Civ 8

Catalan International View

Issue 8 • Winter 2010-2011 • € 5

A European Review of the World

Kosovo and the blessings of the International Court

by August Gil-Matamala

22@Barcelona: city, knowledge and innovation

by Marc Gafarot

The value of Wikileaks

by Francesc de Dalmases and Víctor Terradellas

Interviews

Mònica Terribas by Eva Piquer Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama) by Bernat Joan

Cover Artist: Amèlia SECTIONS: Europe · Asia · America · Universal Catalans · Interview · Africa

Opinions · Business & Economics · Barcelona Echoes · Green Debate A Short Story from History · The Artist · A Poem

Contents Editor

Víctor Terradellas

vterradellas@catmon.cat Director Francesc de Dalmases

director@international-view.cat Art Director

To Our Readers

6......... The value of Wikileaks

by Víctor Terradellas and Francesc de Dalmases

Quim Milla

Europe

Marc Gafarot

Editorial Board

designer@international-view.cat Head of International Relations

marcgafarot@catmon.cat

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

8......... Kosovo and the blessings of the International Court

by August Gil-Matamala

16........ The presidency that never existed

by Carme Colomina

Asia

20........ An iron hand in Kazakhstan

by Natàlia Boronat

24........ Building Twenty-First Century Iran

by Firouz Mahvi

28........ Mrs Maryam Rajavi

by Marc Gafarot

32........ Inheriting North Korea

by Iris Mir

38........ Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

by Bernat Joan

America

44........ The presidency of Barack Obama: from hope to reality

by Edgardo M. Vázquez-Rivera

Interview

Nigel Balfour Júlia López

48........ Mònica Terribas

Coordinator

Africa

Maria Novella Webmaster

Marta Calvó Cover Art

Amèlia

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

by Eva Piquer

56........ A win-win deal in the African Great Lakes

by Nicolás Valle

Barcelona Echoes

62........ City, knowledge and innovation

by Marc Gafarot

Opinions

66........ Barcelona: cosmopolitanism and identity

by Jordi Portabella

70........ A national agency in the convulsive age of the Internet

by Saül Gordillo

Business and Economics

Fonollar, 14 08003 Barcelona Catalonia (Europe) Tel.: + 34 93 533 42 38 Fax: + 34 93 319 22 24 www. international-view.cat

74........ The Catalan export sector: is the glass half full or half empty?

Legal deposit

Universal Catalans

B-26639-2008 ISSN

2013-0716

by Xavier Cuadras

Green Debate

80........ Technological disasters: a culture of carelessness

by Pere Torres

86........ Ramon Margalef

by Xavier Mayor

© 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.

A Short Story from History

Printed in Catalonia by

94........ Alone, and in Mourning

Imgesa

90....... A less glamorouss reality The Artist

92........ Amèlia A Poem

by J. V. Foix

Published quarterly.

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. Gil-Matamala fought the first successful case against the Spanish state for the violation of basic rights. He is a founder member of the Commission for the Defence of Individual Rights of the Col·legi d’Advocats de Barcelona (the Barcelona Bar Association) and the Catalan Association for the Defence of Human Rights, which he presided over from its foundation in 1985 to 2001. Gil Matamala has also been president of both the Fundació Catalunya and the European Democratic Lawyers organisation. In 2007, coinciding with his retirement, he received the Creu de Sant Jordi (St. George’s Cross, the highest honour awarded by the Catalan government).

Montserrat Guibernau Professor of Politics at Queen Mary College, University of London. Holds a PhD and an MA in Social and Political Theory from the University of Cambridge and a degree in Philosophy from the Universitat de Barcelona. She has taught at the universities of Warwick, Cambridge, Barcelona, the London School of Economics and the Open University. Guibernau has held visiting professorhips at the universities of Edinburgh, Tampere, Pompeu Fabra, the UQAM (Quebec) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Currently she holds a visiting fellowship at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics. Montserrat Guibernau is the author of numerous books and articles on nationalism, the nation-state, national identity, and national and ethnic minorities in the West from the perspective of global governance.

Guillem López-Casasnovas (Menorca, 1955). Holds a degree in Economics (distinction, 1978) and Law (1979) from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB). He obtained his PhD in Public Economics from the University of York (UK, 1984). He has been a lecturer at the 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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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). 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 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.

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To Our Readers

The value of Wikileaks

by Francesc de Dalmases and VĂ­ctor Terradellas

The traditional media have been one of the sectors most affected by the global crisis which we are all experiencing. Leading newspaper publishers and radio and TV broadcasters of the second half of the twentieth century have been gravely affected by the crisis and by changes in the habits both in the consumption and diffusion of information originating from changes in information and communication technology.

No one can deny that access to such unheard of quantities of information has turned us into a better informed, more aware audience As a result, media groups that have traditionally been well-consolidated have seen themselves obliged to revise their structures and sell shares to financial organisations who, beyond a business opportunity, see a chance to influence the content of the product. These 6

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two events have led to a significant loss in the overall quality of the information for consumers.

To make up for this state of affairs, the web provides us with an infinity of channels that allow us to access at first hand information that is continually generated in whatever part of the world that happens to be connected. This is undoubtedly an invaluable source of data with which to validate and amplify our information universe. It is also worth noting that it is a source which calls for a certain degree of intelligence on behalf of the users who have to be capable of distinguishing information from opinion, propaganda or that which is simply news which has been adulterated to serve vested interests.

It is in this context that we should evaluate the exact significance of the Wikileaks website run by the controversial Julian Assange and what it signifies. We shall need all our critical thinking skills in order to find out how,

thanks to who and when he could access such secret and privileged information as is currently on offer; a look at his public friends and enemies allows us to better define and outline Assange’s personality and motivation. No one can deny, however, that access to such unheard of quantities of information (secret documents that are clearly authentic) has turned us into a better informed, more aware audience. Or at least a less ignorant one.

From this point of view, Wikileaks is a privileged, unrestricted source of information which adds to and clarifies many of the questions that have marked and will go on to mark the international agenda at the start of the twenty-first century.

We are conscious of the quantity of dark chambers which hide behind the formality of Western democracies and we should be grateful, though discerning and critical, of all the information and documentary evidence which serves to illuminate them.

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Kosovo and the blessings of the International Court of Justice

by August Gil-Matamala

On the 22nd of July 2010 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, consisting of twelve judges and presided over by Judge Hisashi Owada ( Japan), adopted an ‘advisory opinion’, which is to say, a non-binding legal pronouncement, in response to a request from the United Nations General Assembly. The request was made in order to determine whether Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, on the 17th of February 2008, was in accordance with international law.

The ICJ’s decision had been eagerly awaited, not only by the parties directly involved in the debate (the Serbian Republic and Kosovo’s institutions of selfgovernment) but also the entire international community, as it could mean the taking of sides, at the highest level in a legal sense, with respect to a crucial and extremely controversial question in terms of international law: how a people’s right to self-determination can be exercised, including the right to secession, in the European context in particular, in a non-colonial setting. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the ICJ’s ruling on Kosovo has awoken such interest in countries (such as the Spanish state) that have pending demands for self-government on behalf of minority national groups. In this article I suggest 8

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we analyse the most relevant details of the ICJ’s resolution in the Kosovo case, while highlighting its importance to international rights in that it represents an advance (a limited one, but an advance nevertheless) in the recognition of the right of all peoples to decide, democratically and peacefully to form a new sovereign state.

Antecedents: from armed conflict to the declaration of independence The Kosovo conflict was the latest in a long series of violent clashes arising out of the disintegration of the former Federation of Yugoslavia. The commencement of military action by the UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army)

in 1998 calling for the separation of its territory from Serbia, followed by the brutal response from Yugoslavian forces, led to the internationalisation of the conflict. NATO’s military intervention against Serbia in the war from March to June 1999, while ignoring the United Nations, ended with the Security Council adopting Resolution 1244 (1999). The resolution, which established a provisional political and administrative framework for Kosovo, without formally calling into question Yugoslavian sovereignty, was to form the established legal position until Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. For this reason, it is a crucial precedent which must be taken into account in order to appreciate the scope of the aforementioned declaration.

Security Council Resolution 1244 was proposed in order to deal with the grave humanitarian situation that had

arisen and put an end to the armed conflict. As a result it ordered Yugoslavia to withdraw all its military, police and paramilitary personnel from Kosovo’s territory. This was accompanied on the other side, by the demilitarisation of armed Albano-Kosovo groups. It established the United Nation’s provisional administration of the territory, exercised by the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), with the role of promoting the establishment of substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo; to perform the basic functions of the civil administration; facilitate the political process leading to the determination of its future status; and, finally, transfer power from the provisional institutions to those established under a political agreement negotiated between both parties.

The final decision as to Kosovo’s status was to be backed by the Security Council.

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Between February and September 2006 the Serbian and Kosovo delegations held several rounds of negotiations, without reaching an agreement on the majority of the points under discussion. Faced with this stalemate the Secretary General of the United Nations named Martti Ahtisaari, the former president of Finland, as the Security Council’s Special Envoy. His brief was to outline a proposal acceptable to both parties. A final round of negotiations held in Vienna in March 2007 exposed the inability of both sides to reach an agreed settlement to the conflict. As a result, the Special Envoy addressed the Security Council via a letter sent on the 26th of March 2007, in which he expressed his conviction that the negotiation process had ended and that the time had come to take a decision on Kosovo’s definitive status. After taking into account Kosovo’s recent history and the current situation, Martti Ahtisaari finally reached the conclusion that the only viable alternative for Kosovo was independence, and that it would have to be supervised by the international community in the initial stages. The Special Envoy accompanied his conclusions with a Proposed Resolution, containing the following steps: the creation of a Constitutional Commission to formulate a constitution for Kosovo, the approval of the constitution by the Kosovo Assembly, with a two-thirds majority in the following 120 days; the cessation of UNMIK’s mandate; and the holding of general and local elections in the following nine months.

The Secretary General of the United Nations gave total support to Ahtisaari’s proposal, but the Security Council was incapable of agreeing on a decision. In July 2007 a project for a resolution was presented to the Council, backed by Belgium, France, Ger10

Catalan International View

many, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, which substantially reiterated the Special Envoy’s proposal, nevertheless it was withdrawn a few weeks later when it was clear that it was not going to be adopted, given opposition from Russia and China. From August to December 2007 negotiations were restarted, under the auspices of the so-called Troika (the European Union, Russia and the United States).

Once more the intent ended in failure, since neither of the parties involved was prepared to give way on the question of sovereignty.

Elections for the Kosovo Assembly were held on the 17th of November 2007, with the inaugural meeting being held in Pristina on the 4th of January 2008. The following 17th of February, the Assembly passed the declaration of independence, with 109 votes in favour out of a possible 120, with the absence of the 10 members of the Serbian minority.

In the first paragraph of its verdict the declaration proclaims: ‘we the democratically- elected leaders of our people hereby declare Kosovo to be an independent and sovereign state. This declaration reflects the will of our people and it is in full accordance with the proposal for the Kosovo status settlement of United Nations Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari’.

The second paragraph states: ‘we declare Kosovo to be a democratic, secular and multi-ethnic republic, guided by the principles of non-discrimination and equal protection under the law’. Later on, the declaration solemnly agrees to assume Kosovo’s international obligations, including those carried out by UNMIK. It ends by calling on all nations to recognise the new state. Surprisingly, while referring to a democratic majority and cultural values, the declaration makes no mention of the right to selfdetermination.

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In the following days, Serbia informed the Secretary General of the United Nations that it considered Kosovo’s declaration of independence to be an act of aggression that signified the unilateral secession of a part of its territory and therefore, it had no legal basis, either internally or internationally. On the 18th of February 2008 an urgent meeting of the Security Council was called, before which the Serbian president, Boris Tadi, appeared to denounce the declaration of independence as an act which violated international law.

The process before the International Court of Justice On the 8th of October 2008, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 63/3, which referred the Kosovo conflict to the International Court of Justice. According to article 96 of the United Nations Charter, the Assembly called on the ICJ to issue an ‘advisory opinion’ on the question it outlined in the following terms: ‘Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?’

The ICJ opened a period of written allegations on the question until the 17th of July 2009, to which all member states of the United Nations, the Secretary General and the Kosovo institutions were invited to participate.

Proof of the interest which the debate raised in the international arena is the fact that no fewer than 37 states reported allegations at this stage. Finally, all member states, whether they had reported allegations or not, were asked to participate in oral proceedings in order to formulate definitive conclusions.

Fourteen countries, largely represented by diplomats or experts on international law, exercised the right, together

with Serbian and Kosovo delegates in proceedings held between the 1st and 11th of December 2009.

The ICJ’s advisory opinion On the 22nd of July 2010, the International Court of Justice delivered its advisory opinion on the question it had been asked to consider by the General Assembly. The resolution began by considering an earlier question put forward by some of the participants in the proceedings, referring to the possible incompetence of the ICJ to deal with the case in question. Supporters of this objection argued that the question before the ICJ was not a legal one, but rather strictly political; and that in any case the opinion would not have any practical legal force and that, on the contrary, it could have negative political consequences. Another argument put forward was that the General Assembly’s request exceeded their remit in terms of peacekeeping and international peacekeeping granted by the Security Council in Article 24 of the United Nations Charter.

The International ICJ’s ruling on Kosovo has sparked an interest in countries such as the Spanish state that have demands for self-government pending The International Court of Justice’s resolution unanimously overturns the earlier objections. It considers that the fact the question has political aspects does not change its relevance to international law, which forms part of the ICJ’s remit. Moreover, it is not up to the ICJ to evaluate the utility or effects of its opinions. Instead it is solely the responsibility of the body that has formulated the request, in this case the General Assembly, to decide as to Catalan International View

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whether it should act on those opinions in order to improve its operation.

As for the allegation of usurping the competencies of the Security Council, the ICJ notes that Articles 10 and 11 of the United Nations Charter grant the General Assembly more than sufficient powers to debate all manner of issues, including those related to peace and international security. The General Assembly is, therefore, qualified to debate the declaration of independence, as well as making recommendations on this and other aspects of the situation in Kosovo, without interfering in the competencies of the Security Council.

To conclude, the ICJ can find nothing to prevent it from ruling on the question referred to it.

Before dealing with the issue at hand, however, the ICJ considered it necessary to precisely outline the contents of the question presented by the General Assembly. To this end, it highlighted the substantial difference between this consultation and the one brought before the Supreme ICJ of Canada in 1998, on the possible secession of Quebec. In that case the question was: ‘Does international law give the National Assembly, Legislature or Government of Quebec the right to effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally? Is there a right to self-determination under international law that would give the right to effect the secession?’, while in Kosovo’s case, the General Assembly limited itself to asking whether the declaration of independence was ‘in accordance with international law’, and therefore the ICJ’s answer had to limit itself exclusively to determining whether international legislation prohibits all forms of unilateral declarations of independence in general, or alternatively whether the declaration had been adopted in violation of any existing international law. The ICJ went on to say that at no time had it been asked to 12

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decide whether international legislation conferred a legitimate right on Kosovo to declare its unilateral independence, nor a fortiori whether international law, in a general sense grants entities within a state the right to unilaterally separate, since it is perfectly possible for a particular act not to violate any international law without, however, necessarily constituting the exercise of a specifically recognised right.

Kosovo’s declaration of independence does not violate international law The ICJ reached the conclusion by ten votes in favour and four against that Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not violate any existing international law. To arrive at this conclusion, the ICJ developed a lengthy legal argument, which we can summarise as follows. It begins with a historical examination of the numerous declarations of independence made throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the start of the twentieth, often accompanied by the violent opposition of pre-existing states: some of the declarations effectively led to the creation of a new state while others failed.

Nevertheless, none of the declarations were considered to have violated international law, either in theory or in practice. The development of the right to self-determination in the second half of the twentieth century, contained in international declarations of rights, and interpreted in practice in the sense of granting the right to independence to peoples subject to a colonial regime or subject to foreign domination and exploitation, allowed for the possibility of the creation of a large number of new states.

The ICJ then went on to answer the declarations formulated by various

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states participating in the proceedings who argued that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was incompatible with international law. Many of these allegations were based on the principle of the respect for a states’ territorial integrity, outlined in Article 2.4 of the United Nations Charter. This principle, they argued, implicitly prohibits unilateral declarations of independence on behalf of part of an existing state. In reply to this objection the ICJ referred them to the General Assembly’s Resolution 2625 of 1986 (Nicaragua versus the USA), which stated, ‘the principle that States shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State’, and also referred them to the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, of the 1st of July 1975, which stipulated that the signatory states, ‘will respect the territorial integrity of each of the participating States’. The ICJ’s conclusion is that the application of the principle of territorial integrity should be confined to relations between states and has no application to a state’s internal conflicts brought about by the secession of a part of its territory.

The ICJ also rejected other allegations which referred to various Security Council resolutions specifically condemning declarations of independence, such as Resolutions 216 and 217 (1965) on South Rhodesia; Resolution 541 (1983) on Northern Cyprus; and Resolution 787 (1992) on the Srpska Republic. The ICJ considered that these resolutions were not applicable to the current case. In the above cases, the illegality of the declarations of independence was a given, not because of their unilateral nature, but due to the fact that they were connected to the illegitimate use of force or the violation of other general norms of international

law. Furthermore, the exceptional nature of the earlier resolutions served to confirm that it was not possible to infer a general prohibition against unilateral declarations of independence from the practice of the Security Council.

The Kosovo case represents a very important contribution to the debate on the right to self-determination Finally, the ICJ went on to consider the possible contradiction between Kosovo’s declaration of independence and Security Council Resolution 1244 and the Constitutional Framework under the auspices of UNMIK, mentioned earlier. The ICJ considered that Resolution 1244, which implemented a provisional international administration over the territory as a substitute for Serbian legal order, was an exceptional measure, intended for humanitarian ends, in order to stabilise Kosovo and re-establish public order, but without any desire to create a permanent institutional framework, leaving the territory’s definitive status totally open, as was seen to be the result of an agreement between the parties involved. The ICJ considered that Resolution 1244 does not contain any impediment or makes any exclusion of the independence option: if the Security Council had intended to do so it would have expressed itself clearly and in unequivocal terms, as it did in relation to the Srpska Republic. At no time did the Security Council reserve the right to determine the definitive regime in Kosovo, which was to be the result of negotiations between the concerned parties, without any preconditions. The declaration of independence on behalf of the Kosovo Assembly was the consequence of the impossibility of reaching an agreement in the course of repeated attempts at negotiations, as the Security Council’s Special Envoy ascerCatalan International View

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tained at the time. At the same time, the ICJ made some very interesting observations with respect to the authors of the declaration of independence.

They considered that the representatives of the people of Kosovo did not act, nor were they able to, within the legal framework established by Resolution 1244. Nor were they obliged by the same ruling to reach a political agreement with Serbia, since the responsibility for obtaining an agreement lay expressly with the Security Council’s Special Envoy and UNMIK, but could not oblige other political agents to act.

In the Assembly’s act of proclaiming Kosovo to be an independent sovereign state, it did not act as a self-governing institution of the provisional administration and within the limits of that legality. On the contrary, it was situated on the margins and outside the reach of the same, operating exclusively in virtue of the powers conferred upon it by democratic representation by popular vote. Therefore, the declaration of independence did not attempt to produce its effect within the existing provisional legal order, but rather to create a new legality, operating on another level: in contrast to Resolution 1244, this declaration finally established Kosovo’s definitive status. In its conclusion the ICJ stated that since multiple Security Council resolutions did not forbid independence and once the negotiation process had formally ended, there was no barrier to the declaration of independence.

