibility of the decisions which have so far been taken. The outcome of the debate within the IA is a fundamental commitment to exclusively 

Catalan International View

political, peaceful and democratic means and moreover, to the accumulation of sovereign instruments to overcome the deadlock imposed by the Spanish state.

We could say that in this political phase marked by gaining the right to decide, it is mainly Basque society which supports the right to self-determination as the engine of political change. The IA therefore decided to place their trust in the Basque social majority and commit itself to expressing itself both politically and electorally.

Following the Donostia Peace Conference and ETA’s announcement of an end to their armed activities, a new political scene has emerged, characterized by the need for the implementation of a peace process and political normalization, with also the start of steps being taken towards building a democratic landscape through dialogue and negotiation in the search for an inclusive arrangement.

Opinion

As I see it, if both objectives respond to requirements outlined in the Aiete Declaration (the Donostia Peace Conference) roadmap, which outlined the implementation of measures to end the consequences of an armed conflict which we as a country have suffered for too long, then they are imperative in that they relate to situations of a vital nature. Firstly, there is the need to put an end to a prison policy that has little to do with the application of the existing legislation. For over 20 years, political objectives have twisted the application of the prison code in terms of the implementation of emergency measures and reductions in basic individual and civil liberties. Now is the time to end the geographical dispersal of Basque political prisoners, to repatriate them and to take steps towards their release.

Second, it is necessary to implement a scheme to deal with the victims

of the conflict based on a collective commitment to reparation, recognition, truth and memory, taking into account all the victims of the past 50 years. It should avoid differentiating between them according to their ideological affiliation and should attempt to lay the groundwork for the future coexistence that the Basque society so desperately needs.

The Comb of the Wind (1977)

by Eduardo Chillida

The outcome of the debate within the Basque nationalist left is a fundamental commitment to exclusively political, peaceful and democratic means Futhermore, the legalization of all political options is long overdue and can no longer wait. The Constitutional Court should rule in favour of Sortu being added to the Register of Political Parties as the beginning of the deCatalan International View



Opinion

activation of repressive policies against the free flow of ideas, and the cessation of judicial processes which criminalize legitimate political work and that impedes the full participation of all political options.

The commitment by the Basque social majority in favour of self-determination to electoral and political articulation through Bildu and Amaiur presents significant challenges in the short to medium term The end of ETA’s activity has highlighted the existence of a political conflict that predates the existence of the armed organization. One could say that a denial by the Spanish and French states of the existence of the Basque nation and that this should also be subject to the right to decide, is now an objective reality; this and nothing else highlights the existence of a political dispute, the resolution of which must be addressed by Basque political and social agents through dialogue.

Therefore Basque society, through its political, social and institutional agents, must stand as the essential and crucial subject of the resolution process and the new phase of social and political change which it involves.

The commitment by the Basque majority in favour of self-determination to electoral and political articulation through Bildu and Amaiur presents significant challenges in the short to medium term. More so when it comes to political alliances that make them the dominant parties in terms of the number of council seats held (Bildu) or of having the highest number of elected members in Madrid (Amaiur).

It is evident that the positive results obtained by both electoral alliances are also due to factors that go beyond their pro-independence, left-wing appeal; 

Catalan International View

what has also played an important role is the social perception that it is the IA who has most worked for the implementation of a peace process and solutions and which has taken the decisions that have begun a new political period.

However, we must not forget that in the context of the widespread loss of confidence in the political class, Bildu’s proposals have been seen by a large portion of the Basque people as a new, unconventional way of doing politics as an alternative public, participatory and democratic form of governance. The challenge, therefore, lies in learning to live up to the requirements of Basque voters based on this content.

The temptation still exists for the PP and the PSOE to continue with their obstructive strategy. Our position is that they are trying to articulate a discourse against any movement in relation to ETA prisoners, once more raising the ghost of the illegalisation of

Opinion

political groups or a flat out refusal to talk to ETA about disarmament. They know the majority of Basque society is calling for the implementation of a political dialogue to bring about a resolution, which means a respect for the right to exist and to decide and that this dynamic is unstoppable because it enjoys widespread social support. It is likely that the latest attempt by the state’s most reactionary sectors involves a failure to address the consequences of conflict (prisoners, legalization, and so on) in order to complicate matters as much as possible and impede the formal start of political dialogue. Therefore, the IA will require a great deal of patience and will need to continue to do its political work in the way that it has

done to date. It needs to continue to progress in building social support in favour of the right to decide. The challenge is that the country as a whole is increasingly in support of the national and social rights of the Basque people; it is the only possible way to overcome the flood of Spanish imposition.

Meanwhile, it seems that some people insist on sowing in barren soil, to continue with their unique version of events, with only one type of victim, in short the speech of victory and humiliation, the very same as was imposed on the Republican side following the war of 1936 which left wounds which even today go unhealed. The IA is not going to fall into the trap of those who wish to depict our unilateral decision and our initiatives in terms of the ‘victors’ and the ‘defeated’ or the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. We are very clear on what we are doing and we will defend this decision with conviction, the reasons behind our political history and the progress made in the Basque people’s struggle for the recognition of Euskal Herria (the Basque Country) and our civil and political rights. We are where we are because we have been able to endorse policies which shape our traditional strategy and adopt tactics and tools to adapt to a new phase of political confrontation and the accumulation of power in terms of democratic processes and a national democratic revolution. The IA therefore calls for a single winner of this process that can be none other than the Basque people themselves, who through political struggle and democratic means will achieve their status by joining the free nations of Europe.

International Conference to Promote the Resolution of the Conflict in the Basque Country (Donostia, October 2011)

*Pernando Barrena Promoter of Amaiur.

Catalan International View



Green Debate

Waste: from rubbish to riches

by Pere Torres*

One oft-neglected characteristic of industrial society is its extraordinary capacity to generate waste. If we consider one of the global regions with the highest degree of environmental awareness, the European Union before its expansion towards the east (the so-called EU-15), per capita urban waste increased by 54% between 1980 and 2005 (European Commission DG ENV News Alert Issue, 203, July 2010).

