Civ 6

Catalan International View A European Review of the World

Dossier

Issue 6 • Spring 2010 • E 5

On the occasion of the 2010 Shanghai Expo: China beyond the stereotypes

by Josep Huguet, Zhu Bangzao, Eugenio Bregolat, Jesús Sanz, Manel Ollé, Dolors Folch and Iris Mir

Learning the right lessons from the economic crisis

by Antoni Castells

Literature and social function

by Albert Sánchez-Piñol

Bulls, pain and rage

by Pilar Rahola

Cover Artist: Antonio Gálvez SECTIONS: Business & Economics · Opinion · Interview · Europe · Africa Universal Catalans · Green Debate · A Short Story from History · The Artist · A Poem

To Our Readers

Contents

6......... The ALBA Synchrotron:

Editor

Víctor Terradellas

vterradellas@catmon.cat Director Francesc de Dalmases

director@international-view.cat Art Director

Quim Milla

designer@international-view.cat Head of International Relations

Marc Gafarot

marcgafarot@catmon.cat

Editorial Board

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 Chief Editors

Judit Aixalà Francesc Parés

Language Advisory Service

Nigel Balfour Júlia López Webmaster

Marta Calvó Cover Art

Antonio Gálvez

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

Europe and the challenge of knowledge

by Víctor Terradellas Dossier: Catalonia - China

8......... The 2010 Shanghai Expo: China beyond the stereotypes

by Francesc de Dalmases

10........ Catalonia: an international viewpoint

by Josep Huguet

14........ Welcome to the 2010 Shanghai Expo

by Zhu Bangzao

18........ China and the European Union

by Eugenio Bregolat

by Jesús Sanz

22........ China: a new cultural dimension 26........ Interpreting the China that is coming

by Manel Ollé

30........ The past of the future: the historical foundations of

the Chinese state of the twenty-first century

by Dolors Folch

34........ The Chinese market will not wait

by Iris Mir

Business and Economics

38........ Learning the right lessons from the economic crisis

by Antoni Castells

Opinion

42........ Literature and social function

by Albert Sánchez-Piñol

46........ The contemporary megalopolis: present and future

by Pau de Solà-Morales

52........ Bulls, pain and rage

by Pilar Rahola

56........ Ending Bush’s legacy

by Manuel Manonelles

Interview

62........ Salvador Giner

by Eva Piquer

Europe

68........ European Union – United States:

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

Imgesa Published every three months.

a chronical of disappointment

by Carme Colomina

72........ Ukraine: a change of direction

by Natàlia Boronat

Africa

76........ South Africa: fifteen years on

by Joan Canela

Universal Catalans

80........ Ildefons Cerdà

by Lluís Inglada

Green Debate

86........ From Kyoto to Copenhagen… getting lost on the way

by Pere Torres

A Short Story from History

90....... The founding fathers of California The Artist

92........ Antonio Gálvez A Poem

94........ The Shadow

by Francesc Parcerisas

Catalan International View

Editorial Board Martí Anglada Foreign news editor at TV3 (Catalonia television). He has been foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Italy and Great Britain (19771984) 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 and is a member of a number of scientific societies. In his 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 de Catalunya; councillor for the Department of Universities, Research and Information Society; and consultant for the Catalan Hospital Consortium. Since the 27th of December 2006 he has been president of the board of directors of the Private BioRegion Foundation of Catalonia.

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. Lecturer at the UB since 1974, he is professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and head of the department of the same name in the Biology Faculty of the UB. He collaborates in research on intracellular communication and theoretical biochemistry. He regularly publishes in scientific journals of international renown. Between 1991 and 1995 he was vice-president of the Catalan Biology Society. He has been president of the Society for Knowledge since September 2007. Since June 2007 he has been 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. 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 Universitat de Barcelona, 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 Catalunya. 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 Civilisations, 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.

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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 journalist. Works for the Avui newspaper where she coordinates the cultural supplement and the culture section. 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).

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 (València, 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, content director of Grup Cultura 03 and vice-president of Òmnium Cultural. Vicent is also lecturer in the Faculty of Communication Sciences at Universitat Ramon Llull de 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 Cerdà Institute.

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.

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.

Francesc de Dalmases (Director) (Barcelona, 1970). He works as a journalist as well as being a logistician 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). He is a founder member of CAL (the Coordinator of Associations for the Catalan language). 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 patron of the Reeixida Foundation and the CATmón Foundation. President of IGMAN-Acció Solidària and director of ONGC, a magazine dedicated to political thought, solidarity, aid and international relations. 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 CATmón Foundation. 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.

Catalan International View

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To Our Readers

The ALBA Synchrotron: Europe and the challenge of knowledge

by VĂ­ctor Terradellas

In early 2010, Catalonia made headlines around the world with the inauguration of the ALBA Synchrotron, located a short distance from Barcelona. ALBA is the first research infrastructure of its kind in Southern Europe and it is one of the world’s top three synchrotrons, representing an investment of some 200 million euros.

ALBA has a circumference of 260 metres, around which electrons circulate, having previously been accelerated. They form beams of X-rays that are technically known as synchrotron light.

This source of electromagnetic radiation circulates round ALBA at close to the speed of light until it is ultimately directed at one of the beamlines or laboratories where the light is used to examine the composition and structure of materials, organisms or extremely small composites.

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Catalan International View

At a time when Europe is searching for new strategies with which to overcome a crisis in the model and the accompanying values of a dehumanising economic system, Catalonia is investing in research and knowledge as tools for progress, development and welfare.

whilst he was on an official visit to research centres in California. President Pujol’s dogged determination meant the project was given the go ahead in March 2002 and today, eight years later, the ALBA synchrotron has become a reality.

The synchrotron project was not cobbled together at the last minute, however, but rather is the culmination and realisation of a proposal made some twenty years ago by a group of Catalan investigators led by Professor Ramon Pascual, of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Europe’s desire to participate in world leadership is inseparable from its responsibility to participate and lead the great challenges in world knowledge, investigation and research.

The initiative shown by the scientific community and the support of former Minister Andreu Mas-Colell made it possible in January 2002, for Jordi Pujol, Catalan president at the time, to announce the decision to construct the first Catalan synchrotron

Experiences such as the ALBA synchrotron demonstrate that a Europe of knowledge cannot be improvised, but instead is the result of creating spaces for cooperation between political representatives and the scientific community. It is a combination that Catalonia wishes to repeat and offer as a model for progress to the whole of Europe and the world.

Catalan International View

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Catalonia - China

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Catalan International View

Dossier

The 2010 Shanghai Expo: China beyond the stereotypes

by Francesc de Dalmases

In 2009, China became home to the world’s largest consumer car market for the first time, topping a league table the United States had led for decades.

It was an item of news that obviously dominated the front pages around the world.

Nevertheless, this is precisely the type of news that hides more profound and far-reaching questions when it comes to approaching the immense, complex reality that is China.

It stopped being an emerging country and economy some time ago and transformed itself into what is clearly a political and economic power of the first order in the new world in this, the twenty-first century. However, China is much more than this. It would be impossible to try to understand China if we only examined the economic dimension, its commercial power or the extent of its political influence. China is art, culture and tradition with all the strength resulting from inheriting and continuing a civilisation that spans millennia.

It is from this perspective, and with a desire to delve deeper that we wished to bring ourselves closer to China in this special issue coinciding with the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Beyond the

cultural, political and economic viewpoints, we wish to generate reflection, analysis and thought that evade dogma and outdated stereotypes.

The challenge for democracy and human rights is a common one, facing the whole of humanity. Inhuman practices like the death penalty have to disappear from the penal code of any nation that wishes to participate in world leadership or that wants to be a key player, whether they are the United States, Japan, Saudi Arabia or China.

In the same way, every country needs to invest in and strengthen mechanisms of social participation that guarantee disagreement and dissidence. As I have said, this is a common challenge for the international community and it is unfair to highlight one particular area as the object of our concerns in order to hide and cover up fears that have little to do with the promotion of democratic values.

The Western world faces the challenge and obligation of moving closer to China with curiosity, respect and a genuine search for understanding and exchange. This is the same challenge and the same obligation that we should ask of China in its dealings with the rest of the world.

Catalan International View

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Catalonia - China

Catalonia: an international viewpoint

by Josep Huguet*

In an increasingly globalised world in which international relations and political decisions have a growing impact on agents (from countries to companies and individuals) it is essential we are familiar with the different economic realities in order to take full advantage of our actions and interactions with the other players.

For some time now, China has been shaping up as a great world power, with a demand that easily outstrips that of any other nation, real growth and a potential that is much higher than the average for the planet, as well as resources which have yet to be exploited. The 21st century undoubtedly augurs well for the Asian giant.

Although the economic situation of recent financial years has highlighted the rapid configuration of a ‘new world’, which is still in a state of flux and where different scenarios are being proposed as alternatives by experts, there is a consensus in that the role of the emerging economies, with China at their head, will undoubtedly be greater, with a global impact even stronger than it has been up until now.

During the global downturn of 2009, for example, China’s exports fell by 17%, although the Chinese share of global exports increased to 10%, over10

Catalan International View

taking Germany to become the world’s largest exporter, while the IMF’s projections imply that China’s exports will account for 12% of world trade by 2014.

On the other hand, we now have to add problems of a social nature, of resources (energy) and the environment to the economic and competitive challenges of recent decades. Due to their urgent nature, they are beginning to occupy prominent positions in the current political agenda and global economy.

Other elements which are intrinsic to this new global model which is taking shape are linked to the need to make a firm commitment to economic growth, taking more sustainable bases as a starting point, establishing our modus operandi on efficient cooperation, and allowing wealth, growth and welfare to propagate globally.

In the case of Catalonia, this complex setting clearly gives rise to the need

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to definitively make the jump, which we started some years back. We must reorient ourselves towards activities with higher levels of internationalisation and competitiveness, with a commitment to distinguishing elements, such as innovation, creativity, technology, talent and setting, and infrastructure, while not losing sight of our main concern for social economy and sustainable development.

The increasing integration of economies, sectors and activities, along with the subsequent blurring of market frontiers, has given rise to a sharp increase in commercial exchanges, investment flows and the growing prominence of multinational companies. In this context, the challenge today is to innovate in order to create value, doing things in a different manner.

Catalonia. The land of Barcelona

Catalonia is an open economy, at the same time as the foundations have been laid for an economy with a great Catalan International View

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Catalonia - China

potential for innovation and technology. There are currently more than 3,000 foreign companies operating in Catalonia, accounting for over 34% of the total number for Spain. Moreover, the exporting dynamics of our region means that we have close to 13,500 companies that are regular exporters, at the same time as there are an increasing number of companies opting for emerging markets and for strategic alliances with foreign companies to tackle the challenges of the global market.

The Chinese context is marked by the Asian giant’s strategy of modernisation, entailing the largest urbanisation process ever seen For its part, the Chinese setting is marked by the Asian giant’s strategy of modernisation, entailing the largest urbanisation process ever seen. In turn, this process will provide evidence (as it already does) of the energy-model dilemma. Shanghai (with close to 20 million inhabitants) and the provinces in Zhejiang and Jiangsu comprise one of the nerve centres of the constantly developing industrial China. The World Expo 2010 will be a further opportu12

Catalan International View

nity to advance in this direction. Nonetheless, the city is aware of its current shortcomings, above all concerning sanitation and pollution.

It is precisely these challenges, however, that represent and generate continuous opportunities for the Catalan companies. We have a business tradition that is closely linked to the foreign sector, highly competitive businesses devoted to managing urban services and activities, and companies in the renewable energies sector. Indeed, the mayor of Shanghai, Han Zheng, looks to Barcelona and Catalonia for examples of sustainability and town and country planning.

For its part, it is well known that China needs new driving forces for growth, as is evident in the fiscal stimulation plan which the Chinese government launched at the end of 2008, with a strong focus on the development of infrastructures. There is clearly room in this new paradigm for those foreign companies which respond to the new requirements for economic transformation to which the country aspires.

This, coupled with the fact that one of the challenges for rendering Catalo-

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nia more competitive on a world level is to continue increasing our level of internationalisation, means that both territories can make greater use of improved relations.

Over the last ten years, Catalan exports to China have increased at annual rates of close to 12%, a figure which increases to over 14% if we take into account the 2000-2008 period, i.e., not taking last year’s downturn into consideration. Similarly, Chinese imports to Catalonia have increased sharply over these periods: by an average of 11% per annum over 10 years, and by 17% if we do not consider the figures for 2009.

From this standpoint, commercial relations between Catalonia and China have increased in recent years, exemplifying the growing reciprocal interest of our economies, at the same time as they are representative of the greater dynamism that the Chinese economy is having among those Catalan companies that operate in international markets.

Catalan investments in the Asian giant in recent years also respond to a similar behavioural pattern. A snapshot of the area of Asia and Oceania enables us to assert that Catalan investments in these markets increased by around 70% per year during the 2005-2008 period, making the region the principal destination for Catalan investment.

Thus China is far and away the most important country in the region for Catalan companies to concentrate their investments, growth expectations and future business, focusing their interest in developing and carrying out internationalisation plans in the region.

In the Government of Catalonia, we are committed to the internationalisation of Catalan businesses. More specifically, at ACC1Ă“, we support the promotion of Catalan companies abroad, paying particular attention to China where, as has been pointed out, interesting opportunities for our companies are being generated.

We support the promotion of Catalan companies abroad, paying particular attention to China

It is our objective to continue increasing the number of internationalised Catalan companies, helping them to consolidate in international markets, by promoting the synergies of innovation and internationalisation and the multi-location of companies while at the same time continuing to work on establishing ourselves as an attractive, first-rate location for foreign companies and consolidating Catalonia as a magnet for international production investment.

Our participation in the World Expo 2010 Shanghai, as well as the week dedicated to Catalonia, will constitute a key meeting point for businesses and entrepreneurs, authorities and professionals, where they will be able to gain first-hand knowledge of the potential and opportunities our region offers and engage in networking, and where numerous tourism, cultural and gastronomic activities will take place. Come and visit us!

*Josep Huguet Catalan Minister of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise

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Catalonia - China

Welcome to the 2010 Shanghai Expo

by Zhu Bangzao*

With the aim of promoting Catalonia’s participation in the Shanghai Expo, I was approached by Catalan International View for a contribution and I was glad to accept. As China’s ambassador to Spain, I have truly experienced the charm of Chinese and Spanish cultures since assuming my position over a year ago, witnessing the extremely rapid development of the relationship between China and Spain, and in particular China and Catalonia. Words are the voices of one’s mind. I would like to share my experience with you.

Now we are in the Spanish Pavilion, also called the ‘Wicker Basket’. Its vintage-inspired design concept contains creative elements, showing unique ingenuity in their arrangement. I initially had the opportunity to appreciate its charm during a promotional event in Madrid. It is more than a novel masterpiece, in that it gives a sense of familiarity to everybody. I hope you will feel the same as I do.The Spanish architect has managed to integrate elements of Chinese calligraphy and poetry into its design, thus displaying an absolutely perfect combination of Chinese and Western culture, while reflecting a history of friendly exchanges between China and Western countries.

China and Catalonia share close relations in politics, economics, trade, and culture, and visit each other frequently Although widely separated geographically, China and Spain (both 14

Catalan International View

with long histories and splendid cultures) developed a mutual relationship a long time ago. Their admiration for each other’s culture helps to break down geographical barriers. The earliest contact may date back to more than two thousand years ago. The significance of the Silk Road is far more than as a historical trade route between Asia and Europe that built a platform for cultural exchanges between the East and the West. The Silk Road, enabled China’s silk and porcelain to be shipped to Spain and other European countries.

Following on from this, a great number of missionaries from Western countries (including Spain) came to China in large numbers, serving as a forerunner to the promotion of Chinese culture.

Interestingly, the earliest European introductory book to Chinese history was written by a Spanish missionary.

On March 9th, 1973, formal diplomatic relations between China and Spain were established, thus beginning a new chapter in the relationship

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between the two countries. With the increase in exchanges and cooperation in numerous fields, their relations in politics, economy, trade, and culture grew steadily closer. This culminated in the Chinese President Hu Jintao’s state visit to Spain in 2005. The two countries subsequently announced the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership. Relations between them heralded a new stage of development. In recent years, the leaders of the two countries have made frequent visits to the other’s region to strengthen this relationship, increasing their mutual political trust, and extending all forms of strategic cooperation. The two countries share the same or similar views on many major international and regional issues and offer support to each other. With the boom in their economic and trading exchanges, the

bilateral trade volume soared to 26.3 billion US dollars in 2008 from less than 20 million US dollars in the year the diplomatic relationship was established. Although the bilateral trade volume has undoubtedly fallen due to the current global financial crisis, the two countries still work closely together in an attempt to overcome the current crisis and with a view to ensuring the stable development of their economic and trade cooperation. Additionally, both countries have developed many new areas for cooperation including finance, telecommunication, tourism, renewable energy, energy conservation and environmental protection.

Naturally, the cultural and educational exchanges between the two countries are quite varied. In order to bridge and connect the two cultures, the Chinese and Spanish Culture Years were held Catalan International View

The Chinese pavilion

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by Spain and China in 2007 in their respective countries. The people of both nations therefore had a chance to take a closer look at each other’s impressive culture and enhance their mutual understanding and friendship in the form of a variety of performances and exhibitions which were rich in content. The Confucius Institute was established in Spain, while the Cervantes Institute was inaugurated in China, thus building a bridge that enhances understanding, friendship and linguistic and cultural exchanges between the people of both nations. The Shanghai Expo will be held in 2010 when the ‘Year of the Chinese Language’ becomes popular in Spain, thus highlighting cultural and educational exchanges between China and Western countries.

The Shanghai Expo will provide a platform of ‘mutual understanding, communication, happy gathering, and cooperation’ Catalonia has enjoyed a long history and is economically developed.

Catalonia has also become quite wellknown for Gaudi’s unique architectural designs, the popular folk activity of ‘human pyramids’, and highly enthusiastic soccer matches in Barcelona.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, who is well known amongst the Chinese, is from Catalonia. My visits to Catalonia bring me to a world offering a totally different experience.

China and Catalonia share close relations in politics, economics, trade, and culture, and visit each other fre-

quently. Catalonia has entered into friendly provincial and municipal cooperation agreements with Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hubei and so on, as well as an agreement between Barcelona and Shanghai. Economically speaking, over half of the 400 Spanish companies that invest in China come from Catalonia. In 2009, the trade volume between China and Catalonia exceeded 10 billion euros. Renowned brand names from Catalonia such as Roca and Torres are quite popular in China, and an increasing number of Chinese companies are choosing Catalonia to establish their businesses. From the perspective of cultural and educational exchanges, Chinese and Spanish delegations continue to visit each other frequently, and Chinese language teaching is developing quite quickly in Catalonia. Casa Àsia, Insight China and other institutions and publications are making active contributions to promote mutual exchanges and cooperation in their own ways.