As a consequence, the ICJ established in the outline of its verdict, that Kosovo’s declaration of independence, adopted on the 17th of February 2008, did not violate any international law of general application, nor Security Council Resolution 1244 or the Constitutional Framework established by UNMIK, or any other norm of international law.

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A step forward, limited but important, in the universal recognition of a people’s right to self-determination We can ask ourselves what significance the ruling on the Kosovo case has in international political practice, as well as in legal doctrine. In spite of the fact the ruling was not legally binding, it is clear that the decision by the United Nation’s highest judicial institution, establishing that the declaration of independence does not go against international law, is bound to produce relevant practical effects in terms of the State of Kosovo’s recognition and full integration into the international community. The proof of this is the immediate change in Serbia’s attitude, which has now shown its willingness to negotiate with the new state a resolution to the pending questions arising out of the secession.

From the point of view of the general application of international rights, the advisory opinion on the Kosovo case represents a very important contribution to the debate on the right to self-determination. It is worth highlighting in any case that the ICJ’s decision in the Hague did not deal in depth with the general extent of the law beyond cases of decolonisation, people’s right to self-determination, recognised in Articles 1 and 55 of the United Nations Charter, the International Pacts of 1976 and numerous United Nations resolutions. The ICJ made reference to this debate, which has occupied a central place in international political doctrine since the last decade of the twentieth century, since the publication of a work by A. Buchanan (The Morality of Political Divorce, 1991). The advisory opinion gathers the allegations made by those who supported (in the legal process) the right of the Kosovo population to set up an independent

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state, either in the exercise of the right to self-determination (understood as a universal human right) or as a right to remedial secession, applicable in those circumstances that threaten the survival of an endangered national minority.

The ICJ refused to enter into the debate, however. It considered that now is not the time to resolve these issues in the current case since the extent of the right to self-determination or the legitimacy of the right to secession are topics which fall outside of the General Assembly’s request.

Certainly, the ICJ’s reluctance to implicate itself at this crucial stage limits the judicial efficiency of the advisory opinion in doctrinal terms, in that it fails to give a definitive reply to the problem of the generalisation of the right to self-determination. Nevertheless, I understand that the ICJ’s decision brings significant elements of clarification which are in favour of a ‘postcolonial’ interpretation of this right in international law. In the first instance it soundly removes the main objection that, in a systematic manner, the majority doctrine and political practice of states have used in their opposition to any calls for secession.

The objection involved establishing the incompatibility with international law, and in particular with respect to the principle of state’s territorial integrity, of the unilateral declarations of independence in a non-colonial situation.

The ICJ’s decision, on the contrary, expressly and unequivocally declared that there was no international law of

a general application that forbids unilateral declarations of independence, which means these must be considered as in accordance with international legal order, as long as they are not affected by specific circumstances which represent some other violation of said order. Once we have ruled out the generic prohibition of unilateral secession, in my opinion, the decision on the Kosovo case opens up the possibility of developing, doctrinally and in positive international law, the concept of the right to self-determination as a universal right and to determining the conditions, requisites and the extent of its application.

The second element in the ruling that is especially significant which I wish to highlight is the implicit recognition of the legitimacy of the Kosovo Assembly, as an expression of the democratically expressed will of the people of the territory, to declare independence and to establish a new legality, above the still-existent Serbian sovereignty and aside from the legal order issuing from the Security Council resolutions.

In this sense, the decision on the Kosovo case provides considerable legal arguments to those such as myself, who consider that all national communities have the unalienable right to decide their own future, whether it lies within the state of which they form a part or by separating and forming a new sovereign state, according to the will of the majority, democratically and peacefully decided by its citizens.

*August Gil-Matamala Has been a practising lawyer since 1960, specialising in the fields of criminal and labour law.

He has taken part in numerous cases in defence of people on trial for their demands in favour of people’s rights, as well as hearings before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Gil-Matamala fought the first successful case against the Spanish state for the violation of basic rights. He is a founder member of the Commission for the Defence of Individual Rights of the Col·legi d’Advocats de Barcelona (the Barcelona Bar Association) and the Catalan Association for the Defence of Human Rights, which he presided over from its foundation in 1985 to 2001. Gil Matamala has also been president of both the Fundació Catalunya and the European Democratic Lawyers organisation. In 2007, coinciding with his retirement, he received the Creu de Sant Jordi (St. George’s Cross, the highest honour awarded by the Catalan government).

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The presidency that never existed

by Carme Colomina*

When the Spanish government took over the rotating presidency of the European Union on the 1st of January 2010, little could it have imagined that a series of battles were approaching, some more predictable than others. The challenge of adapting institutionally to the new Lisbon Treaty was to pale into insignificance when compared to the size of the economic crisis facing the euro. As a result, Madrid’s ambitious political agenda had to be stripped of many engagements and commitments. According to a Belgian diplomat, the new six month presidencies of the European Union have been downgraded in significance to ‘travelling in the passenger seat’. The new Lisbon Treaty has taken the visibility and political leadership they once enjoyed away, leaving them with the routine work of technical coordination.

The Lisbon Treaty created a threeheaded monster. One head is that of the President of the Council of Europe, Herman Van Rompuy, hidden away in his tower and in permanent contact with the EU’s major states, which set the agenda. Another is the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, who emphasises the putting into action of the European External Action Service in detriment to European leadership in the great international arenas. The last, but perhaps most active, is José Manuel Durao Barroso, President of the European Commission. Conscious of the fact that his fellow travellers fail to live up to the 16

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expectations generated by the election of a supposed president of the EU, Barroso is obsessed with his own agenda, the strengthening of the figure of the president of the European Commission as the only visible head of an executive that is increasingly larger and more impersonalised, with the false hope of seeing his post as being equivalent to Angela Merkel’s or Nicolas Sarkozy’s.

The new institutional scenario has left a tiny space for the presidential terms, not least with regard to visibility. The EU capitals, which continue to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union every six months, are nowadays responsible for the bulk of the technical work of preparing the European Coun-

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cil of Ministers. All except for Foreign Affairs. They are great secondary actors.

The Spanish government was to be the first in fitting together the pieces of a transition towards a European Union which in reality is still immersed in an internal debate as to the new hierarchy of power.

High hopes, low expectations The Spanish state took control of the EU’s rotating presidency for the fourth time since it signed its Accession Treaty to the European Economic Community some 25 years ago. The last presidency, however, will forever be associated in the community’s collec-

tive memory with the biggest crisis the single currency has experienced since it was created. The tortuous path leading to Greece’s rescue package and the debate as to better coordination of European economic policies revealed that the difficult political, economic and institutional union between the EU’s 27 member states goes beyond the new distribution of power set out in the Lisbon Treaty.

Thanks to the experience gained during its previous presidencies in 1989, 1995 and 2002, Spanish diplomatic machinery eased the transition towards the Treaty of Lisbon. However, it had not counted on paying the Catalan International View

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additional cost of a diluted foreign agenda on which José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero had pinned all his hopes of reviving his minimal international standing, thus softening his government’s failures in domestic matters.

The postponement of two European summits, with the United States and the Mediterranean countries, ruined his plans. Nevertheless, it was to be the state of the Spanish economy that ended up dictating the presidency’s political agenda and weakening the government’s capacity for leadership, lacking in ideas that would give him a degree of authority and capacity for political initiative in the European and global debate as to how to overcome the recession. Spain saw its image weakened and went from the anticipation of a programme full of bilateral summits to the disappointment of a much-reduced foreign agenda and pressure from its partners to radically reform the Spanish economy and cut public spending.

The international media showed no mercy to a government that had failed to build European alliances before taking on the presidency.

The Spanish diplomatic apparatus had not counted on the diluted foreign agenda on which José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero had pinned all his hopes Inevitably, the results of the Spanish term were judged by the overoptimistic expectations that had been generated during its preparation. Zapatero was overshadowed by President Herman Van Rompuy in the debate as to how best to confront the crisis. He clashed with Catherine Ashton as to the priorities of the EU’s international agenda. He also had to face the hostility of a part of the media that saw the Spanish state as the next candidate for the rescue fund that was designed for 18

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Greece. Madrid tried to put a positive spin on events, portraying the presidency as being ‘silent’, but ‘tremendously efficient’.

Interim Presidency

The rotating presidency has till now been in the hands of an interim government. Belgium took over from Spain in the midst of negotiations on forming a new executive. Six months on, and the Flemish and Walloon communities appear no closer to an agreement, yet EU authorities recognise that this temporary state of affairs is the most stable solution so as not to interfere in the day to day running of European politics. Belgium sees nothing wrong in leaving everything to its most prominent citizen on the European stage, the Permanent President of the EU Council, Herman Van Rompuy. The Belgians recognised from the beginning that his was to be a ‘modest’ presidency, freely accepting the passenger seat in a car now driven by a fellow countryman. The political turbulence between the Flemish and Walloons, breaking off meetings and exchanging volleys in the Belgian capital, has not affected the rotating presidency in any way. This was recognised by a pragmatic Belgian ambassador when he stated, ‘there is a problem with my country but there is no real problem with its presidency’.

Belgium will shortly pass the role on to Hungary who will take over the role of the rotating presidency of the European Union for the first time in its history on the 1st of January 2011.

Thanks to its status as a small state, weakened by the economic crisis, burdened with a deficit and subsequently bailed out by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in 2008, Hungarians aspire to do their best and not simply ask for more power.

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The rotating presidency no longer makes any sense. Its role and objectives should be realigned. Traditionally, the term served the country holding the presidency to put its political and geostrategic interests high on the programme of European interests.

The leadership of the European Union needed to be strengthened, freeing it from joint objectives and providing coherence to employment programmes, which till then was subject to constant changes every six months. The institutional changes resulting from the Lisbon Treaty were supposed to have helped, but their implementation has not been resolved. The European Union continues to be unable to find its place on the new international scene. Europe’s external weakness was highlighted during the Spanish term and continues to challenge Brussels’ slow machinery in establishing a form of European diplomacy capable of interacting with the new global players. The rules of the game have changed and those holding the post of rotating president have also to review their aspirations in light of the new role given them by the member states themselves when the Lisbon Treaty was passed. However, what will happen when France or Germany once again take over the EU’s rotating

presidency? Will they accept such a secondary role? Does maintaining these low-key presidencies make sense in a European Union where no one has a strong leadership?

The rotating presidencies need a new political agenda which will allows them to take full advantage of these periods of direct intervention in the European apparatus The rotating presidencies need a new political agenda which allows them to take full advantage of these periods of direct intervention in the European apparatus. In spite of the election of new faces to lead the 27 states, the EU continues to need the technical support of its capitals in order to make the apparatus in Brussels work. It does not have such a huge civil service as the stereotype would have us believe. So long as the rotating presidencies exist, the European Union will have to ensure it does not waste the opportunity it represents to bring the European project closer to a public that believes in it less and less. According to the latest Eurobarometer, the EU is at its lowest level of popularity.

*Carme Colomina A journalist specialising in the present day European Union. She has been with Catalunya Ràdio 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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An iron hand in Kazakhstan

by Natàlia Boronat*

Astana is like a mirage. The imposing, majestic city of the future lies in the middle of the Kazakh steppes in Central Asia. It was dreamt up in the 1990s by Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, as the site for an all-new capital for this former Soviet republic rich in oil and mineral wealth, five times the size of France, with a population of just 16 million. The skyscrapers and futuristic buildings dominate the skyline in a city which in a few short years has become the most modern capital in Central Asia and where one can admire works by renowned architects such as Norman Foster, Kisho Kurokawa and Frank Gehry.

In 2010 Astana celebrated its 12th anniversary. The event took on an even greater significance since it coincided with the president’s birthday on the 6th of July and the Kazakhstan’s presidency of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The most symbolic act of the three days of festivities held throughout the country to celebrate Nazarbayev’s birthday was the inauguration of Khan Shatyry, a shopping centre designed by Norman Foster, in the form of a yurt some 200 metres high. Khan Shatyry, consists of 100,000 square metres of shops, amusement arcades, palm trees, rivers and gardens and is the largest tented structure in the world as well as being the largest shopping centre in Central Asia.

For many Kazakhs who visit Astana it is vital that they are photographed while making a wish with their hand on the golden imprint of the president’s hand that crowns the Bayterek 20

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Tower. This 97 metre high construction is topped by a giant golden ball that symbolises the tree of life, associated with the country’s nomadic roots. For many, however, Bayterek Tower symbolises the power of Nazarbayev, who has ruled since 1990, before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since June 2010, Nazarbayev has also become the ‘Leader of the Nation’, an honorary title granted by parliament, guaranteeing him and his family immunity in retirement, in addition to a certain degree of decision-making power on key aspects of the nation.

During a programme broadcast on the 6th of July, President Nazarbayev reminisced about his decision to create the city of Astana. It was a time of a great recession, in which there were two million unemployed, wages and pensions went unpaid and the shops were empty of goods. Nevertheless, in a vision of the future, the president saw that the need to create a city serving

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as a bridge between the East and the West, at the heart of Eurasia, a capital in which he could also invest his political career. Nazarbayev is now very proud of his creation. Many inhabitants of Alma-Aty, the former capital in the south, believe that in reality the president was escaping from the threat of internal opposition, instability on the nation’s borders, terrorism or the Islamic fundamentalism of other countries in the region.

The Kazakh authorities believe their leader had a clear vision of how their country needed to develop following the disintegration of the USSR, and the economic, social and political collapse which was to follow. They value the strong economic growth that has occurred, making it the former Soviet republic with the highest Gross National Product per capita after Russia.

One of the first steps towards the building of the new Kazakhstan was the relinquishing of the fourth largest nuclear arsenal in the world, the country having been the site of all kinds of nuclear tests during the Soviet era. For Roman Vassilenko, advisor to the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, ‘the policy of nuclear non-proliferation was crucial to foreign businesses investing money without concern’.

Vassilenko told me that political stability and Kazakhstan’s mineral wealth provided a rapid switch to a market economy, the opening up of the country to foreign investors, the development of a banking system and small and medium-sized businesses.

He defines the Kazakh system as, ‘an

economically strong state with dynamic development towards democracy’, that currently meets current demands to improve the population’s livelihood.

One of the state’s principles, according to Vassilenko, is that ‘you can’t build democracy with an empty stomach’ and Catalan International View

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that is why the economy comes before politics in Kazakhstan.

For Vassilenko, the instability witnessed in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan all these years is proof of the success of the Kazakh model, where the key element is a strong president. In April 2010 the political and economic crisis that had swept Kyrgyzstan for years led to a revolt that toppled President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who had arrived in power thanks to a revolution of a democratic nature that ended the rule of the previous head of state. To make matters worse, an interethnic conflict in the south of the country in June 2010 resulted in the deaths of some 2,500 people.

Following a referendum in June 2010, Kyrgyzstan decided to do away with autocratic rule and become a parliamentary republic Following a referendum in June 2010, Kyrgyzstan decided to do away with autocratic rule and become a parliamentary republic, something unheard-of in a post-Soviet Central Asia ruled by presidential regimes.

Both the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyzstani’s were largely nomads before the definitive arrival of the Tsarist Empire at the end of the nineteenth century. Sanobar Shermatova, an expert on Central Asia, believes that both peoples have such different relationships with power because among the Kazakhs the authorities, descended from Genghis Khan, were sacred in nature and wellrespected. Shermatova also believes that in order to comprehend the mentality of these peoples one needs to remember that the Kyrgyzstani’s, who only had one centralised authority in a time of war, live in a much more mountainous country than the Kazakhs and their steppes.

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The Kazakh leaders believe their country, the land of nomads, a challenge for Russian colonisers, a place of exile for enemies of the Tsar and the destination of whole ethnic groups, transplanted by Joseph Stalin, is also an example of tolerance, since some 130 different nationalities coexist there.

The paradise depicted by the Kazakh leadership is in contrast to that described by journalists working for the few media organisations who dare to challenge Nazarbayev’s totalitarianism.

They expose the corruption surrounding the president, the fact that wealth is shared among a few and that there are numerous detainees arbitrarily accused of terrorism or extremism.

Zhassulan Kuzhekov, of Radio Free Europe, explains that in a Muslim country such as Kazakhstan, even if it is secular, ‘special prisons are built for certain Muslims who are condemned without evidence for extremism or terrorism’. Kuzhekov denounces the fact that dissident voices are silenced, that media outlets are closed and many websites are blocked.

Murat Telibekov, leader of the Muslim Union of Kazakhstan complains that, ‘there are a large number of victims of the anti-religious campaign, even though the country has not suffered any attacks of a religious nature’.

Experts believe that the Kazakh authorities’ emphasis on the fight against terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism and drug smuggling has allowed them to avoid taking the first steps towards the liberalisation of the political system.

Western analysts are used to denouncing the lack of freedom in Kazakhstan, but many Russian and Central Asian experts agree with the Kazakh authorities that it is simply not possible to create a democracy in just 20 years,

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especially with the Soviet political and economic model as a starting point, but that nevertheless Kazakhstan is the former Soviet republic with the highest standard of living in Central Asia.

Kazakhstan has excellent relations with Russia, and simultaneously with the United States, Europe and China. In 2008 they were awarded the presidency of the OSCE for 2010 with the promise of democratising reforms. The improvements have yet to materialise, according to independent Kazakh journalists and civil activists who feel themselves to have been betrayed by the silence of an organisation that is an accomplice to the abuses of the Kazakh regime in exchange for energy and security.

The Committee of Protection of the Journalists (CPJ) reports on the number of cases of suppression of the freedom of the press and instances of journalists such as Ramazan Yesergepov who was imprisoned on a charge of ‘gathering state secrets’ while investigating the abuses of the secret services.

Yersergepov has sent an open letter to the OSCE from his prison cell in Taraz where he accuses them of ‘pursuing other interests, having forgotten one of the organization’s key objectives and for having become involuntary accomplices to what is happening to my country at the present time’. **This article was made possible thanks to an invitation from the Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. *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 arena.

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Building Twenty-First Century Iran

by Firouz Mahvi*

On the 11th of February 1979, the Iranian people toppled the Shah’s dictatorship hoping for freedom.

However, the revolution was robbed by Ayatollah Khomeini who turned Iran into a extreme fundamentalist and brutally religious dictatorship, witness to tens of thousands of executions since 1981, the state sponsorship of terrorism in other countries in the region and a secret nuclear programme which was first revealed by the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in 2002.

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31 years later on the 11th of February many protests and clashes took place in various areas of Tehran and other cities; protestors confronted anti-riot forces in Tehran. Intense clashes continued between youths and suppressive forces and a number of protestors were detained by the regime’s agents. These protests, which are still continuing, happen despite the extreme security measures taken by the Iranian regime.

all of the power of its suppressive machinery together with its entire political structure to curb the uprising. It cut off or disrupted internet connections; it staged a series of show trials for the detainees of the December 27th (Ashura day) uprising; it once again declared the Iranian Resistance and its supporters to be ‘mohare (enemies of God); it imprisoned the families of Camp Ashraf residents, executed two young people, and placed 9 more on death row.

An example of the protests occured while Ahmadinejad was addressing a gathering organized by the regime to mark the anniversary of the 1979 revolution. A number of courageous young people and women chanted ‘Down with the dictator’ and other anti-regime slogans. A number of the regime’s flags were set on fire. This all happened while several layers of Revolutionary Guards, the Bassij force, State Security Forces, intelligence and plainclothes agents were all controlling the gathering.

However, the 11th of February uprising demonstrated the common resolve of the Iranian people to uproot the entire regime. The people’s slogan, ‘down with the principle of velayat-e faqih’, was wedded with chants of ‘the constitution is the law of tyranny’, thereby rejecting anything bearing the slightest indication of religious fascism.