This is recent data, but the phenomenon is not a new one. Although it gathered momentum during the second half of the twentieth century, its origins can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution. In 1996 a Swiss researcher, Peter Baccini, published a comparative study of the central region of his country: in 1800 a rural inhabitant generated 100 kg of solid waste per year, while in 1990 an urban inhabitant generated 20 times that figure.

Our economic growth has gone hand in hand with an increase in waste. Many different causes combine, but there are apparent three major ones. Firstly there is the proliferation of consumer goods, which are constantly updated. The sheer quantity of material possessions and their diversity would probably be the most visible difference if we were to put a pre-industrial family and a presentday family side by side. Supplying these possessions requires an increasing transformation of raw materials, a process which produces waste at every stage: extraction, manufacture, distribution, use... if we also take into account that many of these products have a limited lifespan 

Catalan International View

since new versions are launched before the previous model has expired, we can see why an increase in income has led to an increase in the amount of waste that is generated.

Secondly there is the fact that waste is free. An indirect incentive to create these mountains of garbage has been the fact that for too long (and in many instances it is still the case), waste was dumped and abandoned in an uncontrolled manner. No one spent the money necessary to contain the waste properly to mitigate its impact on the environment, people’s health and the landscape. Indeed, one of the main reasons why many businesses have relocated in recent decades has been the low cost of waste management in certain countries which in this regard are extremely lax in terms of regulations and inspections.

If producing waste is free, why worry about reducing it?

Thirdly, there is the social belief that to make use of everything makes one poor. Finally we must not ignore an element which has a lot to do with our personal characteristics, the need for ostentation. We wish to display a

Green Debate

certain status to others and this won’t be achieved if our artificial accessories (clothes, electronics, our car, etc.) are old, outdated, or have been repaired to extend their lives. We should remember that for a time, a range of disposable products was all the rage and they were seen as the last word in modernity.

Technology, economics and sociology have come together, therefore, in order to ensure that the quantity of waste continues to rise, seemingly without end. Nor is this problem limited to the developed nations. Waste has become a global phenomenon.

Take China, for example, the emerging economy par excellence. According to a World Bank report of May 2005 (Waste Management in China: issues and recommendations), the 190 million tons of municipal waste produced by urban areas in 2004 is predicted to rise to 480 million tons in 2030. It will grow two and half times in 25 years. There are enormous problems associated with properly managing not only the huge amount of existing waste, but also keeping pace with its alarming growth rate.

Technology, economics and sociology have come together, therefore, in order to ensure that the quantity of waste continues to rise In addition, not all waste is locally produced. As shown in a report published by Time magazine (8th January 2009), the Chinese city of Guiyu is the recipient of large quantities of electronic waste from around the world in order to recycle the more valuable materials. However, the conditions under which these operations are carried out do not safeguard the health of workers and local residents.

As we move away from emerging and developed countries, the situation deteriorates rapidly. It appears as if the Catalan International View



Green Debate

time has come for change, to alter the focus of the problem, and to adopt a new course.

The course may well be new but the ideas have been circulating for some time. The change that must come about is not, therefore, conceptual but factual: it is time to move from theory to practice. Nevertheless, it is worth briefly mentioning the theory. The aim is to develop a resource-efficient economy.

The World Resources Forum, held between the 19th and the 21st of September 2011 in Davos (Switzerland), outlined some basic ideas on the issue: • Higher productivity in the use of resources, a key driver of future economic development, takes place when the use of resources and the generation of waste or pollutants are taxed, rather than taxing work.

• Information as to the environmental impact of a product should inform consumers’ purchasing decisions.

• It is possible to improve the efficiency of the use of resources by a factor of at least 2 and, in some cases by a factor of 50 if the necessary incentives are in place, in order that technology advances in the right direction.

It appears as if the time has come for change, to alter the focus of the problem, and to adopt a new course In short, it is a case of penalising waste and encouraging good practice through the application of fiscal measures, transparency and innovation. This ‘carrot and stick’ approach should take place in at least two processes: design and the turnover of the economy.

Design is key. Products which are the most efficient in the use of resources are those which are conceived with this factor in mind. The alternative is what is known as ecodesign. It is a design 

Catalan International View

process that incorporates a number of principles: the need to minimize the use of raw materials, water and energy; which favours the use of renewable energy above fossil fuels; which facilitates the post-use separation of components for recycling, which excludes the use of toxic substances and which facilitates the easy repair or replacement of spare parts.

I repeat that ecodesign is the key.

Nevertheless, by its very nature its effects are not instantaneous. A design review of all existing products can’t be done overnight. As a result another element becomes relevant. We need the economy to become more circular. This means that the conventional view of raw materials-product-waste needs to be replaced by a more sustainable vision of raw materials-product-resources, in which resources become new raw materials, or what are known as secondary raw materials.

This more circular economy is inspired by the old maxim of the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) while taking it from an individualist view of environmental protection to a conception of an economic model aimed at providing profit (including those of an environmental nature, of course). In short, what is required is: - A immense capacity for waste management in order to extract the various materials to a high standard and in a competitive manner with respect to virgin raw materials.

- A wide variety of mechanisms to take advantage of these materials, either in conventional industry, or in the generation of new products.

In part, the famous green economy is based on this new economic activity.

In fact, this transformation is already underway and some countries chose to support responsible waste management some years ago. They began with a commercial advantage, since they were

Green Debate

able to create a production base in this area which has the ability to take the lead and go international.

Take the case of Catalonia. In 1993 parliament passed a law introducing a new model of waste management, both conceptually and practically, in line with the EU’s thoughts on the subject and of the leading countries in this field. The introduction of the law allowed for the closure of hundreds of uncontrolled landfills, the professionalization and improvements in the image of companies in the sector, the promotion of waste separation at the point of collection, technological innovation and ultimately the establishment of a small but noticeable sector of companies which cover all facets of waste management.

Currently, Catalonia is home to waste collection and treatment companies, consulting and engineering companies, companies which design and build equipment and installations, analysis and certification companies... and its market has gone from being local, Catalonia itself, to having a significant presence in the Spanish market and entering into the international arena.