The Shanghai Expo will be a great event in which to explore the full potential of urban life and provide a platform of ‘mutual understanding, communication, happy gathering, and cooperation’.

Everybody will be able to appreciate the full charm of Spain and Catalonia from the exhibitions and activities in the Spanish Pavilion and the Catalonian Pavilion. I am delighted to make a small contribution to these efforts with this article. I expect both Chinese and Spanish people will unite in their efforts and make stronger contributions in order to encourage friendly cooperation between China and Spain.

*Zhu Bangzao His Excellency Mr. Zhu Bangzao ( Jiangsu, China, 1952) is China’s current ambassador to the Spanish state. He has previously been ambassador to Tunisia and Palestine (2001-2003), Switzerland (2003-2008) and Andorra (2008).

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Catalonia - China

China and the European Union

by Eugenio Bregolat*

China’s rebirth forms a major chapter in the story of globalisation. In thirty years it has multiplied its GDP by 16, taking part in the most spectacular development process ever seen in the history of mankind. From eleventh place in the world ranking based on the size of its GDP, it is about to overtake Japan in second place behind the United States.

In 1978 China’s GDP was equivalent to 6.4% of US GDP, in 2009 it reached more than 35%, some 25% more than India, Brazil and Russia combined.

Last year China overtook Germany in order to become the world’s largest exporter. The World Bank considers that, ‘China has accomplished in a generation something that took the majority of countries centuries’. Other observers see China as having experienced the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the Electronic Revolution, all within the last three decades. It is an over-simplistic metaphor, but it gives an idea of the 18

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enormous proportions of the changes that are taking place in China.

According to predictions made by Goldman Sachs, China’s GDP will equal that of the US, in nominal terms, by 2027. They estimate that in 2050 China’s GDP will have reached 75 trillion dollars, compared with 40 for the US. Although these estimates should naturally be viewed with caution, China will have the largest GDP by midcentury, major upsets aside. This will cause a significant change in the world economic and geo-strategic order.

How does China see the EU? Thanks to a rigidly vertical power structure in keeping with the Confucian tradition, China finds it hard to understand a group of independent states that share parts of their sovereignty while withholding others, including foreign policy and security. Although they know full well that the use of force between EU

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members is nowadays out of the question, in some ways they see Europe as still immersed in the era of ‘warring states’, that existed in China prior to its unification some 25 centuries ago. China began to believe that Europe was something more than a large free trade zone thanks to the High Representative of the CFSP, the Rapid Reaction Force and the euro. The rejection of the constitution by the citizens of some member states left them confused. On seeing Europe split down the middle on the issue of Iraq, China decided that one cannot speak of a European foreign policy.

Deng Xiaoping once said to Felipe González, ‘there are so few of you Europeans. How come you can’t agree with one another?’. On one occasion I heard him say to Chris Patten in Beijing, ‘sometimes the Chinese seem to believe in Europe more than ourselves’.

This means that China wants Europe

to be one of the world powers in the multi-power world which beckons, alongside the United States and perhaps another country. However, it is puzzled by Europe’s lack of ambition and historical weariness.

The Belgian pavilion

Some observers see China as having experienced the Renaissance the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the Electronic Revolution, all within the last three decades This perception is shared by the United States and Russia. In a recent article, Henry Kissinger observed, ‘Europe is suspended between abandoning its national framework and a yet-to-bereached political substitute’. Viacheslav Nikonov, director of one of the leading geo-strategic analysis centres in Moscow, declared a short time ago, ‘Europe Catalan International View

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The UK pavilion

lacks three important things in order to become a great power: a clear strategy, natural resources and vision’.

China wants Europe to be one of the world powers in the multi-power world which beckons, alongside the United States and perhaps another country In Memoirs, written over half a century ago, Jean Monnet made the following assessment of the situation, ‘Europe will have to undergo many trials before the Europeans understand that the only alternative to a union is a prolonged decadence’. Examples of Europe’s increasing irrelevance abound in recent months. Last June, Obama announced that, ‘the twenty-first century will be defined by the relationship between the United States and China’. Geithner (the US Secretary of the Treasury) said that the success of the G20 in London was made possible because the US and China had made an agreement beforehand. This means the dialogue between the two, call them the G2 or what you will, is a decisive factor. Europe’s silence in Co20

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penhagen was very eloquent. Obama decided not to travel to Madrid during its presidency of the EU this year because such summits tend to have little content.

The Lisbon Treaty strengthens the institutions charged with managing foreign policy and security, including the creation of the European Service of Foreign Action. However, the key question remains the process of creating Europe’s will in this matter. This is where we continue to be hostages to the majority, which is to say the veto. Would it be possible to speak of the euro if the national central banks continued to decide their respective monetary policies and the European Central Bank could only act when the central banks reached a majority?

Could we speak of national will if the parties that make up a parliament had the right of veto over proposed laws?

If the new institutions had existed at the time, would they have been able to oppose the entrenched positions of the member states in respect to the conflict in Iraq? Only time will tell whether the Lisbon Treaty is capable or not of reviving will in a common foreign policy and security issues.

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Many years ago Paul-Henri Spaak stated that, ‘Europe does not have big and small countries; they are all small, it’s just that some of them haven’t realised it yet’. Even today the three biggest European countries are firmly in the second division compared with the United States and China. In a few decades, when India, Brazil and perhaps another nation grow larger, they will be in the third division. Are European nations prepared to pay the price of irrelevance in order to retain their national sovereignty or will they decide to integrate their economic policies, foreign policies and security policies and once and for all move towards political unity? Perhaps the essential question that requires an answer is whether European countries have the will to take their destiny in their own hands or if they are resigned to be the mere objects of the desires of others; whether they resign from history, weary from half a millennia of world domination or they still have

some energy left to plot a new course as protagonists on a global scale. It is an existential question. To be or not to be, that is the question.

Javier Solana said, ‘there cannot be a simple G2 that rules the world; the EU has to be there, it deserves to be there’.

Deserving to be there means finding the political will to advance towards a true CFSP. This implies giving up the veto and the adoption of decisions by the majority. At present this is a utopia.

How many trials will be necessary and how many decades will have to pass before the national sovereignties dissolve into a European sovereignty? Will our descendants one day see a lone European minister of foreign affairs instead of 27; a lone European ambassador in Washington or Beijing, instead of 27; a lone European chair on the UN Security Council? Or has the end of history sounded for Europe and its member states?

*Eugenio Bregolat Former Ambassador to China, Russia, Canada and Indonesia. Author of La segunda revolución china (The Second Chinese Revolution, Destino, 2007). Regular contributor to La Vanguardia and El Imparcial.

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China: a new cultural dimension

by Jesús Sanz* Cinema is an ideal means of reviewing China’s current cultural spectrum, since it is one of the most characteristic means of expression of our time and for its ability to attract people of all ages and backgrounds. The changes which the country is experiencing are a rich and subjective exploration of space and time, subject to hitherto unseen transformations. The massive migration from the countryside to the city, the impact of development on the surroundings and the spread of new technologies are all factors that are common threads in the work of the sixth generation of filmmakers called the ‘urban generation’. They studied at the Beijing Film Academy, like their predecessors.

They share a similar background, therefore, but distinguish themselves by the way in which they tell stories and in the themes they choose to deal with.

This type of cinema is often called ‘independent’ (although any distinctions tend to become blurred) and has garnered the highest awards in international events festivals. In recent years some Chinese films have had unprecedented success on screens across the globe and are seen as examples of the country’s so-called ‘soft power’ or ‘smart power’. China is no longer just a great economic, commercial and regional power, but also a leading player on the international scene, one that demands a privileged position in the cultural realm. China’s pragmatism and syncretism comes to the fore in the film world more than any other thanks to the preeminence of the West’s and particularly 22

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America’s film industry. The country played host to the impeccable Olympic Games in Beijing, a success it is repeating with the Expo 2010 Shanghai ‘Better City, Better Life’. In this context great productions with a global impact are appearing which are not untouched by controversy. Chinese filmmakers are as comfortable with the present as the recent and distant past, thanks to their Taoist interpretation of the passage of history. Time is an existential continuum that is continually distilling China’s essence. A recent example is Red Cliff, in which China (with its two great cinema producing centres of Beijing and Hong Kong) and Taiwan’s interests and production combine. It tells a story, with few budgetary restrictions, of a period from history with a land divided between various warring states. It narrates the dream of unity, in an epic fashion.

Other recent films delve into a more recent past that affects the current generation. Nanjing Nanjing, (City of Life and Death), directed by Chuan Lu won a Concha de Oro (Golden Shell) at the most recent San Sebastian/Donostia Film Festival. The viewer is confronted by the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Chinese by the Japanese invaders. The director’s skill lies in dealing with the perspective of a Japanese soldier and deals with the uneasy topic of those who collaborate with invading armies.

Daniel Lee’s recently released Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon,

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is based on the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms which has been very influential on Chinese culture. It tells the story of epics and adventures from an era of disturbances and divisions.

The literary work was written by Luo Guanzhong in the fourteenth century.

Alongside other jewels of Chinese literature (such as Cao Xueqin’s Hung Lou Meng or Dream of the Red Chamber), they serve as a support for operas, TV series, video games, musicals, children’s stories and adult comics.

Adventure stories and epics have always been present in Chinese culture and subsequently in its cinema. Monkey King deserves a special mention for being without doubt one of the most famous and popular characters for both the Chinese public and the Asian world in general. He is a magician, a martial arts teacher and the protagonist of Journey to the West, undeniably one of the greats of Chinese literature. It tells the story of the adventures of the Monkey King and the monk Xuángzàng as they set about bringing Buddhist sutras from India. With its enormous power of illu-

mination, the novel connects with the legend surrounding the Hindu monkey god Hanuman of the Ramayana and in the present day serves as a source of inspiration for the Asian, Chinese and especially the Japanese world of animation.

The Chilean pavilion

The country played host to the impeccable Olympic Games in Beijing, a success it is repeating with the Expo 2010 Shanghai ‘Better City, Better Life’ The Taoist imprint is especially felt in the integration of martial arts with cinema. Names such as Lee Xiao Long (better known in the West as Bruce Lee), Jackie Chang, Jet Lee, Michelle Young and Zhang Ziyi have helped the spread of these disciplines throughout the whole world. ‘Independent’ cinema has also incorporated these Taoist techniques and outlook. The House of Flying Daggers, by Zhang Yimou, a quintessentially cult filmmaker since the eighties, recreates the splendour of the Tang dynasty with its strong BudCatalan International View

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dhist slant. Ang Lee, the American director of Taiwanese origins, achieved great success with his film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, thereby revitalising this eclectic and uniquely Chinese genre which mixes dreams and reality.

Incidentally, it is a genre in which interests and productions from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan increasingly blend together. Actors from these same countries also unite, such as Japan’s Takeshi Kaneshiro, China’s Zhang Ziyi and Tony Leung, a big star with Hong Kong origins.

Chinese culture does not renounce its essences. It claims them for itself, assimilates them and joins them to foreign contributions Another defining characteristic of Chinese cinema and the culture of the entire country is the presence of both the countryside and the city. China’s rural community is home to more than eight hundred million people. Within it people mostly live according to traditional customs and thought. Without doubt, Confucian morality still rules, as does Taoism. As the Chinese saying goes; the Chinese follow Confucius and think like Tao. Yin and yang are the basic components of everything of which the universe consists. They do not oppose one another, but rather complement one another, as the universe is ultimately in equilibrium. In the rural world, Maoist values can still be found, which in itself is a mixture of Chinese sources and Hegelian and Marxist Western philosophy. In the Maoist doctrine, the unity of contrasts is the fundamental law of nature and society, like a kind of yin yang dialectic.

The rural world has taken on a new role in contemporary Chinese culture, aside from supporting the basic fabric of the Chinese space, aside from repre24

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senting ‘the good land’, it takes on the role of human reservoir for the great metropolises of the twenty-first century. Hundreds of millions of people have migrated, are migrating, or will shortly migrate from the countryside to the city, in the largest and most complicated urbanisation process ever undertaken in history.

China is a big country, strongly supported by a modern, solid infrastructure network of ports, airports, high speed magnetic trains, trains which travel on the roof of the world, bridges of extraordinary length and dams of mindboggling proportions. A tourist travels along one of the new, potent motorways. They see a sign with the name of a city (in Mandarin with its corresponding phonetic transcription in Pinyin), one they have never heard of. After driving in circles, they realise that they are in an urban area that is bigger than they thought and finally they learn that they are in Zhenzhou, for example, in Henan province, a city of more than seven million inhabitants (which would make it the second or third largest European city). This phenomenon repeats itself all across China.

Aside from a revolution in terms of infrastructure, this process is bringing about an unheard of transformation in the psychology of the individual. Undoubtedly the individual enjoys a range of vital services, but they must now learn to live under the pressure applied by these megalopolises of ten or twenty million inhabitants (Chongqing, a metropolis on the Yangtze River, exceeds thirty million). In this urban world, tradition and modernity, the past, present and obviously the future, are all fusing.

A strong consumerist component must be added to the traditional values, as well as a growing recourse to religion (principally, but not exclusively, Buddhism) and the spread of technology throughout society. China is the

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world’s largest user of the Internet, with more than four hundred million users (America has 240 and India 80) and is the leading consumer of mobile phones and computers. The new Chinese cultural reality therefore consists of an unstoppable diversity, inevitable thanks to the dimensions of the human agglomerations and the different origins of their inhabitants, many of whom are migrants. As I previously mentioned, in China the urbanisation phenomenon takes on gargantuan proportions. The migrant takes with them in their baggage of their language, dialect, race, religion, and their diverse origins of far flung mountains, tropical forests or cold Siberian plains. The migrant is a survivor, they must overcome harsh ordeals and for this reason they are tough people who leave their imprint on China’s developing culture.

Their long-suffering and thrifty character fits in well with the traditional Chinese character, but is at odds with the excesses of capitalism, the nouveau riche and the luxury of the big cities.

In such a context it is no surprise that the arts, such as the cinema, reflect the diversity that reigns in the country.

Inspiration and techniques coexist that lead to works from the great Chinese schools and the golden ages of the Tang, Song, Ming and Qing dynasties.

The virtuosity of calligraphy and reinterpretations of the best watercolours of the ‘Mountain-Water’ school are still appreciated in the faculties of Fine Arts throughout the country.

To these aspects we must add the surprising incorporation and utilisation of the latest technology. Once again,

what at first appears contradictory and revealing of the two irreconcilable worlds, turns out to be two sides of the same coin. Chinese landscape painting is more than the painter’s whim or a mere portrait of their surroundings. It is the expression of an act of a millenary civilisation on its space, currently the subject of enormous transformations (the Trans-Tibetan Highway, the Three Gorges project and so on). Equally, the Chinese ideograms go beyond their greater or lesser aesthetic value. Even in the age of computers, the Internet and mobile phones, calligraphy continues to win the respect and admiration of Chinese society. They say one can only understand the parts once one has understood the whole. This could not be truer in the case of Chinese calligraphy. In Mandarin there are no letters and no alphabet, which is surprising enough for us in the West. In order to understand the significance of an ideogram (a metaphor for the entire Chinese civilisation) one must understand it holistically, in its totality. A change in one of its strokes would result in a different meaning.

Chinese culture does not renounce its essences. It claims them for itself, assimilates them and joins them to foreign contributions. By also using the latest tools, it contrasts diverse narratives, a new cosmology which changes the outdated ideas and stereotypes.

Through modern technologies that explore the present and freely reinterpret the past, a multiplicity of hitherto unknown perspectives are opened up which reveal a highly attractive Chinese cultural panorama.

*Jesús Sanz General director of Casa Àsia and governor of the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF). He was the Asia director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cabinet (2006). He was adviser to the Spanish embassy in Beijing (2003-2006).

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Interpreting the China that is coming

by Manel OllĂŠ*

The China of 2010 faces the start of the twenty-first century with the perspective of its inescapable role.

Three decades of sustained economic progress at an average of around 10% not only highlight the enormous, rapid transformations that China has undergone in this period, particularly in the economy, society and culture: they are also an indicator of China’s outstanding role in the process of globalisation.

One can no longer think of the world without including China, from the economic perspective or any other we care to choose: financial movements, energy consumption, industrial policies and the prospects for world trade can no longer be thought of in any part of the world without taking China into account. Nor can international geo-strategic considerations ignore them. The problems that confront us on a global scale, whether financial, ecological or security related, can only be confronted with the contribution, consideration and responsibility of the Chinese.

China’s arrival on the international scene has revealed both jealousy and raised expectations. Normally the image of China we receive is very superficial: we get sporadic details, diffuse ideas superimposed on a China that is both potent and a threat, of a China 26

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of business opportunities, but with its feet stuck firmly in the mud, of a China that is obvious yet incomprehensible.

Cultural distance and the enormity of everything connected to China leads to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. The dynamism and complexity of modern day China withstands the oversimplified, self-limiting future predictions that see it as the superpower of the twenty-first century or that foresee its immediate collapse or foretell the arrival of a new glacial era of a bipolar Sino-American world. It is hard to reduce the complexities of a country like China to rigid formulas when one considers the human dimensions of a country that contains a fifth of humanity. It is a country that extends over an area as large and as regionally diverse as the Europe that spreads from the Atlantic to the Urals and the Baltic to the Straits of Gibraltar, with a complex, plural society that lives between the

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First and the Third World, a long history with a unique civilisation.

In order to begin to contemplate with any perspective the current Chinese reality, it is necessary for us to take into account the enormous demographic, economic and geographical magnitudes (and the multicoloured diversity of life, landscapes and accents that populate it), and the difference between our respective mental, mythical, emotional and sensorial landscapes. To this we must also add the weight and moral density of more than four thousand years of continuity and historical and cultural transformation that have resulted in a Chinese present marked by the unique experience of market socialism. This does not at all mean that it is in any way impossible to know what

is going on in China. It simply means that one needs to have one’s eyes wide open, with the least possible baggage of prejudices and the humility to know that we will only ever understand a small, provisional part, one that is on the point of changing.

One of the pavilions under construction

One can no longer think of the world without including China in the equation, from the economic perspective or any other we care to choose The China that is facing the immediate future is doing so with a dynamic populous, an ambitious, well-prepared youth and with the majority of its population prepared to better themselves through their own efforts. It is Catalan International View

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arriving with the asset of an emergent and barely visible civil society, which is beginning to set its sights on the future and take advantage of the fissures and opportunities that are presented to it and that never stops exceeding the limits imposed on it by institutional rigidity and the inertia of the restrictions of the past in order to widen and deepen its horizons in the fields of decisionmaking, information and expression of the Chinese public.