To confront the 11th of February uprising, the clerical regime harnessed

It has become crystal clear that this religious dictatorship is totally unable

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Several facts have now become clear which are crucial to analysing future developments in Iran:

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to be reformed and it is not prepared to cede to the will of the people in the slightest. Any compromise or concession would speed up the overthrow of the regime. When we see The Supreme leader Khamenei wanting to have absolute power it is not because of his strength but due to the utter weakness of this regime.

The demands of the Iranian people are mulitple. The people will not be satisfied with anything short of a regime change. As the uprising has continued day after day, people’s demands have become more serious and radicalised.

Calls of ‘Death to Khamenei’ and ‘Down with the principle of the ab-

solute rule of the clergy’ have become national slogans of the people.

Another important issue is that the uprising is getting more organised. At the beginning there werespontaneous protests in which the protestors were quickly scattered following attacks by the repressive security forces. Now, however, as we witnessed during the Ashura uprising on the 27th of December, in many cases the organised people and youths were able to take complete control of major parts of the city for many hours.

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actly the same as what the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) and the NCRI have been fighting for over the past 30 years with despite the execution of more than 120 thousand of their members and supporters.

Despite the fact the people like Moussavi and Karoubi, the two candidates in the presidential elections, are not willing to stand up to Khaemenei and his gang and are in fact trying to prevent the uprising leading to a regime change, Khamenei and his faction are turning their backs on them and are unwilling to compromise at all. Khamenei, while fully aware of the people’s hatred towards the religious dictatorship, believes that any kind of concession to Moussavi will accelerate his regime’s downfall. For example during the last years of the Shah, several Prime Ministers were changed in 1977 and 1978. Nevertheless, it was like pouring fuel on the flames of the uprising and it failed to save the Shah.

The people’s persistence has produced widespread anxiety in the regime Moussavi issued a statement on the 1st of January, a few days after the Ashura uprising in which he said that neither he nor Karoubi or Khatami had called for the events of the 27th of December. So not only had he distanced himself from the Ashura but in this statement he tried to distance himself from the PMOI as well and expressed his loyalty to the Constitution of the regime in order to give a positive response to some of the demands of Khamenei and his gang of criminals. however, Khamenei and his gang would only be satisfied if Moussavi repents or asks for forgiveness. They still called him a troublemaker, calling for his arrest and punishment.

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Karoubi, the other presidential candidate in the elections also issued a similar press release, expressing his allegiance to the supreme leader.

If we see the regime’s response to the press releases by these two gentlemen, who only seek minor reforms within the context of the constitution and who want the regime to remain, we can clearly see how the regime is afraid of any kind of reform. The situation has led many of those who had some faith in this regime to become totatlly disappointed and frustrated, thereby joining those who seek a complete regime change and becoming closer to the Iranian resistance and PMOI. The other issue is that the Iranian people’s attitude towards the Iranian political figures very much depends on their positions towards the regime. For example Ayatollah Montazeri who was once to be the successor to Khomeini and who was subsequently dismissed in 1988 because he protested the mass executions of PMOI members, became quite popular in Iran recently when he openly challenged Khamenei and the so called absolute rule of the clergy.

This was quite apparent during his funeral in late December.

Therefore one should not be surprised when we hear the regime’s top officials repeating the same slogans which were heard from the Iranian resistance leaders Maryam and Masoud Rajavi, and can now be heard in the streets of Tehran. The government officials have also said that the Ashura uprising was the work of the PMOI and the PMOI were commanding it.

Previously the regime tried not to mention the PMOI’s name but it has now reached the point where they openly accuse the PMOI of leading the recent protests.

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The PMOI has an underground network inside Iran. Also the families of the martyrs and political prisoners form the biggest social network of the Iranian society. Many people have lost their loved ones or members of their families are in exile in Europe or in Ashraf in Iraq. As a result the massive social network of families has played a large role in the current uprising.

On the 11th of February 2010, Maryam Rajavi, President-Elect of NCRI praised the courageous Iranian women, men and youths who had taken to the streets and shook the foundations of the clerical regime with their chants of ‘Down with dictator’ and ‘down with Khamenei’. She said: ’Today, you managed to liberate the occasion of the anniversary of the anti-monarchical revolution from the clutches of the clerical regime, and you will undoubtedly liberate Iran from their occupation as well.

The uprising has sounded the death knell for the religious fascism ruling Iran and shows that the days of the regime are numbered’.

The people’s persistence has produced widespread anxiety in the regime, partly manifested in the rising number of defections, deepening rifts, and a reported exodus from the capital. The position of the regime’s number one authority, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has significantly diminished, weakening the regime as a whole. The question now is not if but when the regime will be overthrown.

The people of Iran have clearly shown that they want internal democratic change. The question we need to

ask ourselves is what the West should do to assist in that process. Ethical issues and economic weapons should be the key factors to pointing the way forward. War is clearly not a viable option.

Nor is continued appeasement, not least because the mullahs’ regime is incapable of making the concessions required to arrive at an acceptable agreement. Indeed, Iranian officials have admitted that in the current domestic situation, with an increasingly fragile regime, one step back could lead to the government’s collapse. So the policy of appeasement we have so consistently pursued has become increasingly irrelevant.

We should, therefore, look to a third option, which has been proposed consistently by the NCRI as the way forward. The third option can be summed up very simply in two short phrases.

First, world leaders should lift all political restrictions placed on the Iranian opposition. Second, we should impose a more restricting regime of tougher, comprehensive, targeted but binding sanctions on the mullahs’ Iran.

As Mrs Maryam Rajavi stated: ‘The nationwide uprising of the Iranian people sends a clear and blatant message to the international community and especially the European Union and the United States, that the regime is condemned to fall and any economic or political investments in it are doomed to fail. Economic and diplomatic ties with the clerical regime, which up until now have only served to prolong the regime and acted against the Iranian people, must end’.

* Firouz Mahvi an advisor to European politicians on Middle East Affairs, is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

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Interview with

Mrs Maryam Rajavi President-Elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

by Marc Gafarot* How do you view the fact that your organisation was finally removed from the European Union’s list of terrorist organisations?

It basically shows that the charge of terrorism against the resistance movement was totally baseless. The highest courts in Britain and Europe have issued seven rulings asking their respective governments to annul this baseless designation.

It also proved the extent to which the European Union Council of Ministers violated the rule of law by giving in to the mullahs’ demands to press bogus charges against the Iranian resistance.

Most importantly, it also demonstrated the serious damage caused by the shameful appeasement policy not only for the Iranian people and resistance, but also for the very democratic values upon which Europe was founded. This policy has led to the rule of law being seriously violated.

In an extensive campaign meant to annul the illegitimate and ominous terrorist label against the PMOI, thousands of legislators, lawyers, and jurists, politicians and human rights personalities and dignitaries in Europe and also regular citizens were on our side. In doing so, they not only supported the Iranian resistance, but also strengthened democracy and the rule of law in Europe. They deeply despise the absurd and destructive ap28

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peasement policy vis-à-vis the Iranian regime.

Does your removal from the list deal a big blow to the Iranian regime’s diplomacy?

Yes, indeed, this is very much the case. As a protest against this decision, Ahmadinejad’s government lodged a complaint against the European Union with the UN Security Council!

The state-run media announced that this was a turning point. The regime’s Parliament (Majlis) embarked on a bill calling on the government to revise and reassess its economic relations with countries supporting ‘terrorism’, by which they meant EU member states!

In fact, the removal from the list meant that the mullahs’ strategic investment in international relations was ruined. For instance, let us look at two examples demonstrating the regime’s sensitivity on this matter: On May 7th, 2008, after the UK Court of Appeal ordered the PMOI’s removal from the list, the Wall Street Journal wrote: ‘Iranian officials have for years made suppression of the MEK a priority in negotiations with Western governments over Tehran’s nuclear program and other issues, according to several diplomats who were involved in those talks.’

After returning from his trip to Iran, the Chairman of the Foreign affairs Committee of the UK House of

Science and Technology

Commons said: ‘When we went to Iran I certainly, and I think my colleagues, were struck by the number of times that the Iranians wanted to raise the issue of what they call the ‘MKO terrorist organization’’ to a level almost of obsession that it was on their program, they wanted us to talk about it and they raised it in lots of different contexts.

As you know, Iran is a country that embraces many different cultures and ethnicities. In the event of the current regime’s downfall, how do you foresee the future of your country in terms of gender, ethnic and religious equality?

There is no doubt that after the mullahs’ overthrow, all minorities, including ethnic and religious ones, and especially women, will fully enjoy freedom and equality in the country.

We want to establish a republic based on secularism, pluralism and respect for human rights. Gender equality has an important place in our perspectives and political platform for the future of Iran. All individual freedoms and rights in relation to women must be recognized and respected. These basic rights would include freedom in the choice of clothing, freedom of belief and religion, marriage and divorce, as well as employment and travel without the consent of a husband, father, brother or any male figure.

We believe deeply in complete equality in the domains of social and women’s rights. We especially stress that women should enjoy equal right of participation in the political leadership of society.

Can you tell us anything else about it?

On February 23rd, 2010, during a meeting at the European Parliament, I described my full views in detail on the question of gender equality. You may notice that I am touching on those points here as well.

As for the rights of ethnic minorities, I would also like to reiterate that such rights are fully envisaged and guaranteed in the program of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (Parliament-in-exile).

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has announced in its platform that ‘stability, territorial integrity and national unity are complementary with achieving the full rights of all members of its different social sectors.

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Thus, we are in serious need of domestic self-determination (autonomy), as a concept of removing double oppression from all our country’s minorities, providing cultural, social and political rights and freedoms with the notion of inseparable unity and national sovereignty’.

Many members and officials of the resistance and the PMOI belong to such minorities. For example, the PMOI’s founder, Mohammad Hanifnejad himself was from Tabriz, the most important city in Azerbaijan. A significant proportion of our resistance’s martyrs also belong to ethnic and religious minorities.

In 1983, the NCRI passed a plan for the autonomy of the Iranian Kurdish region. The plan states: ‘All rights and freedoms stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international covenants related to it, such as the freedom of belief and expression, freedom of the press, freedom of the formation and activity of political parties and organizations, trade, workers and rural unions and councils, democratic associations, freedom to choose occupation and place of residence, and freedom of religion shall be guaranteed in Kurdistan as in other parts of Iran. All inhabitants of Kurdistan, be they women or men, shall enjoy equal social, economic, political and cultural rights, as in other regions of Iran, without any form of sexual, tribal, ethnic or religious discrimination’.

The world is concerned with the current Iranian military nuclear program.

Recently former Prime Minister Tony Blair related the reason for attacking Iraq to what is now happening in Iran.

Is Iran a threat to world security? Do you see any prospect for regime change by military intervention in Iran similar to what happened in Iraq?

There is no doubt that the Iranian regime is the main threat to the existence and survival of all countries in the 30

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Middle East, because without domestic repression and export of terrorism, the regime cannot remain in power in Iran.

The mullahs’ constitution emphasizes the establishment of a global Islamic Empire which basically means the hegemony of fundamentalism and violence throughout the Islamic world.

Terrorist activities and the fuelling of crises in Gaza, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and most of all in Iraq are essentially driven by this policy.

The acceleration of the regime’s nuclear program also poses a great threat to world peace. So far the regime has extended the range of its missiles to cover some parts of Europe.

But, with regards to your question about a repeat of the Iraqi experience, we oppose any foreign military intervention in Iran. For many years, we have consistently declared that the solution to the Iranian crisis is neither through an appeasement policy, nor any foreign military intervention. Our solution is the third option, namely democratic change by the people of Iran and their competent resistance.

The uprisings that have unfolded since June 2009 in Iran prove that this solution is both just, possible and within the reach of our people.

We are telling Western governments that the most desirable role they can play is to avoid giving concessions to the mullahs’ regime. We specifically want them to cease dealing and negotiating with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, the daily cost of which is the execution and torture of the Iranian people; and they should dismantle companies belonging to the Revolutionary Guards and the mullahs’ intelligence services’ networks in Europe. They must also make their ties with the mullahs contingent on an end to repression in Iran, and take measures to remove the PMOI (the main and pivotal opposition movement) from the US list of foreign terrorist organisations. That

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was America’s biggest concession to the mullahs. Western governments must also impose real and practical oil, trades, weapons and technological sanctions on the regime.

The UN’s Human Rights Council recently expressed its concerns regarding the deteriorating human rights situation in your country. The council further requested the regime put an end to cruel punishments such as stoning, amputations, lashings and executions. Moreover, the status of freedom of religion and expression is very grim. Do you foresee any changes?

This [UN decision] is indeed a positive step. However it is not enough and will not affect the regime. The key policies that will force the regime to stop torture, execution and stoning are based on two principles: First, governments must make their diplomatic relations with the regime contingent on an end to torture and executions. This is a regime that has been condemned more than 56 times by international organizations for severe human rights abuses and so it deserves such a treatment.

Secondly, Western governments must abandon the policy of moderation and negotiation with the mullahs. Any negotiation with this criminal regime only serves to embolden it.

This is the best support they can lend to the uprising and the Iranian people’s resistance, which is striving to bring freedom and democracy through regime change while ending once and for all inhumane and criminal punishments such as stoning and amputations.

Does the regime use the Koran to justify such practices?

I must add that these brutal punishments that are carried out by the mullahs have nothing to do with Islam.

Islam is a religion of tolerance and forgiveness and is the complete opposite of the reactionary interpretation offered by the mullahs.

Our resistance does not believe in any of the religious rules put forth by the mullahs. We are committed to the abolishment of execution and torture in Iran once the mullahs’ have been overthrown.

How do you see the end of this regime?

Do you think we are witnessing its political and ideological demise?

Yes. While daily uprisings are ongoing, the regime has been suffering from the most serious internal divisions in its 30-year history and has been gradually crumbling. Most key religious figures oppose Khamenei. Many have bravely expressed their dissent publicly and many are still silent. However, there has never been an time like now where the mullahs’ religious leadership has been isolated to such an extent. Khamenei’s position as the supreme leader has been significantly compromised and it is clear that he is no longer capable of curbing the opposition or patching up the differences that have engulfed the top of the regime. It is abundantly clear that neither the ruling regime nor society itself will go back to the previous state of affairs. The current trend will ultimately lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.

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

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Inheriting North Korea

by Iris Mir*

‘Imperialism, of course, should neither be underestimated, nor overestimated. Imperialism, mainly the American variety, is already going downhill’1. The eternal president and Great Leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, delivered this statement in 1969. The Korean War (1950- 1953) had already ended and the war of words that was so characteristic of the Cold War was the order of the day between the Communist North and a South Korea backed by the United States. The Korean nation was split in two, beginning the fight between Communism and capitalism that has continued to this day. While the North and South continue to be isolated from each other, the historical background to what has been dubbed ‘the last frontier of the Cold War’ is very different from the one at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, when there was a strong ideological affiliation between Communist countries united against the American model of development. Kim Il-sung expressed himself very clearly when he referred to the fighting during the Korean War: ‘The people of [North] Korea and China put Yankee imperialism in its place when they once more fought with the united force of that time’2. Furthermore, during the tumultuous 60’s and 70’s Communism was attached to an ideological international movement when the fight for democracy and freedom somehow legitimized this political system that nowadays is run by authoritarian regimes.

[1] Yoshiie Yoda, assistant professor at Waseda Universidad ( Japan). The peaceful, independent reunification of Korea and the joint declaration of North and South: Korea should be reunified independently, published in foreign languages in Pyongyang, North Korea.

1976. P. 64 [2] Ibid. P. 47 [3] Lord Acton (18341902), historian and politician famous for his quotations on power and liberty.

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As Lord Acton3 pointed out ‘power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’, a path followed by North Korea since its foundation, led at that time by Kim Il-sung. Inside the regime itself there has been a significant loss of an ideological attachment to a dynastic rule aimed at perpetuating power. Simply by observing the profile of the eternal president Kim Il-sung and the current or ‘Dear’ leader Kim Jong-il it is easy to identify important differences between them and the life of Western privileges enjoyed

by Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of Kim Jong-il and the person most likely to inherit the leadership of the regime.

Kim Il-sung fought in two wars, while Kim Jong-il not only entered the lower ranks of the Korean Workers’ Party afCatalan International View

ter finishing his studies in China, but the propaganda apparatus built a revolutionary profile around him from the very moment he was born. An example of this is their saying that he was born at a secret guerrilla camp run by Korean Communist exiles where his father was training. Conversely the fortunate Kim Jong-un has had a more pleasant life. It is believed that he has been educated in the ‘evil’ West at a Swiss university.

While Kim Jong-il has not always lived a life of austerity, since it is rumoured that he loves Hollywood films and Western food, he has managed to be discreet, keeping his weakness for Western pleasures a secret, well aware that he was able to live a very different life from the one of restrictions he

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imposes on his fellow countrymen. His sons, on the contrary, were born in another time and with the power of the regime already well-established they have been raised as part of the privileged elite. As a consequence they have been surrounded by rumours such as one related to the eldest son, Kim Jongnam who tried to enter Japan with a fake passport because he wanted to go to Disneyland.

In this context, the authoritarian regime is facing a huge challenge.

With Kim Jong-il in poor health the dictators need to plan a succession strategy that allows them to maintain their hold on power. With this in mind, they held a big military parade on the 10th of October in order to pre-

sent Kim Jong-un in society. It appears as if they will follow dynastic rule and will eventually name Kim Jong-un as the future leader of the country. The other two sons, Kim Jong-nam and Kim Jong-chol were apparently dismissed; the former for the Disneyland incident and the latter for being too effeminate. In order to legitimize his candidacy, Kim Jong-un who is purportedly 27 years of age was awarded a series of titles at the Party Conference: he was promoted to the rank of a 4-star general and given other political posts. However, Kim Jong-un is not used to being the centre of attention.

If he is to become a dictator then he needs to learn how to dictate and how to hide his weaknesses should other members of the party be tempted to Catalan International View

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overthrow him following Kim Jong-il’s death. His aunt, the influential sister of Kim Jong-il, will make sure that the transition is successful thanks to her new promotion as a military general.

The politburo is rather worried about the transition in terms of how people will react towards an abrupt change of leadership, where the successor is virtually unknown to the public. As is usual in North Korean affairs rumour is rife, alleging that Kim Jong-un may have undergone plastic surgery in order to make his face more like his grandfather’s, the eternal president. In short, legitimisation is now top priority. For the dictators it is time to design a marketing strategy to make sure the people will unquestioningly worship Kim Jong-un as they have his father and grandfather. It is speculated that November’s shelling of the South Korean island of Yeongbyeong, which killed 4 people and has brought the peninsula to the brink of war, might have been done to give Kim Jong-un a taste of power. If all goes to plan, there will be little change in North Korea. As Professor Andrei Lankov, the renowned expert on the hermit kingdom stresses, ‘they will try to keep the same political situation because they must hang together in order not to hang separately’.

With Kim Jong-il in poor health the dictators need to plan a succession strategy that allows them to maintain their hold on power As mentioned earlier, other countries’ sympathies towards Pyongyang are no longer ideological but strategic.