Some of these companies are sufficiently large to invest in and try to win contracts in other countries and, indeed, there have been some real success stories in this regard. Many others, however, are smaller and they need to join together in order to achieve the critical mass necessary for their effective internationalization. Collaborative public-private partnerships could serve to help overcome this handicap.

Whatever happens, their current and future potential is undeniable and

they are proof of the success that can come from making a firm commitment to and investing in the green economy.

Thus, a marginal sector, little appreciated since it deals with the waste which nobody wants, has become a key sector by employing its know-how in dealing with shortages of resources which are steadily rising in price. It is a path which has been taken many times in the course of environmentalism, from social exclusion and scepticism to becoming a central concern of great interest. We should learn how to omit the first stage and move directly to the second. *Pere Torres

Biologist and environmental consultant. After some time spent on research (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), he joined the Government of Catalonia in 1991. He was in turn secretary of the Catalan Inter-university Council (1991-1993), Head of the Environment Minister’s staff (1993-1995), general director of Environmental Planning (1995-2000) and secretary for Regional Planning (2000-2003). Since 2004 he has carried out consultancy work in public management, sustainability and land use planning and has been a regular contributor to the International Institute for Governability and the Institut Cerdà.

Catalan International View



Science and Technology

From Ictineu I to Ictineu 3: 150 years of contributions to underwater technology

by Pere Forès and Carme Parareda*

In 2004 a team of engineers and designers decided to build a manned scientific submarine named Ictineu 3 as a tribute to Narcís Monturiol, the Catalan inventor of the submarine. It is a modern submarine, designed and built with cutting-edge technology, incorporating innovations with respect to the rest of modern submarines in terms of design, construction materials, and in particular its energy system. In keeping with all submarines since 1891, Ictineu 3 includes the basic elements already established by Monturiol in order to solve key problems: a double hull, a CO2 treatment device and buoyancy control systems. As with Ictineu I and II, Ictineu 3 has also been made by the people for the people, always counting on the support and collaboration of the wider society.

[1] Pascual Deop, Engineer, foreword to Ensayo sobre el arte de navegar por debajo del agua, Narcís Monturiol 1891.



The Ictineu 3 project was born in 2004 as the result of numerous factors: Firstly were the concerns Pere Forès raised in relation to manned submarines. His initial tests in this area began when he was only eleven years old. Second there was the unfortunate incident involving the oil tanker Prestige, which highlighted the state’s lack of resources for intervening under the sea. Thirdly, there was a trip to the Azores which led to the fortuitous meeting of two underwater vehicles and four enthusiasts, lovers of both the sea and technology.

These were sufficient reasons for us to decide we wanted to build a civilian submarine, put it in the service of the nation and begin a new industrial sector which would generate wealth and knowledge. Since 2009 marked the 150th anniversary of the launch of Monturiol’s first Ictineu, we thought we would name the project Ictineu 3 in his honour. Currently we are just a few months from finishing the construction work and the beginning of sea trials.

Catalan International View

Hopefully our first dives will begin in spring 2012.

Some historical background

Narcís Monturiol was born in Figueres in 1819. He was a versatile man who excelled in the field of politics, humanism, the struggle for social rights, and as an inventor. It was to be in the latter field where he was to play a key role in the history of underwater exploration and navigation since he solved major problems and laid the foundations of modern submarine technology. Furthermore, he did so, ‘without the least precedent that could be taken as a starting point’. His book Assaig sobre l’Art de Navegar per Dessota de l’Aigua1 (An Essay on the Art of Underwater Navigation), first published in 1891, was the starting point for the development of modern, functional submarines which currently operate all over the world.

It received a certain degree of public acknowledgment, such as from Isaac Peral and the German Navy. The latter

Science and Technology

created its submarine force in 1905 using Monturiol’s essay as a key technical reference. Monturiol established key concepts such as a double hull (with one hull to resist the high pressure and an exterior hull to provide the hydrodynamic shape and protect the equipment between the two hulls), systems to deal with excess CO2 and produce oxygen for the air which is breathed on board, the buoyancy control systems based on diving tanks on the outside and buoyancy tanks on the inside, and security and emergency systems. It was to take 100 years for some of these concepts to be used again, for example in producing the definitive form of military submarines (USS Albacore 1959).

The first Ictineu was launched in the port of Barcelona in 18592. The prototype submarine was 7 meters in length, made entirely from wood and shaped like a fish. Monturiol made 69 dives during which he amassed a wealth of technical and scientific information that formed the basis of the design and

construction of the Ictineu II. His second submarine was 17m long, made 19 dives and included a double engine, an innovation which was not to reappear until 30 years later. This ingenious submarine engine, which ran on manganese peroxide, was not used again until 1933 in an experimental submarine which managed to travel four times faster than existing submarines.

In short, Monturiol was a pioneer who developed his project using modern methodology, employing techniques which are currently used on technological and scientific projects.

Ictineu 3’s contributions to recent developments in underwater technology

While Ictineu 3 is intended to pay homage to Monturiol, it is by no means a replica of the first Ictineus of the nineteenth century. On the contrary, it is a modern, highly competitive submarine, which incorporates cutting-edge technologies in terms of the materials used Catalan International View

[2] Stewart M., ‘Monturiol’s Dream’, 2003, Pantheon Books.



Science and Technology

The forerunner: the first model submarine, Ictineu I, designed and built by Narcís Monturiol in 1859

for its construction, its instrumentation and its energy systems. It can be adapted to suit any task. Ictineu 3 incorporates innovations that make it more competitive with respect to other submarines that are currently on the market, and offers a new concept in the form of a highly automated underwater vehicle.

The Ictineu 3 is designed to operate at a maximum depth of 1,200 meters, manned by a pilot and two passengers The Ictineu 3 is designed to operate at a maximum depth of 1,200 meters, manned by a pilot and two passengers.

It will be the ninth deepest submarine in the world and the first to incorporate a large acrylic window (1.5 m in diameter) at a depth exceeding 1000m.

It will be certified and classed by Germanisher Lloyd according to the highest standards of quality and safety.