The China that is reaching for the immediate future in the globalised world is looking to the horizon as a challenge and an opportunity The China that is facing the immediate future is doing so full of a collective optimism, with more diversity, cultural creativity and plurality of initiatives and energies in the heart of the society than one may realise. It also does so under the shadow of social polarisation, regional inequalities and an institutional, political and legal framework that finds it increasingly difficult to channel and maximise the effervescent complexity of a modern society that is daily more open. The China of 2010 is facing the immediate future with the same doubts as to the sustainability of the global growth model as the rest of those involved, water, energy and raw materials are a preoccupation for all. Naturally, they are even more so thanks to China’s accelerated development process.

From our home here in the south of Europe, in the west of the Mediterranean from where we Catalans view the world, China has come closer and is no longer alien. Even more so than we think. While for some industrial sectors its ascendency may represent an un28

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beatable competition, China also represents something more than a challenge or a test for us all: it also represents an opportunity. It represents a market of hundreds of millions of citizens that may feel attracted by the added value of our creative and cultural dynamics, our brands, designs, of our unique taste with a singular and unmistakable identity. China also represents opportunities for investment and collaboration in both directions. The Chinese of the immediate future may be the activators and protagonists of a still incipient impulse on a European level of a model of tourism with a high purchasing power, that is prepared to fly halfway round the world to enjoy monuments and landscapes, avoiding the masses, and that travels with the incentive of being able to acquire experiences and products with their own special allure. The Chinese also represent an opportunity for us in that they might begin to see that America and northern Europe are not the only places with decent universities to which to send their children to study.

Whether the China of the coming decades is to be an enriching experience for us and not an unbeatable challenge depends in large part on our capacity to be fully conscious of the size of the test we are facing. It will enrich us to the degree that we are capable of re-positioning ourselves in this new international order that is swinging towards the Pacific. We were late in arriving in China and overcautious, but it is never too late to invest there. The main regret we have is without doubt one of ignorance: the lack of sufficient intermediaries and professionals trained in the study of the Chinese reality, and cultural and linguistic mediators who can establish points of contact. Promoting the study of Chinese and the Chinese reality at the university level, the provision of grants and support for

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research in these fields are the best investment we can make: that which can bear the most fruit and develop more beyond mere smoke signals and fleeting projects.

In the twenty-first century, China is updating its legacy of four thousand years of a civilisation rooted in a humanism from which we can learn lessons and obtain fresh perspectives.

Without having to resort to New Age thinking or orientalist pastoral dreams, one cannot speak of present day China without seeing millennia-old traditions of art, technology, literature and thought as being present, alive and contemporary: it is a cultural provision that is abundant and pluralistic that can offer us as many things as we are capable of comprehending. Evidently, I am not referring to cultural tourism or the Chinoiserie of fine porcelain. It would be a real shame if China’s international image of glistening skyscrapers and

massive production did not allow us to open a door to the contemporary avatar of one of the longest-lived, sophisticated and complex civilisations ever to have existed. The positive reception of Chinese literature, art and cinema among international audiences confirms that China not only possesses a very long and rich cultural legacy, but also has a vibrant contemporary creative process that may end up shining a much-needed light on the Chinese experience of modernity, as long as it can escape from narrow institutional limits.

Globalisation that is well understood should not be limited to the circulation of goods and capital, nor the universalisation of addictive consumption habits or certain global brands. The China that is reaching for the immediate future in the globalised world is looking to the horizon as a challenge and an opportunity. It is our responsibility to learn how to communicate with it.

The German pavilion under construction

*Manel Ollé Full Professor in the History and Culture of Modern and Contemporary China in the Department of Humanities at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra where he also coordinates the masters in Chinese Studies. He is the author of La invención de China (The Invention of China. Harrasowitz Verlag, 2001) La Empresa de China: de la armada invencible al Galón de Manila (The Chinese Enterprise: from the Invincible Armada to the Galón de Manila. Acantilado, 2002), Made in China: el despertar social, político y cultural de la China contemporánea (Made in China: the Social, Political and Cultural Awakening of Contemporary China. Destino, 2005) and La Xina que arriba: perspectives del segle XXI (The China that is Coming: Perspectives for the Twenty-First Century. Eumo 2009). Aside from his dedication to Asian studies, he is a literary critic and has published various poetry collections.

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The past of the future: the historical foundations of the Chinese state of the twenty-first century

by Dolors Folch*

Now that China is becoming a great global power, the world contemplates, both with admiration and a critical eye, the different aspects that seem to characterise this nation: an enormous capacity for work, a Confucian base that cements social cohesion without providing the tools to defend it against the abuses of state power, an autocratic state that refuses to lose its hold on power or tolerate dissent, a society articulated by a unique party capable of adapting itself to change, and an export industry of unstoppable potency. In order to understand this China of stunning changes, profound in the economic, visible in the cultural and perceptible in the political, a China which has traditionally seen progress as the solution to contradictions, it is to be remembered that these changes are taking place against a historical background which guides them, guarantees their solidity and establishes its boundaries.

The oldest religious impulse in China polarised it towards ancestor worship, an orientation that is able to articulate groups that are ever-growing in size and complexity in a hierarchical network of familial loyalties. It was to be on this cultural horizon, free from heroes and myths (the importance of ancestors does not lie in mythical heroics, but rather in their ability to preserve and perpetuate the lineage) that Confucius formulated the core of his ethics, in which the family is the basic social nucleus where all great values arise and where the loyalty towards authority that allows the state to run springs up. The Chinese family is not only an economic and emotional entity: it lies at the very heart of Chinese religiosity, and the reason the Chinese work is for its survival and continuity. All those who have written about China (the monks of the 30

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sixteenth century, the Jesuits of the seventeenth, the Enlightened writers of the eighteenth, the protestants of the nineteenth, the travellers of the twentieth) have unanimously been surprised, at different periods of history, by how hard the Chinese work: in fact, from time immemorial the Chinese have been raised with a work ethic that encourages them to strive extremely hard with a long-term view, for the good of all their descendants. This was one of the bases proposed by Confucius.

With a declared lack of interest in transcendental considerations, Confucius did not propose a moral renewal based on divine commandments: his objective was a state ruled by the ideal Superior Man, qualified by education and not by birth. However, Confucianism, which stressed the virtue of the

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ruler, did not limit its power. China’s anaemic legal development is also a consequence of this attitude: in the long term, Confucius’ dream impeded China’s ability to generate a legal concept based on rights and duties, both for individuals and for the state. The defence of the individual before the state has never historically been taken into consideration by Chinese legislation: on the contrary, the law has served to focus all Chinese loyalties towards the state. For this reason, the multiple Constitutions that are proclaimed one after the other are more declarations of intent than a stable political framework. As a consequence, the profession of lawyer was not established until the twenty-first century.

Present day China shares significant similarities with what it inherited from the Empire: from the start of our era, it has always been an administration managed by bureaucrats appointed by the capital. In this intensely hierarchical organisation, the emperor’s powers (or in modern-day terms, those of the president of the republic) were and continue to be unlimited, despite the fact that the current aesthetic denies

them the halo that surrounded Mao’s head: Hu Jintao, who holds the posts of president of the republic, president of the central military committee, of the communist party and president of the central military committee of the communist party, has as much power as the emperors ever had. Vested with religious power conferred by the fact that they were Sons of Heaven, and backed by the most powerful bureaucracy ever known, the Chinese emperors ruled a state which never had room for the multiplicity of powers (kings, noblemen, cities, the Church, guilds and regions) that were to give way to the formation of European states: the simultaneously religious and bureaucratic nature of the Chinese state left neither religious or political room for the legal articulation of power groups or currents of opinion that went against the existing order.

The destruction of any organism which aspired to have its own representation in the decision making processes of the state was the norm: China adopted Buddhism with enthusiasm, but ended up outlawing the Buddhist church; it was to have more cities than any other civilisation, but it never gave them political representation.

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The Singaporean pavillion

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Nonetheless, the Chinese central tradition would have been unable to perpetuate itself over millennia without mechanisms for correcting its errors.

The Mandate of Heaven, with which the dynasties obtained their legitimacy, also imposed on the state the responsibility of looking after the welfare of its people. Natural disasters and popular unrest were both signs that it was being lost: indeed, it is a Mandate of Heaven with an expiry date. For this reason the Chinese state is so uncomfortable with protests, particularly when they occur in spaces such as Tiananmen that are so ritually significant, whether those who protest are students or followers of the Falun Gong religious movement. The same is true of natural disasters, which is why the response from the state is as immediate as it is drastic, as in the case of the Sichuan earthquake. A healthy Chinese state always reacts to threats to the peoples’ welfare, whether social, economic or natural: but in order to do so it needs to be well-informed.

For some two thousand years it has had structured channels of information, but the information has always circulated within the bureaucracy, where it tends to be twisted to meet the objectives imposed by the next level of the hierarchy.

In the twentieth century, the Chinese state suffered a veritable plague of false statistics: but it was always the first to hide or distort the information to suit its own ends. Nowadays, the lack of press freedom continues to deny the government the necessary feedback.

A healthy Chinese state always reacts to threats to the peoples’ welfare, whether social, economic or natural: but in order to do so it needs to be well-informed No civilisation has taken as much care as China of the quality of its ad32

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ministration. In our European world, royalty and the church, organized into privileged groups, provided the breeding ground and the status necessary for administering the state. China, on the other hand, having done everything in its power to prevent royalty and religious powers from taking control, needed to perfect the selection of civil servants by inventing and refining exams and designing educational programmes. These were essentially still in effect up until the twentieth century.

The Maoist revolution sought to destroy the old order and mistrusted the intellectuals (‘better Red than Expert’, as Mao proclaimed): a deviation that China has known at other times in the initial phases of dynastic rule. However, the Reform has led to a revival of that old Confucian axiom of the necessary coincidence between the political and intellectual hierarchy: in present day China, academic training is often conducted abroad (even though China has three universities among the top 100 in the world in engineering, technology and computing) and is once more the foundation for a political career, even within the communist party.

Obviously, Marxism is being blurred and inequality is being re-established.

Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that social hierarchy, which is returning with vigour, also has classical origins: Confucius always explicitly defended it. Nowadays, the growing inequalities between the town and the countryside, centre and periphery, coast and interior, are difficult to accept after decades of intense propaganda and egalitarian practices: nevertheless, as long as everyone’s lives improves and expectations are met, these do not cause a general upset for China. In fact, the Chinese state is still moving with the basic objectives that are always on the agendas of new dynasties that have been intertwined in their territory: ‘Enrich the state and strengthen the army’, is a

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Chinese slogan that dates back 2,200 years. The People’s Republic continues to repeat them with these exact words: the parade of the 1st of October 2009, celebrating 50 years of the Republic with an imposing exhibition of military and economic power, can be seen as a re-enactment of these objectives.

The markedly paternalistic nature of the Chinese state has led it to repeatedly intervene in the economy in order to control key sectors (such as salt and iron at the beginning of our era) and promote the production and export of commodities such as silk or ceramics: the present day practice of buying American government bonds is in keeping with the same line of state intervention to protect its export sector. The massive export of products (given that it was a preindustrial society) has been a historical constant for the Chinese state, and led to the spread of production lines and modular production: China has known about these processes for centuries, millennia even, as demonstrated by the thousands of soldiers in the tomb of its first emperor, the millions of yards of silk that spread throughout Asia since before our time, even reaching as far as Rome, and the massive presence of Chinese ceramics all over the world since the beginning of modern times. For over a thousand years the Chinese diaspora has provided the necessary networks for its powerful export sector: at the end of the sixteenth century there were already 25,000 Chinese in Manila, a city that was not even founded until 1571,

and there were already 80 Chinese in Mexico. It was neither an emigration of political and religious dissidents, nor of poor peasants: they were all urban entrepreneurs, which is exactly what they still are in the twenty-first century as they establish one business after another in our country. Obviously China has passed through periods of closed-door policies: there was one at the start of the sixteenth century and Maoism was another. Nevertheless, we should not be surprised when as soon as the artificial barriers are raised (such as when it entered the World Trade Association) China immediately demonstrates its formidable potential for production and export (particularly in textiles) that have characterised its entire history.

The Chinese of the twenty-first century proudly see themvelves as regaining their deserved place in the world economy

There are countries in which the past is much more alive than it is for us: China is one of them. The reminiscence of China’s key role in world trade throughout history is today equal to the humiliation and misery it suffered from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.

The Chinese of the twenty-first century proudly see themselves as regaining their deserved place in the world economy: and this pride and the confidence it generates, is also an important asset for China.

*Dolors Folch Director of the School for East Asian Studies of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Coordinator of the degree in East Asian Studies from 2003 to 2005 and Deacon of the Faculty of Humanities from 1992 to 1999. Her main areas of research are the Ming Dynasty and China’s relations with Europe in the 16th century. She has directed various research projects and published numerous works, the latest being ‘¿Todos los chinos sabían leer y escribir? Escritura, lengua y educación china en los textos españoles del XVI’ (Did all the Chinese Know How to Read and Write? Chinese Writing, Language and Education in Spanish Texts of the 16th Century, Castelló, Lynch, 2009).

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Catalonia - China

The Chinese market will not wait

by Iris Mir*

Anyone can draw a constellation just by putting a few dots together. However the importance does not lie in the drawing of the constellation itself but on how to trace this constellation. This is to say what steps must be followed in order to do it correctly. The shape itself is not what matters but the order in which the dots should be connected. Chinese characters, for instance, can be drawn by looking at a picture and copying the strokes. However, they are not considered well written unless the strokes are connected in a specific order. According to Chinese symbolism a constellation is the third element that links opposites: black and white, sweet and sour and so forth. Only when these opposites are properly linked by this third element can they work as a whole.

East and West are two worlds apart.

Catalan companies doing business in China should draw their own constellation linking the dots accordingly if they wish to solidly establish themselves in this competitive market. The potential and opportunities this Asian market offers Catalan enterprises is indisputable, but the size of the market is not enough to successfully invest in China.

As far as Western companies are concerned, the cultural diversity of Chinese society is what really adds complexity to this market. Furthermore, the legal framework is very different from the one we are used to in Western countries. Nevertheless, this game of opposites can be played with a positive outcome for both. Joan Dedéu, president of the consultancy firm China Consultants, is very familiar with this issue.

For 22 years his firm has been advising more than 800 companies on investing in China. Mr. Dedéu is very confident when he says, ‘the Chinese are the musicians while we are the dancers. If they 34

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play a waltz we can’t dance a tango’.

Various experts on the Chinese market believe that Catalan companies need to accurately map out their business strategy by seeking advice from organizations such as ACC1Ó (a body of the Government of Catalonia that helps Catalan companies reach international markets), private consultancy firms or sharing the experience of other companies already established in China. As Mr. Dedéu puts it, ‘as long as the company comprehends that common sense in China is different than in Catalonia it is a market with opportunities for all companies which can consider a mid or long-term strategy, regardless of size’.

Although there is no official data on the actual number of Catalan enterprises established in China, it is estimated that they constitute some 40% of total Spanish investment in the country. They range from sectors

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such as manufacturing and commercial companies, to textiles, metallurgy and consumer goods. Their regional distribution is the following: 60% in the Yangtze River delta, 25% in the Pearl River delta and the rest in Beijing.

According to ACC1Ă“, the Chinese market represents a great challenge to those enterprises that wish to manufacture their products in China in order to sell them to the local market afterwards. Adopting this strategy means the company needs to be patient before it starts to turn a profit. With determination and the awareness that investing in China means implementing a longterm strategy, the company may be able to gain a foothold in one of the most promising markets in the world.

Conversely, Catalan companies have a tendency to establish themselves in China simply in order to manufacture their products and re-export them afterwards. This option is tempt-

ing because the cost of manufacturing in China is noticeably lower than the costs back home and making profits is relatively fast. Nevertheless, companies with high quality, luxury and innovative products might be hampering their potential growth if they limit their presence in China solely to manufacturing in order to sell their products in Europe or the United States.

The Swedish pavilion

The potential and opportunities this Asian market is offering to Catalan enterprises is indisputable The Chinese market is blooming.

The increase in consumption is creating new consumption patterns and consequently new potential consumers are emerging that Catalan companies could target to sell their products. Of course, as the director of ACC1Ă“ in Shangai Santi Santamaria notes, alCatalan International View

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Catalonia - China

though 1.3 billion people live in China they can’t regard this market as if it had 1.3 billion potential buyers. Its accelerated development has led to a wide income gap, while the middle class is still comparatively small. ‘Sometimes Catalan companies are not aware of the complexity and the size of this market which has indeed 200 million consumers’, Santamaria explains. This figure is expected to rise considerably in the foreseeable future.

As Yongtao Gu stresses, ‘China is the present’, it’s already there and it’s not going to wait Internal consumption has changed dramatically compared to the situation the Catalan company Roca Sanitaryware found 13 years ago when it opened its first factory in China in order to sell products to the Chinese and other Asian markets. Roca’s managing director in China, Ferran Vilaclara, stresses that they, ’followed a different strategy than their competitors that went to China to take advantage of the low manufacturing costs. Instead we wanted to take advantage of the local market’. Thanks to this long term strategy Roca have seen how the growth of their business and the market have followed a parallel trajectory. Vilaclara explains that the, ‘average Chinese has increased his purchasing power while our market has grown too’. Roca has been flexible in trying to adapt to the Chinese consumer without losing its identity. In fact, the Chinese do not recognise Roca as a brand, because they call it ‘Le jia’, which in Chinese means ‘happy family’.

Roca’s experience in China is an example of the opportunities they would have missed if they had regarded China 36

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as merely a factory instead of a market with a huge potential. Nonetheless, intrinsic characteristics such as difficulties and high competition often put off Catalan companies that would rather invest in Europe. China is a market for ‘animal spirits’, a term Keynes used to explain the relationship by which positive activities depend on, ‘a spontaneous optimism, a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction’. Recently Keyne’s ‘urge to action’ has led Lluís Arasanz and Yongtao Gu, partners of the Catalan consultancy firm Dextal International, to write the book Vender en China (Selling in China). Gu stresses that, ‘the balance has changed; companies should stop thinking about China as a place to buy cheap products and realize it is a very good market for Spanish companies to sell their products’. Indeed, a change of mentality is needed to turn difficulties into a positive outcome. Albert Hernández, the China director of the Catalan winery Torres, explains that in 2002, after five years in China, the company changed their strategy after noticing changes in the market; ‘we had to take one step back in order to take two steps forward’.

They started over in order to establish the brand in China as importers and distributors. As a result, in 2004 they started making profits, becoming the second most important company in the Torres Group after the headquarters in the Spanish state. ‘It is a wealthy market. We sell more expensive wines here than in the Spanish state. The Chinese market is ready for these sorts of products’.