Gone are the days when North Korea and China were united behind the Communist cause and fought together during the Korean War. The shelling 34

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of Yeongbyeong island has put a strain on the relationship between the two, with the US asking China to influence North Korea and with China being reluctant to anger a neighbour with which they have significant economic interests. North Korea is now alone and isolated and is playing a game based on manipulating China and the international community (in the shape of the US), surviving thanks to international aid. They rely on manipulation through provocation and the issue of denuclearization. In the same manner, they are well aware that China’s priority is

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to make sure that there is stability in North Korea. From this point of view, as professor Lankov points out, ‘they do not have any interest in economic development because their major goal is to stay in power’. However, around the time of September’s Party Conference various experts raised the issue of the possibility that North Korea might be thinking of some sort of Chinese style economic reform to secure their economy. Karin Janz, who spent 5 years in North Korea as the director of the German NGO Welthungerhilfe, observes that ‘North Koreans are eager to

do business and accomplish a degree of development from within. They think that their government should learn from the Chinese and apply their experience to their country’. In fact in North Korea they already have Special Economic Zones like they have in China to attract foreign investment.

On the border with South Korea there is the Special Economic Zone of Kaesong, just a one-hour drive from the capital of Seoul. The industrial complex represents a win-win situation for both North and South Korea, the former earns foreign currency while the latter Catalan International View

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has access to cheap labour. Nevertheless, so far little progress has been made in terms of economic reform and as a consequence, as Janz notes, ‘the industry is deteriorating and places like Kaesong can’t change the situation’. On top of that, international sanctions are suffocating the economy.

Since the Chinese are unwilling to let the regime collapse they are injecting money into the North Korean 36

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economy via different channels. For its part, North Korea established the Taepung International Investment Group in 2006 in Hong Kong and mainland China in order to earn desperately needed foreign capital. It is a backdoor strategy aimed at avoiding the restrictions of international sanctions and allows them to earn foreign capital. It is estimated that 60% of total investments come from China and a proportion of the money is being used

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Korea were to open up her economy) a major inflow of foreign investment is unlikely.

How North Korea will play this sophisticated game of concession and manipulation once Kim Jong-il steps down is a mystery

to improve the infrastructure in strategic trade areas for North Korea and China. Although the market has potential, if the nuclear tests and military threats continue and there is no substantial show of stability (even if North

Indeed, although an injection of foreign ideas may revive the economy, contradictions could emerge within society.

Juche, the official state ideology that underpins the North Korean regime may suffer as a result. Based on the idea of self-reliance, the nation is supposed to enjoy a self-sufficient economy, political independence and autonomous defence.

If they start to rely on foreign investment, however, one of the main tenets of their faith will be contradicted and the ‘brainwashed’ North Korean public may feel disoriented. China is keen to avoid both collapse and reunification. Beijing does not want the South to absorb the North because it would mean sharing their border with the American troops that back Seoul. Neither would China nor South Korea wish to have to deal with a sudden wave of refugees. Thus stability through whichever formula, whether following a successful transition, denuclearization, the lifting of sanctions or economic aid, will be welcomed by all the parties involved. How North Korea will play this sophisticated game of concessions and manipulations once Kim Jong-il steps down is a mystery. The Dear Leader is, above all, a great negotiator. It is a quality that is not necessarily hereditary. *Iris Mir

Iris Mir holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the Universitat Ramon Llull (Blanquerna Faculty of Communication Sciences). From 2006 to 2010 she lived in Asia working as a freelance journalist for different Spanish media outlets covering the China-Asia Pacific region, while based in Hong Kong and Beijing. She has also worked as a correspondent for the Catalan radio station COMRàdio and the Catalan magazine El Temps.

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Interview with

Tenzin Gyatso the 14th DALAI LAMA

by Bernat Joan*

Tenzin Gyatso, or His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, is an affable man, of straightforward words and measured gestures. We met at the event organised by the University of Trento and the autonomous government of the province of Trentino, in which we coincided in debate. It followed two days of hard work spent exhaustively examining the memorandum on genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people, which the Chinese government had not even deigned to consider. We had the opportunity to chat for a while just before the debate began. Immediately afterward the Dalai Lama was due to leave for Rome, where he was to participate in a meeting with parliamentarians. That same morning he had been in Bozen-Bolzano, the capital of the South Tyrol. Nevertheless, the punishing schedule did not seem to bother him in the least.

What are the main reasons for seeking Tibetan autonomy?

We want freedom for Tibet because we love freedom. Tibetans are a people with very specific characteristics. We have our own language, we have a shared history and we have a spirituality that makes us different. The Tibetan people are a specific people, very clearly distinct from other people.

For this reason we want autonomy. We need to speak with the Chinese; we need to hold a dialogue with them to ensure that they recognise us. At least we have to make them respect us, that they allow us to exist…

We want freedom for Tibet because we love freedom At first glance it doesn’t look like there’s a simple solution.

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No, not at all. You’ve experienced it, both in Trentino-Alto Adige and in Catalonia, with Mussolini, Hitler in Germany and with Franco. They were vile dictators. But Chinese communism is also an enemy of freedom. They want to control everything: they tell us how we are supposed to think, how we are to dream; they even tell us how we are supposed to go to the toilet. We are working to change this type of thinking. This will be good for Tibet, but it will also be good for China.

What role does the Tibetan government in exile play? What role should it play in the future?

It’s a question of legitimacy. The Tibetan government in exile represents the Tibetan people, lacking in freedom.

If we achieve autonomy inside China, in the context of a multinational state, with a change in thinking, then

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it would be necessary to dissolve the government and elect one democratically in Tibet. But we still don’t have the right conditions within which this change can take place. For now we will have to continue inviting people to Dharamsala [in India, the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile and residence of the Dalai Lama].

Tibetan is the only language in the world that can translate Sanskrit texts word-for-word What significance does language have for the Tibetans?

Language is a fundamental sign of identity. Moreover, the Tibetan language is currently the living language that is closest to Sanskrit. It’s the only language in the world that can translate Sanskrit word-for-word; a language which has disappeared. As a result, it not only has a high value for us, it’s a veritable treasure. Imagine what would happen if we lost it, if we lost a language like Tibetan! One of the reasons we want autonomy is precisely so that we can preserve our language, to be able to pass it on to future generations…

And religion?

Spirituality is very important for we Tibetans, but I agree that we need to separate religion and the state. Our religion, the Tibetan civilisation, is as it is, and religion has a very important role to play. But we understand that our religion is in favour of freedom, also for religious freedom. We understand that Tibet should be a place of religious freedom, without abandoning religion’s role in the way we Tibetans understand the world we inhabit.

Why is the protection of the environment so important to your message?

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What do you expect, when the greatest rivers in Asia are all born in the land of Tibet! Our sources of water are amazing. From our land flows the water that irrigates the majority of Asia.

If the water was poisoned, if we didn’t take care of the rivers, if we didn’t have a way of protecting this great plateau (one of the largest in the world) what would we send to our brothers and sisters, and what would happen to future generations? We wish to have the autonomy to conserve the environment, to be able to have water, air an earth that is clean…

Is Tibetan autonomy compatible with the Chinese constitution?

I’m afraid it’s more compatible with the constitution of the People’s Republic of China, with all the defects it might have, than with the mentality that still reigns in the Chinese government. But we need to negotiate and prove that it is the case. For this reason we value your position in relation to our cause, because someone who wants freedom in one place, in reality wants it for the whole world. People should really learn to respect each other as they really are: united, but with their own identities. Observe the European Union. Even India! They’re free... we need freedom of expression, freedom of opinion, freedom of information, but they don’t exist in China. Freedom of expression is essential so that China can join the worldwide family of nations.

Why do you want to control immigration in Tibet?

China has maintained a strategy of sending a large number of Han Chinese to Tibet (the dominant ethnic group in China), with the aim of changing Tibet’s culture by diluting it under an exterior demographic avalanche. I don’t mean to say by this that with autonomy any of the people currently living in

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Tibet would have to leave. This is not what I mean at all. But we believe that we should have immigration control in our hands, of the right to reside in Tibet, in order that they don’t follow these strategies to dissolve our culture and our civilisation.

Nowadays a lot of people around the world are interested in Tibetan culture, in our spirituality, in our compassion. People who come into contact with us… smile Tell me about the importance of having a single government for the whole of Tibet.

They have followed a divisive strategy among us. At present, the central government of the People’s Republic of China are trying to keep Tibet divided and we believe it has to be united, that it has to form a single entity, a single autonomy, undivided, because we Tibetans are one people.

What do you hope to gain from the dialogue with representatives of the People’s Republic of China?

We hope they will think again and will change. The best thing we have is our civilisation, our way of behaving, our culture. They might be tempted to bribe us with money. That wouldn’t do any good. We wouldn’t accept. We want to be able to rule ourselves. We have grown in exile, and adversity has

made us strong. Come to Dharamsala, in India, and see how people think, how they grow, how they demonstrate… how they smile! People want more information on human psychology, on human emotions. Nowadays there are many people around the world interested in Tibetan culture, in our spirituality, in our compassion. People who come into contact with us… smile.

What needs to happen in order that the regime in China can change?

More than anything there’s a lack of information. China is very closed, it shuts out what goes on in the rest of the world. We need to understand more things from outside, have more information that flows freely. And more education. When the land is more fertile, when the people receive more information, when freedom of expression has been implemented and there’s more education, society will be prepared for change. Then it will flow like water and no one will be able to stop it. There will be a movement which will be a real, let’s say, semi-cultural revolution, but for good. Well-educated people, free, with an open mind, knowing what’s going on in the world, will do away with authoritarianism, obligation and injustice.

I hope so.

I hope so too, for everyone’s sake: for Tibet and for China.

*Bernat Joan (Eivissa, 1960). Professor of Catalan Philology and a sociolinguist. He has written essays, plays and novels and coordinated various studies on sociolinguistics. He has been a member of the European Parliament (2004-2007) and Secretary of Language Policy of the Catalan Government since 2007. He is part of the European Free Alliance (EFA) and member of the Fundació Maurits Coppieters¹ scientific committee. He has contributed to the Languages and Speakers for a Diverse Europe think tank, linked to the Network to Promote Language Diversity.

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America

The presidency of Barack Obama: from hope to reality

by Edgardo M. Vázquez-Rivera*

If we were to compress President Barack Obama’s political platform into a single word, it would be ‘change’. Ever since Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in February 2007 and throughout the entire electoral process, his campaign was fuelled by an increasing necessity for a radical change in the traditional politics represented by his opponent, Senator John McCain and former President George W. Bush. More than 69 million Americans voted not only for the first African-American president in history, but for the man who inspired hope in a nation that was caught up in a $1.3 trillion government deficit1, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s, two never-ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and an unemployment rate that reached 7.6%, the highest the nation had seen since September 1992.

[1] According to a US Treasury’s Financial Report of the US Government, Obama inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit equalling 9.2 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product.

[2] Hoffer, Eric. (1951) The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. p. 15 [3] Id. p. 9 [4] Id. [5] Id. p. 24

The word ‘change’ and a huge power of persuasion complimented the political campaign of the most encouraging and inspirational figure in US history since President John F. Kennedy. President Obama inspired us all with hope, and that was precisely what the world needed at the time. The Obama campaign was mainly composed of grassroots efforts that literally rose from the ground up. As Eric Hoffer once wrote, the unemployed are more likely to follow the peddlers of hope than the handers-out of relief 2. Instead of simply offering the traditional Democratic Party principle of a slight tax increase in exchange for more government benefits, they opted to base their campaign on a very general rhetoric that intended to inspire ‘hope’ for a ‘change’ in the lives of a jaded American electorate.

According to Eric Hoffer, who is considered to be one of the most brilliant philosophical writers of all time, ‘extravagant hope is likely to generate a most reckless daring. For the hopeful can draw strength from the most

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ridiculous sources of power- a slogan, a word, a button’3. The Obama campaign knew how to kindle and fan that extravagant hope. It was perfectly clear to them that ‘fear of the future causes us to lean against and cling to the present, while faith in the future renders us receptive to change’4. Hoffer states that, ‘mass movements are usually accused of doping their followers with hope [for] the future while cheating them of the enjoyment of the present. Yet, to the frustrated the present is irremediably spoiled. Comforts and pleasures cannot make it whole. [Therefore,] no real content or comfort can ever arise in their minds but from hope’ 5. This genius idea inspired thousands of people that had never been involved in politics to volunteer their time and money in order to elect Barack Obama, the man who had promised to bring that ‘change’. This campaign technique had the desired effect of getting the candidate elected, but failed to properly explain exactly what would change, how it would change, and how long it would take for that change to be felt. I feel this is the cause

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of the current discontent among many Americans, including many of those who in one way or another helped elect President Obama.

Almost two years have passed since the Obama Administration took office, and the winds of ‘change’ have begun to dissipate. The President’s popularity has substantially declined, his political adversaries have become the centre of attention for the media, new rival grassroots movements have emerged, and even the President has acknowledged his immense frustration with the political arena in Washington DC. What is more, predictions of President Obama’s legacy have been compared with that of President Carter, whose campaign for re-election in 1980 was one of the most difficult, and least successful in history. President Obama had

a 69% approval rating at the beginning of his presidency 6, the second highest approval rating that a President has had since the beginning of presidential approval rating polls in the late 1930s.

However, his rating reached its lowest point during the second week of August 2010, when only 41% of Americans approved of his work.

[6] According to Gallup Poll, a division of The Gallup Organization that regularly conducts public opinion polls in more than 140 countries around the world. On a daily basis, Gallup tracks the percentage of Americans who approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. Results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,500 American adults, with a margin of error of ±3 percent.

The truth is that very few Americans had any idea of the severity of the financial problems President Obama inherited from the Bush Administration What accounts for this dramatic reduction in the number of people who approve of President Barack Obama?

The truth is that very few Americans had any idea of the severity of the fiCatalan International View

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[7] According to an audited US Treasury report, the underfunding of Medicare stands at $34 trillion, Social Security some $13 trillion, and Medicaid reaches approximately $30 trillion.

[8] Source: 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner PolitiFact. com, a project of the St. Petersburg Times to help find the truth in US politics.

nancial problems President Obama inherited from the Bush Administration. People were expecting a dramatic change in their lives, specifically in their pockets, within the first few months following the President’s swearing in.

In addition, the American people voted for somebody who was going to challenge the status quo, a promise they now consider that Obama has failed to keep. Campaign promises were so hopeful that it is nearly impossible to satisfy the nation’s hunger for a rapid change in such a short space of time.

Nevertheless, does this mean that the Obama Administration has proven itself incompetent? The truth is that many factors are completely out of Obama’s control. The fact that the abovementioned ‘change’ is not immediately evident does not necessarily mean that the Administration is failing to put forward measures that are meant to achieve unprecedented medium and long-term objectives.

There is still a light at the end of the tunnel and President Obama still bears the torch President George W. Bush took office after three years of consecutive budget surpluses under President William J. Clinton. What is not being said by critics is that eight years later, President Obama walked into office to find almost $11 trillion in US Treasury debt, and deficits of approximately $1.3 trillion a year for the next decade. To put this into perspective, President Bush’s fiscal disaster represents a $30,000 burden on every American citizen, in addition to the taxes they are already paying. Moreover, the Bush Administration refused to inform the public about the astonishing overpromising of major entitlement programs such as 46

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Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid7, failing to reveal that the entire fiscal gap for the United States could easily approach the $3 trillion mark.

During Bush’s presidency, two credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, projected that the US Treasury bond could lose its AAA rating as early as 2012 if the nation remained on the same financial track. Worse still, they projected that the United States could have the same credit rating as Greece by 2015, Mexico or Poland by 2020, and Panama by 2025. Amazingly, President Bush’s financial mismanagement almost ruined the credit rating of one of the world’s richest nations.

In February 2009, just one month after being sworn in, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion economic stimulus package aimed at helping the economy recuperate from the worsening worldwide recession.

In addition, the Obama Administration took further steps to handle the financial crisis, including the introduction of the Public-Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets, which contains provisions for buying up to $2 trillion in depreciated real estate assets.

Such measures have proven to have had a significant effect on improving the economy in the medium and long term.

Furthermore, of the 506 promises that President Obama made during his campaign, 122 of them have been kept, 237 are in the works, he has stalled on 81, a compromise has been reached on 41, and 3 promises have not yet been rated8. This means that only 22 of President Obama’s campaign promises have not been kept. That is an undeniably impressive record.

Then why is there still discontent?

Much of the criticism has focused on government spending, but none of the

America

critics dare to visualize it as an investment instead of a mere waste of taxpayers’ money. Fixing the economy requires an initial investment and that is precisely what President Obama is aiming for. However, this investment has served as a tool for opposition groups that only focus on the short term, a type of criticism that has always existed in American politics and will continue to exist regardless of the fact that the US economy has begun to show signs of vitality. The fact is that, to President Obama’s credit, the US economy expanded at a rate of 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2009, its fast-

est rate in six years9, and unemployment figures decreased from 10.1% in October 2009 to 9.6% in September 201010. The rate of economic expansion has not been maintained, but economists see the persistent improvement that has continued ever since as being directly related to Obama’s economic stimulus package. The reality is that whether the critics like it or not, President Obama seems to be on the right track. Whether they like it or not, there is still a light at the end of the tunnel and President Obama still bears the torch.

[9] Source: US Department of Commerce.

[10] Source: US Department of Labor - Employment Situation Summary for September 2010.

*Edgardo M. Vázquez-Rivera Holds a degree in Anthropology from the University of Puerto Rico and is currently pursuing a Juris Doctor from the same institution. Vázquez has worked in both houses of the US Congress, was the Operations Director for the Democratic Party of Puerto Rico (the Puerto Rican branch of the US National Democratic Committee) and has been an Advisor to several political campaigns including that of President Obama. In his time in the Office of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá (2005-2009), Mr. Vázquez was responsible for relations between the Government of Puerto Rico and the Federal Government of the United States in the areas of juvenile criminal justice, municipal affairs, and historic preservation, among others. He currently holds the position of Managing Partner at Essèntium Consulting Group.

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Interview

Mònica Terribas ‘TV3 is a normal TV station for a country that wants to be normal’ Interviewed by Eva Piquer*

Since May 2008, Mònica Terribas (Barcelona, 1968) has been director of Televisió de Catalunya, a public company which operates one mainstream (TV3) and five specialised TV channels. TV3 began broadcasting in September 1983, and has played a key role in Catalonia’s linguistic normalisation programme.

From 2002 to 2008, Terribas, who holds a PhD in Communication Sciences and lectures aspiring journalists, directed and presented La nit al dia (Nightly Update), which set the standard for news programmes on Catalan television. In 2003 she received the National Prize for Journalistic Culture, awarded by the Catalan government, for her professional and academic achievements.

Your CV is impressive. Have you achieved what you planned to achieve?

I’ve never planned anything. In life you do the things you come across, not the things you think you’ll do. I thought I’d end up writing for a newspaper, but I’ve always been involved with the world of television. I’ve dealt with the opportunities and circumstances that have arisen. I think this is something which separates men and women: women don’t make as many plans as men do; we make it up as we go along, sometimes we prioritise one thing, and later we prioritise another. Our professional career is more dependent on our private life.

Is being the director of Catalan TV the ultimate achievement for a broadcasting professional?

You can serve people and society both with a programme like La nit al dia (Nightly Update) and

as the manager of the television company. Directing TV3 is a job which isn’t so much about journalism as managing people, projects and resources.

Professionally it’s frustrating and not very rewarding: nowadays I’m less able to keep up with current affairs.

Are you making the kind of television you want to make?

You never make the TV you want to make or the kind of programmes you want to make or do the interviews you want to do: you do what you can with what you’ve got. Right now the audiovisual world is very tough, the economic situation is really hard, the market is more fragmented than ever, the private channels are seriously affecting public channels, resources are a lot more limited than two years ago... with all these elements I do the best I can, but I have magnificent entertainment projects on my desk that I have to reject. It’s really tough

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and frustrating having to systematically say ‘no’ to good ideas and talented people, but it’s what I’ve got to do.