The Ictineu 3 incorporates numerous innovations that make it a cuttingedge tool for underwater observation and intervention. These include: innovations in stainless-steel materials and design for an unparalleled volume to 

Catalan International View

weight ratio; for the first time composites will be used as structural material; it will incorporate the first certified, pressure-tolerant lithium-ion polymer battery system for high energy capacity; and it includes improvements in the design and ergonomics of workclass submersibles. All of these developments were created by and belong to ICTINEU Submarins SL (Ltd.).

These innovations enable the Ictineu 3 to have features and capabilities which are far superior to most civilian submarines. It is also very versatile, making it suitable both as a scientific, work-class submarine, and for filming or for recreational use: weighing less than 5500 kg it is lightweight and can be easily operated from most research vessels; its reduced size means it can be easily transported to its work place (it fits in a 20’ open top container); passengers can enter/exit from the surface of the water; it has a high power capacity, so it is able to work its thrusters, lights and instrumentation simultaneously, while also being able to travel up to 20 nautical miles underwater; it has the capacity and facilities for customers to attach whichever sensor or instrument they require as well as providing a wide field of view for photography and video recording. Last but not least, it allows for long dives in excellent comfort, something not normally found on most work-class subs.

Catalonia’s industrial sector and the future

Catalonia is an industrial nation which began its industrial revolution in the eighteenth century and which has always been noted for its enormous ability to innovate. Its industrial sector has constantly evolved and adapted, even making advances to face new technological challenges. It is only when we take into account this heritage and tra-

Science and Technology

dition, and the extent of the industrial sector, which includes all areas, that we can appreciate the gestation and development of a project of the scale of Ictineu 3 in Catalonia.

While it is true that neither Catalonia nor Spain have an established underwater technology industry, at present there are several universities developing advanced submarine technology, and several research centres in marine sciences. To these can be added various shipyards and engineering workshops with the capacity to carry out projects of this kind. The Ictineu 3 has been an opportunity for many of these companies to break into the industry. All the design work, the calculations and systems engineering was done entirely in Catalonia, in collaboration with engineering companies that have shown a great capacity for innovation, research, and the ability to meet new challenges.

The launch of Ictineu 3 will place Catalonia as sixth in the world in terms of its ability to investigate and operate on the seabed, with this project of great strategic importance in a country with a strong maritime tradition. These agents mean Catalonia has the industrial, scientific and technological base that is sufficient to open up a new industrial sector for the country. One with a great capacity for growth and with high value-added factors that could help the country overcome the recession. We are referring to a sector with strong growth at the international level that in 2008 had a global turnover of some €29 billion which, thanks to high levels of growth, should have reached 46 billion in 2011. In countries like the UK the industry is well established and shows a 30% annual growth rate3.

and to this end it proposes some challenges for the future which are also a vision of the environment in which it wants to develop: To contribute to a better understanding of the seas and oceans. To provide new data and knowledge to help us understand the mechanisms behind their complex ecosystems, to improve their management and exploitation, and ultimately to improve the coexistence between humans and this great unknown world.

To contribute to the development of our industrial fabric, marine technologies and the tools for understanding and exploring. To generate knowledge and share it with society. To create synergy between industry, the academic world and research centres.

To contribute to the country’s growth: by generating knowledge and work we create wealth and prosperity.

[3] Underwater Contractor International, March/ April 2008 p. 5

Future goals and visions

As a company, ICTINEU Submarins SL wants to be a leader in this sector, Catalan International View



Science and Technology

Each and every day we make every effort to achieve these aims

Of the €2.5 million the project costs,

by November 2011 €1.808 million had already been invested in R&D and construction costs. €1.96 million has been collected in total, with 13% coming from public subsidies, 53% from loans, 28% from private equity, 4% from sales and 2% from donations.

The Ictineu 3 is just a few months away from completion, but lacks €200,000 in funding. A crowdfunding campaign has therefore been launched, calling on society as a whole that has always supported it, since the project was born and grew out of the selfless collabora-

tion of many people: members of the public, academics and business people.

Everyone motivated by the sea, science and technology, culture and our nation.

They have ranged from volunteers who have contributed their labour to contributions of money or material. Everyone does their bit, to the best of their ability to create a submarine made by the people, for the people.

ICTINEU Submarins SL is a member of the Catalan Society of Technology, a subsidiary of the Institute of Catalan Studies and founding member of the Catalan Maritime Cluster.

*Carme Parareda Works in surveying engineering. Co-founder, administrator and director of operations of ICTINEU Submarins SL. She is a member of the Catalan Maritime Cluster and Secretary of the Ictineu Institute Association, the Catalan Submarine Research Centre where she organised ‘Monturiol Year’ (2009). Between 2007 and 2009 she coordinated the Argo Maris Foundation, which monitors the sea. She worked in the service of the Cartographic Institute of Catalonia for 15 years in the field of geodesy, positioning accuracy and GPS navigation techniques. A traveller who loves adventure sports and mountaineering, she has also sailed across the Atlantic twice. She co-wrote L’Atlàntic a quatre mans (Two-Handed Across The Atlantic).

*Pere Forès Industrial Designer. Co-founder, administrator and director of ICTINEU Submarins SL. He has worked as an industrial designer, model maker, modeller, and after studying naval design has worked in the construction of recreational sailing and racing vessels for 15 years. He specializes in construction materials and processes involving composites. He has designed and built two boats, crossing the Atlantic twice with one of them. He worked for a time on the autonomous submarine Lula belonging to the Rebikoff-Niggeler Foundation in the Azores, Portugal. He cowrote L’Atlàntic a quatre mans.



Catalan International View

Catalan International View



A Short Story from History Curated by Manuel Manonelles

The Barcelona Conference and the Codification of Road Signalling

Inaugural Conference, Barcelona 1921 (Saló de Cent)



The International Conference on Communications and Transit was held in Barcelona from 10th March to 21st April 1921. It was the first international technical conference organised by the League of Nations, the institution having been established shortly before in 1919, at the behest of President Woodrow Wilson in the context of the Treaties of Versailles that ended the World War One.