As China develops, new opportunities will appear. A few years ago it was not possible for a foreigner to open a service company. However, changes in Chinese regulations have opened a fresh way forward. Xavier Espasa, director of the Asia Pacific markets at ACC1Ó points out, ‘architectural

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and engineering firms are stepping in with good results due to the amount of projects that are currently being undertaken in the provinces’. China’s economic stimulus plan is aimed at boosting internal consumption, which will be achieved by improving the quality of life of the population while narrowing the economic gap between the cities and the rural areas. To achieve this end they will need to upgrade public infrastructures with new highways, railways tracks and airports, while some areas will need to be rebuilt.

The pursuit of new opportunities led the Catalan law firm, Net Craman, to open an office in Guangzhou, the capital of Guandong province, making it the first Spanish law firm to get a licence to operate in the South of China. Alex Garmón, director of the Guangzhou office says that, ‘we have followed a different path than other law firms, we know it is more complicated but we believe we are where we have to be’. They expect that the strategic potential of this province will attract Spanish companies that might require legal advice regarding the establishment of their corporations in China and the commercial and fiscal consequences their investment might have in the Spanish state. Getting a licence has been a long tough journey but, as Garmón explains, ‘China is an attractive market because of its difficulties. You have to be patient, be aware of where you are and have a good business plan’.

Although China has relaxed its economic restrictions, sectors of future in-

vestment such as the environment, biotechnology, biopharmacy, energy and telecommunications carry limitations and barriers that in some way might add complexity to the foreign investment. Given the circumstances, Espasa highlights that companies cannot step in simply via exports, they have to do it soundly by buying part of a Chinese company, contributing with technology through a strategic alliance or assuming 100% of the capital’.

Nevertheless, the managing director of the Catalan pharmaceutical company Esteve in China, Miquel Ribalta, thinks that there is still room for investment, ‘the proof is that big multinationals are investing in China to manufacture and commercialize their products and, more importantly, they are establishing R&D centres’.

Esteve has two factories in China that work as a complement to the factories in the Spanish state as well as producing for the local market thanks to two joint ventures. Despite having to share their decisions with their Chinese partners, Ribalta is very positive when he declares that it is a win-win situation, ‘they know the past and the present of the sector in the country, we can contribute with a view of how it will evolve in the following years’.

China is still there. Catalan companies should not regard China as the future, thinking that one day they might establish there. Instead, as Yongtao Gu stresses, ‘China is the present’, it’s already there and it’s not going to wait.

*Iris Mir Holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the Universitat Ramon Llull (Blanquerna Faculty of Communication Sciences). Since 2006 she has been living in Asia working as a freelance journalist for different Spanish media outlets covering the China-Asia Pacific region. She is currently based in Beijing, where she works as the correspondent of the Catalan radio station COMRàdio and the Catalan magazine El Temps.

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Business and Economics

Learning the right lessons from the economic crisis

by Antoni Castells*

Last year the economic crisis dominated events thanks to its unprecedented complexity and intensity. In 2009, world economic growth was the lowest since World War II. However, today we can say that the world has left the recession behind. Many countries have already come out of the recession, although unevenly and some others will do so this year. Economic forecasts are improving almost everywhere. We should stress that the world has avoided the worst scenario, which would have been to go from a recession into a depression.

Nevertheless, we must be extremely cautious. When assessing the current economic situation, we must avoid going from one extreme to the other.

We have to value the positive aspects of what is happening, giving us confidence in the future prospects of the global economy, while at the same time we must be wary, since unrealistic expectations could ruin the recovery that is just starting. Now the big issue is how to consolidate this recovery. We can either strengthen our economies and return to low unemployment rates or else, fall into a long period of economic lethargy. It depends on what action we take from now on.

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It is now time to look forward and also to learn from past experience, from the mistakes that caused this crisis. Although it is true that, in general, economists were unable to predict the dimensions of the current crisis, it is also true that they have made a decisive contribution by drawing some essential conclusions about the world’s experience, especially the one surrounding the Great Depression of the 30s. Likewise, if we are now leaving the crisis it is because the world has learnt from past experience, so we should draw all possible lessons from this crisis.

Growth is the main priority First, we know today that in a recession, governments have to compensate for the fall in economic activity with fiscal stimulus measures. Monetary policy must also be used in the same way: reducing interest rates, and when they approach zero, injecting liquidity. They have to act countercyclically, incurring discretionary deficits if needed. Governments have avoided repeating the mistake of the 30s, when in the face of a great recession, the procyclical policies of governments led to a depression.

Business and Economics

The second lesson we learnt is that the ‘medicine’ should not be withdrawn too early. In 1937, when things seemed to be starting to improve in the USA, Roosevelt tried to balance the budget too soon, and the US fell into a recession once more. The same thing happened in Japan in the 90s, leading to the same outcome as in the US sixty years earlier.

Naturally this policy has its limitations. A permanent deficit of 10% or 12% of GDP is unsustainable. Furthermore, it is obvious that in the coming years a strong fiscal consolidation will be necessary to secure a robust path of recovery.

Nowadays, governments and international institutions around the world understand that economic recovery is the number one priority. The world has realized that the best budget is the one that leads to economic growth as soon as possible, since growth will allow us to end deficits.

In this crisis almost everyone has made mistakes, so nobody is in a position to lecture to the others. It is true that some were more wrong than others, such as the prophets of the fallen old truths and these in particular should avoid preaching to the others. In general, however, everyone should maintain an atti-

Learning lessons from the crisis

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tude of humility. We should try to learn as much as possible from this crisis.

I fully agree with Martin Wolf, who said in an article published in October of 2009 in the Financial Times, ‘This is not a time for a return to business as usual. We have survived this crisis. But we could not cope with another, possibly bigger and yet more dangerous one in a few years. Let us now show posterity we are able to learn from history’.

The implementation of financial stability policies faces a serious practical problem: the lack of incentives We would be fortunate if after this crisis all the proposals for reforms that are currently being discussed became a reality. Now that the economy is starting to pick up, we should not forget our desire to make amends. There will be other crises and other recessions in the future, for sure, but at least let us commit ourselves to making sure that these crises will not be caused by the same causes that led to this one. Then we will learn about where we went wrong, and we will correct whatever is necessary, because learning from one’s mistakes is a precondition for progress.

One of the major lessons of this crisis is that there is no market without a state. In other words, without the rules of the game and institutions that enforce those rules. Without decisive action by governments and central banks we would not be leaving the crisis behind. The time in which it was proclaimed ‘The government is the problem’ is over. But we should not go to the other extreme proclaiming that ‘The government is the only solution’.

Neither ‘The government is the prob40

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lem’ nor ‘The government is the only solution’; but rather ‘There is no solution without government and without the market’.

Now we face the great challenge of designing a new balance between government and the market in the era of the global economy. In Europe we also have the crucial challenge of filling the gap between a strong economic and monetary integration and a still very weak political union. We should not forget that without strong political institutions at the European level, it is very difficult to have common fiscal and treasury policies.

Catalonia: a powerful economic reality Nowadays, competition takes place at a global level, but at the same time, territories are more important than ever. They compete with one another.

To succeed, countries need a solid productive base, with companies that are able to innovate and gain in productivity. This is what Catalonia has to offer.

Business and Economics

Catalonia is home to Spain’s main economy and a leading European region. It has roughly seven and a half million inhabitants (meaning it has a larger population than 11 of the 27 members of the European Union) and a GDP of 234 billion euros (in purchasing power parity). This means that 15 of the EU-27 countries have a smaller GDP than Catalonia. In terms of GDP per capita, Catalonia is in fifth place in the European Union ranking, preceded only by Luxembourg, Ireland, Netherlands and Austria, and 12% above the euro zone average.

omy, with a remarkable industrial basis. Catalonia has two more assets: its openness to the world and its commitment to excellence.

Catalonia is a business-friendly country. A recent study by the renowned Foreign Direct Investment Magazine, edited by the Financial Times Group, found Barcelona to be the fifth most important European city in economic terms and the most important one in Southern Europe. We have very solid foundations and an innovative econ-

Catalan society also wants to affirm its commitment to the pursuit of excellence in all fields of human knowledge.

Knowledge, skills and talent are the best investments we can make in our future. Only if we are able to build solid foundations for the future, will we leave this crisis behind.

Catalonia is a cosmopolitan country, open to cultural, economic and scientific exchanges. A country that is not afraid of sailing in uncharted waters but rather quite the opposite. We firmly believe that sharing with others, competing with others, is the only way to realise our full potential. We know that opening doors and windows to let in fresh air is always a positive thing.

*Antoni Castells Catalan Minister of Economy and Finance

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Opinion

Literature and social function

by Albert Sánchez-Piñol*

In periods of crisis and pessimism such as the one we are currently experiencing a recurring question arises: why have our classics lost their relevance? How is it possible that the West’s great literary baggage can steadily lose its effect on the education of our young, in its public presence and the cultural fabric of modern society?

Economic depressions generate periods of depressions in feelings. We moan and complain, without the debate moving beyond an expression of consternation. Nonetheless, the evidence continues to refute this perspective. The publishing industry has never been as busy as it is now, at the start of the twenty-first century, we have never had so many readers and thanks to the Internet the classics are within the reach of all (or nearly all) and in free versions.

How is it that the classics maintain their relevance, after so much time and across all kinds of borders We can, therefore, ask ourselves the question the other way round: how is it that the classics maintain their relevance, after so much time and across all kinds of borders? The question is even more appropriate when we examine the contents of these classics. If one 42

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stops to think about it, the books that we include in the most select universal libraries have a moral content that is rather dubious. I would even dare to say that the classic works of fiction are a collection of accounts that are essentially abnormal. They contain stories and characters which include paedophilia, sadism and any other atrocity imaginable, all on an absurd level. A false notion of what constitutes a classic would be that it must be pompous and insipid. Nothing could be further from the truth. One only need pick up a book, any one will do.

Homer: the kidnapping of a woman leading to an international war; the Greeks attack Troy, following a long siege they enter the city hidden inside a wooden horse and unleash a bloodbath.

End of story. The classic of all classics may well be Don Quixote. A man goes mad and disguises himself as a medieval knight. He sets forth to fight the world’s injustices and always ends up defeated.

One day he goes home repentant, receives the last rites and dies. The end.

Romeo and Juliet: a pair of lovers who confront a forbidden love. Solution?

Simultaneous suicide. The passage of time does nothing to reduce the banality of some of the stories. Moby Dick: a captain is against a white whale because one day it tore his leg off. He tirelessly searches for it, and when finally he finds it, instead of killing the whale, the whale kills the captain and sinks his ship.

Glug glug glug. Kafka: a man wakes up one morning having been turned into a black beetle. His family, mortified with shame, hide him in his room.

One day, his infuriated father throws an apple at him. The apple smashes the beetle’s carapace and it dies. The end of Metamorphosis. The Old Man and the Sea, by Hemingway: an old fisherman fights against a great swordfish. After a lengthy maritime combat the old man wins and ties the fish to his boat. Along come some sharks and devour his trophy. The fisherman returns to shore bearing only the backbone. The end.

The Catalan classics are certainly no exception. Rodoreda: a girl meets

a boy in La Plaça del Diamant [The Time of Doves] in the Gràcia district of Barcelona. The Civil War breaks out and the boy goes to the front. He gets killed. The girl ends up getting married to a broken man. End of La Plaça del Diamant. Monzó: a trumpet player develops a constant erection. The trumpet player ends up dying. Naturally the book is called La magnitud de la tragèdia (the Magnitude of the Tragedy). *** Are we to think that this collection of foolish stories is worthy of being conserved, being passed on to the next generation and even being included in our school curriculum? The most surprising thing is the fanatical, unshakeable faith the human race places in its classics.

The explication may be found in a clue that can only be found in literature. A classic is a classic because it exCatalan International View

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would say, the essence of Don Quixote is that, ‘reason is in non-reason’.

It may be for this reason that humanity considers the great classics to be a collective treasure. Every generation of writers, whatever their origins, has brought some new truth to the literary baggage. In war, man has created the sinister concept of ‘no man’s land’.

In peace, great literature is a form of ‘everyone’s land’. ***

plains a truth, a universal truth, even if it is adapted to a local context. Any pub drunk can tell us, ‘superhuman effort is worth it, but it is sad’. Our reply would probably be, ‘go home and sleep it off ’.

However, when Hemingway says it, it is different. After reading The Old Man and the Sea, we have no alternative but to accept that he is right. Hemingway states and demonstrates an irrefutable truth for his readers via the written word: that struggle dignifies the man, but it is unalterably sad. If someone were to tell us, ‘if you obtain exactly what you want from life all will be lost’, we would not listen to them. When Monzó tells us, the sermon is elevated to the level of truth. Desire is desirable, uninterrupted desire is hell. Kafka: who has not at one time or another woken up as a beetle? And as for Don Quixote, his truth is that only with the eyes of a fool can we really comprehend how the world works. Or as Cervantes himself 44

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This article has a title which refers to literature’s social function. Good books bring truths that are gratefully accepted by the universal community of readers. Often it is an ethical path, and sometimes the negation of immoral paths. Nevertheless, the question is: does the humanity that accepts the truth of these books take them on board? Evidently, the answer must be ‘no’. An absolute, unequivocal ‘no’.

Unfortunately, literature has not made us any better. The human being is a species that is defined by its unlimited capacity to learn without accumulating wisdom. Our conflicts are the same as a million years ago, worse even thanks to their massive scale. Comparative anthropology shows us more effectively than any other means the banal nature of culture, at least in terms of an instrument for moral perfection.

As an ethnographer I had the opportunity to do field work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, among the Mbuti (more commonly known as Pygmies). One of the most moving scenes I was to witness was with a small group of Mbuti, particularly isolated from contact with other human communities. Someone showed them

Opinion

a small postcard which depicted Christ on the cross. The Mbuti studied the postcard, deliberated for a moment and declared, ‘you must be very bad people because no one deserves to have that done to them’. They promptly left.

Far from believing in the virtues of the noble savage, any anthropologist will tell you that the Mbuti have internal conflicts and tensions. However, there is an inescapable fact: the Mbuti are an illiterate society. They have never read a book. Nevertheless, it would be very difficult to argue that they are morally inferior to ourselves. In fact, I feel tempted to argue just the reverse. The Nazis sent millions to the gas chambers and they did so whilst humming verses by the German romantics; the Mbuti saw a tiny part of our culture, the narrative climax of the most successful bestseller of all time, the Bible, and they went back to the jungle.

Together with my ethnographic experience I witnessed one of the happiest events that can happen to a new author: my first novel, La pell freda (Cold Skin), crossed borders and the original Catalan version was translated into thirty-four languages. If I had to define the ‘truth’ the book tried to transmit it would be the following: that our worst enemy is very similar to ourselves. It is an uncomfortable truth, and for this reason it is packaged in a story from the fantasy genre.

On one occasion, a committee from the parliament of Catalonia visited its counterparts in Israel. They were received by that veteran of world politics,

Simon Peres. The Catalan delegation presented Peres with a collection of Catalan books translated into Hebrew.

When Peres saw the cover of La pell freda he commented that he knew the book and he had liked it a lot.

The human being is a species that is defined by its unlimited capacity to learn without accumulating wisdom You all know what happened next.

Peres called the Israeli cabinet and told them that he had read a marvellous book. In a flash he understood that Palestinian and Israeli children are all made from the same stuff. As a result, war is absurd. A peace treaty was signed and today Palestinians and Israelis love each other like brothers.

No, of course it did not happen like that. Peres is an extremely intelligent man. If he read the book (and sometimes politicians lie; I can assure you) perhaps he enjoyed the plot. And that was all. We effectively keep the classics as a treasure. We read them to pass the time.

Earlier I mentioned the military ‘no man’s land’. In this world there are two opposing ideas; the arms industry and good literature. If we think about it, the military, industrial business is economically absurd: the best thing we can do with its products is not to use them ever. Literature is precisely the opposite: we could make use of them all the time, but we never do. *Albert Sánchez-Piñol

Anthropologist and writer. He has written La Pell Freda (Cold Skin, 2002) and Pandora al Congo (Pandora in the Congo, 2005) in addition to short stories and essays. His work has been widely translated. foto L.M. Palomares

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Opinion

The contemporary megalopolis: present and future

by Pau de Solà-Morales*

Futurology is an ungrateful science: even with the most accurate predictions, the future proves that any forecast is doomed to failure. But when the subject matter of this ‘magic’ is such a complex and poorly understood phenomenon as the contemporary metropolis, there is an even greater probability of failure.

Cities have always been crossroads, the locus of exchange and interaction, favouring social communication, commerce, capital accumulation and the creation of knowledge, factors that have been key in giving it a central role in the production and distribution of goods. This central role in the material conditions of Western society has been translated to the imaginary: for Modernity, the Metropolis and urban culture are synonymous with Culture, from literature to the visual arts, from popular culture to publicity and consumption. The urban is the central reference in our city-centered society, even when it involves criticism and denial, in those nostalgic movements that preach the abandonment of the city in favour of a return to the Rural, or the recovery of a better past.

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Swollen by severe overpopulation, spreading like an uncontrolled cancer over previously unoccupied territories, affected by acute over-consumption of goods and energy, the cities of the Western world (our contemporary megalopolis) are in a precarious state of health. As doctors of sorts we have to hurry to analyze our patients’ symptoms and find a cure, if possible, or at least reach a state of stability amidst the violent forces that drive them to chaos.

The problem is that the present condition of the contemporary megalopolis clearly goes beyond our understanding of it, and our current medicine (the remedies we have to plan and control it) is ineffective.

Modern megalopolis are the ultimate creation of Modernity: during

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the growth of the Metropolis from old medieval cities in the mid nineteenth century, a group of urban pioneers set forth ideas for the transformation of closed, dense cities into beautiful, open spaces worthy of the new dominating class, the new industrial bourgeoisie.

Designed with new tools (urban planning, the ‘Master Plan’, new legal tools, and so on), the new city was based on rationality (straight, aligned streets, healthy conditions, sunlight), on technology (distribution of energy and water, light, sewage systems) and transportation efficiency (metros, tramways, cars). The nineteenth century city was spacious, with sunlit, airy avenues, with

the necessary services (markets, schools, train stations) that the new society demanded. Above all, it was egalitarian, imposing the rule of the grid and the regulations of the Plan with a sense of liberalism, accepting the individual wills, styles and eccentricities within a fixed set of global rules.

After World War I, the Modern Metropolis attained adulthood and flourished (not without problems), as portrayed by Simmel, Baudelaire or the paintings of Grosz. Nevertheless, the new social and political conditions, overpopulation, inequality and an even stronger social consciousness Catalan International View

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turned the modern city into a ‘machine for living’: the Modern Movement (under the auspices of the CIAM) strengthened the idea of the Master Plan. By the invention of zoning and the abolition of the individual, it transformed the city into a homogenizing, undifferentiated, dull landscape without any difference. These ideals were injudiciously embraced for the reconstruction of Europe’s devastated cities after World War II, and for mass social housing programs. Today’s cities still suffer from these decisions that served to shelter millions, but that have been incapable of keeping up with the enormous demands that the system itself has created.

kilometres away from their workplace and regularly consume in another location. Both people and goods generate millions of daily journeys to and from these places, an irrational and expensive pattern of territory and energy consumption, with the side effects of untamed pollution and an ever-increasing need for roads, railroads and parking areas to meet all these demands.