What does TV3 have that other TV channels around the world don’t have?

TV3 has managed to really identify itself with its target audience. The viewing public in Catalonia is very demanding because they see it as belonging to them. TV3 is greatly loved by its public, which means it receives a lot of criticism when the audience feel they’ve been let down. We’re all very critical of the people we love. When a friend lets you down it really hurts. If we’re let down by someone we don’t know it also makes us feel bad, but we don’t lose sleep over it. TV3 has achieved quality programming that reflects the interests of the viewers in Catalonia. Our country isn’t typical, but it has television that’s typical from the point of view of any Western democratic country. It’s ambitious television; it has correspondents who are dedicated to international politics, who don’t avoid any external issues, that don’t create programmes with a provincial mentality, that isn’t a subsidiary of the Spanish market, that doesn’t wait for others to feed it scraps. Instead it fights to have its own productions in the international marketplace; it’s capable of coproducing an animated series with the BBC or a documentary with Channel 4 or being nominated for an Oscar with a documentary like Balseros. TV3 is a normal TV station for a country that wants to be normal. If all our institutions behaved in this way, the country would be a success.

The true influence of a TV company lies in the capacity of its scheduling to generate an interest in the viewing public that goes beyond watching a particular programme What’s different about the Catalan audience?

The Catalan viewer is used to watching certain quality programmes on TV3 (a nine part docuseries, a documentary or an interview), even at periods of high risk such as primetime. The fact that the Catalan viewing public are interested in these programmes is not an accident, it’s because 50

TV3 has been educating its audience for twentyseven years. If you put the same product on another channel you wouldn’t get the same result, even in Catalonia. People identify the product with a brand and with an identity and they feel comfortable. We’re the only channel in the Spanish state which has a programme where the public takes part in the debate.

With globalization and the proliferation of channels, will the impact of national channels such as TV3 diminish?

Quantitively we’ve all lost viewers. The combined channels of Televisió de Catalunya currently achieve a 20% share of the pie. One fifth of the audience in Catalonia watches our channels. In a context of some 50 or 60 channels this is very positive. However, what’s really important is the qualitative impact: what effect do we have, what do people remember about the programmes, what capacity do our programmes have to initiate debate and improve social dialogue..? The true influence of a TV company lies in the capacity of its scheduling to generate an interest in the viewing public that goes beyond watching a particular programme.

So leadership in terms of quality is more important than quantitative leadership?

Yes, without a doubt. And the capacity to influence and change a society.

What should the present day objectives and limits of public television be?

The limits of public television should be set in relation to the society which it serves and the plurality of that society. We should try to reflect the entire spectrum of social life. Our main objective is to serve society, and Catalan society has its own language, its own identity and its own institutions.

We need to be clear that the public service of TV3 can’t solely revolve around economic productivity, because there’s also social productivity. The company’s economic productivity can never be more important than its social productivity. When the political classes go around saying that a TV station run with public money is too expensive there’s a factor that they’re ignoring: all communication, whether public or private has an obligation, a social service. Who does the sub-titles for the deaf?

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Who takes care of the minority groups and the least fortunate? Who is able to communicate what goes on in our culture? Who talks about the subsistence economy? Who talks about the difficult reality of the relationship between Catalonia and Spain? Who takes care of the realities which no one would otherwise talk about? We have to suitably evaluate the social productivity of a company like ours because it serves a cultural industry, because it serves as an outlet for the literary and theatre world, etcetera. Nevertheless, the viewing public never thinks that TV spends enough time on their particular area of interest. People involved in the circus think TV3 is a disaster, people in the world of sculpture think TV3 is a disaster, people who write poetry think TV3 is a disaster, and people who do a particular type of show that mixes magic and circus think that TV3 should close. But if TV3 didn’t exist, a cultural reality and some cultural industries in this country would systematically become invisible.

To what extent is a public television channel such as TV3 linked to political power?

With the new law it’s less so than before. Before the law governing the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (Catalan Corporation of Audiovisual Media) the executive organs were linked directly to the government of the day. Now the corporation’s executive organs answer to parliament. They’re not de-politicised, but they are degovernmentalised.

TV3 has been a vital tool for spreading the social use of Catalan. Is this still the case?

More so than before. The choice of channels on offer is much wider than it was in 1983, and now almost all of them are in Spanish. A large percentage of private TV channels are in Spanish, and Televisión Española hasn’t increased its production in Catalan. Instead it’s kept it the same as twenty years ago. In this context, TV3 and its channels are alone in an audiovisual arena that is a lot more

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unbalanced than before, from a linguistic point of view. The impact of TV3’s work in the field of linguistic socialisation is unquestionable, especially in the case of children and teenagers, because the impact of children’s programmes in private channels is very strong. If we want our children to have a reference in Catalan aside from school we have to fight to have a strong children’s channel, as well as a channel that’s attractive to teenagers, one that responds to its interests: with football, with good films, with the series they download from the Internet... It would make no sense for TV3 to be a self-sufficient TV company, inward looking, producing only films in Catalan and series made by people from Catalonia. The world is very big, it’s very interconnected and TV in Catalonia should aspire to respond to everyone’s interests.

Would it be good for Catalonia if there were a good private TV channel in Catalan?

It would be wonderful, crucial, even. But I don’t think it’s one of the top priorities of our audiovisual entrepreneurs. When the entrepreneurs have to invest in TV they look to see where they can get the best returns and Catalan entrepreneurs can get better returns from Spanish TV. When it comes to deciding where to invest, they’d sooner go to Antena 3 than start a private channel in Catalan. And if they do private programmes in Catalan they do it on the cheap, taking advantage of the work TV3 has done in dubbing programmes.

The north-Catalan writer Joan Daniel Bezsonoff accused TV3 of being ‘Spanish TV in Catalan’.

We’re here so that people criticise us. If I (or any director of TV3) didn’t get criticisms from the press every day, we’d be bound to say that people didn’t love us anymore. You can’t satisfy those that believe that TV3 should be pro-independence, satisfy those that think we should make programmes in Spanish, those that think we should speak in a form of Catalan that’s removed from what people speak on the street, satisfy those that believe we shouldn’t discuss homosexuality and those that think we should be of one political hue or another.

Fortunately we have a model to follow, so that no one accuses the journalists of being pro-Spanish or pro-independence. When a journalist speaks of the Catalan Countries they’re speaking about an existing socio-cultural reality, and this isn’t being politi-

cal, it’s explaining that this is a country with a cultural wealth that goes beyond Catalonia’s borders.

Is TV3 the television of Catalonia or of the Catalan Countries?

Legally it’s the television company of Catalonia, but if we all share a language, why can’t we share more information and more culture? If we can see CNN, it doesn’t make sense that the viewing public in Valencia can’t see the TV3 news [in Catalan]. It seems obvious, but it can’t happen because there’s politics in the way. We at TV3 have to ensure that the audiovisual reality of the [Balearic] Islands, Aragon and the País Valencià can grow. It makes no sense that we become a hegemonic television station in those places. We have to respect their spaces, without having invasive policies that harm their interests and their capacity to consolidate themselves.

Journalism can ensure that the world is constantly undergoing transformation, because it has to explain reality and has to provide the tools so that one can think Do you think journalism can still change the world?

No, but it can ensure that the world is constantly undergoing transformation, because journalism has to explain reality and has to provide the tools so that one can think. In this sense it is a tool for change. I strongly believe in the concept of the public sphere. Habermas said that the media in the twentieth century are small versions of the Greek Agora, it’s the place where the public can debate what’s going on. This is the job of journalism and communication in general: ensure that people can get to know realities they don’t know, can think beyond their own reality, and can decide on their own limits. We in the media can help this to happen or we can ensure that people don’t talk about anything aside from ‘this one has had an operation’, ‘that one’s got divorced’ or ‘that one’s husband has cheated on her’. It would be good if society decided whether it wanted a model of television that spends its time puffing itself up or whether it

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wants a model that establishes some challenges. A large part of our work as a public service consists in setting up challenges.

You wrote your doctoral thesis on TV, the public sphere and national identity... ... and I concluded that the more windows the media open to public participation and the more it de-institutionalises and opens up to civil society, the more democratically rich a society is. Nevertheless, the tendency for Western TV formats both in Europe and the United States is to prioritise the efficacy of the message rather than its depth, because economic criteria are more important than social profitability. This reduces the capacity the media organisations have to transform society.

Journalism is also a reflection on society. Having the basic culture of social science is vital in order to do the job well Does it make sense to teach journalism at university? There are those that believe that it’s a profession that can only be learnt by doing it...

Universities give one time to think. It’s wonderful having the chance to have the time to reflect on what you are going to do and to construct the schema for decision-making that you’ll subsequently use in your day-to-day life. Journalism is not only a job, it’s a reflection on society. Having the basic culture of social science is vital in order to do the job well.

Would you encourage a youngster who wants to be a journalist to study journalism?

Yes, and that they get as much training as possible, the problem of journalism nowadays is that the guidelines set by the media organisations are so strict that the journalists are turned into machines that make cloned products. This interferes with creativity and frightens away talent, and in this sense the role of public media organisations is key.

You’re a woman who holds a management position and who has come a long way, professionally speaking. Are you conscious of being the exception?

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I don’t feel like being a TV director is coming a long way. The parameters with which we measure success are erroneous. The success of a person, whether man or woman, does not come from whether they are at the top or the bottom, but rather if they are in the best place to do their best according to their abilities. There are a lot of women who don’t get the opportunity to hold management positions because no one takes them into account.

It’s also true that we women give up more easily on the chance to move up in our jobs. We have a different form of ambition and we’re more conscious of our own limitations: we have a terrible fear of not being able to do a good job. It’s hard for us to say yes because we question our capacity to do our job, while men first accept a job and then ask whether they’re really capable of doing it.

But it’s not so much that we don’t feel we’re capable as that we find it impossible to combine our work with our private life, while there are no real steps to reconcile work and family life...

Since I’ve directed TV3, they’ve asked me about reconciling my family life with my career.

They’ve never asked my husband about that. My husband does football broadcasts and he often comes home at twelve at night, and it’s never occurred to anyone to ask him how he balances his home life and professional life. We still have a very chauvinist schema, even the younger generation.

What we now call reconciliation is a hidden way of transmitting a totally chauvinistic structure.

When we speak of reconciliation, it appears as if it’s only we women who have to combine everything. What’s sure is that when we’re at work we’re the ones who remember we’ve forgotten to put seven euros in the child’s bag to pay for the coach that takes them swimming, or that we’ve forgotten to call the paediatrician, or that there’s no milk or toilet paper at home, and sometimes we’re at work and buy the groceries online. This doesn’t happen to men, they have the boxes that relate to ‘home’ and ‘work’ more organised. I’m able to share my work with family life which is not easy, but only thanks to the support of my family.

And you’ve had to give up certain things...

For six years I wasn’t able to put my child to bed every night. I got him up for school after I’d had only four hours sleep. I got him dressed, gave

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him breakfast and took him to school. But he didn’t see me at my best because I was half asleep, but I did it because I felt guilty for not having been with him at night. Now I can be with him during the morning and after having slept six or seven hours I realise what poor quality of life I gave my child when my physical state was so bad.

Do you think the so-called women’s lib movement short-changed us in some way?

Quite right, I’m sure there will be future generations that will find the right balance. Not us: we’re doing two jobs. We haven’t given up on having children and a family and neither have we given up on our career, but men haven’t changed. The result is that we work and we get more stressed out, suffer more, miss out on going to the gym or reading or going to the cinema: we stop investing in a part of us because we spend the little time we have on doing the things we consider to be priorities. At the weekends I don’t go out to have dinner or go to the cinema or theatre because I choose to stay at home.

Nowadays many women who thought they could do anything are still obliged to choose between their work and their family...

My mother never lied to me. My father always told me that ‘you should never be a kept woman’.

I’ll always be grateful to him for that. It was a rare piece of advice at that time, coming from someone who’s now seventy-five years old. My sister and I have always had our freedom. There are a lot of women who have suffered injustices (of submission, of dependence...) precisely because they haven’t had it clear that they had to take care of themselves in life. We haven’t had to depend on a man, but we have had to depend on our capacity to resist to the limit. And that is the price we have to pay. With our health, our nerves, with sadness...

And when you stop directing TV3, then what?

I’ll carry on being a journalist. I don’t know how to do anything else.

*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).

Authentic Catalan cuisine +34 934 874 765

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Africa

A win-win deal in the African Great Lakes

by Nicolás Valle*

A special report from Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The street children in Goma and Bukavu speak Spanish... with a Uruguayan accent. These street urchins, as proud as they are poorly dressed, greet you with their drawn-out consonants as if they were at the mouth of the River Plate and not in this small corner of the enormous Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Lunfardo dialect is one of the few legacies left behind by the 900 men and women who make up the 4th Uruguayan Battalion deployed in the provinces of Kasai, South Kivu and North Kivu. Everyone knows the Uruguayan army’s fighting tradition, its participation in many armed conflicts, its high-tech weapons and above all the historical links this titan of South American politics has with Black Africa. As always, irony only serves to sweeten the bitter truth.

1] ROSENBERG, Joel.

‘Uruguayans in hell’. El País-Montevideo, 13th of November 2008.

[2] Mission of the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Created in 2001 by the Security Council via resolution 1279. It consists of some 15,000 soldiers, of which 10,000 are from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Uruguay.

[3] BARRENECHE, E i ISGLEAS, D. ‘Seven soldiers leave every day’. El País-Montevideo, 8th of May 2010.

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The cruel reality is that a Uruguayan soldier has not gone into battle against a foreign enemy for centuries and to be brutally honest, its links to the African continent are at best limited. The wars in the Congo are so complex that many Uruguayan officials admit to not understanding them1. Their soldiers guard highways, airports and avenues in armoured vehicles, equipped with assault rifles... and gourds from which they drink mate [a herbal tea]. It adds a comic note to round off this surrealist painting. The official mission of the UN peacekeepers, under the command of MONUC2, is to help restore peace and aid the country’s economic and social reconstruction. Francisco, a soldier belonging to the battalion who is more interested in talking about football than the political situation in the Congo revealed the soldiers’ real mission: to Catalan International View

try to pass the time, save up money and return home in one piece. ‘Our salary at home’ he says, ‘is 4,000 euros a year; here we earn that in two months’. Forget about soldiers drawn by a spirit of adventure, humanitarianism or a taste for the exotic. At the end of the day, even for UN peacekeepers the Congo is just another way of making money.

Apparently 90% of Uruguayan soldiers live below the poverty line and the rest are on the brink3 . When the Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda occupied Bukavu in 2004, the UN soldiers shut themselves up inside their barracks and left the rebels to ransack the city and carry out all manner of atrocities against the civilian population. 72 people died.

Nkunda also took over the airport, essential for the arrival of humanitarian aid. The government in Montevideo argued that their soldiers were subject

Africa

to Chapter Eleven of the United Nations Charter and that they could only use force to defend themselves. The MONUC high command criticised the Uruguayan contingent for their lack of courage and punished them by reassigning them to a support mission in the nation’s capital Kinshasa. I am convinced the soldiers celebrated their ‘punishment’.

To have considered the Uruguayan, Bangladeshi or Nepalese army to take charge of the Great Lakes area shows how little interest the Security Council’s permanent members have in putting an end to the only armed conflict in Africa of geostrategic proportions. It is likely that between the official mission (keeping the peace) and the personal mission (getting out alive) there is a real mission: to do nothing. The

Congo continues to be an enormous pie and it is down to each side to devour its own slice. What has happened up to now is that there have been lots of diners at the table and it was time to get rid of some in order that the destructive force they had invested was worthwhile.

The list of those involved ended up being as long as a telephone book.

There was the Union of Congolese Patriots, sponsored by Uganda and whose

even for UN peacekeepers the Congo is just another way of making money leader, Thomas Lubanga, is currently in prison for war crimes and for recruiting minors; the Congolese Regrouping for Catalan International View

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[4] The Mambasa affair, 2003. MLC militia forced women of the Twa (pigmy) tribe to cook the bodies of their husbands in order to feed the troops. Contradictions in the testimonies meant the scandal failed to reach court. Bemba was officially found guilty of having commited war crimes in October 2010.

[5] Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

The trial against its leaders, Ignace Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni, began last October. They are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

[6] Begun in 1998 as selfdefence groups, armed by the Congolese government to stop the invading Rwandan army. Now they are best described as bandits.

They attack villages, raping women and demanding the payment of ‘taxes’.

The Mai-Mai consider themselves to be mystical warrioris protected by sorcery. Mai-Mai means ‘water-water’. They believe the liquid makes them immune to their enemies’ weapons. For this reason they operate while soaking wet.

[7] Leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the People. Accused of war crimes for the Bukavu offensive of 2004. Apprehended in January 2009.

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Democracy, an ally of Rwanda, which has continually reformed into splinter groups (four as far as I know: the Authentic, the Original, the National and the Goma); The Congo Liberation Movement led by Jean Pierre Bemba, a businessman with a passion for guerrillas and assassinations, who stands accused of a catalogue of crimes which include the systematic rape of women and theft on a massive scale. The UN have accused his militia of cannibalism4. The list goes on with four more militia from the Ituri region, all dedicated to defending or destroying the interests of the Lendu and Hema tribes, and the Independent Liberation Movement, that defends the interests of the Enyele tribe and which has a predilection for shaving its hostages in order to make amulets out of their hair.

Naturally we need to add the Hutu rebels from Rwanda, the Tutsi militia, the army deserters, the Mai-Mai, the Angolan and Zimbabwean military advisors that hang around the country, and the bandits and international mafia groups. In some ways it is only natural that Uruguayan officials have no idea of what is going on.

Nevertheless, things have got much easier in recent months. The greed of the conflict’s leading participants has proved to be the best medicine for bringing a degree of peace to the area. The ambushes and attacks by the various guerrilla groups are hampering the exploitation of the region’s mines.

They are particularly affecting cassiterite (tin), wolfram, coltan (an excellent conductor much sought-after for mobile phones and PlayStations) and the perpetual classics: diamonds and gold.

The international economic powers were also tired: China is eager to dig its teeth into a big slice of the pie (with or without the US and France’s permission) and the Obama administration fears that a regional conflict could spill Catalan International View

over the borders in the direction of the Sudan.

The Uruguayans could have made some sense of this telephone directory if they had reduced the number of participants. On the Congolese side: the Republican army, Rwanda’s Hutu militia, still led by the architects of the 19945 genocide and the Mai-Mai6. On the other side, Rwanda, the region’s lion, an imperialist lion that does not fight alone, since it has the support of Washington, London and the East African nations. It has never needed a loyal militia in the Congo, because when it has wanted to invade the country to stop the Hutu guerrilla it has done so without being stopped (even by the Uruguayans), but it has always counted on the support of Congolese Tutsis led by Laurent Nkunda7. This elegant man as thin as an Indian holyman appeared to be invulnerable and had become Kivu’s de facto governor after defeating the impoverished, demoralised Congolese army. His stroke of luck, however, was to change tactics when even his friends had realised that he was the greatest obstacle to obtaining more profits from the exploitation of natural resources.

These alliances, which had appeared so solid, have shattered thanks to a form of win-win pact between the two main players. The terms of the agreement are simple: Rwanda has agreed to arrest and imprison its Tutsi ally (objective accomplished) and the government in Kinshasa agrees to stop the genocidal Hutu guerrillas from continuing to harass Rwanda. It is a win-win deal because everyone gets what they want and the way becomes clear to earn more money more comfortably. Everyone contributes what they can: the Congo, its mines and Rwanda, its army and safe passage to ports on the Indian Ocean. The government in Kigali stops being a thief to become a partner.