Catalan International View

The conference brought to Barcelona representatives and delegates from almost every country, some fifty of them, in a world still dominated by colonial empires. Even the recently defeated Germany, at that time still not a member of the League, was allowed to fully participate in the debates. The United States, however, ultimately failed to attend, due to a totally noninterventionist Congress that rejected

any engagement with the activities of the League.

In spite of the absence of the US, the Conference was a success, resulting in a series of treaties and declarations known as the ‘Barcelona Conventions’.

Highlights included the ‘Barcelona Convention and Statute on Freedom of Transit’ and the ‘Barcelona Convention and Statute on the Regime of Navigable Waterways of International Concern’. Some of them are still in force today, either wholly or partially.

Another outcome was the creation of the Communications and Transit Organisation within the institutional framework of the League. From its inception until its disappearance together with the League itself due to the World War Two, the Organisation promoted two other main conferences (Geneva 1923 and Lisbon 1930) working on issues such as the international regime of maritime ports and railways, the simplification of passport and visa procedures, the regulation of the passage of commercial and touring motorcars and the transmission of electric power across national frontiers. In particular it looked into the areas of the unification of maritime signals and international road traffic. In fact, the Convention on the Unification of Road Signals was signed in 1931 thanks to the work of this organisation. Therefore, without fear of exageration, one could even say that international road signalling was born in Barcelona.

The meetings of the numerous commissions, the offices and all the technical support were hosted at the Palau de la Generalitat, the palace that has hosted the Catalan Government since the 14th century in Barcelona’s Sant Jaume square. The plenary sessions, including the opening and closing ceremonies, were held at the Saló de Cent the most

magnificent room in the Town Hall, immeditely opposite in the same square.

Local authorities, especially those from the Mancomunitat and the Municipality, treated the delegates magnificently: lavishing them with presents, gala luncheons and dinners, visits to the surroundings of Barcelona and so on. They even organised a soirée for them at the renowned Liceu Opera house. Indeed the Conference was a booster for Barcelona society, with diplomats, journalists and international staff filling up hotels and moving around the city. Meanwhile, the Spanish authorities kept a very low profile, for which they were harshly criticised by the press.

The Conference brought to Barcelona representatives and delegates from almost every country, some fifty of them, in a world still dominated by colonial empires On a more biographical level a careful analysis of the list of the delegates that were present in Barcelona is very instructive, in the sense that it is an excellent portrait of the unfolding drama of the 20th century. From young diplomats of the newly born Baltic Republics who were to end their lives in exile; to a British legal advisor who in the late 1940s was to be in charge of establishing the jurisdictional basis of the Nuremberg trials. From an elderly French politician and historian (involved in the Dreyfus affair) ending a long-standing career, to an Italian delegate participating in one of his first international missions. He later became Mussolini’s ambassador in Berlin and was consequently able to prevent an old friend from Barcelona from being sent to a concentration camp by the Gestapo.

Catalan International View



The Artist



Catalan International View

The Artist

Josep Cisquella In an age marked by an increasingly direct, instantaneous and provocative visual culture, Cisquella’s work plunges the act of contemplation into crisis and introduces a criticism of the mechanics of the cognitive process. His scenography confronts the viewer with the instability of the limits of the pure, physical act of perceiving until being trapped by the trickery of an impenetrable screen of vision.

Thus he questions the sense of the images that surround us and reflects on the need to go beyond appearances in order to detect the pitfalls of reality. In this way he contributes to the erosion of the certainty of the image, plays with the instability of the gaze and asks what the experience of seeing means. All his work moves in an interplay of polarities which reflect the dualities of today’s society: natural-artificial, light-dark, private-public, real-virtual, past-present, nature-culture, reality-representation; a binary terrain in which the viewer actively intervenes, trying to position themselves through their participation.

Finally, upon inspecting his work we discover that there is a Cisquella for visualisation, a Cisquella for touch, also a Cisquella for ideas and another for feelings; he is an artist who imbues his materials with a new materiality which bids us to look, to think, to touch and to feel. His is a painting of vacancy and memories; an aesthetic experience which demands the re-education of the act of apprehending, far from the instant vision that characterises our connected society and the velocity and superficiality that is so often associated with it.

His works speak for themselves; they need no written justification, nor even explanations. Art has to be capable of awakening the imagination, that creative capacity of the mind that enables us to live other worlds.

Cisquella’s art opens the doors to other universes and allows us to pass through them to gain new impressions.

Conxita Oliver Member of the Catalan Association of Art Critics

Espai Volart will hold Josep Cisquella’s exhibition ‘Es prega tocar’ (Please Touch) from the 19th January to the 1st April 2012.

Espai Volart Carrer Ausiàs Marc, 22 08010 Barcelona Tel. 93 481 79 85 Fax. 93 481 79 84 espaivolart@fundaciovilacasas.com Catalan International View



A Poem Curated by Enric Bou Chair in Hispanic Studies, Brown University (Providence)

Passing-shot Joan Vinyoli Well installed on a Raised stand of sterile dreams That are frayed and patternless In contrast to the daily game On the rolled red court Where, at each stroke, The furious balls that my adversaries unleash Bounce sharply, I, like a mad thing, now at the base-line, Now at the net, try to run, To drive, to bend, to stretch up, Never flexible enough, Never strong enough, never in time To return the passing shots that come At me every second.

I know full well that I have Lost the match, that I shall gain nothing From the brief moments of respite Between games, From the damp towel To dab the brow, the glass Of tonic water or tea —There is no point in thinking about doping, It is too late for that now.

So now I say: what is To be done with the rest of my life, Too worn out, too useless To keep playing?

I know: right until The very last I’ll go stumbling and blundering through, not knowing how, Or not being brave enough, to call it a day Without protest or complaint.

Up I go again On to my little platform Of dreams, more and More fragile, always on the verge Of collapse and of waking up Completely.