The present condition of the contemporary megalopolis clearly goes beyond our understanding of it, and the remedies we have to plan and control it are not effective

The sprawl of the megalopolis, now covering thousands of hectares, has brought into question the role of the central city, the historic site of bourgeois tradition, which is now almost abandoned to its own fate, troubled (once again) by filth, crime, poverty and social exclusion. A central city, expensively maintained by the helpless local authorities, is only populated by those who cannot go elsewhere, and by a group of intellectual urbanites who resist the pull towards the ‘comfortable’ outskirts, convinced that urban logic is still better than its commercial surrogate.

Needless to say, the hurried transformation of the Modern Metropolis into our contemporary Megalopolis has happened in a disorganized way: the population explosion, economic growth and the rapid escalation in the consumption of goods, habitat and transportation, have modified in around fifty years the initial conditions in which the city used to linger. The population of the Metropolis has multiplied ten-fold in most cases, while the increase in its territorial occupation lies in the hundreds; industries have proliferated in and around them, creating opportunities as well as environmental problems (noise, pollution and so on) and devastating the territory. Technology, in the form of transportation and telecommunication infrastructures, has dispersed production, consumption and habitat: millions now live dozens of

This extremely rapid process, in less than a generation, has been a nightmare for urban planners, sociologists, lawyers and politicians alike, who have been unable to control both the outburst of new problems and their magnitude. The tools that society gave itself to control the modern city in the past (urban planning, the Master Plan, zoning, etc., all products of a paternalistic rationality), shrink today in comparison with the problems they try to solve, for they do not capture the complexity of the problem at hand, when not actively making them worse: bureaucracy has made change rigid, difficult, slow, uncontrollable. Urban processes, old and new, have to adapt to the old rationality, or try to slip through the cracks in the Plan, instead of policies adapting and being able to affect the rapidly changing conditions of the city.

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At the end of the twentieth century, however, a new paradigm in the understanding of cities started to take hold, which may help alleviate the difficulties of policy and planning to cope with the complexity of the cities. Born out of the life sciences (biology, sociology, medicine), ‘complexity sciences’ are beginning to understand complex phenomena (living beings, ecosystems, networks, social groups, cities) not as externally regulated processes, but as self-regulating entities that live with only a set of simple internal rules.

The study of complexity, ranging from

philosophy to mathematics, and from physics to the social sciences, bridges the gap between apparent chaos and the surprising discovery of orderly patterns in large, previously misconstrued phenomena. Complexity deals with organization, not with form; it deals with parts and their interaction, not with average values; it does not homogenize nor restrict, but copes with difference, encourages creativity and opens room for opportunities.

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in a more thorough, deeper way and, what is more important, in a way that can cope with the sheer quantity and size of the problems at hand. Much in the way we now value an ecosystem as a polyedric organization of living beings, a city is seen today as an enormous, manifold collection of millions of individual, different parts (humans of all conditions, buildings of different forms and uses, infrastructures, services) that interact in many different ways. In light of this, the megalopolis shows organizational patterns with distinct clarity: the movement of people, the flow of goods, the exchange of energy and resources with the environment. Inside the networked city the elements create (as they have always created) self-regulatory mechanisms that allow such a complex system to function daily with little intervention, apparent fluidity, without coming to a halt.

The city-system is capable of absorbing relatively large quantities of external aggressions (in the form of increased population, novel demands, changing environmental conditions, economic or material stress, violence, and so on) and can respond relatively well to internal failure (technological malfunction, accident and social unrest, for example). Its built-in intelligence, an anonymous, impersonal, but effective swarm intelligence, is capable of change and internal rearrangement to adjust to the new environmental conditions. This is an open invitation to creativity and opportunity.

The discipline of urban planning is making decisive, though slow, steps in this direction, with new ideas in strategic planning and a scientific shift in their models Nevertheless, it is not indestructible, and there is no guarantee that it will cope indefinitely with stress, failure or just normal change in the environment; that it will respond to the instabilities from which it is suffering at an ever-increasing rate in recent decades. Urban planning and policy is, in this sense, the internal response to continuous maladjustment, the necessary rules that the system’s elements have to follow to strengthen the system and respond to novel demands. However, a planning policy has to be adequate and in accordance with the model of the complex system. The logic of the Master Plan is too rigid, too outdated and too bureaucratic to be a solution, even a temporary compromise. Urban planners, politicians and legislators have to adapt to the new model if they want to respond to the new needs. The discipline of urban planning is making decisive, though slow, steps in this direction, with new ideas in strategic planning and a scientific shift in their models. Now it is the turn of policy to embrace the new discipline and the new model, to begin to heal the patient and prevent the total breakdown of the city-system. This needs to occur before the situation is irreversible or too expensive to be corrected.

*Pau de SolĂ -Morales He graduated in architecture in 1993 and obtained his doctorate from Harvard University in 2000. He has been Visiting Professor at the Harvard Design School and the Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio (USI), as well as in other international schools.

At present he is Professor of Theory and Computing at the Reus Architecture School (URV).

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Bulls, pain and rage

by Pilar Rahola*

As my position is well known on what I consider to be an authentic orgy of blood, violence and evil, I will not spend much time in reiterating it here. With regard to this issue the world is divided into those that see it as a tradition with an illustrious bloodline, based on the beauty of the testosterone-fed struggle between man and bull, and those that see it as simply bloody, more related to the primitive, irrational and perverse, than anything else. As for everything we have heard recently about the death knell for bullfighting, the best line came from a well-known radio announcer, (‘Charge’!) ‘The history of Spain cannot be written without bullfighting’. Very true. Neither can it be written without reference to the Spanish Inquisition, the persecution of the afrancesados (middle-class Francophiles), the Counter-Reformation, forty years of Franco’s rule and so on. There is nothing more Spanish than Ortega [matador José Gómez Ortega, 1895– 1920], and even he says there is nothing more Spanish than violence. The guardians of the national-Catholic-bullfighting essence should not fret, therefore: the history of Spain will not be called into question by the disappearance of bulls; it will just be the end of one of its many evil episodes.

In these times of increasing ecological ethics, and a good dose of bad conscience with respect to the planet and the millions of lives of many varieties that we have managed to kill off with such viral efficiency (and what other organism do we resemble if not a virus?) even those in favour of bullfighting need a long list of more or less presentable arguments in order to defend their taste for blood. Of their 52

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many arguments, the most laughable is the ecological one, where they assert that a certain breed of bull can be saved thanks to the aforementioned torturefestival. In a parliamentary debate with the sublime Esperanza Aguirre, when she was minister of the relevant ministry, this was precisely her argument when I tabled a parliamentary question.

The anti-bullfighting lobby will end up being the enemies of biodiversity.

There has been a slow but steadily growing belief that bullfighting is no longer acceptable in this, the twenty-first century There has been a slow but steadily growing belief that bullfighting is no longer acceptable in this, the twentyfirst century. It is evident that there are many economic interests behind the industry and that some of them are 54

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so powerful they even have Euro MPs acting exclusively on behalf of the bullfighting lobby. It is also evident that the day bullfighting ceases to exist, a fundamental part of traditional Spain mythologized in our Goyaesque memory will also have ceased to exist. It is even evident that the gossip programmes on TV will have to make up even more bizarre, melodramatic, freakish personalities than the matadors that currently populate their shows. It also seems obvious to me that the bullfighting debate will fall of its own accord, which is broader and increasingly common and even the delaying tactics will have had their day. Clearly, considering the Portuguese option, where the bull is killed in the same way, but the audience are spared the final death scene, appears to me to be a grotesque deception. Nevertheless, it is also true that bullfighting is a taboo subject for the political class and that all those in favour, whether visible or not, are fighting all out in support.

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in their joy when faced with death. Is there anything worse than human beings when they become a mob, a cruel, merciless mob? Is there anything more human than the gaze of this wounded animal, projecting to the world its pain and suffering?

Bullfights are indignant, based on a complete lack of respect for life, they go against the values of co-existence and they are the result of incivility

In Barcelona we have seen the end of bullfights in the Monumental bullring and soon the Catalan parliament will have to vote on its prohibition in the whole of Catalonia. In Spain they will take longer, but I have no doubt that the day will one day come.

Bullfights are a grave indignity and represent the most primitive and uncivilised aspect of our collective feelings. They are the pure adrenalin of the macho from the Jurassic confronting a poor animal whose only destiny is to agonise between torture and blood. A noble, peaceful, tranquil animal confronting a mob converted into a pure spectacle of human misery, vociferous

I can only see a future without bullfights. I do not believe that any country is incapable of improving in terms of dignity, respect, co-existence and civility. I believe they are even capable of improving beyond their traditions, their historical memory and the broad strokes of their culture. Bullfights are indignant, based on a complete lack of respect for life, they go against the values of co-existence and they are the result of incivility. Bullfights are what we used to be, the purveyors of a dense past, but that is not what we must aspire to be, it cannot form part of the future. For all of the reasons that have been said and for a more fundamental one: learning to love animals is learning to love ourselves. Torturing them, despising and harming them only serves to show how deep our misery goes. The torture of animals does not say anything about them; it says something about us and our defeat as human beings.

*Pilar Rahola She holds a degree in Spanish Philology and Catalan Philology from the Universitat de Barcelona and has been a TV, radio and newspaper journalist for many years. She worked on cultural and social programmes for television. She has also covered conflicts such as the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Yugoslav Wars, the First Gulf War (based in Jerusalem), the fall of the Berlin Wall, the assault on the Russian Parliament and the independence process in the Baltic States.

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Ending Bush’s legacy

by Manuel Manonelles*

Voltaire, in his Philosophical Dictionary of 1764, says: ‘… To be secure on lying down that you shall rise in possession of the same property with which you retired to rest; that you shall not be torn from the arms of your wife, and from your children, in the dead of night, to be thrown into a dungeon or buried in exile in a desert; that, when rising from the bed of sleep, you will have the power of publishing all your thoughts; and that, if you are accused of having either acted, spoken, or written wrongly, you can be tried only according to law. These privileges attach to every one who sets his foot on English ground…’

Unfortunately, this somewhat idealised description the famous enlightened philosopher made of the England of the second half of the eighteenth century as a paradigm of civil rights, some two centuries later (at the start of the twenty-first century) ceased to be a reality.

In the context of ‘the War against Terror’, that Tony Blair’s government promptly embraced and which found passive or active support in virtually the whole of Europe, many of the so-called more ‘civilized’ and ‘advanced’ nations in the world participated in or tolerated acts against human dignity of the most abominable kind. Secret detentions took place even without a court order, detainees were secretly flown to other countries (Voltaire’s ‘deserts’), where torture is an everyday occurrence, there were secret prisons (in territory belonging to countries that are under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights!) and government agencies were created in order to produce and disseminate misinformation.

It is important not to forget that the main focus of this whole process was the Bush administration, that following the attacks of 9/11 undertook actions which, with a tone of religious fundamentalism, bordered on the paroxysm.

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Particularly choice examples are the Intelligence Briefings that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld regularly prepared for President Bush. These were ‘decorated’ with photographs of American troops in action and quotations from the Old Testament, as was revealed by Gentlemen’s Quarterly in May 2008, and later taken up by the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune.

A chilling example of these reports was one where a photograph of a soldier with a machine gun was placed above a quote from Proverbs that states, ‘Commit to the Lord, whatever you do, and your plans will succeed’. On the cover of another could be read a quotation from Isaiah: ‘Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter’, accompanied by a photograph of an American tank in action.

Nevertheless, in spite of the irrationality of the whole enterprise, the Bush administration counted on the collaboration of many European governments, Britain’s in particular, which

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were to follow and even exceed the list of disproportionate acts originating from the US. In 2005, the Blair government announced draconian changes in antiterrorist measures. A proposal was put before Parliament to increase detention without charges in terrorist cases from 14 days to 90. In other words, going from two weeks of detention without knowing the formal charges by which someone is deprived of their liberty, to three months! As Archbishop Desmond Tutu (holder of the Nobel Peace Prize and one of the anti-Apartheid

leaders) denounced at the time, the prime minister was proposing exactly the same measures implemented by the racist South African government in the 80s; measures that caused international condemnation and received a welldeserved boycott on behalf of several countries including the United Kingdom. Luckily, English common sense prevailed, and the House of Lords (which has lately proven to be the best guarantee of British fundamental rights and liberties, as counterintuitive as this may seem) overturned the new law, amidst a heated debate. Nevertheless, through a certain amount of maCatalan International View

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noeuvring the government managed to extend detention without charge from 14 days to 24.

Proof that Bush’s influence was still present and had passed to the successors of his closest allies was when Gordon Brown, as the new British prime minister, renewed efforts to extend detention without charge from 24 days to 42 although he had initially shown himself to hold a much more moderate line in regard to the fight against terrorism. Obviously, this caused a new social and political row in the United Kingdom and even led to the resignation of an influential conservative MP, David Davis, in an attempt to withhold the Conservatives’ support for the proposal. Once again, thanks to the (unelected) Lords, this excessive initiative was stopped.

The Bush administration counted on the collaboration of many European governments, who were to follow the disproportionate acts originating from the US While it is true that these proposals were unsuccessful, many others did take effect. We are all aware of the implementation of new harsh security measures with respect to air travel. In spite of the fact that the European Parliament spent many hours debating the topic and a whole host of evidence that demonstrated the futility of these measures, it took some five years before the measures were made public; although their secrecy was against all legal principles. Eventually, some of the security measures were abandoned, although the majority are still in use.

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debate and scrutiny. New laws and new practices were constantly being approved that were increasingly restrictive of individual rights and liberties, always in the context of national security and the fight against terrorism.

Examples include the proliferation of video surveillance of public spaces, limits to freedom of movement in many instances, extraordinary powers granted to security forces and so on. Others were more intrusive in terms of personal privacy, such as the access to the personal data of passengers on flights, the indiscriminate and random access to private communications (telephone, electronic, etc.) and the creation and maintenance of banks of DNA. The vast majority of this legislation is still in force in many countries. What we could call ‘Bush’s legacy’ is not only part of our recent, turbulent history, it also inhabits the legal structure and policing practices of many countries, including those that until a few years ago appeared to the world to be guardians of liberty and social advances.

A new context has been created where all too often it is misunderstood that security prevails over liberty. This makes possible the carrying out of unusual practices such as those in Germany in June 2007 when Tornado fighters flying at low altitude were used to ‘control’ demonstrators during the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm; actions that were accompanied by the construction of provisional prisons and cell blocks that were soon dubbed ‘mini-Guantanamos’ due to their structure and management.

In other words, there was the planning and carrying out of the use of military means for strictly civil security activities, something that clearly contravenes the German Constitution . Even worse, the use of such force was not in order to provide better protection of the liberties and fundamental rights of the pop-

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ulation, but rather to restrict them and, in some cases, to temporarily suspend them.

Another clear indicator of this tendency, on a different order of magnitude is the Swedish law, known as the ‘FRA-Law’ (administratively speaking Government proposal 2006/07:63 – Changes to defence intelligence activities). Under the guise of security it has been the cause of one of the most heated debates to have taken place in this Scandinavian country in recent years, given the special powers it grants to the government to freely monitor private electronic communications in transit through Sweden. The law came into effect last January and has been condemned by many media organisations as being extremely disrespectful with privacy. Opposition to this law was the main reason a new Swedish political party, the Pirate Party, was thrust into the political limelight, obtaining a significant number of votes in the last European elections and being currently the third largest Swedish party in terms of registered members, with some 50,000 members. Of great significance is the third point –following- in the new party’s manifesto, which could well be classed as utterly ‘Volterian’: ‘Following the 9/11 event in the US, Europe has allowed itself to be swept along in a panic reaction to try to end all evil by increasing the level of surveillance and control over the entire population. We Europeans should know better. It is not twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and there are plenty of other horrific examples of surveillance-gone-wrong in Europe’s modern history.

The arguments for each step on the road to the surveillance state may sound ever so convincing. But

we Europeans know from experience where that road leads, and it is not somewhere we want to go.

We must pull the emergency brake on the runaway train towards a society we do not want.

Terrorists may attack the open society, but only governments can abolish it.’

If such events have taken place, and continue to take place, in countries that up to now have been leading civil and political rights, one can imagine the domino effect that this is having in those countries that are not exactly known for their freedoms. The result is a tide sweeping away liberties and rights on a global scale.

As if this were not enough, ‘Bush’s legacy’ has gone on to form part of the imaginery of a large part of the population and has taken hold in a deeper way than was originally thought via the use of words and language, in a strategy that was premeditated and not accidental.

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Most people speak of the ‘War against Terror’, rather than merely ‘terrorism’, especially in the Englishspeaking world. It is a clear, perverse distortion of language that has been another tool utilised in generating a suitable climate for accepting unprecedented restrictions on fundamental rights and freedoms. Simultaneously, the media progressively used, increasingly, a language filled with stereotypes and misleading arguments, especially those groups and networks closely allied to the Bush administration and ideology, but with a global impact. The terms ‘Arab’ and ‘Islam’ became synonyms for terrorism, there was talk of Islamofascism, or historical concepts were changed into new ones with clear messianic tendencies, such as the infamous ‘axis of evil’.

Bush’s legacy and the neo-con era are still very much in evidence and directly condition the daily lives of a large part of the world’s population We can see, therefore, that although President Obama has already celebrated a year in office, Bush’s legacy and the neo-con era are still very much in evidence and directly condition the daily lives of a large part of the world’s population. Sometimes, if the past is turbulent and uncomfortable the temptation to put it to one side and ignore it is great and may even appear to be a good

option in order to start a new period with renewed enthusiasm. However, stating that nowadays citizens are less free than we were a decade ago is not at all demagogic, it is simply stating the truth; and this is precisely what any healthy society with a view to a better future cannot accept.

It is necessary, therefore, that we propose a great social mobilisation, with the necessary participation of organised civil society but in particular of the legal world (from bar associations to judges and so on) as well as the academic sector, and media groups and journalists that truly long for an open society free from fear. This is a necessary social and intellectual mobilisation in order to switch on the vital work of legislative and normative revision so that it is capable (when needed) of demanding the responsibilities and consequences derived from it. If not, we will be held hostage to our past, trapped by a legacy we all proclaim to detest and reject but, for whatever reason, we are unable to revise and reconstruct.

In a recent editorial, The New York Times stated that ‘…a real accounting of the Bush administration’s abuses is vital if Mr. Obama truly wants to repair them and try to prevent them from recurring. It is more important than ever now…’. Now it is the time, not only for the United States but for the rest of the countries, starting with the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.