Until now, Rwanda had paradoxically

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[8] Rwanda earns some 250 milion USD for the sale of minerals stolen in the Congo. The joint beneficiaries are companies and business and financial intermediaries in the West and China. Source: The Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. UN Report of Panel of Experts. May 2009, New York. http:// www.un.org/News/dh/latest/drcongo.htm

produced just 80 tonnes of coltan in its own mines, but nevertheless managed to export more than 600 tonnes.

The figures did not add up8. Now it is not necessary to hide the enormous convoys of trucks laden with minerals that cross the border with Tanzania and Kenya headed for Mombasa and Dar-es-Salaam, filling the highways disguised as Coca-Cola lorries or Primus beer ‘Le goût d’une tradition’. The taste of coltan and cassiterite, the taste of rape and death.

Nkunda’s arrest by his former allies involves a shift that is not only military, but also diplomatic for the Great

For the time being, Goma and Bukavu are two relatively peaceful cities

[9] Here one can find the whole document. It bears the watermark ‘draft’. A word of warning: it is 545 pages long. http://www. scribd.com/doc/38549929/ UN-Report-On-KagameCongo-Atrocities-Genocide-Uncensored-VersionLeaked-Aug-27-2010

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Lakes region. This new Congo-Rwanda ‘corporation’, could be the first step to putting an end to decades of mutual antipathy and could see an end to the poisonous Hutu and Tutsi confrontation. It is a shame that the Congo and Rwanda governments have taken so long to realise that a win-win pact is mutually convenient. Behind them they leave five million graves, war crimes and crimes against humanity, villages laid waste, environmental destruction and a broken country. The alliance represents the triumph of convenience over ideology. Frankly the Congo had few options left: the army, the government and the entire country had suffered appallingly for giving support to the Hutu guerrillas. Playing the host had left them tainted by genocide. For the Rwandan government this is the opportunity to improve its image after having sponsored guerrilla franchises.

The UN9 report published last summer was devastating for Rwanda and in particular its president, Paul Kagame, a man who had created an efficient, clean Catalan International View

political image. The report recounts the massacres committed on all sides during the first Congo War (1993-2002), but of most note is that it insinuates the existence of a genocide committed against Hutu civilians carried out by the Rwandan army. The authors gathered a mountain of testimonies, however, in reality they did not dare to clearly state that it had been extermination because it had not been demonstrated that there was a specific desire to eliminate the rival ethnic group. The authors simply indicated that the methodology of the crimes was, ‘notably systematic and premeditated and could be classified as a crime of genocide’. Probably some sections of the media and some who deny genocide took place in 1994 have drawn hasty conclusions from the report, but it is undeniable.

For the time being, Goma and Bukavu are two relatively peaceful cities.

The bars have been reopened and the markets are busy once again. But everyone is wary. The question is how long the alliance will last. Everyone knows that diamonds are forever, but there is the rational fear that the situation will only last as long as the shared interests last. Although the conflict has decreased in intensity, civilians continue to be vulnerable in rebel areas.

There are still some 2,000 armed Tutsis waging war on their own behalf and there are unknown number of Hutus and Mai-Mai who remain active. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that the Hutu and Tutsi rebels could end up joining forces to fight their old allies and could continue ransacking the region. Impossible? Frankly, in the Great Lakes anything is possible. It is also unclear whether the Congolese and Rwandan armies will fight together. It appears hard to believe. The win-win pact does not mean they are natural allies: the civil war and the millions of dead continue to darken the public’s

Africa

feelings, especially in the Congo. It is clear that the Tutsi community celebrate the Rwandan intervention and see them as their protector. The rest fear that Kagame wishes to reinstate a protectorate and they want him to leave the country as soon as actions against the rebel Hutus come to a close.

The only thing clear is that with over a quarter of a million displaced civilians and no hope of immediate peace, the UN has to get more involved in the protection of the population.

This implies that its mission is more clearly defined. The directives of Chapter 6 of the United Nations Charter (conflict mediation) are found wanting in the Congo, obliging the UN peacekeepers to become witnesses to murder and theft. Article 7 (vigorous measures to impose peace), on the other hand could be like pouring petrol on a fire.

We could always resort to Chapter 6 and a half; it does not exist, but it could be invented. We need to provide credible humanitarian aid, we need to help

rebuild the region’s administration, currently disarticulated and we need to ensure the population feel like someone is helping them and justice is being done. The European Union should participate in the military force, with peacekeepers who are well-equipped and soldiers who truly have a dissuasive effect. Uruguayan and Nepali soldiers are unsuitable as in some cases they are as poor as the soldiers or militia they are fighting against in the region.

It is a good opportunity. We need to take advantage of this new situation of understanding, but cautiously: the Congo’s history teaches us that there are no quick fixes. Only time will tell whether this win-win agreement could be a good example of pragmatic action for resolving their African conflicts.

We should not fool ourselves: it is not an alliance of brotherly love; it is still an agreement between bandits and scoundrels. Nevertheless, it is the putting into practice of what Afro-realists say and which is often only half true: African solutions to African problems.

*Nicolás Valle (Acehúche, 1964). Journalist for the foreign news desk of TV3 (Catalunya Television). Author of ‘Ubuntu. Estimada Terra Africana’ (Ubuntu. Beloved African Land. Published by Proa, 2008). He carries out a range of academic tasks at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He previously worked on the foreign desk of the Avui newspaper. He specialises in African current affairs, a continent in where he has travelled extensively.

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Barcelona Echoes

City, knowledge and innovation in the twenty-first century: 10 years of 22@Barcelona, a success story for the city

by Marc Gafarot*

The 22@Barcelona project has transformed part of what was once a sign of the great industrial Barcelona. Some 200 hectares of industrial land in the historic Poblenou neighbourhood of Barcelona have changed in the last ten years. Radically altering the appearance and converting the neighbourhood into an innovating modern district that is both creative and productive.

The new metropolises of the twenty-first century are known internationally for their accelerated technologybased economic development. They also rank at the top of a well-known index of creative and academic centres.

The European cities that are able to achieve these goals will have the capacity to excel in all areas and they will also be able to export their signs of identity, creativity and distinctiveness. The new metropolises should build upon these signs and this should help preserve their core values and attributes while embracing new ones that should enrich the whole.

22@Barcelona represents the strategic concentration and development of intensive activities in the field of knowledge. The city of Barcelona has evolved from the typical model of a twentieth century city characterised by the improvement of manufacturing 62

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productivity to a model based on the improvement of more modern services.

This has been a logical step for most advanced economies in the twenty-first century. It is a means to consolidate a strengthening of the value chain in all the economic sectors which contribute to Barcelona’s image as attracting the most modern and dynamic disciplines.

10 years since the birth of 22@ Barcelona It has been a decade since Barcelona saw the birth of the 22@Barcelona project and the unique opportunity to recuperate Poblenou’s traditional productive abilities. It became a magnet for scientific, cultural and economic change and ‘a chance to make Barcelona a reference point and an internationally renowned platform for innovation and the knowledge economy’,

Barcelona Echoes

in the words of the Deputy Mayor of Barcelona city council, Jordi William Carnes.

Following the Olympic Games, the city that was not only home to Cerdà and Gaudí, but also Tàpies and Bofill worked tirelessly to find a new, resourceful and renewed way to present itself to the world, defining Barcelona’s brand, while remaining on the path to productivity and high-tech. Barcelona is one of the cities that needs time every now and then to reinvent itself and redefine its role. In a unique, distinctive fashion the conflicting ideals of tradition and modernity are harmoniously combined. With such an idea in mind, the transformation began of the industrial neighbourhood of Poblenou, an industrial complex that has been the city’s main economic catalyst for over a hundred years. This led to the launch of a new model of a knowledge environment. The proposal was undertaken through cooperation between universities, the administration and enterprise with the main goal of developing a culture and knowledge base of skills.

Both public sponsorship and private or business dynamism made it possible to offer a response to increasingly challenging demands to meet changing times and targets. Such a venture has been key to the success of the capital of Catalonia and the rest of the country.

In the year 2000, a process of urban, economic, social and cultural regeneration started which ten years later has led to the founding of 1,502 companies and the creation of 44,600 jobs in strategic sectors. Today Poblenou has evolved from an area clearly lacking in infrastructure to one that is connected to cutting edge communication networks. With the reorganisation of an area of over 37km2, equipped with highly competitive services and converted into the so-called ‘information

district’, Barcelona places itself at the same level as the large global metropolises that have renovated run down areas and have had the ability to grant them a new added value and expose them to the world.

The old and the new in 22@Barcelona.

The city of Barcelona has evolved from the typical model of a twentieth century city characterised by the improvement of manufacturing productivity to a model based on the improvement of more modern services.

Barcelona has committed itself to the creation of a model of a compact, diverse and well-balanced city that within a single territory promotes the compatibility of areas of production and business, training and academic research whilst offering a vast range of accommodation, such as renovated lofts and apartments in old buildings and interesting industrial structures.

In addition there are other apartments for rent on a short-lease or daily basis, located in a green environment, and available from agencies and hotels.

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Barcelona Echoes

This attractive combination illustrates the transformation of the old industrial Poblenou once characterised as the Catalan Manchester, into the new technological district of 22@Barcelona.

Barcelona is one of the cities that needs time every now and then to reinvent itself and redefine its role This ongoing transformation will make possible the creation of 3.2 million square metres of new, flexible, unique and technologically equipped spaces devoted to innovative companies, and 400,000m2 for infrastructure, with 4,000 rent-protected apartments and 114,000m2 of green areas that will maintain a high level of environmental quality while allowing for the vitality and bustle of Barcelona’s new economic hub. In short, it allows the most innovative companies to coexist with, on the one hand research, training and technology transferring centres, and on the other with more traditional shops, housing and green areas. These nonstructural conditions will stimulate social and business dynamism and, last but not least, enhance the public’s existence.

The success of this model has allowed it to be exported to other areas of Barcelona and, more specifically, to other neighbouring areas like La Sagrera and Marina which are already experiencing a significant transformation and a positive impact in their future development.

A model that favourably positions Barcelona at the international level The city of Barcelona is fully embracing the twenty-first century 64

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through a series of actions allowing for the creation and development of clusters in several knowledge-focused areas of the city. Once the job has been finished, the city of Barcelona can enjoy international leadership, especially through the concentration of business, public bodies and highly recognised scientific and technological centres from the big strategic sectors: Media, Information and Media Technology, Medical Technology, Energy and Design. Barcelona is making a clear and conscious bid for those sectors with proven expertise that can offer a clear advantage, not just comparatively, but also competitively. Barcelona is depending on these sectors in order to leave the current economic crisis behind with renewed vigour and strength.

In spite of the current delicate economic climate, the turnover of companies in the 22@Barcelona neighbourhood is some 6 billion euros.

Approximately 7 out of 10 companies (68%) based in the district are microcompanies, with a maximum of 10 employees. Of those micro-companies, the majority (9 out of 10) have their entire workforce in the 22@Barcelona district.

The 22@Barcelona district has set itself up as a role model at the European level within the Communication and Information Technologies framework. This has been possible thanks to the establishment of the most advanced infrastructure and by boosting three key elements: economic conditions, the cluster’s own organisational capacity and the specific conditions for its own development. This is not all, however: in the field of Bioscience, Catalonia has a great creative knowledge potential due to its research centres of international standing, some of them already fully established in the district. The same applies to the fields of Energy and Design. Both sectors

Barcelona Echoes

have brands with European and global recognition that are being studied and followed by the most demanding members of the public.

assured. Especially when we keep in mind that companies like Telefónica, National Geographic, Bassat Ogilvy and RBA will settle here in 2011.

In 2009 a survey conducted by the Barcelona local council among business representatives in the neighbourhood found that 71% saw the current economic situation as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’, while conversely 58% saw their company’s economic chances as ‘good’ or ‘very good’, with only 15.8% seeing them as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’. In 2010 22@ Barcelona has seen around 350 companies with the desire to relocate to the district. This proves that 22@Barcelona’s economic viability and future is

We will keep a close eye on the evolution of this area of creative intelligence and human vitality, which played such a significant part in nineteenth and twentieth century industrial Barcelona. As I mentioned earlier, Barcelona reinvents itself with a look to the past and a thought for the future. It finds old and new solutions for challenges that are increasingly fast-paced that Barcelona will be facing with local solutions and a sound strategic and global focus. *Marc Gafarot

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

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Opinions

Barcelona: cosmopolitanism characterised by a unique identity

by Jordi Portabella*

The international recognition of the Barcelona brand is explained by the fact that it has learnt how to maximise its own identity while exercising its cosmopolitan ambition to be a great international metropolis.

The economic benefits of Barcelona’s identity are important because they allow it to grow and develop alongside its cosmopolitanism, as befits a modern city. Barcelona’s Catalan identity makes it internationally visible because it is unique and its intrinsic cosmopolitanism links it to the world’s other great cities. A great city can only be so in a sustainable and sustained way over time if it manages to explore its own idiosyncrasies and project itself worldwide while incorporating other identities, making them its own. Catalan Barcelona is a success that can be compared to French France or Chinese Shanghai.

In the difficult equilibrium between identity and cosmopolitanism, Barcelona has to successfully manage the process of city branding and nowadays it is a city that is a brand and has an economic value thanks to this dynamic equilibrium. The different economic sectors value the Barcelona brand as an added-value that can generate higher profits for multiple private and common interests. It is a factor that has to be consistent while steadily growing and that generates confidence within and without Catalonia.

Barcelona has benefited from Catalonia by attracting capital and manpower from all over the world, and Catalonia has used Barcelona by having an international platform for dissemination. As a result, one cannot understand one without understanding the other. At a time in which approximately half of the almost 7 billion peo66

Catalan International View

ple in the word live in cities, this situation means that urban centres such as Barcelona have to lead the country more than ever so they can represent their nations as well or better than their respective nations. In this sense Barcelona is the head and meeting point of Catalonia because Barcelona shares certain values with Catalonia, a way of being and behaving that can become known in international forums more readily than Catalonia, which has more difficulty in finding politically suitable international forums. As a consequence it should contribute to spreading positive values associated with its brand in conjunction with the Catalonia brand.

In this way it can create synergies and build a truly win-win relationship between Barcelona and Catalonia.

The current economic situation presents some new challenges that can only be overcome by optimising the

Opinions

most positive factors of the city’s idiosyncrasies. Barcelona has undergone economic development based on four developments of responsibility which are fundamentally dynamic: work as a value, talent as a capacity, innovation as a concept and the mixture of activities and people as an attitude. Barcelona constantly reinvents itself, adhering to its long historical tradition of economic adaptability, aware of changes that can be translated into an opportunity for improvement and better development.

The capital of Catalonia once more seeks a combination of economic activities, a specialisation in the diversity of the productive sectors, a diversified specialisation that allows it to continue to be globally competitive, consistently and sustainably over time, far from improvising or fumbling attempts.

Nowadays Barcelona is on the road to making itself unique as a brand and a synonym for economic solidity, qual-

ity and creativity, the fruit of a distinct personality that has drawn on its own economic history.

A mosaic by Miró on the Rambles, Barcelona.

Barcelona is the head and meeting point of Catalonia because they both share certain values, a way of being and behaving A city is not only a recipient that contains economic activity; instead the city is an economic producer in its own right. Experts on urban economy believe that affective and symbolic factors are crucial. Cities which possess this intangible value are those which create wealth, which is to say they receive investments through the establishment of new businesses and new, qualified labour. Barcelona has to ensure it continues to generate a coherent narrative as to what it is and what it aspires to be. It has to continue to construct a model of Catalan International View

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Opinions

a city that is recognised by its inhabitants, who are both in charge of and the beneficiaries of economic development in the metropolis.

What gives Barcelona its own identity and singularity is something which no one can copy even if they wished to In order to move toward this objective, Barcelona needs to define and maintain a strong identity that generates a strong economy. Likewise, we can say that a strong economy helps generate a strong identity. Kwane Anthony Appiah argues that modern cosmopolitanism grows at the same time as its identity. Cosmopolitanism is fed by diversity and the differences between local personalities. The strength of individual personalities build a richer, more dynamic world, since dialogue and international socioeconomic synergies can only take place between clearly defined and established participants. Growth which is the fruit of economic exchange is born out of the individuality of other territories as a stimulus for one’s own individuality and is compatible with the dynamic principle of competition. The capital of Catalonia meets this premise to a large extent and throughout its extensive history it has been a significant economic centre, from the Middle Ages, passing through various industrial and technological revolutions. Now more than ever, however, we have a globalised society where we have to be more capable of defining a model that is simultaneously based both on an identity that is free of neuroses and on the most decisive and prepared form of cosmopolitanism. The identity of all the great cities of the world is simultaneously local, national and cosmopolitan, while distinctly and complexly pluri-cultural.

An example of this is tourism.

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Catalan International View

Tourism is successful in Barcelona because it provides the visitor with the most essential element in this sector: authenticity. What gives Barcelona its own identity and singularity is something which no one can copy even if they wished to. An example of this is the industrial revolution in Catalonia.

It was one of the first to undergo the process in Europe. It is a phenomenon that has not only provided the Catalans with economic and material continuity, it has also strengthened and added to the cultural richness of the Catalan identity. Barcelona and Catalonia, by abandoning the Spanish colonial empire on which they had depended, managed to redirect their economic productivity and make up for a lack of basic raw materials by making a deliberate attempt to external trade, opting for internationalisation and a cosmopolitan link to the outside world.

Catalonia is the only country in the south of Europe and the only area in the Spanish state that experienced the industrial revolution at the same time as the leaders of the global economic revolution, learning a lesson from Britain’s international dynamism, as opposed to Spanish or Portuguese colonialism. It was during this period, when Catalan industry became more cosmopolitan, that the Renaixença movement for national and cultural recuperation emerged.

A clear example of this in the field of tourism is modernism. UNESCO has listed as World Heritage Sites ten of the major works of the period of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner. This is our unique aspect within a period common throughout the whole of Europe which went by the name of Art Nouveau and that has two factors that are common to all the countries in which it was found: the desire to renew the artistic currents of epochs and societies, and each of them being an expres-

Opinions

sion of their own roots, of their own experiences. As a result they are equal, but unique in their own way.

Unique artistic productivity produces political and social prestige that is always transformed into economic capital. However, these are not the only activities. We have other examples, some as contemporary as that produced by at least one Catalan airline which had the desire to arrive as far as Cata-

lan cosmopolitanism and economic globalisation would allow it; to carry as many passengers from other countries as we are capable of attracting with our personality. Or for example the value of Barça [Barcelona FC] which is linked to a sporting and economic approach which values the force of investment in human resources themselves and sober day-to-day hard work, above speculative, spectacular, but short-lived economic forms.

A sculpture by Botero in the Rambla del Raval, Barcelona.

*Jordi Portabella (Barcelona, 1961) holds a BSc in Biology from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and an MA in Environmental Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). He has worked as an environmental consultant for several companies and national and international organisations.

Portabella has been an Environment lecturer at the Universitat International de Catalunya (UIC).

He has also been an adviser to the Faculty of Biology (UB) and a member of the UB Council of Notables. Jordi Portabella is currently a City Councillor and President of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya Group at the Barcelona City Council. He chairs the Economic Development, Employment and Knowledge Committee and is a member of the Barcelona Tourism Executive Committee. From 1999 to 2007 Mr. Portabella was Deputy Mayor for Economic Affairs at the Barcelona City Council and from 1992 to 1999 Member of the Catalan Parliament.