Catalan International View

Passing-shot Joan Vinyoli Instal·lat ja de temps en una plataforma de somnis estèrils, desfibrats, sense un ordit, per contrast amb el joc de cada dia a la pista vermella, piconada, on reboten duríssimes a cada cop les pilotes de fúria que em llancen els contraris, com un boig, ara al fons, ara a la xarxa, intento córrer, saltar, ajupir-me, redreçar-me, ¡mai prou flexible, mai prou fort, mai a temps a tornar els passing-shots que em tiren ¡a cada instant.

Sé prou que tinc perduda la partida, que de res no serveixen els breus moments de descans entre joc i joc, la tovallola humida que et mulla el front, el vas de tònica o de te —no cal pensar en el doping, que per això ja és tard.

Ara jo dic: què fer de la resta de vida que em queda, massa gastada, massa inútil per seguir el joc?

M’ho sé: fins a l’últim dia de tots aniré mal corrent, mal caient, no sabent o no tenint valor per acabar sense un crit ni una queixa.

M’instal·lo novament a la petita plataforma dels somnis, cada cop més fràgil, sempre a punt de caure i despertar-me del tot.

From the book ‘Homage to Joan Gili on His Eightieth Birthday: Forty Modern Catalan Poems’. Chosen and introduced by Arthur Terry. With English Prose Translations by Members of The Anglo-Catalan Society (1987).

Joan Vinyoli (Barcelona 1914 - 1984) started writing poetry as a response to a maxim by Rilke: ‘Poetry is not a matter of feelings but of experiences’. Author of more than fifteen books of poetry, he won the prestigious Óssa Menor prize in 1951 with Les hores retrobades, and became critically acclaimed after publishing Tot és ara i res in 1970. His latest book, Passeig d’aniversari (1984), received many prizes. Following the example of Carles Riba, Vinyoli conceived poetry as a tool for questioning and understanding oneself and as a way to live a greater life. One of his central themes is the polarization between the consciousness of death, love and nature, and poetry’s magic and transcendental dimension.

Catalan International View



Universal Catalans

The Universality of

Antoni Gaudí

by Daniel Giralt-Miracle*

Although seven of Gaudí’s works have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites and while his buildings are the most visited examples of our Catalan historical-artistic heritage, it has taken almost a century for him to take the place he deserves in the history of art and architecture.

In fact, very few of Gaudí’s contemporaries appeared convinced of the greatness of his creations. In general, the press, the working classes and broad sectors of the bourgeoisie of his time disagreed with his proposals, which they regarded as an arbitrary and unnecessary waste of forms. In addition, modernists saw him as an oddity, since they realized that technically, constructively and artistically his architecture was unique. Meanwhile, the noucentistes declared themselves to be utterly opposed to Gaudí’s eloquence although they chose to take advantage of his fertile technical ingenuity, his prodigious geometrical capacity and the audacity of his construction techniques.

Thus, in spite of numerous intents to publicly reinstate Gaudí on behalf of his disciples and admirers, the first successful symptom of this recovery did not ultimately appear until after the Civil War. It was initiated by the Associació Amics de Gaudí [Friends of Gaudí Association], created in 1952 with the aim of celebrating the centenary of Gaudí’s birth and the promotion, dissemination and appreciation of his work. It was to be successful, not simply due to the group’s own efforts but also thanks to the actions it inspired. 

Catalan International View

Internationally, Gaudí’s acceptance can also be dated to the second half of the twentieth century. Clearly there are notable exceptions such as Le Corbusier’s visit to Barcelona in 1928 and the article Dalí published in 1933 in the journal Minotaure accompanied by photographs by Man Ray, where the artist exalts the authentically surreal, ‘convulsive, edible, soft and natural beauty’ of Gaudí’s architecture. Nevertheless, one could say that in terms of modern architecture Gaudí and his work were underestimated until the end of World War II, when the academic world and the world of photography brought it to the attention of a wider public. Josep Lluís Sert was to be the first champion of the value and significance of Gaudí’s work and its groundbreaking nature. He never failed to praise Gaudí, whether in GATCPAC’s magazine AC, or at CIAM congresses.

In 1958 Sert suggested to Henry-Russell Hitchcock that MOMA’s department of architecture should hold an exhibition in the architect’s honour, and in 1960 he co-authored a book on Gaudí with James Johnson Sweeney, the then director of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Sert was joined in his vindication of Gaudí by Bruno

Universal Catalans

Zevi in his books devoted to organicism and in particular his Saper vedere l’architettura ‘Know How to See Architecture’ (1948). Later came works

by Leonardo Benevolo (1960), Peter Collins (1965) and Nikolaus Pevsner (1968), who until then had ignored the Catalan architect. Such exposure subsequently greatly helped spread an appreciation of Gaudí’s architectural work in the literary world with ‘The Religious and Artistic Life of Gaudí’,

by Robert Descharnes, with photographs by Clovis Prévost, published

in French and Spanish (1969) with a foreword by Salvador Dalí, Tokutoshi Tori’s exhaustive study ‘Gaudí’ (1983), Joan Bassegoda Nonell’s ‘El gran Gaudí’ (1989) and Rainer Zerbst’s ‘Antoni Gaudí’ (1991) published by Taschen in several languages. These have been followed by numerous publications, some of a more technical nature and others more related to aspects of sightseeing, since the closing years of the twentieth century saw a boom in all things Gaudí which would forever link the architect and his work to tourism.

Catalan International View



Universal Catalans

Gaudí’s origins and evolution

Gaudí was born in 1852 in Reus, at the time Catalonia’s second largest city, while Gaudí’s father came from the small town of Riudoms, where as a child Gaudí spent long periods due to his poor health. As a result, the entire surroundings of the area of Tarragona (its geology, flora, fauna, customs, rural and religious buildings and so on) exerted a strong influence on the ideas of the future architect. But what most marked his personality in the formal and constructive sense was his father’s trade as a boilermaker. Gaudí often watched him shape copper plates with a hammer in order to create the closed containers that served to distil alcohol.

Such an experience was undoubtedly decisive in his ability to see and understand surfaces, and in arousing an interest in the geometry of space, something to which he devoted special attention as a student at the School of Architecture and later in his work as a professional architect.