*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 Civilisations, 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.

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Salvador Giner ‘Catalan’s survival would be assured if it had its own state’ Interviewed by Eva Piquer* Photos by Xabier Miquel Laburu

The sociologist Salvador Giner (Barcelona, 1934) is president of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (Catalan Institute of Studies, IEC), an organisation that has as its main objective the classifying and normalising of Catalan, a language which is spoken by ten million people. Emeritus professor of sociology at the Universitat de Barcelona, he holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and conducted post-doctoral research in Cologne. Giner held the post of professor for many years in various British universities. His research interests include the history of social philosophy, general theories on modern societies and macro-sociological analyses of Mediterranean societies. In 1995 he was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi (Saint George’s Cross), one of the highest accolades presented by the Catalan government.

What is the Catalan Institute of Studies and what does it do?

The IEC is Catalonia’s academy of sciences and humanities. It is a national academy like many others in Europe, such as the French, the British or the Italian academies. A culture like ours, in a country like ours and with a language like ours, must have an academy. It was founded in 1907 with the intention of bringing together all the sciences and arts in a sole institution, with the intention of encouraging them and developing them to the highest possible level. It adheres to the principles of modernity, rationality and the scientific method in all fields. There are historians, archaeologists, nuclear physicists and so on. We collaborate with all the institutions around the country that work in these disciplines, such as universities and research

laboratories. We also encourage progress in the sciences via our associate societies. We have 10,000 members all round the Catalan-speaking territories who are members of these societies.

Is it comparable with the academies in countries that have a state?

Yes, in many ways. Since 1922 we have been full members of the Brussels-based International Union of Academies. Every academy has its own characteristics, of course. In our long history there have been phases in which the IEC has needed to complete and substitute the work that the universities and the Spanish government weren’t doing.

The IEC is a lot more active than other European academies. We need to be: the country needs this activity. Of course, in the twenty-first century the

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IEC doesn’t do direct research in all fields, we can’t supplement investigation in the same way that we did in other periods of our history. We have a lot of universities that currently do this work. There was a time when all work in philology was done by the academy, but nowadays there are lots of university professors that work on language and who don’t belong to the IEC. We haven’t lost our authority, but we don’t directly conduct research ourselves 100%, we’re now in a very different phase.

A more ‘normalised’ phase.

Precisely. In fact, the normalisation of science in the Catalan Countries is largely due to the activity of the IEC. Over the years we have laid the foundations which have allowed the country to advance in science and technology in a spectacular fashion.

The IEC is Catalonia’s academy of sciences and humanities. It is a national academy like many others in Europe The IEC operates in the Catalan-speaking area.

Do the Catalan Countries make sense as a project for the future?

On a scientific and cultural level, yes. We have a European language which is spoken throughout the territory, so in a sense there’s nothing to be worried about. We have a normalised language, such as Romanian or Portuguese. In our globalised world with the Internet and the influence of English, all languages fluctuate, but this is normal.

Does Catalan have a future?

Catalan has a future, but it is at risk.

What dangers does Catalan face?

If we only concentrate on the UNESCO definition, Catalan isn’t an endangered language: we don’t appear on the UN’s list of endangered languages, because there are a series of guarantees that keep Catalan off this list. But we ourselves know 64

that in some areas the language is undergoing a strong recession, due to competition from other languages: Spanish in Spain, French in France, and Italian in Sardinia and Alghero. The situation is nothing to laugh about. Of course we’re preoccupied. We find ourselves in a grey area between the languages that don’t have any problem and those that have the worrying problem of disappearing.

The fact that ten million people speak Catalan is no reason to feel complacent. In Valencia, Perpignan, Alicante and certain neighbourhoods in Barcelona, Catalan is a very recessive language.

This is serious and it worries us. Everyone knows that every time a language disappears the whole of humanity is poorer as a result. In Malta, Maltese doesn’t have any problems, even though there are few speakers. On the other hand, we don’t receive any recognition. We suffer from a problem of an undermining and erosion of the Catalan language.

Nowadays, children speak Catalan in class and Spanish in the playground. Have we taken a step backwards in the social usage of the language?

Yes, we have problems of this kind. In some areas, social usage is receding. The teachers, the government, civil society and the IES all need to take serious measures.

Who must save Catalan, those who speak it or politicians?

We the public have to save it. We choose the politicians. If there’s a politician who isn’t faithful to the language of our country we shouldn’t vote for them. We’re a democracy and we must vote correctly. It doesn’t make sense voting for a party that goes against the country’s statute. Even a very timid statute like ours.

If we had our own state, would the survival of our language be more assured?

Yes, without doubt. With our own state, Catalan’s survival would be guaranteed. In Denmark, Danish isn’t in danger. Malta, Serbia and Kosovo (which the Spanish government refuses to recognise) do not have their languages in danger. Of course, things are never easy: they are currently struggling to reintroduce Welsh into schools, but

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in many areas English has won, the damage has been done. Wales doesn’t have an independent state, but it has had a long history of cultural autonomy with respect to England.

I have the sensation that we have been fighting our whole lives for Catalan to be recognised in Europe.

We have been fighting our whole life for Catalan to be recognised in the world as a whole. Since 1714 to be precise, it’s nothing new, it’s all part of being Catalan. Educated Catalans (and fortunately there are a lot of them) have a liking for internationalism, we’re a cosmopolitan country, we have a capital that’s one of the greatest metropolises of southern Europe. It’s an open, universalist capital.

We are a progressive people, you can’t teach us anything about democracy. We’ve been a European nation since Charlemagne. The history of contemporary Catalonia is one of progress. We would’ve gone much further without external intervention, but nevertheless, we’ve achieved a lot.

Are we at the stage we’re at, linguistically speaking, thanks to the policy of linguistic immersion in schools?

Yes, this policy has done a lot for Catalan.

We the Catalans finance the Real Academia Española de la Lengua (the Spanish Royal Academy of Language), but the Spanish state barely finances the IEC… In relation to the territory we cover, we get very little money from central government. The Spanish state could be more generous with its help, in keeping with our reach and our activities.

How do you see contemporary Catalan society?

It is a society in transition, like many others, including Spanish society. Between the seventeenth century and the mid-twentieth century we had a static population, we grew less than Sweden. This

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has finished, immigration has made demographic growth really take off.

Is the integration of new immigrants one of the most complicated challenges facing our country?

Yes, of course, but it’s not the only challenge we’re facing. The erosion of Catalan is another serious problem. In terms of immigration, we need to distinguish between systemic integration and social integration. Structural integration is immediate, socio-cultural integration, on the other hand, is a lot more complicated: which is to say becoming Catalan, speaking the language, voting for parties that are faithful to the country. On the other hand, there are citizens from here that don’t identify with the country’s objectives and they’re not immigrants.

We’ve been a European nation since Charlemagne. The history of contemporary Catalonia is one of progress Does the younger generation have less of a sense of a nation?

Yes, but this is normal. Popular identity fluctuates. When we sociologists ask people if they feel more Catalan or Spanish, many people answer that they feel both Spanish and Catalan at the same time. The current tendency is towards Catalanism.

Many people who are for the statute feel as Catalan as they feel Spanish, but if central government questions the statute or the constitutional court calls it into question, the central state generates more Catalanism.

What do you think about the referenda on sovereignty with no legal force that have been held in various Catalan towns and villages?

It’s very good that they hold them, people have the right to vote for the kind of country they want.

People should be free.

Education is the key to social advancement, but I’m not sure we give it the importance it deserves...

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If we don’t then it’s a mistake. Education is the key to everything. There’s a basic problem in this country and nowadays no one talks about it: social inequality. Thirty or forty years ago we were worried by the rich and the poor, but not now. It’s a crucial topic: a poor child and a rich child have a dramatically different range of opportunities available to them in their lives. An upper middle class child will be exposed in its home to a range of vocabulary some 10 to 100 times larger than a child from a working class home. In the home of a child from a ‘good home’ there are lots of books, in the working class household there’s just the TV. One goes on to study engineering and the other is destined to learn a trade in a substandard school. This is a problem and it only has one solution that doesn’t involve a revolution: having a solid education system. This needs to be reflected in the government’s budget. Education has to receive more money than health or public works, because if you resolve the education problem you’ll have public works and you’ll have a healthier population. Schools, schools, schools. Excellent schools with well-paid teachers.

They’ve done it in Finland: a schoolteacher is more highly respected than a judge or a doctor. Education is taken more seriously there, as are exams for teachers. We can’t allow people to study to become teachers if they don’t have enough talent to become a doctor. It’s a question of political will.

Does humanity progress in spite of everything?

I’m afraid not, with the demographic explosion it’s going to get worse. The world is unwell.

And with the ecological crisis... look what happened in Copenhagen, they didn’t introduce any measures, the world isn’t doing its duty. The population explosion will lead us to disaster. When countries reach a certain level of prosperity their growth curve doesn’t continue to rise. We’ve learnt to control the environment, but the deterioration is faster than any improvement.

In what aspects have we clearly improved?

One of the great revolutions of the twentieth century was of women’s rights. There are still many differences, such as in salaries, but before it was outrageous. If we go back sixty years we would see how far we’ve come. When the differences are so

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Interview

great there are no revolutions. If what you’re trying to achieve is so far away, nobody moves. But if you’re close, if you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, people take action. When the blacks in America were about to be acknowledged, Martin Luther King emerged and that’s when they really got the push they needed that has led to Obama reaching the White House. A similar thing happened with the women’s movement. At first they were quiet, but when they began to achieve emancipation they pushed harder. That was when women were able to demonstrate in the street and declare they were fed up with being a typist or a housewife. Revolutions happen when change is seen to be possible.

What will the world be like in one hundred years?

If we don’t address certain tendencies, it’ll be in a very bad state. I’m not a pessimist: we’re heading for the end, but perhaps it’s not too late to stop it. The governments promote the consumption of cars even when they know the automobile market is saturated. We’re not doing very well, not at all.

It’s a shame.

*Eva Piquer Writer and journalist. Works for the Avui newspaper where she coordinates the cultural supplement and the culture section. 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).

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Europe

European Union – United States: a chronicle of disappointment

by Carme Colomina*

Washington has been sending signals for some time now. The European Union has lost its privileged position as a favoured partner of the United States and is being relegated to the role of faithful follower.

Transatlantic relations are swimming in a sea of economic and political misunderstandings.

‘The Europeans have to forget Henry Kissinger’s telephone once and for all’, wrote Tom Spencer, executive director of the Centre for Public Affairs, at the start of the year. ‘Foreign relations no longer depend solely upon a good bilateral connection’. The European Union is not the only one to have to reinvent its foreign policy to adapt itself to the new players and new rules on the world stage. The United States is also hard at work defending its dominant position in a world that is turning towards Asia.

The Copenhagen Summit on climate change, organised by the UN in December 2009, confirmed European defeat when faced with the so-called G-2, the new trans-Pacific axis that mutually observes, trusts and mistrusts each other. Sidelined from the final agreement between the United States and China in what was supposed to be its great role as a world leader, the EU finally woke up to the new geopolitical reality. A reality that it appeared to be 68

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the only one who was unaware of up until then.

Obama and Europe had already had several months of mutual disappointment that neither had so far dared to acknowledge. The Old Continent had unrealistic expectations on the arrival of the Democratic candidate in the White House. Meanwhile, the Obama administration had to accept that any electoral support did not imply the expected complicity or collaboration from this side of the Atlantic in tackling some of the priorities on Washington’s political agenda.

The European Union continues to be stuck in its own debates and in the temporal nature of its representation in foreign affairs that the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty has yet to fully resolve. The first time the new stable President of the Council of Europe, Herman Van Rompuy, and the new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, ap-

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peared before the press, minutes after their nomination, a German journalist asked them, ‘which of you will Barack Obama call now when he wants to talk to Europe?’. There was a brief, pregnant pause. Van Rompuy, Ashton, the President of the Commission Durao Barroso and the rotating President of the EU, the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt all exchanged glances. Following some malicious chuckles from the assembled journalists, Herman Van Rompuy replied, ‘I’m anxiously waiting for the first phone call’. At the time he did not know that the first call from Washington would be to confirm that Barack Obama did not plan to attend the bilateral EU-US summit that was to be held in the spring in Madrid and which was subsequently postponed.

Obama fails to understand the European tendency to hold summits that are big on protocol whilst achieving little. According to him, their last joint summit of April 2009 in Prague was literally ‘a waste of time’ and the European Union did not appear to have got

the message. The Spanish presidency seemed to have become so obsessed with the idea of who would be the first to shake Obama’s hand in Madrid that they completely forgot to work on the contents of a bilateral agenda that was politically poisonous. Nobody cares whether transatlantic relations run smoothly at all levels of the administration, as the President of the European Commission José Manuel Durao Barroso argued. The politicians rubber stamp the work of the bureaucrats and so far no meeting has been arranged.

The end of the affair Reality has once more demonstrated that perhaps the US still does not know which number to ring, but the transatlantic telephone continues to work. The mutual disenchantment has festered for months on three radically different fronts: Afghanistan, the fight against terrorism and global economic governance. The European Union and Catalan International View

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the United States have clashed on the new financial regulation measures that need to be imposed on the markets. When the economic recovery began to appear, discussions within the G-20 for a change in the financial model and better government began to weaken. Both sides now appear to see the conclusions reached by the meeting in a very different light. The United States’ Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner, had no qualms in letting his misgivings be known in a letter to the EU regarding their intention to regulate high risk funds (hedge funds and private equity) which had been questioned since the financial crisis began.

In case the message was not sufficiently clear and the accusations of protectionism against the Europeans did not have the desired effect, Washington called its allies in London. Premier Gordon Brown asked the Spanish presidency of the European Union for more time.

Bilateral phone calls continue to work after all.

The American administration has found it more difficult to find the necessary partners to strengthen its military strategy in Afghanistan. Robert Gates, the United States Secretary of Defence, summed it up nicely for a group of NATO officers at the end of February, ‘the demilitarisation of Europe, where large sectors of the general population and the political class are against military force and the risk 70

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it brings with it, was a blessing during the twentieth century, but in the twenty-first century it has turned into a serious handicap to achieving security and lasting peace’. The United States observes with frustration as a Europe with a shrinking military budget reneges on support in terms of personnel and material for a war which is a priority for the Obama administration. This Europe that is proud of its soft power, the exporter of economic development and democratising reforms, sends soldiers to Afghanistan while refusing to accept the cost in terms of possible military and civilian casualties of a war that has gone on for over 8 years. The Netherlands have paid the price with the fall of its government and Germany has reopened the debate as to its participation in military missions.

As a guardian and defender of European civil liberties, Europe has also become the voice of disagreement in the application of some controversial measures in the fight against terrorism. The most recent debate was held in the European parliament, leading to a renegotiation of the signed agreement between the EU and the US relating to the passing on of personal bank details of EU citizens. According to the Euro-parliament it is a measure that may infringe European citizens’ right to privacy.

Nonetheless, Europe reveals its own contradictions. The EU applauded

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when Obama announced the closure of the Guantanamo prison, but then it fell into an internal debate, which has still not been resolved, as to the possibility of transferring some prisoners to European prisons. The same territory in which the CIA organised rendition flights and illegal arrests of suspected terrorists, today hesitates before collaborating in the dismantling of the shameful spectacle that is Guantanamo. Only a dozen or so EU states have agreed to the transfer of a small number of detainees. Barack Obama will have to wait until 2013 to be able to carry out the election promise he ratified just 48 hours after arriving in the White House.

Barack Obama has still not set foot in Brussels. When the American president looks to the Old Continent he thinks of its capitals and prioritises security and defence. NATO is considering a new defence strategy adapted to the new global threats (cyber-terrorism and the destructive effects of climate change). The United States speaks to Russia about disarmament. The president of the United States has already confirmed his attendance at the NATO

summit to be held in Portugal next autumn. Meanwhile, he successfully deals with the intense domestic political agenda that, in theory, spoiled the photo op with RodrĂ­guez Zapatero.

Obama and Europe have already had several months of mutual disappointment that neither have so far dared to acknowledge Transatlantic relations are weakening. Nevertheless, perhaps being stood up by Obama has done us a favour, forcing the Europeans to be more decisive, clarifying their representation with the exterior and adapting their expectations to the new situation and new global challenges. They should realise that the United States, China and India want a strong European Union with its own voice on a global level that will allow balance to be restored in this new game of power. The EU runs the risk of becoming irrelevant. The president for whom everyone had such high hopes was the one to show them. This has been a genuine wake up call. Now all we need to do is to answer it. *Carme Colomina

A journalist specialising in the present day European Union. She has been with Catalunya RĂ dio for more than fourteen years, where she has been the Brussels correspondent, head of the International Section and News sub-editor. She is a member of Team Europe of the European Commission for Catalunya and the Balearics and the Catalan branch of the European Journalists Association. Currently she works for different media organisations and workshops on communication and the European Union.

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Europe

Ukraine: a change of direction

by Natàlia Boronat*

On the 7th of February 2010, Viktor Yanukovych, one of the two candidates for the presidency in the second round of voting for the Ukrainian elections, spoke in Russian during his first appearance in public to respond to the results of exit-polls that showed him as the winner.

Yanukovych spoke with a conciliatory tone about how he wanted to end the strong divisions between the east of the country, which is mostly proRussian and where he has more followers, and the west. The differences have a historical foundation in that the left bank of the Dnieper River has been more connected to the Russian empire, while the left has been linked to Poland, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Yanukovych spoke in Russian to all the voters, but especially those that failed to vote for him, with the following words, ‘I will try to implement policies that deserve your confidence. I will do everything in my power in order that all Ukrainian citizens feel comfortable in a stable country’.

The official results of the elections subsequently confirmed Yanukovych as president with a slim margin of 3.48% with respect to his rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Some Ukrainian nationalist sectors felt uncomfortable with the fact that his first words on being declared winner were in Russian, after all the efforts made by the outgoing president to promote the Ukrainian language.

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Viktor Yanukovych’s name is often preceded in the West with the adjective ‘pro-Russian’ since he had Moscow’s backing in the elections five years ago in which he stood as the government candidate. He was the great loser of the Orange Revolution at the end of 2004 following the mass demonstrations organised by his rival, the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko, accusing him of fraud and forcing a rerun of the second round of voting.

At the start of 2005, the orange leader Yushchenko won the third round (the repeat of the second) with promises to modernise and democratise the country and bring it closer to the European Union and NATO. The political instability caused by the continual squabbles between the president and the prime ministers (initially his former ally Tymoshenko and later Yanukovych), and also as a result of the economic crisis, made it impossible to realise the objectives Yushchenko declared during the Orange Revolution.