Bibliography APPIAH, Kwane Anthony (2008). El meu cosmpolitisme. CCCB, Barcelona.

CASTELLS, Manuel (2001). El poder de la identidad In La era de la información, vol II, published by Siglo XXI Editores. Mexico City.

FLORIDA, Richard (2009). Les ciutats creatives. Com l’economia creativa està convertint la tria de l’indret on viure en la decisió més important de la teva vida, published by Editorial Pòrtic. Barcelona.

FROW, John (1991). Tourism and the semantics of nostalgia, October, no. 57, pp. 121-151.

MACCANNELL, Dean, (1976). The Tourist. A New Theory of the Leisure Class. Nova York, Schocken.

PERRIN, Evelyne (1995). Valeurs urbaines, retour à la problematique initiale, in Gourdon J-L. Ville, espace et valeur, Paris.

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Opinions

The building of a national agency in the convulsive age of the Internet

by Saül Gordillo*

For some ten years, Oliver Boyd-Barrett, the world-renowned expert on news agencies, has not published a single work on their role in the current era of global communications. This year, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the Catalan News Agency, Professor Boyd-Barrett has coordinated the volume News Agencies in the Turbulent Era of the Internet, which consists of thirteen chapters dedicated to agencies around the world. One of them focuses on the ACN, entitled The Agència Catalana de Notícies: Tenth Anniversary of an Innovative Model. The circumstances of our agency are truly unique, since it is one of the few European news agencies to be born in the age of the Internet (1999) and which takes such an innovative approach: teleworking, multimedia, decentralisation and territoriality.

[1] http://llibreria. gencat.cat/product_info. php?products_id=4585&os Csid=tl8da0vddl2kmsn33d caone876 <http://llibreria. gencat.cat/product_info. php?products_id=4585 &amp;osCsid=tl8da0vd dl2kmsn33dcaone876> [Consulted: 7th October 2010]

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The majority of national and international agencies predate the arrival of the Internet and the majority of them have also had to adapt to the logic of the digital world in the context of profound changes in the communication sector and economic crises in many countries. I recommend you read Boyd-Barrett’s book, which is freely available online at the Generalitat’s website1. While pointing out the dangers and challenges facing agencies in the coming years, Boyd-Barrett ends by stating that he has arrived, ‘at the conclusion that, however discouraging the negative aspects may appear, the positive points are stronger than could have been predicted at the start of the current decade’.

Oddly enough, what looked at the start of the century to be a sword of Damocles hanging over the major agencies as a result of the web’s impact and the drop in earnings of the media Catalan International View

as a whole is nowadays seen as a positive change. The Internet has reinforced the agencies’ brand, helping them reach more customers through new products, adding prestige to the guarantee of quality content which the digital media offers its readers via the services of news agencies. Simultaneously, reductions in the staffing levels of traditional media, accompanied by the loss of correspondents around the world, have given the agencies a new lease of life and added value to the deployment of their personnel. In short, information provided by news agencies has filled the electronic versions of traditional media, and in particular, the recent news web portals. In fact, for newspapers on the web, the immediacy of the agencies’ content is very highly prized and essential to their operating model.

The Internet and the structural crisis in the communication sector have forced many of the major agencies, es-

Opinions

pecially those which are state-owned (some 85% worldwide), to increase their income from new products and clients. The old model of state-run agencies, each closely linked to the economic and external action interests of their respective countries, has had to face up to an era of considerable upsets.

States face serious difficulties in continuing to support agencies which have more to do with diplomacy than information, particularly during periods of cutbacks.

In 2010 the ACN began an international section entitled Món (World) that is supplied by ACN journalists working at bureaus in Brussels, Paris, Berlin, London and New York. Món is also supported by a structure in Barcelona that rewrites information pieces thanks to agreements with the major international agencies such as Reuters, Germany’s DPA, France Presse, the Italian ANSA and Spain’s EFE. The in-

ternational section and the foreign bureaus are another step in the construction of a fully-fledged national agency.

In other words, it provides the country’s wide range of media outlets with access to a complete service in all formats, on all topics and with a uniquely Catalan view of the world. To this end the Catalan News Agency website has been launched (www.catalannewsagency.com), dedicated to Catalan current affairs in English. It aims to overcome the lack of contextualised information in English about Catalonia that can be read and understood abroad and which includes a plural tribune displaying a wide range of opinions (www.catalanviews.com).

The ACN’s headquarters in Barcelona.

The Agency’s growth coincided with its tenth anniversary, the setting up of the new office in Barcelona, the publication of its style guide, the relaunch of its website www.acn.cat and an alliance with universities, one of the Catalan International View

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results of which has been the creation of a Masters in multimedia journalistic production in conjunction with the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya). Coinciding with the tenth anniversary of this visionary project of an agency interconnected with its country, decentralised, committed to teleworking and digitalisation, the ACN has become an ambitious public agency in a world of globalised information. It is a great leap forward that has led to an increase in the number of media outlets, companies and institutions who are members (more than 300 clients) and a threefold increase in turnover in the last three fiscal years.

The Internet has reinforced the agencies’ brand, helping them reach more customers through new products, adding prestige to the guarantee of quality of digital media content

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agencies are redefining their role in the ever-changing model of information access. In spite of the proliferation of new media on the margins of traditional media and regardless of the explosion of the web 2.0, the majority of journalistic content (some 80%) that circulates on the Internet originates from news agencies. Their predominance is therefore unquestionable. The agencies face challenges and reinvent themselves, but with the confidence that they have a guaranteed role in the new world order of information.

Does a public news agency make sense in Catalonia? With an austere, flexible model and with an enormous capacity to adapt to new challenges as shown by the ACN these past ten years, the answer is ‘yes’, without a doubt. Even more so if Catalonia aspires to play a growing role in the European context and on a global scale, in a time of crisis, which requires antennae abroad and displays for foreigners.

The ACN model is highly regarded by other news agencies outside Catalonia, who see it as a prototype to be followed by the older agencies that emerged in the analogue age. The ACN’s commitment to web 2.0 tools has allowed it to trans-nationalise Catalan culture, globalising and democratising news content related to Catalan speaking areas. The Agency’s conversation with the online public opens the door to public participation, resulting in another source of information, particularly in situations in which eyewitness accounts are of journalistic importance.

The ACN has to take on the job of becoming a model of international journalistic excellence for a linguistic community in a territory of some twelve million inhabitants, the eigth largest in the European Union. The major challenge over the coming years must be one of putting the Agency firmly on the European map and making it into the archetype for European agencies in Catalonia, into the mouthpiece by which the country explains itself to the world and into the source of information for the French, British, Italian and other media when they wish to find out what is going on here and what the Catalans are up to.

Overcoming the taboo of an agency’s use of and presence in social networks has sparked an interest among its European counterparts. The national, international, public and private

The ACN’s growing budgetary requirements must be met through new markets. The media marketplace in Catalonia appears to be saturated and the ACN already has a wide range of

Catalan International View

Opinions

newspapers, websites, and radio and TV stations as clients. Nevertheless, the challenge in the coming years is to reach 50% public financing and 50% from subscribers and clients (currently this income represents 30% of the budget).

vided on the web, telephones and other mobile devices, a consultancy to help the media move towards a multimedia model. A brave strategy would be the selling of finished, pre-packaged products for broadcasting or publishing, following the British model.

How can we achieve this? We have made an exhaustive study and we have maintained direct relations with European agencies of a similar size or larger.

The ACN has to become a role model in terms of new technologies, as is the case with our Austrian counterpart, and be self-financing by providing a service to other companies with content pro-

In the coming years the ACN should be strong and influential in the Catalan territories, firmly opting for internationalisation, thanks to an increase in income that is unlikely to originate from public funds. Economic circumstances call for keeping one’s feet firmly on the ground, but without renouncing one’s ambition. *Saül Gordillo

Has been director of the Agència Catalana de Notícies (ACN in Catalan) since March 2007. He has also worked for Avui newspaper, Catalunya Ràdio’s ‘L’Oracle’ and ‘L’internauta’ programmes, as well as contributing to a wide range of other media organisations. In 2004, Gordillo was recognised by the Premis Blocs Catalunya (Catalonia Blog Awards) as a pioneer blogger for his blog Blocs sense fulls (Paperless Blogs). He has also written a book called ‘Nació.cat’, which discusses the ‘.cat’ web domain and its role in Catalan language and culture on the Internet.

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Business and Economics

The Catalan export sector:

is the glass half full or half empty?

by Xavier Cuadras*

Exports, competitiveness and prosperity The world is becoming more and more economically globalized and, therefore, competitiveness is the key challenge of any economy. There are many definitions of competitiveness, but I like to say that to be competitive a country must not only have high levels of productivity, but also a high degree of social cohesion and political and economic opportunities for all its citizens (education, entrepreneurship, culture, etc.). That is, its people must have the capacity to prosper and pursue happiness.

Catalonia has prospered enormously in the last few years. While in 1996 its per capita GDP was 96.2% of the European Monetary Union (EMU) average, in 2009 the figure had risen to 112%. Simultaneously, the economy was becoming more internationalized 74

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than ever for at least two reasons: first, the consolidation of the economic integration with Europe and, second, the globalization process that has affected most economies. In spite of this, it is very likely that the Catalan economy will now take a relatively long time to recover from the current economic crisis that has changed the whole world.

This is mainly due to an unsustainable growth model characterized, among other things, by stagnant productivity levels, the creation of too many temporary and low quality jobs, and a high level of dependence on a construction sector fuelled by a giant real estate bubble. Ensuring the competitiveness and future growth potential of the country will require a rather radical change in the Catalan economyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growth model, to direct it towards sectors of high added value and quality employment.

This article will analyze the behaviour of the Catalan economyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s export

Europe

sector to draw some conclusions as to its competitive potential. Countries that embrace international trade encounter many opportunities to sell their products all over the world but, at the same time, they find their productive and management abilities stretched to the limit in order to meet competition at the highest level. From our analysis of the Catalan export sector and its evolution we hope to contribute to diagnostic study of some strong and weak points of the whole Catalan economy.

An initial snapshot: Catalonia is a very open economy, but clearly has a deficit Catalonia is a relatively export-oriented economy. The market share of Catalan export goods to the whole world was, on average for the 2000-2008 period, around 0.50%. A much higher amount than the share of Catalan GDP with

respect to the world total (0.39%).

Also, the available data confirms that Catalonia is one of the most open European regions. The sum of exports plus imports relative to GDP amounted to 61% for the 2000-2009 period. Nevertheless, it must be borne in mind that this openness is due to a large extent to the balance of imports (35%) to exports (26%). The outcome is a permanent and rather sizeable trade deficit with the rest of the world, which is more than compensated by a surplus in the global service trade balance and the goods balance with respect to the rest of Spain.

Recent dynamics: greater internationalization and bigger imbalances During the 1999-2008 period the process of internationalization of the Catalan economy progressed at a relaCatalan International View

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tively brisk pace. Exports grew at an annual rate of 6.91% (7.59% for imports). Although these numbers are almost identical to their counterparts for the whole of the European Union (EU) for the same period, Cataloniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trade has shown greater dynamism than the richer and more open economies in the EU (like Germany, France, Italy and the UK). In contrast, it has been very far from the two digit growth of the new poorer and more closed countries that have entered the EU since 2004.

As mentioned above, export growth has been noticeably higher than the corresponding figure for imports, therefore contributing to a widening of the Catalan economyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trade deficit with the rest of the world, a feature that could and should be interpreted as an alarming symptom of a loss of competitiveness. The year 2009 represents a huge structural break in the recent growing trajectory of Catalan trade flows. Both exports and imports suffer significant shrinkage in the general context of a large contraction in world trade. This has produced an important reduction in the trade deficit, but this trend is unlikely to continue unless the economy radically moves towards a more balanced growth model.

Lost opportunities: Catalan exports are very focused on Europe Almost 80% of Catalan exports have European countries as their destination and the EU27 represents more than 73% of this total. This can be considered part of the natural evolution in the process of economic integration, since Europe has really become part of the domestic market for many Catalan firms. Nevertheless, there are several comments worth making about this.

First of all, it is remarkable that Catalan firms have consolidated their position in 76

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European markets, with a market share of 1.07% in the EU27. This proportion, however, is very different if we consider the EU15 (1.14%) or the countries that were part of the enlargement (EU12) (0.54%). It therefore seems clear that there are some trade opportunities, even within the EU, that Catalan firms are not yet exploiting thoroughly enough.

Secondly, the Catalan export sector still focuses its efforts on a very specific geographic area, leaving aside some of the most important markets in the world, both in size and growth rates. The US, for instance, is the largest importer in the world, but the Catalan market share there is below 0.10%. Another matter pending for Catalan exporters is China, which has become the third largest importer thanks to its rapid economic growth. As a matter of fact low market shares are a generalized feature in most Asian countries, a region that right now concentrates some of the most dynamic economies.

A solid but unbalanced export entrepreneurial base Catalonia has a solid export entrepreneurial base. During the period 2004-2009 the annual average number of exporting firms was higher than 34,000. Of these almost 40% were regular exporters, meaning that they had sold goods abroad for at least four years in a row. This means that approximately a 20.5% of all manufacturing firms have some export activity. Moreover, the number of companies that sell abroad has steadily increased in recent years at an average rate of 2.5% and, remarkably, with the biggest increase taking place in 2009 (7.1%).

Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out several features of the export sector that could give us clues as to some problems it may encounter in order to

Business and Economics

grow stronger in the coming years. First of all, the average export value for a firm is relatively low in Catalonia. This is undoubtedly a reflection of the Catalan industrial structure, characterized by the existence of few big companies and its domination by the ubiquitous small and medium enterprise (SME). Considering that the link between a firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s size and export activity has been highlighted by numerous economic studies, this atomistic structure may negatively affect future export growth. Related to this, the proportion of manufacturing SMEs that report export activity (19.8%) is much lower than the corresponding value for big firms (79.5%).

Although there is a lot of variability among sectors, there is no doubt that it would be clearly preferable to have values closer to those of the chemical sector (41.6% and 88.6%).

Secondly, there are a relatively small number of firms that account for a huge proportion of all Catalan exports. For the year 2009 the first five main exporters were responsible for 12.5% of all export activity (this would be 26% if we were to consider the top 25 firms). Although these proportions have sharply decreased over the last few years (they amounted to 16.5% and 30.4% in 2006), some of the industrial sectors with the biggest export volumes are highly concentrated in the hands of a very few firms. For instance, the automobile sector, which is the Catalan economyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main exporter concentrates more than 95% of all exports in just five firms. The same more or less happens with another big exporter, the electronics sector, in which once again more than 97% of all exports depend on five firms. Clearly the existence of Catalan International View

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important exporting sectors that are highly concentrated in a small number of firms is a substantial threat to the Catalan economy, especially taking into account that some of the firms are branches of multinational companies with headquarters located very far away from our country and operating in sectors with an elevated offshore risk.

Catalonia is an open economy with an export sector whose behaviour has been rather dynamic for the last few years The challenge is competing in high value-added sectors Most industrial products exported by Catalan firms can be classified as medium-high technology goods (around 50%), according to a classification elaborated by the OECD which takes into account the amount of R+D expenditure involved in the production process. All products are classified into one of the following types: high, medium high, medium low and low technology goods. With regard to this, it is particularly striking how little the structure of Catalan exports has changed in the last fifteen years according to this specific classification. This appears to be yet again another symptom of a somewhat sclerotic productive structure, unable to give a bigger role to high technology sectors. In contrast, this type of exports are more prominent in most rich OECD countries and are also rapidly increasing their weight in some emerging economies like China or even Mexico.

It is well known that international trade among rich countries is increasing intra-industrial. This means that countries increasingly import and ex78

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port the same kind of goods. Specialization is less about producing different goods (cars versus clothes, for instance) than about producing different varieties of the same good (cheap cars versus luxury cars). Catalonia is not an exception to this rule. This can easily be confirmed by looking at the export / import ratios for the different productive sectors. Even for those sectors with higher exporting activity (automobiles, chemicals and so on) the ratios are sometimes less than 100, reflecting the existence of large volumes of imports of the same kind of goods. The question is whether the Catalan economy produces and exports high or low quality varieties of these goods (high quality meaning higher added value and market price or, in other words, higher productive sophistication). The answer to this question is that Catalonia has so far specialized in producing comparatively low quality goods, which makes it more subject to the increasing competition of the new industrial countries.

This factor may explain, at least partly, the competitiveness problem.

Conclusion Catalonia is an open economy with an export sector whose behaviour has been rather dynamic for the last few years. More than a fifth of all Catalan manufacturing firms have some sort of exporting activity. This has allowed Catalan exports to consolidate in the European markets. These positive features of the export sector should not hide some negative characteristics that could be viewed as symptoms of a lack of competitiveness in the economy: exports are much smaller than imports, are excessively concentrated in the European markets and are, in many sectors, very dependent on a small number of firms. Also, the quality level and

Business and Economics

technological sophistication of exports is relatively low.

Until very recently, the Catalan economy competed in Europe thanks to its relatively low wages, compensating for its lower levels of productivity.

Today this is neither possible, because labour costs are much lower in the new exporter countries, nor desirable, because only quality employment and high productivity and wages can deliver the welfare levels to which Catalan society aspires. To explain the current and future effects of globalization in Cata-

lonia, it is necessary to understand the specialization pattern of our economy.

If it specializes in the production of low quality and value-added goods, there is no doubt that the greater prominence of the new industrial countries will have very destructive consequences on the competitive potential of firms and the employment, salaries and quality of life of Catalan workers. In other words, to maintain its levels of prosperity it is necessary for Catalonia, a European country with relatively high salaries, to go on to compete in the production of high quality and value-added goods.

*Xavier Cuadras Associate Professor of the Department of Economics and Business at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and Director of the International Trade School (Escola Superior de Comerç International, ESCI), a higher education institution set up by the UPF and the Catalan Government. He holds a Doctorate in Economics from the University of York (United Kingdom) and has had visiting positions in the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Rochester (USA). He has published research papers in international journals on diverse subjects. His research interests include monetary theory, the economics of education and the labour market and international trade, among others. He won the research prize of the Spanish Economic and Social Council for his work ‘Competitiveness and the Evolution of Current Account Balance’ (2009).

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Green Debate

Technological disasters: a culture of carelessness?

by Pere Torres*

In the future, whenever we speak of great disasters related to Man’s attempts to obtain mineral resources, the year 2010 will come to mind because it unfortunately contained three memorable dates: the 20th of April, the 5th of August and the 7th of October. The 20th of April was when the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded, which had been drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven killed, seventeen injured and an ecological catastrophe. On the 5th of August part of the Copiapó gold and copper mine collapsed in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Thirty-three miners disappeared, some 700 meters underground, leading to a tremendous outcry. On the 7th of October a dam containing caustic sludge collapsed in the Ajka aluminium plant in Western Hungary. Nine people were killed; more than a hundred injured, a wave of contamination swept through two villages and left a lingering threat for the river systems linked to the Danube.

All three disasters have elements in common and their analysis may help us to explain the weaknesses of modernday societies, weaknesses which could become worrisome if they are not dealt with. It is clear that such an analysis needs to be extensive and deep if it is to draw useful conclusions and obviously, the experts will do so in the future, once all the relevant information has been gathered. At the same time it is probable that the conclusions, when they are reached, will warrant close attention.