Gaudí spent a total of 43 years working on the Sagrada Familia: for the last 14 years of his life he worked on nothing else In 1878 with his degree in his hand, Gaudí began his career with intense activity in the field of design, making plans for tables, lamps and cabinets and designs for shops. He also collaborated with renowned architects such as Francisco P. del Villar and Joan Martorell until 1883 with the inauguration of the bleaching room at the Mataronense Workers Cooperative, one of the first cooperatives in the Spanish state. After this work, other buildings followed such as the summer retreats Casa Vicens (1883-1888) in Gràcia which at the time was a village, and Comillas’ El 

Catalan International View

Capricho (1883-1885). Then came the pavilions (1884-1887) on the estate of the man who was to become Gaudí’s patron, Eusebi Guell in the village of Les Corts, and Palau Güell (18861888), which was intended as the Güell family home in Barcelona. Other works included the Episcopal Palace in Astorga (1887-1893), the Casa de los Botines in Leon (1891-1892), Bellesguard Tower (1900-1909) and the Teresianes College in Barcelona (1888-1889). All of these works spoke Gaudí’s unique language, even though the architect was still refining it.

Gaudí’s personality truly came to life in the Casa Calvet (1898-1899), located right in the heart of Barcelona’s Eixample. It earned him the City Council’s prize for the best apartment building (1900) and initiated a new phase of Gaudí’s career associated with urban civil architecture. First there came Casa Batlló (1904-1906), which was a radical step forward in its definition of urban architecture, both with regard to the distribution of interior spaces and in the treatment of their facades and the function of interior courtyards. Second came La Pedrera, where the architect challenged the grid layout that is characteristic of the Cerdà Plan by designing a building with sinuous walls distinguished by the asymmetric distribution of windows, balconies and wrought iron railings. It is topped by a crest which also forms a wave, home to an attic of parabolic arches on which rests a spectacular multi-levelled rooftop housing in its unique enclosures the stair wells and water deposits.

These were three of Gaudí’s emblematic proposals, but we must not forget two other exceptional projects, both commissioned by Eusebi Güell: Güell Park (1900-1914) in Barcelona and a church (1898-1916) belonging to the industrial colony Gaudí’s employer

Universal Catalans

was building in Santa Coloma de Cervelló. Although Gaudí was unable to finish them for financial reasons, these two projects are far from ordinary, the first because it was a 15,000 hectare garden city inspired by the first European garden cities, for which Gaudí had to provide all the necessary services, and the second because the crypt, the only part of the church Gaudí was able to build, is a complex, unusual build-

ing, which reflects the architect’s formal and technical approach, a way of working which was taken to its logical conclusion in the Sagrada Familia.

Gaudí did not become involved in the project himself until he was 31 years old, once the foundations had just been laid. Nevertheless, he dedicated his life to the project until his accidental death in 1926. Gaudí spent a total of 43 years working on the Sagrada Familia: for Catalan International View

Detail from the roof of the Casa Batlló, Barcelona



Universal Catalans

the last 14 years of his life he worked on nothing else.

The most valuable aspect of Gaudi’s language is revealed when we delve into his work, and indeed only then can we appreciate its ultimate meaning and discover the intelligence with which the architect handled the concepts of space and form It is in these works where we discover that behind the apparent complexity of Gaudí’s shapes there is a very clear desire for synthesis which seeks to harmonize mechanical, geometrical, structural and architectural factors.

Gaudí’s multiform, unconventional and daring architecture has been evaluated in many ways, generally from a highly superficial perspective, while the most valuable aspect of his language is revealed when we delve into his work, and indeed only then can we appreciate its ultimate meaning and discover the intelligence with which the architect handled the concepts of space and form.

How to interpret Gaudí’s work

Basically we can identify three lines of analysis of Gaudí’s work: the first and the most common is that which places him in the arena of fable, as an artist

who arbitrarily and subjectively created new forms and applied materials and colours that allowed him to enrich the appearance of his buildings. Following on from this, being much more interesting while also misleading, is the approach that places him in the magical, esoteric realm, relating his bulbous forms to hallucinogenic plants and visions, the product of surreal or supernatural states which under no circumstances should be confused with Gaudí’s genuine religiosity, which lay between traditional spirituality and social renewal. Finally, the third way to interpret Gaudí’s work is to highlight its scientific and technical aspects, which led him to create what Joan Rubió called a ‘new geometry’. Presently, thanks to new technology, this view is arousing more interest among experts, especially now that the central nave of the Sagrada Familia has been covered, in accordance with his plans. This has helped people, especially the ‘non-believers’, to further appreciate the magnificence of Gaudí’s architecture, an architecture that today is appreciated and cherished around the world, as shown by the success enjoyed by the exhibition devoted to him which ended on the 15th January 2012 at the Braccio di Carlo Magno, Vatican City, an exhibition focusing on Gaudí and his crowning achievement, the Sagrada Familia, highlighting the three pillars of his life: art, science and spirituality.

*Daniel Giralt-Miracle (Barcelona, 1944). Studied Philosophy and Humanities at the Universitat de Barcelona, majoring in philosophy. He later extended his studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, graduating in Information Science (which he has gone on to teach), and at the Hochschule für Gestaltung of Ulm (Germany), with a diploma in Design and Communication. He has been a commissioner for over a hundred of art, design and architecture exhibitions, in 2002 he was appointed general curator of the International Gaudí Year, for which he was awarded the National Design Award of the Catalan Government the following year. He is vice-president Emeritus of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and president Emeritus of the Catalan Association of Art Critics (ACCA). He is an associate member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid and the Reial Acadèmia de Belles Arts de Sant Carles in Valencia, academic of the Reial Acadèmia de Ciències i Arts of Barcelona and academic-elect of the Reial Acadèmia de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi of Barcelona. He has been an art critic since 1966.



Catalan International View

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 United States correspondent for TV3 (1987-1990). He has also been an international political commentator. His latest book is Afers no tan estrangers (Not So Foreign Affairs) published by Editorial Mina (part of Grup 62).