Valeria Hatsko, a 29-year old Ukrainian girl who works as a tourist guide, does not regret having backed the Revolution at the end of 2004. She

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believes that Ukraine chose its own path without taking Moscow into account and that it, ‘helped to end the Ukrainians’ Soviet mentality and also to lead to the freedom of the press’. For her and many other participants in the democratising revolution, Yanukovych’s triumph represents a step backwards to a Soviet past and a return to Russia’s sphere of influence.

Nevertheless, critics of the Orange Revolution maintain that the step backwards that the country experienced during the years of the orange president and the supposedly spontaneous movement were an invention of the West to attract Ukraine towards its sphere of influence. Valeri, an ex-Soviet spy who got rich following the fall of the Soviet Union, only to lose and regain his money several times over, is convinced that the Orange Revolution was organised by the American secret services to threaten Russia.

In spite of the popular disenchantment with the Orange Revolution, due to the continual arguments between its leaders and the economic and political crisis, a series of advances in the democratisation of Ukraine can be clearly identified (and are particularly evident if one arrives in Kiev from Moscow).

They include political debate, freedom of information, the right to protest and the low level of police presence on the streets. What is more, international observers highly rated the last presidential elections and the man accused of fraud in 2004 has gone on to become president following transparent elections, in spite of the fact that the other candidate (Tymoshenko) refuses to recognise Yanukovych’s victory.

The situation in which Ukraine found itself in at the start of 2010, immersed in a serious economic and po-

litical crisis and the unfulfilled promises of the former leader of the Orange Revolution, have taken their toll on President Yushchenko. He was forced to retire from the presidential race after obtaining just 5% of the votes in the first round.

Viktor Yanukovych

With Yanukovych’s arrival in power, Yushchenko fears the Russification of the country, since the new president wants Russian to be the second official language throughout the whole of Ukraine When Yushchenko took office in 2005, he made it abundantly clear that he wanted Ukraine to stop thinking of itself as Russia’s younger sister. The Catalan International View

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Ukrainian state shares a common origin with Russia, the Kievan Rus’ of the ninth and tenth centuries, a body that united various small principalities and which was created in order to protect commercial river routes between the Baltic Sea and Byzantium. Throughout Ukrainian and Russian history the two countries have joined and separated, with the eastern part, the left bank of the Dnieper River and the city of Kiev, forming part of Russia from the seventeenth century onwards.

Ukrainian analysts are convinced that their country’s policies will change course Ukrainian historians consider that during the centuries in which they formed part of the same state (including the Soviet Union period) Ukraine was in an inferior position, in a constant fight for more autonomy, because Russia did not sufficiently respect the Ukrainian institutions, language or culture.

Yushchenko particularly worked on the creation of the Ukrainian national identity, while stressing the country’s differences from Russia and reinterpreting historical events in an entirely different way from how they are seen in Moscow. Some political observers reproach Yushchenko for having spent more time on linguistic, cultural and historical questions than economic issues and for this reason the country now needs the leadership of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions which has the support of the weightiest sectors of the economy in the east of the country, Ukraine’s most industrialised area.

The pro-Western policies Yushchenko initiated while in office and his alliance with the United States caused outrage in Russia, which felt threat74

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ened by movements in Kiev towards a hypothetical entry into the Atlantic Alliance. The new president believes, however, that Ukraine should be a neutral state between Russia and Europe.

With Yanukovych’s arrival in power, Yushchenko fears the Russification of the country. The new president wants Russian to be the second official language throughout the whole of Ukraine because with the present situation the rights of the Russian population (some 20%) are discriminated against, as are those who are not ethnic Russians, but who have Russian as their mother tongue. Ukrainian nationalists are opposed to the possibility that Russian may become the second official language throughout the country because it will threaten the Ukrainian language and they feel that it is sufficient to have Russian continue to be co-official in the regions where Russian-speakers are in the majority.

In the days before abandoning the presidency, Yushchenko signed a decree leaving the state’s linguistic policy clearly spelled out. It states that everyone must be able to speak Ukrainian and, ‘being able to speak Ukrainian or understand it well enough to communicate is an indispensable condition for obtaining Ukrainian citizenship’.

In Yanukovych’s first days as president he said he would work to improve the situation of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine.

One of the other points of friction between Moscow and Kiev is the military base in Sevastopol (on Ukraine’s Crimean coast), home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet thanks to an agreement that expires in 2017 and which the Kremlin would like to renew. Yushchenko and nationalist elements, however, have stated on repeated occasions that the presence of the Russian navy

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destabilises the situation in the region and that they will do everything possible to make them leave when the agreement expires. When Yanukovych took office he immediately sent a placating letter to the Kremlin as he sees a possibility of extending the contract with the Russians.

As the new head of Ukraine, Yanukovych undertook his first foreign trip to Brussels, which is calling on Kiev to continue with its reforms to improve relations with the European Union.

Many Ukrainian political observers classify the visit as his ‘first mistake’, because they believe that improvements in relations with Russia would bring more immediate results that would help to alleviate the economic crisis. Four days later Yanukovych travelled to Moscow to try to reset relations between Russia and Ukraine. The previous president had conducted what the Kremlin considered to be ‘anti-Russian’ policies.

One of the central topics in Ukrainian politics is gas. In 2010, prices rose rapidly, in turn due to an increase in the price Ukraine pays Russia for its gas.

Prices went up following the agreements that were signed to put an end to the gas war at the start of 2009, which left millions of Europeans without fuel in the middle of winter. At the time, the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, agreed that Russian gas prices and transport costs across Ukrainian territory would reflect European commercial rates.

Yanukovych is convinced that the high price of gas is a reprisal from the

Kremlin for the anti-Russian polices of the previous Russia Belarus president and for this reason he is prepared to renegotiate the contracts with UKRAINE Moscow. What is more, the problem that now needs to be addressed is the modRomania ernisation of the infrastructure that transports Black Sea gas to Ukraine and indeed some 80% of the gas that Europe imports from Russia. Yanukovych believes that a consortium should be created that includes Ukraine, Russia and the European Union. However, nationalist sectors feel that putting the pipeline in foreign hands in order that they can exploit it goes against Ukrainian national interests.

Ukrainian analysts are convinced that their country’s policies will change course, but the majority believe that Yanukovych, who during his first interview with a foreign TV channel, CNN, made a point of stressing he is not ‘the Kremlin’s puppet’, will put into action pragmatic, balanced policies between Russia and the West. According to Kost Bondarenko, director of the Gorxenin Institute, ‘instead of Yushchenko’s ethnic nationalism, we’ll have Yanukovych’s economic nationalism’.

Ukraine’s future will in large part be determined by the activities of the members of the Verkhovan Rada (the parliament) over the next five years, as the president does not have much room for manoeuvre and it is parliament that ultimately governs. *Natàlia Boronat

She holds a degree in Information Sciences from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and in Slavic Philology from the Universitat de Barcelona. Since 2001 she has spent most of her time in Russia.

She worked in St. Petersburg as a Catalan lecturer at the State University and in the tourism industry. She now lives in Moscow, where she works as a freelance journalist for different Catalan media organisations and reports on the current situation in the Post-Soviet area.

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Africa

South Africa: fifteen years on

by Joan Canela*

The road comes to a sudden stop and turns into an unpaved dirt track just outside the entrance to a shanty town (what South Africans euphemistically refer to as an ‘informal settlement’) called Protea South. Some 3,000 families have lived here for the last fifteen years under tin and cardboard roofs. Maureen, a local community leader, acts as a guide to the neighbourhood, ‘here’s the settlement’s only chemical toilet, there’s the school we obtained after a long struggle’, and further on, ‘the sheltered housing the ANC government constructed in the 90s, but for a long time they haven’t built any more’.

Fifteen years after the African National Congress (ANC) won the election, the residents of Protea South keep waiting for the promises of homes, work, electricity, running water, education and health care to become a reality. The promises were made during the fight against apartheid. The irony is that this neighbourhood is in Soweto, the biggest township (the compulsory ghettos for blacks as part of the racial segregation) in South Africa and the focus of this legendary fight. ‘The people here live on various subsidies that rarely exceed 200 rand (approximately 20 euros) and the informal economy. Those who earn a wage, even the poorest maid, are very lucky’, Maureen explains.

If you take the M1, a dual carriageway, and head north you arrive in Sandton in under half an hour if you 76

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are lucky enough not to get caught in one of the terrible traffic jams that are common in Johannesburg. Sandton shopping mall occupies the centre of the neighbourhood, specialising in jewellery alongside international fashion brands. It makes sense, given South Africa’s potent gold and diamond industry, even though the stones are cut and the pieces designed in Europe. A ‘simple’ diamond can cost up to 15,000 rand (1,500 euros), or the combined monthly income of eighty families in Protea South.

The old Sandton Square has now been renamed Nelson Mandela Square and holds an immense statue of Madiba (‘father’ in Xhosa, as the country’s first democratic president is affectionately known). Last February marked the 20th anniversary of Mandela’s release from

Africa

prison. At the time he was considered to be the worst terrorist in the country by the majority of the people that nowadays pose for photos next to the statue and fill the terraces of the select restaurants that lie in its shadow.

There is a significant detail missing in this description: all the residents of Protea South are black while the vast majority, though not all, of the Sandton Centre’s custommers are white.

Taking stock fifteen years on Has anything changed in this decade and a half of democracy? Allister Sparks, one of the most respected figures in South African journalism, staunchly defends the advances South Africa has made in this period. He lists universal suffrage alongside the consolidation of democratic freedoms, the end to censorship and the adoption of, ‘the most advanced constitution in the world’. All this ‘without falling victim to a civil war’. These achievements should not be underestimated. John Carlin, one of the top foreign experts on South Africa, reminds us that, ‘you need to remember that the South African transition is from the same period as Russia’s, and it’s obvious that Russian democracy (a European country) is of a far worse quality than that of South Africa’s. Fifteen years ago no one would have predicted it’.

When one enquires as to the persistence of socio-economic inequalities, although Sparks believes that important work has been done when it comes to improving the quality of life of the poor, black majority, he recognises that ‘a great deal remains to be done’.

Some foreign observers question whether any progress is really being made and in particular why so little has been done up to now. These questions occurred to the Egyptian filmmaker Jihan El-Tahri, who in order to answer them made the documentary Behind The Rainbow. It examines how the South African transition was made and why a large part of the ANC’s promises have never been kept. El-Tahri’s film caused controversy in a country capable of confronting the most cruel and violent parts of its history, but which finds it hard to conduct a critical analysis of how it found a way out of this deadend and what price it was prepared to pay in order to do so.

President Jacob Zuma

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Africa

‘The basic agreement of the transition was that the blacks could govern in exchange for allowing the whites to keep everything they had accumulated under apartheid. In other words, power was divided into political, for the former, and economic, for the latter’, explains Patrick Bond while he opens a bottle of wine in his apartment in Durban. He understands the situation well as he was Mandela’s economic advisor during his first months in government. ‘In the end they got rid of me when shares on the Johannesburg stock exchange fell after Mandela delivered a speech I had written’, he recalls more with pride than regret.

Nonetheless, South Africa does enjoy solid, effective democracy, which is more than can be said for the majority of African countries. This is an achievement that should not be underestimated ‘The agreements made then have resulted in the current suffering of our people’, observes Mosibudi Mongena, Member of Parliament, and president of the Azanian People Organization (AZAPO), one of the parties that refused to participate in the transition process.

Apartheid by another name Clearly the process was not an easy one. A year after his release, Mandela himself was still firm in his promise that, ‘South Africa’s riches belong to all South Africans’. By the early 90s, however, the global dominance of neoliberal ideology was complete and international pressure was unbearable.

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along and told Mandela: ‘now there’s no Soviet Union to help you’ and he forced him to keep the same finance minister and director of the central bank as during the apartheid era’, explains Bond.

The outcome of this pressure was the ANC’s commitment to repay the debts incurred under the illegal, racist government (that was not even recognised by the United Nations themselves) along with their international agreements. In 1996 they even agreed to change the first economic programme, which had a social-democrat agenda, for a clearly neoliberal one. Mandela was to regret the consequences of this decision years later, ‘some 30 billion [rand] were destined for debt repayment, which we subsequently didn’t have to build homes, ensure our children went to better schools or to deal with problems like unemployment in the way that was necessary’.

The Canadian activist Naomi Klein dedicates a brilliant chapter of her book The Shock Doctrine to this transition. In her investigation she perfectly describes how the dismantling of racial segregation ran in parallel with a strengthening of social segregation.

‘The result was that after a few years of democracy the differences between the rich and the poor in South Africa were greater than under apartheid’, and ‘even that the life expectancy of South Africans had declined’.

In the words of the Australian journalist John Pilger, ‘what was agreed to was the maintenance of apartheid by another name’.

Time for change?

The question is obvious. How could a handful of shirtless freedom fighters (or ‘Bushmen’ in Mandela’s words), alter the global economic orthodoxy of

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the time? How could a country with a complex economy while at the same time being highly dependent on its exports, isolate itself from the flows of international commerce and finance?

‘It is probable that it couldn’t’, admits Patrick Bond, ‘but the problem is that with the loss of its political project the revolutionaries also lost their integrity and took on the roles of the former colonisers’. It is a very similar story to what occurred in the rest of the continent, as Franz Fanon reveals in his classic The Wretched of the Earth. In the South African version it was to mean the appearance of a new, growing black middle class that was to distance itself from the aspirations of its ‘brothers’ as it came to increasingly control more of the economy and increase its own wealth.

Nonetheless, South Africa does enjoy solid, effective democracy, which is more than can be said for the majority of African countries. This is an achievement that should not be underestimated.

Now, however, the international scene has changed dramatically. Neoliberalism has been discredited and progressively abandoned across the whole planet, while new economic powers are appearing that allow for South-South aid and commerce. Furthermore, the new ANC government, chosen on the 22nd of April, is the most left-leaning since 1994. Has the time come for South Africa to change direction? If we examine some of the new government’s projects, such as National Health In-

surance or moves towards regional integration as an alternative to free trade agreements with Europe, they may indicate that the door is opening in this direction.

Nelson Mandela Square holds an immense statue of the country’s first democratic president

At the same time, time and again the leader of the ANC Jacob Zuma confirms his agreement with the traditional position of the international financial institutions. It appears to be a little early to draw firm conclusions.

*Joan Canela Despite having studied history (Universitat de Barcelona) and law (UNED) he has been a journalist since the end of the 90s, when he collaborated in the founding of a local magazine, La Burxa, in the Sants district of Barcelona. He has also worked on other publications such as El Triangle and El Temps as well as websites such as Sostenible and Tribuna Catalana, where he writes about such diverse issues as social movements, immigration and Catalan national demands. Since 2005 he has mainly worked on international relations. He covered the Bolivian elections for the Basque newspaper Berria, and on his return went on to direct the international section of Directa for over two years. Since 2008 he has been in South Africa as a correspondent for El Periodico de Catalunya, El Temps and Berria.

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Universal Catalans

Ildefons Cerdà

by Lluís Inglada*

It is often said that historians and Catalan public opinion have been unfair in their recognition of Ildefons Cerdà. It is certainly possible that, in a country that has tried to promote its ‘universal Catalans’, we have been unable to value or inform others (both on a national and international level) about the prolific, innovative and multi-disciplinary work of this man of the twentieth century, beyond his major work: Barcelona’s Eixample district. This year’s celebration of 150 years since the approval of the Pla d’Eixample (Eixample Plan1), offers the opportunity to rethink Cerdà’s legacy, highlight the lesser-known facets of his work and thoughts and bring to the fore his human dimension. It is precisely Cerdà’s ‘natural’ dimension, together with the historical context within which he lived, that inspired and explains most of his work.

1 In celebration of the 150th year of the Barcelona Eixample Plan, the government have declared 2010 ‘Cerdà Year’ in Barcelona. This will involve congresses, exhibitions, the publication of books and academic studies and so on, in homage and as a reflection on Cerdà.

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We should place Cerdà the engineer and politician, therefore, in the historical context of the early nineteenth century, between the old and new regime, at the gates of industrialisation on the eve of political liberalism and workers movements and the start of the scientific, technical revolution driven by the use of steam in industry and the railroads, besides other technological advances. Cerdà fed off of this combination of political, social, technical and economic achievements. From them arose both his knowledge and his ideological principles in terms of political thought, a spirit of innovation, technological culture, a capacity for public management, social sensitivity and so on. He was especially influenced by their humanistic common denominator and the need to move them towards Catalan International View

a concern for welfare and the progress of civilisation.

Cerdà the man also needs to be seen in the context of a well-off rural merchant family (and therefore with a middle class mentality) that suffered the assault of the royalist and absolutist groups who proposed the opposite of everything that Cerdà’s liberal and progressive thinking stands for.

Cerdà participated in and imbibed the era’s liberal and republican political currents. In his youth, he even took part in direct action in the national militia. He acquired a political profile that was to last his whole life, including the holding of such distinguished positions as Barcelona’s town councillor, deputy at the Spanish Courts and

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president of the Barcelona Deputation.

In spite of holding certain political beliefs, Cerdà had an extremely practical vision of politics, as was his professional attitude, for the same reasons.

Cerdà was not motivated by political preconceptions or business ties; Cerdà adhered to and participated in those political currents that guaranteed a more effective form of welfare for people and

the progress of civilization, especially via the efficiency of the administration and through public works projects. This did not mean to say that his vision was narrow; on the contrary, Cerdà was a visionary and someone who took a long-term view, a man conscious of the revolutionary nature of his ideas.

Ildefons Cerdà

Alongside this ideological trajectory, Cerdà also developed and applied his scientific, analytical and techniCatalan International View

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cal aptitude, fruit of his obsession with understanding and transforming things. He had a multi-disciplinary background: he studied Latin language and philosophy in Vic, maths, sailing, architecture and drawing in Barcelona and civil engineering in Madrid. Cerdà based his thinking and his work on careful analysis of historical evolution and the understanding of the causes of certain phenomenon. One example, is his Monografía Estadística de la Clase Obrera de Barcelona de 1856 (Statistical Monograph on Barcelona’s Working Class of 1856) from which he drew quantifiable conclusions as to the life expectancy, the living and working conditions and the rent paid by this emerging class, which he was to use to give his work both scientific rigour and an ethical motivation. It is in this field that Cerdà’s legacy is most far-reaching, which is to say the fruitless search for scientific references was to lead him to create a new theoretical, scientific and methodological corpus for understanding and intervening in the city and the landscape. This was to crystallise into the General Theory of Urbanisation (1867) that would eventually give birth to a new discipline: town planning.

Cerdà was a visionary and someone who took a long-term view, a man conscious of the revolutionary nature of his ideas Cerdà is, therefore, a unique individual for the fact that he combined Cartesian, mathematical criteria and the pragmatism common to his profession as engineer with sensitivity, idealism and altruism. As he himself stated, ‘the goal of all my endeavours has been to produce something that, in its practical application, may be of use to humanity’.