Manel Balcells (Ripoll, 1958). Doctor specialising in Orthopaedics, Traumatology and Sports Medicine. Holds a degree in Health Management from EADA, as well as a degree in PADE from IESE. He is a member of a number of scientific societies. In his long, distinguished career in the health sector he has been Medical Director of Granollers General Hospital (Barcelona); both director and secretary of Coordination and Strategy for the Department of Health of the Generalitat of Catalonia; councillor for the Department of Universities, Research and Information Society; consultant for the Catalan Hospitals Consortium. From the 27th of December 2006 to February 2011 he was president of the board of directors of the Private BioRegion Foundation of Catalonia. At present he is the Director of the Area of Knowledge at Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa (Catalonia), as well as Consultant on Strategic Planning.

Enric Canela (Barcelona, 1949). Holds a Chemistry degree from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB, 1972) and a PhD in Chemistry with Biochemistry as his specialisation (UB, 1976). Lecturer at the UB since 1974, he is Full Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the department of the same name in the Biology Faculty of the UB. He collaborates in research on intracellular communication and biochemical theory. He regularly publishes books and contributes to scientific journals of international renown. Between September 2007 and April 2009 he was president of the Society for Knowledge. Between June 2007 and June 2011 he was patron of the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA) for the Spanish state.

Àngel Font (Lleida, 1965). Holds a degree in Chemical Sciences from the Universitat de Barcelona and a diploma in Business Management from EADA Business School. Began his career in an environmental engineering company and subsequently joined Intermón Oxfam where he held the post of coordinator on projects in Latin America, fund-raising and public relations and assistant to the director general. Since 2000 he has been director of the Un Sol Món (One World) Foundation financed by the Caixa de Catalunya (savings bank) where he runs projects for social housing and employment for disadvantaged groups as well as the development of microfinance in Spain, Latin America and Africa. Àngel Font is a member of the Cooperation Council of the Generalitat de Catalunya and was the first vice-president of the European Microfinance Network. He carries out teaching duties related to the management of non-profit organisations at a number of business schools.

Anna Grau Journalist and writer. From 1991 to 2005 she worked as a political journalist in Barcelona and Madrid, where she was the correspondent for the Avui newspaper and numerous programmes for TV3, Catalunya Ràdio, Ràdio4 and COM ràdio. In 2005 she left for New York, where she currently works. Author of El dia que va morir el president (the Day the President Died), Dones contra dones (Women Against Women), Endarrere aquesta gent (Reject These People) and the essay Per què parir (Why have a baby?).

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 people 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 organisation. 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).

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 professorhips 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.

Guillem López-Casasnovas (Menorca, 1955). Holds a degree in Economics (distinction, 1978) and Law (1979) from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB). He obtained his PhD in Public Economics from the University of York (UK, 1984). He has been a lecturer at the UB, visiting scholar at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (UK), University of Sussex and at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Stanford (USA). Since June 1992 has been full professor of economics at Barcelona’s Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), where he has been vice-rector of Economics and International Relations and dean of the School of Economics and Business Science. In 1998 he created the Economics and Health Research Centre (CRES- UPF), which he directed until recently. Co-director of the Master’s in Public Management (UPF-UAB-EAPC). In 2000 he received the Catalan Economics Society Award and in 2001 the Joan Sardà Dexeus Award. He is also a member of the Menorcan Institute of Studies, The Catalan Royal Academy of Medicine and a distinguished member of the Economists’ Society of Catalonia. President of the International Health Economics Association and since 2005 one of the Spanish Central Bank’s six independent Council members

Manuel Manonelles Political commentator specialising in international relations, human rights and democratisation processes. Currently director of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace, Barcelona. He has been special advisor to the Co-chair of the UN High Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations, as well as advisor to the coordinator of the Secretariat of the World Forum of Civil Society Networks (Ubuntu Forum), which is a member of the International Council of the World Social 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.

Catalan International View



Fèlix Martí Former president of the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (Pax Romana), from 1975 to 1984; director of Catalonia magazine (1987-2002), a publication printed in four different languages, aimed at disseminating Catalan culture; director of the UNESCO centre of Catalonia (1984 to 2002) and later its honorary president (from 2003). 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 promotes 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 honorary president thereafter. Wrote his memoirs Diplomàtic sense estat (Diplomat Without a State), published by Edicions Proa in 2006. Was awarded the UNESCO Human Rights Medal in 1995 and the Generalitat de Catalunya’s Creu de Sant Jordi (St. George’s Cross) in 2002.

Arcadi Oliveres (Barcelona, 1945). PhD in Economic Science, lecturer in the Department of Applied Economics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and president of the organisation Justícia i Pau ( Justice and Peace). He is also president of the Catalan Council for the Promotion of Peace, the International Peace University Foundation of Sant Cugat del Vallès, the Federation of Internationally Recognised Catalan Organisations (FOCIR) and the Easy to Read Association. He is an expert on North-South relations, international trade, external debt and defence economics and also lectures on aid and development for a number of master’s and PhD programmes.

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.

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 has been editor and director of El Temps magazine, 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 vicepresident of Òmnium Cultural. Vicent is also a lecturer in the Faculty of Communication Sciences at Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona.

Pere Torres Biologist and environmental consultant. After some time spent on research (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), he joined the Government of Catalonia in 1991. He was in turn secretary of the Catalan Inter-university Council (1991-1993), Head of the Environment Minister’s staff (1993-1995), general director of Environmental Planning (1995-2000) and secretary for Regional Planning (2000-2003). Since 2004 he has done consultancy work in public management, sustainability and land use planning and has been a regular contributor to the International Institute for Governability and the Institut Cerdà.

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 also member of the F.C Barcelona.

Vicenç Villatoro (Terrassa, 1957). Writer and journalist. Holds a degree in Information Sciences. Former president of the Ramon Trias Fargas Foundation.

As a journalist he has worked for numerous organisations. 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. As a writer he has written a dozen novels. Currently he is the president of the Institut Ramon Llull.

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 and Morocco. He is a member of the Cooperation Council of the Catalan government.

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. Currently he is General Secretary of International Relations for the Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya party.



Catalan International View