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Cerdà projected his preoccupations onto the city. He conceived the city as an instrument that has to allow for the progress of civilization and human welfare. From this starting point he studies the city from all points of view: that of health and hygiene, the political dimension, the economic dimension, the legal dimension, the social dimension, the formal dimension, the functional dimension and so on.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Cerdà found a Barcelona that, despite being an industrial and commercial engine for the Spanish state, existed behind city walls, with grave social, hygiene, economic and moral problems. The city was surrounded by a free space, protected from urban growth by military decree. As a result, it provided an opportunity for planning and

creating a new city. Until then, public opinion calling for the city walls to be demolished (supported by great writers such as the ecclesiastic Jaume Balmes and hygienist Pere Felip Monlau) had been ignored by both the military and civil authorities. At that time Barcelona (with 150,000 inhabitants) had a much higher population density than Madrid (+70%) and the City of London (+50%), combined with a much lower life expectancy: 36 years for the well-off and 23 years for the less fortunate. The demolition of the walls did not begin until 1854 and the state subsequently approved Cerdà’s Pla d’Eixample in 1859, choosing it over Antoni Rovira i Trias’ plan which had won the competition organised by Barcelona council.

This naturally caused a certain degree of local dissatisfaction towards the project and Cerdà himself.

Cerdà’s Pla d’Eixample includes many innovative elements that have been pointed out on many occasions by those who have studied the engineer’s work: 1,100 hectares covered by a grid pattern, a simplified conception of the urban space as vies (public space) and intervies (private space), generously wide streets (of 20, 30 and 60 metres) a precursor of the diverse functions for public space (mobility, a meeting place, a place to stroll and so on) and the requirements of services, blocks of houses designed with two rows of multi-family buildings and a free interior space with the optimum orientation for exposure to the sun, square blocks of 113 metres in length with oblique corners angled at 45º, in order to open up spaces, enable visibility and further increase the building’s exposure to the sun and air, Cerdà thus proposes a model that can Catalan International View

Cerdà’s genius can be seen in Barcelona’s Eixample

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be endlessly repeated with a regular, rhythmic pattern, while allowing for alterations in the regularity, in order to respect pre-existing roads, for example.

Cerdà’s genius can be seen in Barcelona’s Eixample, an urban space that has functioned for 150 years Cerdà had a gift for analysis and a long term vision. In his work, Cerdà is ahead of his time, not only in the modern conception of the city and society (which was revolutionized by incipient factors which were driving change, such as steam power), but also in the visionary anticipation of technological innovations. In this sense, Cerdà thinks of the city and land in terms of communication and foresees revolutionary transportation systems (even beyond the all-new railway) foretelling the arrival of ‘domestic locomotors that will appear in every household’, 50 years before the first appearance of the car. This is reflected in the generous dimensions he gave to the Eixample’s roads (30% of its area) when compared with the old city and the majority of older neighbourhoods (17-20% of their total area). What is more, Cerdà is concerned with providing a solution to the unheard of problem of the time: the integration and connection of the city on a new scale: the globalised world. To this end, he projected and arranged in a hierarchy the axes that still today define the arteries that connect Barcelona with its immediate and further surroundings and saw the railway as the means of transport upon which European and ultimately global relationships were to be built.

Cerdà had a revolutionary conception of the city. He decided to break with tradition in a holistic understanding of the causes and evolution of ur84

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ban societies. A large part of the solutions to his questions were to be found through the identification of phenomena that were subsequently formally developed by other scientists as laws of physics (theories of systems, chaos, synergy, dynamics and so on).

The physical approach to the city is revealed in an obsession with finding solutions to relationships and flows, for example, generating an urban model based on networks rather than zoning: roads, railways, sanitation, the distribution of water and gas, the telegraph and so on. Cerdà integrated and ordered the networks thanks to the provision of spaces (such as galleries of services, pavements that are at least five metres wide) that many years later, have allowed for the channelling and rationalisation of present day networks that include electricity, the telephone, television, fibre optics and so on. Once more, Cerdà enriched a more scientific and analytical discourse with a social and philanthropic view of the city, since he saw the urbanisation of networks as the best means of ensuring the equality of citizens.

He also shows a modern conception of urbanism and the organisation of land, via the equilibrium that is achieved between the Cartesian intervention of the planner and the need to ensure peoples’ freedom, channelling the effect of the sum of small dynamics as a vector that is equally fundamental in the construction and evolution of the city.

While the city remains the centre of his work, Cerdà also worked on land and from a vision of land. From the start, Cerdà projected new cities and new networks that could expand across the rural landscape, while also (perhaps as a result of his rural origins) emphasising the need for rural values to be incorporated into the city (nature, silence, space, ven-

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tilation, the sun and so on), ‘ruralise the urban and urbanise the rural’. Towards the end of his life he even published a General Theory of Ruralisation.

In his professional work and in the holding of public office, Cerdà was also concerned with the ‘non-urban’ space when he tried to provide the territory with the necessary public works and when he led reforms in the territorial organisational models, particularly with reference to the structure of legal jurisdiction in the province of Barcelona.

Cerdà’s genius can be seen in Barcelona’s Eixample, an urban space that has functioned for 150 years and that allows us to face the challenges of urbanism and twenty-first century society more successfully than much later

urban projects. We should take into account, however, that in the execution of his plan a significant part of his criteria were changed in favour of speculation and urban exploitation (an increase in the width of the buildings, building on all four sides of the squares, increasing the height of buildings by one or two floors, occupation of the interior patios by low buildings and so on). Fortunately, Cerdà’s work also involved science, methodology and rational thought. The fact that advantage has not been taken of his legacy can be seen as a wasted opportunity of responding to the urban explosion in our country and hundreds of cities around the world with better living conditions. It could have been another of the small contributions our country has made to universal culture, welfare and good government. *Lluís Inglada

Territory, infrastructure and environmental project director for the Institut Cerdà. He holds a degree in Geography from the Universitat de Barcelona, and as an Urban Technician from the Escola d’Administració Pública de Catalunya.

He holds masters in Urbanistic Management from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and in Regional and Urbanistic Studies from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Escola d’Administració Pública de Catalunya.

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Green Debate

From Kyoto to Copenhagen… getting lost on the way

by Pere Torres*

The Copenhagen Summit on climate change has come to a close. While it may have been long-awaited, it will not be long-remembered. It generated great expectations, in spite of the fact these started to fade a month earlier during the preparatory meeting in Barcelona when it was seen that the negotiations were not going too well. In the end, Copenhagen did not live up to its expectations.

It is probable that the summit’s main actors, China and the United States, not only had different goals from the rest, but that they were actually achieved. What were they? I suspect there were three. The first: that no one could accuse them of casting doubt on the importance of climate change.

Second: that no one would impose quantitative agreements on them that were subject to international scrutiny.

Lastly: to put an end to the European Union’s leadership in this field.

The world emerging from Copenhagen is significantly different from the one that met in Kyoto in 1997, when the foundations were laid for the fight against climate change that has continued until now. Strictly speaking, Kyoto will continue to take effect until 2012.

Nevertheless, since the rules of the game have changed, it may be that the countries which undertook agreements no longer feel obliged to fully keep to them. The key question, however, is whether the new circumstances will make us confront the problem of global warming with the intensity, speed and efficiency that is required.

These are the questions that I shall examine in the following pages. Let us return to the beginning once more.

Why did the majority of the world’s 86

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states meet in Copenhagen, generally with their highest institutional representation? In order to provide an answer we should take ourselves back to Kyoto in 1997. A protocol was passed in this Japanese city, which among many other things stated that: • The signatory countries were committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The reduction was specific: in 2012 the annual emissions were to have been 5.2% lower than in 1990.

• The industrialised nations accepted responsibility for this reduction, in that each of them would be responsible for their own quantitative target for reduction.

• These countries could partially achieve their targets via investments in developing countries that would have resulted in higher emissions without the said intervention.

Since 1997 steps have been taken in this direction, although not without many difficulties. At the same time, however, the model essentially contains two grave flaws. In the first place, the United States government has not ratified its participation, and consequently feels it is under no obligation. In sec-

Green Debate

ond place, China is exempt from any obligations to the protocol, yet it has now become the world’s biggest polluter.

More ambitious, and tougher objectives for the reduction of emissions should have been found in Copenhagen. It should have obtained the adherence of the United States and the developing countries to this line of public, controllable commitments. They should also have established mechanisms and set aside money to enable the development of poorer nations without them having to go down the path of fossil fuels. There are many other points, but these are the most important. The optimists, mainly consisting of the Americans and Chinese, argue that the foundations have been laid for all these points and that, thanks to them, more solid solutions can be found before the Kyoto protocol runs out. The critics on the other hand, especially many non-

governmental organisations and numerous experts, consider that a great opportunity has been lost and argue that the foundations point in another direction. The European Union, still reeling with humiliation after being excluded from the decisive meeting, goes along with it, but it is visibly frustrated.

The Executive Secretary of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, Yves de Boer, resigned with a feeling of failure which he did little to disguise.

The key question, however, is whether the new circumstances will make us confront the problem of global warming with the intensity, speed and efficiency that is required Let us therefore evaluate how these three questions have been tackled. In the first instance, the Copenhagen Accord accepts the recommendations of Catalan International View

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the scientific community: that the average global temperature should not exceed figures for the preindustrial period by more than 2°C.

The final irony is that the Copenhagen Accord (as it has been called) is not a formal agreement. The states only agreed to ‘take note’ It also recognises that the sooner maximum emissions are reached the better. Maximum emissions are taken to mean the highest level after which the rate begins to fall. It is worth remembering that, in spite of the best intentions of the Kyoto protocol and the efforts of many countries, emissions have not only failed to decrease, they have continued to rise. The explanation can be found in the Bush administration’s sceptical role and strong growth in countries such as China, India and Brazil which have no commitment to reductions. For this reason it makes sense to employ the concept of peak emissions. Setting reduction objectives for fifteen or twenty years hence and waiting for the deadline to arrive is not good enough. It is important to recognise that the objective of establishing peak output should happen as soon as possible.

We should of course welcome the general formulation of the Copenhagen Accord. The trouble is it does not go far enough, it does not specify which reductions need to be made or when peak emissions should be reached in order to ensure we do not exceed a 2°C rise.

Good, well intentioned words, with no actual outcome.

One great achievement, however, is that the United States and the developing countries have joined in the game.

This has been done via a mechanism of 88

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a show of goodwill. Initially, a distinction will be made between industrialised countries and the rest. Industrialised countries will have to set absolute objectives for reductions in their own emissions: this means that by 2020 they must emit less. In contrast with the Kyoto protocol, each country will set unilateral objectives for reduction.

In fact this is what they have already been doing. As a result we find ourselves facing very varied commitments.

On one hand we have the European Union, which maintains the Kyoto line and sees 2020 as a target when it will emit 20% less carbon than in 1990. The United States, on the other hand, intends to reduce its emissions by 17%, but its baseline year is not 1990, but rather 2005. This is a significantly later starting point and thus a much lower overall reduction.

For other countries, the reduction is not absolute, but rather relative. They do not have to emit less in 2020 than they emitted before, but rather they have to emit less than they would have done without the reduction measures. The majority of these countries are announcing reductions in the order of around 15-20% with respect to the expected increase. To get an idea of what this means, if China were to increase its emissions by 100 between 2010 and 2020, it will only do so by 80 to 85. Clearly it is a relative reduction that does not hide an enormous absolute rise.

One can understand this double model from the point of view of equality of development. The key question is how to distinguish between some countries and others. The division established twenty years ago during the Kyoto summit has been maintained.

Nonetheless, is it reasonable to nowadays accept that China is still a developing country while it continues to buy up large Western companies?

Green Debate

With the agreements that have been announced, many experts have warned that the 2°C barrier will inevitably be surpassed. The first estimates conclude that, given the reductions announced by the states, only two thirds of the minimum necessary reductions will be achieved by 2020. The measures announced are thus insufficient to satisfy the main agreement of Copenhagen: establishing the average global temperature at below the famous 2°C rise.

Progress has been made on the third point, in the creation of a fund in order that the poorer countries can develop without having to depend on fossil fuels. It has been proposed that the fund will initially consist of 30 billion dollars which will need to be increased in order that by 2020 there will be 100 billion dollars annually. In this question the summit has indeed counted on the European Union; well, to be more exact, counted on the EU’s money.

This digression allows me to add a final comment. At the key meeting, in which the agreement was finally passed, the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa were present, while the European Union was not invited. One could view this fact in a negative light, although there are ways to sweeten the pill. The more cynical would say that these countries, who have up to now been recalcitrant on the issue, have decided to wrest control from those that have so far been in charge. It could be seen as a form of mutiny. The lighter version, true to

the European Union’s commitment to the fight against climate change would see their presence as unnecessary: those that need to take a step forward are the reticent countries, those that have decided to go from not doing anything to doing something.

The final irony is that the Copenhagen Accord (as it has been called) is not a formal agreement. The states only agreed to ‘take note’. The vast majority did so, but not all: the group of countries that follow Hugo Chavez’ lead withdrew, calling it a text at the service of Yankee imperialism.

So now what? Now all eyes are on Cancun (Mexico), where the next meeting will take place at the end of November 2010. Two serious questions still remain: the first is how to move from voluntary announcements on reductions to binding commitments of an international character. The other, which may have to fall by the wayside, is the model of governance employed in the fight against climate change. The procedure followed until now has led to the uncertainty of Copenhagen: is it possible to try other formulas in which it is not necessary for all the world’s nations to simultaneously come to an agreement?

These are the topics that will dominate the debates and initiatives in the upcoming months. Meanwhile it is clear that greenhouse gases continue to build up in the atmosphere and the temperatures rise, slowly but surely.

*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.

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A Short Story from History1

The founding fathers of California The first three governors of California were Catalans: Gaspar de Portolà (1769-70), Pere Fages (1782-90) and Josep Antoni Romeu (1790-91).

Statue of Friar Juníper de la Serra in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, in Washington DC

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In 1769, Gaspar de Portolà left Guadalajara (in Mexico, at the time part of New Spain) in order to explore and colonise Alta California (Upper California), accompanied by the Free Company of Volunteers of Catalonia, led by Pere Fages.

The expedition was key to the founding of the future great cities of San Diego, Monterey and San Francisco.

In order to strengthen the colonising dimension of the endeavour, the explorers’ wives arrived from Catalonia in 1781.

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In 1789, the Free Company undertook another expedition, this time led by Pere d’Alberni. They headed towards the north, scrutinising the Pacific Coast of the North American continent. They eventually arrived in Nootka Sound, the present-day island of Vancouver, which had earlier been ‘discovered’ by another Catalan, Joan Peris, in 1774. The Company were to remain there for two years, building a fort, an experimental farm and even collecting the first vocabulary of the native inhabitants’ language, containing some 600 words.

In 1790, a new expedition left the base in Nootka to explore further to the north. They undertook cartographic research whilst travelling to Kodiak Island in Alaska.

The foundations of the future California were not only laid by Catalan explorers, however. Another expedition ran parallel to the Free Company’s seaborne expedition of 1769. It moved on land and was led by Franciscan monks origi-

nating from the Franciscan province of Majorca (the largest of the Catalan-speaking Balearic Islands) and headed by Friar Juníper de la Serra.

Moving more slowly on foot with ox caravans, the Franciscans were the first to outline what was later to become the renowned Camino Real (Royal Way). The task was immense, with the construction of missions and forts, and complex networks of canals, paths and seaports. Typically Mediterranean construction techniques were used, such as tiles. There was also the introduction of cattle and crops that were of Mediterranean origin, thus laying the foundations of the Californian wine industry that is currently so well celebrated.

Since 1931, the first Franciscan leader in Upper California, Friar Juníper de la Serra, has been officially considered one of California’s founding fathers. He is represented in a statue in the National Statuary Hall of the Capitol Building

in Washington DC, the sculpture gallery of the Founding Fathers of the various states that make up the present day United States.

This section is coordinated by

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One of the first maps of Upper California

Manuel Manonelles

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The Artist

Antonio Gรกlvez

The Wound of the World

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The Artist

Antonio Gálvez’s work is a kind of alchemy.

Only his extraordinary understanding of substances, alloys, distillations and mixes reward him with the keys to transmute the visible into something far greater, something which absorbs the visible and dissolves it into an immense and enigmatic reality. For a long time now I have been viewing Gálvez’s work, whether his ‘interpretations’ of Marta Kuhn-Weber’s dolls, a photomontage of body parts or a portrait of an artist or writer. It is an art whose aim and obsession is metamorphosis. Not only are we witness to a transfiguration of reality in each of his pieces, but they are presented to us as the entry point to a world where we can live reality more intensely. The real is not only what we can see or touch but also its potential, all its imaginary alternatives. Gálvez shows us time and time again these potential alternatives as physical forms. We do not know what the process has been exactly, what stages the image has undergone to

reach this state: what is certain, however, is that suddenly the image crystallizes into another reality. The knots, the cracks and the secret web of the visible take on a life we have not seen before: the artist knows how to transport each of the objects that we see in his pictures to a realm of unexpected associations. A doll becomes more than a doll: it takes on a profounder reality – its image imbues it with an air of the phantasmagorical and the dramatic. The unexpected correlations thrown up by one of Gálvez’s photomontages reinvent the visibility of beings and objects. A portrait, for example, with its dramatic chiaroscuro, its violation of gesture and disconcerting framing, places the sitter in a territory which would have previously been unthinkable. His art is both existent but inexplicable.

Andrés Sánchez-Robayna

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

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

The Shadow Francesc Parcerisas I am the shadow that follows the year, The year of the light or of false shadows, The year that illuminates the days of forgiveness.

Now it lightly rains at the entrance to the subway And the shells are full of silences, Or full of screams. Autumn has passed, Spring rejoices, within the lines, Like the helpless hand of a child Who lives in a language they are stealing from him.

We don’t write to save ourselves, Or to save it. Day and darkness sleep At the bottom of only one hand, of only one thing.

You save us, language. Save us or Tell us how to bury the happiness Of names—or the pain of names— Under this vineyard which once was ours.

(Translated by Jordi Torres)

Francesc Parcerisas (Begues, Barcelona, 1944). Poet, translator, and literary critic, is Professor of translation at the UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). His poetic works up until 1983 are collected in the book Triomf del present (Triumph of the Present, 1991). His most recent books are L’edat d’or (The Golden Age, 1983), Focs d’octubre (October Fires, 1992), Natura morta amb nens (Still Life with Children, 2000) and Dos dies més de sud (Two More Days of South, 2006). He defends the idea that modern poetry conveys emotions through the singular use of words. His work has three striking features: reading and translations, the evocation of love, and evidence of the passing of stages. In his most recent work, Parcerisas seems to have found a definitive voice. The poems exude a treasure of wisdom.

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