Unfortunately, however, the media’s gaze will have shifted to other events of a more recent nature. Perhaps this is one of our problems: our attention is drawn to a disaster when it happens, we feel for the victims, we are outraged at the authorities and those responsible, but when the drama fades, so does our interest.

Although we still do not possess all the relevant information, there are some 80

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aspects common to the three cases that are worth highlighting. Six to be precise: 1. These accidents did not happen in underdeveloped countries or countries run by corrupt dictatorships. If we examine their per capita income (according to International Monetary Fund figures) or their standing in terms of corruption levels (according to Transparency International), all three of them appear in the top third and well ahead of the so-called emerging economies. This trio of cases reminds us that such catastrophes are even possible in advanced societies, with a legal system that functions at a more than satisfactory level. Basically they occur for three reasons. Firstly, the regulations do not cover, nor will they ever, the vast range of situations that can occur.

Secondly, in many cases, technological capabilities are stretched to their limits and it is inevitable that, sooner or later, they will be surpassed. Thirdly, a culture which seeks to reduce risks requires a

Green Debate

proactive attitude, with constant vigilance and this carries an economic cost.

It is a cost that can appear unnecessary, or at least of a low priority when shortterm profit maximisation is the goal.

2. When we begin to appreciate the basics of global risks (those that have a planetary dimension, such as climate change or pandemics) we realize that the potential seriousness of local disasters persists. This rediscovery should serve to make us understand that the two are closely related. It is true that some global risks have emerged that can only be managed via new forms of governance of an equally global nature.

Nevertheless, we should never lose sight of the fact that the manifestation of their effects will always be local. The planetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s temperature will rise (a global phenom-

enon), but we will experience it at a local level through droughts, heat waves and the flooding of low-lying coastal areas. The reverse is also true, as shown by these three accidents. Obviously they are local problems with a localised impact, as widespread as the effects may be in some cases. However, the operations affected were there to obtain products that are destined for global markets. It is this growing demand, influenced by international trade, that encourages the extraction of raw materials wherever they may be. Global-local interaction is nowadays inseparable.

The Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

3. Whether dealing with oil or mineral ore, all three activities involved extraction. This coincidence leads us to an old debate in the field of sustainability, contrasting extractive versus reproducCatalan International View

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tive methods. The former are those that obtain natural resources through extraction with a lineal mentality (extractionconsumption-waste), while the latter is based on the consumption of replaceable resources with a cyclic mentality (extraction-consumption-recovery). It is clear there are also in this case some resources which become destroyed or used up through their use, but in a much lower proportion. At the same time this leads to another problem related to the quantity of products society discards: what to do with such a vast amount of waste products. President Obama himself questioned whether we needed so much oil and whether it would not be better to go ahead with alternative energy sources in order to minimize the risk of disasters in the oil industry. Moreover, the known reserves of oil and those that can be found in the future are increasingly difficult to obtain and therefore more dangerous as well as being more expensive. The same can be said for all raw materials. Would it not be more logical to maximise the reutilisation of items that go into our waste rather than exploiting mineral deposits that are increasingly risky to obtain or hazardous in terms of the refining process or in making them into end products?

Our attention is drawn to a disaster when it happens, we feel for the victims, we are outraged at the authorities and those responsible, but when the drama fades, so does our interest 4. Initially there was a feeling of the possibility of an outcome that was worse than it first appeared, a sensation magnified by doubts as to whether the measures adopted would be effective enough or would work in time. We shall have to get used to this type of feeling. We shall have to face new situations, both in the 82

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field of technological risks and natural risks, and we shall have to be prepared for them. The way nature behaves in unknown climatic conditions in human history will suprise us over and over again. Mineral exploration in hitherto unexplored territory for its environmental hostility will also produce unknown situations. The same will be true for the development of new technologies with an enormous potential to go out of control (biotechnology, nanotechnology).

The expression ‘risk society’ will be more of a reality with each passing day. What is not very clear is whether a ‘society prepared for risk’ will also be the case, both from a physical and psychological point of view.

5. The management of the response to the accidents has been totally inadequate. Undoubtedly everyone applauded the Chilean reaction to their crisis, but this was thanks to the country’s government, which took control of the affair.

However, the way the mine owners acted is open to criticism, as is the behaviour of the companies involved in the other two cases. A lot has been said and will continue to be said about corporate social responsibility. Nevertheless, this should not be confused with the publication of glossy brochures or the sponsorship of social activities. Genuine social responsibility is that which monitors the effects the company’s decisions and actions have on society and which ensures it reacts and responds if an accident of this size occurs. We have a lot to learn in this respect.

6. The political authorities (Obama, Piñeira) have insinuated there was some form of collusion on behalf of members of the public administration. We are not talking about corruption, so much as negligence. Frequent, frank dialogue between corporations and civil servants is a good thing. However, this dialogue should have clear limits: the civil serv-

Green Debate

ant has to rigorously carry out their role in checking and inspecting. This means that, although they must understand the problem and be ready to listen to the company’s point of view, the interests of the public and a respect for the law has to prevail when taking decisions. There should be a cordial interaction based on

cooperation between the two parties (the company and the administration), but this should never turn into familiarity or an over-familiarity that could lead to the abandonment of duties.

The Copiapó mine in Chile.

All of the aspects briefly dealt with above lead to an idea that has been put Catalan International View

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Damage caused by the toxic spill in Western Hungary.

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forward by the American presidential commission when investigating the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico: a culture of carelessness prevailed in the companies involved (see The New York Times editorial of 14th of November). This is a concept that is nothing new among experts, and is considered a factor that leads to many accidents. James A. Autry, a former executive of the media company The Meredith Corporation, warned of just such a phenomenon in his book Confessions of an Accidental Businessman (1996, San Francisco: Published by Berrett-Koehler). Here is a pertinent example: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;No business can for long survive a culture of carelessness or thoughtlessness, a culture in which managers do not train themselves to see the consequences of everything they are involved in every day: actions, decisions,

Catalan International View

relationships. In other words, carelessness and thoughtlessness build up over a period of time, and, by the time you may recognize them, there are no quick and easy correctionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

If we go over the background to other accidents we can find ample similarities with the BP oil spill. In conclusion it appears that the problem is not so much of deliberately ignoring safety measures, but rather being unaware of safety and not giving it the importance it deserves. In fact a taste for risk has been praised. In many cases the executive that takes the most risk is the most admired and even the most envied. In terms of attitude it is similar phenomenon to that which produced the current global economic crisis.

Green Debate

In the end, in all three cases a technological solution to correct the situation has been found. The leak was stopped, the miners were rescued, the alkaline sludge was neutralised. However, this demonstration of technological ability comes at a very high price.

The loss of human lives, the destruction of property and jobs, the environmental threat to vulnerable ecosystems, the cost of such urgent, enormous operations carried out to solve the problem, the massive damage done to the reputation of the companies involved and the beginning of legal proceedings that could lead to prison sentences, massive fines and generous payouts. It is logical to ask oneself if it would not be worthwhile being more careful in the first place in order to prevent these

headaches. If one is sensible one would agree, supported by a cost-benefit analysis... but when a culture of carelessness takes hold of a company, prudence (in the original meaning of the word in Latin, which is to say ‘foresight’, or ‘sagacity’) goes out the window.

Speaking of concepts such as prudence, scholastics distinguish between recta ratio agibilium, which is the way to behave from an ethical point of view, and recta ratio factibilium, which is the way to behave from a material point of view. In other words, whether to do the right thing or do things right. It would seem that in these recent accidents there was a massive failure from both points of view. *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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Universal Catalans

Ramon Margalef:

Not only an ecologist of global importance, but also a man of knowledge

by Xavier Mayor* Ramon Margalef Lopez was born in Barcelona in 1919 and was married to Maria Mir. He died on 23rd May 2004, convinced of ‘having enjoyed an exciting, universal episode’: life, his passion.

The story of Ramon Margalef is one that does not occur very often, probably because all the odds seem to be stacked against such events. Even so, they do happen every so often...

As a child, he had an unusual education, which he did not hesitate to describe as ‘a bit anarchic’ indeed, he described his formative years as ‘a bit rough’, explaining that ‘I remember that I went to several schools, which were quite different, I do not have particularly fond memories of any of them’.

It is important to highlight the applications of Information Theory to ecological studies and the creation of mathematical models for studying populations His youth coincided with the Spanish Civil War. ‘The war turned everything upside down’. Between the ages of 18 and 19 he was called up and participated in the Ebro campaign, which was one of the bloodiest episodes of the war. ‘When the war ended I had to do military service, so I spent a number of years with plenty of time to meditate’, he recalled. Nevertheless, he considered 86

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this period a valuable time: ‘It was very important for my profession’.

Although he initially trained to be a teacher of commerce, the needs of the post-war period led him to find work in an insurance company in Barcelona.

However, his profound interest in discovering the secrets of nature drove him to continue his work in the field of biology. ‘Yes, even before the war I had already established my hobbies of collecting butterflies and plants; It was something that I had always liked’, he added contentedly. The subsequent receipt of a scholarship from the National Research Council allowed him to start studying biology: ‘I started studying quite late’, he acknowledged. Even so, Margalef had already become known abroad for his research on freshwater algae and eutrophication processes.

Thereafter, his progress was rapid. In this regard, he observed that, ‘I started and finished studying 6 or 7 years later than normal. The process was delayed but then sped up...’ and this expert in life processes casually observed that, ‘These things happen in life!’.

He graduated in Natural Sciences in 1949 and in 1952 obtained his doctorate in Natural Sciences. In 1967, he created Spain’s first Chair in Ecology, and between 1987 and 1992 he was Emeritus Professor of Ecology at the Faculty of Biology of Barcelona University.

His scientific activity was prolific and amongst his important contribu-

Universal Catalans

tion to the consolidation of scientific knowledge, it is important to highlight the applications of Information Theory to ecological studies and the creation of mathematical models for studying populations. In all, he published 537 articles and texts and a dozen books, among which we should highlight: Natural Communities (1962), Perspectives in Ecological Theory (originally published in English, 1968), Ecology (1974), The Biosphere (1980), Limnology (1983), Ecological Systems Theory (1991) and Our Biosphere (1997).

It is fair to say that we owe to him the basic training of many of our biologists and the creation of a professional team of land and marine ecologists and limnologists. Furthermore, he sought to train all of these specialists without indoctrinating them, which constituted a distinguishing trait in the teaching context of his time. In this, he remained true to his belief that, ‘It is necessary to prepare people, to stimulate them and to tell them things that are provocative... but it is also important to let each of them think for themselves’.

think that our lives are organized by age groups and that every age has a special aptitude for picking up certain blocks of knowledge and performing certain activities. What education should do is simply provide the ingredients at the right time, but otherwise not intervene too much’.

In the same way that it is evident that the way of transmitting knowledge was of great interest to Margalef, it is also true that he had serious doubts about the effectiveness of the methodology and teaching methods of his time: ‘Yes, I have many doubts about this’ he admitted, and he argued that: ‘The teaching methods that have been written down and described have changed enormously, but despite this humanity has continued to produce the same proportion of really interesting people (and all of us are interesting in one way or another!)’ in every period. ‘I think there is something we have not got quite right’, he thought.

However, he went further than that, proposing a new, more empowering and less interventionist pedagogical path: ‘I

His professional value and wisdom came to the attention of the international community, which recognized his superb research work. He received several awards, including: the first Huntsman Award (the ‘Nobel Prize’ of the sea); the NaumannThienemann Prize for Limnology; the Ramon y Cajal Award; and the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya, which he received in 2003 from the President of the Catalan Government, Jordi Pujol i Soley. He was also awarded honorary doctorates on four occasions and was a visiting professor at the universities of Puerto Rico, Woods Hole, Paris, Chicago, Mexico, Yale, Perugia, Laval, Quebec, Davis and Melbourne.

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1 Picarol margalefiï is the scientific name of a species of plankton.

The denomination arose from a comment made

by R. Margalef. In Catalan, the word ‘picarol’ means a small bell.

The term margalefiï was chosen by the team who first described the species as a tribute to Dr. Margalef. * Most of the phrases in italics have been taken from an interview that Professor Margalef gave to Televisió de Catalunya on the 11th January 1987.

In the 1970s ecology really made an impact in the media with the coining of a new term: ‘Environmentalism’.

Nevertheless, Dr. Margalef ’s interest in such matters was purely scientific, so he did not consider himself to be an ‘environmentalist’: ‘I am not an environmentalist, although in some ways I feel or they make me feel like one.’ His scientific approach, which was based on consistency and robustness in the interpretation of natural phenomena, contrasted with the rigidity and dogmatism that have often accompanied environmentalist arguments. ‘I do not believe in the ecological balance. Nature is a dynamic system; things are always changing, sometimes suddenly and other times more gradually’.

He expanded upon this observation: ‘... it is this mentality that states that “nature has this equilibrium, and if we do this, we will break the natural equilibrium”. No! The limit that we have chosen to define the equilibrium or lack of equilibrium in the system (...) does not exist in nature. Nature must be seen in its full complexity’.

Margalef made these assertions with all the ability that only the truly erudite are able to use to make an idea that is not immediately obvious to the majority more widely accessible.

tween the North and South, though he was also aware that the latter lay beyond the scope of what could strictly be regarded as ecology. He affirmed that, ‘In these cases the ecologist primarily feels like a human being’. He even observed, with the acute attention to detail that so distinguished him, that, ‘science has increased man’s power, but has (apparently) not increased his sense of responsibility’. With time, these problems have worsened.

These reflections did not, however, mean that he felt any less committed to more general and worldly matters. ‘I also feel like an environmentalist when I see the destruction caused by what goes on around us...’. In his opinion (in the late 80s), the most serious problems facing humanity were: desertification, man’s use of energy, and the differences be-

I hope that these few lines help to bring the reader closer to the figure of Professor Margalef through his own words; these words have been respectfully chosen with the intention of directly transmitting the quality of this outstanding academic, whose importance transcends the fact that he was a leading ecologist.

Dr. Margalef ’s legacy remains with us and it will be projected into the future thanks to the tremendous legacy he has bequeathed us and to the institutional memory of his life and work. In 2004, the Generalitat de Catalunya created the Ramon Margalef Prize: an international award worth €100,000 accompanied by a reproduction full of symbolism of a Picarol margalefiï1. The aim of the award is to acknowledge people from around the world who have distinguished themselves in the field of ecology. To date, the award has recognized the work of such renowned scientists as Paul Dayton, John Lawton, Harold Mooney, Daniel Pauly and Paul R. Ehrlich, and this year’s prize has been awarded to the American Simon A. Levin.

*Xavier Mayor Specialist in Applied Ecology and in Strategic Environmental Planning.

Xavier Mayor was born in Barcelona in 1960. He holds a PhD in Biology, is also a Master in Ecology for the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and Master of Environmental Engineering and Management for the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). He has specialized in the knowledge of terrestrial ecology as a researcher at the Centre of Ecological Research and Forest Applications (CREAF). Nowadays, he directs the Study Xavier Mayor et al. SL (that began in 1999) which is carrying out studies and papers on environment, urban planning and landscape.

Currently, he is a member of the Nature Conservation Council of Catalonia, Treasurer of the Catalan Society of Territorial Planning - subsidiary of the Catalan Studies Institute - and Secretary of the Association of Environmentalists of Catalonia.

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A Short Story from History Curated by Manuel Manonelles

A less glamorous reality The Hollywood myth shows us that the Wild West was ‘won’ by wagons pulled by elegant, photogenic horses. As usual, the reality was somewhat less glamorous. In fact, not only the ‘conquest’ of the Wild West, but a large part of the ‘colonisation’ and economic development of the US in the second half of the nineteenth century was carried out on the backs of donkeys and mules.

Nevertheless, these animals were not natives of the Americas. The

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first donkey breeder of note in the early years of the US was president George Washington himself who, once retired from political life to his Mount Vernon estate, used the animals in his first breeding experiments. He did so thanks to two donkeys (named Royal Gift and King of Malta) that had been given to him by his former allies, King Charles III and General Lafayette, who knew Washington’s hobbies and economic activities.

The first Catalan breeding donkey arrived some decades later, in 1819 to be precise. It had been purchased in Vic and shipped to the US

by J. R. Brockett of Mount Sterling (Kentucky) who ended up selling it in Charleston (South Carolina).

They named the beast Imported Mammoth, in reference to its exceptional size (typical of the Catalan donkey) in comparison to other animals already in the country.

Some years later, in 1827, Henry Clay (also from Kentucky), imported new Catalan donkeys, including a stud animal Warrior. They were to be key to the various crosses that led to the breed known as the Kentucky donkey or the Catalan-American donkey.

The Catalan donkey’s reputation for being highly adaptable and very strong as a beast of burden, continued to grow. As a result they were imported in large numbers in the second half of the nineteenth cen-

tury. As the American magazine The Farmer observed in March 1916, ‘Catalonia is home to the best donkeys in the world, they established the American donkey, which is so famed in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri’.

Animals were not only sold to the US, they were also exported to Italy, France, Great Britain, Germany, Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Canada, Brazil, India, South Africa and Australia, meaning prices shot up. In 1884, for example, Lucas M. Emerson of Missouri left Catalonia on an expedition with 280 animals, having paid between 1,500 and 3,000 pesetas for each of them, a veritable fortune at the time. It was not unheard-of for consignments of donkeys to be sold before they were even born.

Trade reached such proportions that the first cases of fraud began to appear, with unscrupulous traders passing off donkeys bought in Mexico for authentic Catalan ani-

mals. This led to an initiative between the city of Vic and the US Consulate in Barcelona in collaboration with the US Ministry of Agriculture, leading to the creation of a Stud-Book of the Catalan donkey, in order to ensure the animal’s quality and pedigree.

The systematic exportation of the best exemplars ended up seriously affecting the local herds, leading to the breed’s virtual extinction. While at the end of the nineteenth century it is believed that around 50,000 native donkeys were to be found in Catalonia, by 1988 this number had plummeted to a hundred.

Nevertheless, for some years various organisations and breeders have been working to ensure the survival of this species which, in a curious way, has become a symbol of Catalanism in contrast to the Osborne bull.

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The Artist

Amèlia, slowly We walk slowly through the places and times lived in, as if our scenery is constantly transforming within a travelable picture where the speed of change produced by knowledge is fused with the slowness with which we are able to alter our feelings1. The sequence of the text on Amèlia and her work goes from the outside towards the inside, as if it were a trail left by life in its passing. When her world opens up to the exterior we start on a course that progresses backwards, where the sea at night (black) and by day (white) appears, or to put it another way, the step from black to white that joins two conspiratorial looks in front of the sea; Sa Riera, on a summer’s night, and Tossa, on a spring morning on the terrace of Can Claudi.

Step 1 – Chairs, rooms, seas ...

First was an empty chair; the absence of a person. Later she would position two which , almost always, had their backs to each other, continuing the same theme of lack of communication; the fact of being alone in company? Sitting outside the beach bar Can Claudi in Tossa, with its chairs sunk half-way into the sand, we look at the sea... The chairs do not turn their backs on us but settle at the ideal point for dialogue, at that angle where looks are exchanged and then 92

disappear on the horizon. She, protected from the sun by one of her black hats, avoids the direct sun and our conversation is dampened by the racket around us. We though, continue our own journey well away from the people sharing the scene around us. It is as if the beach bar has developed into an unfolding of scenes replete with different thoughts, actions, gestures and concerns; the place takes us all in to create an unlikely harmony. Amèlia has already emptied herself mentally and, with her gaze fixed on the

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horizon, transports me to the loneliness of her paintings.

Of all her dreams the one that frightens Amèlia most is the one about the sea... The sea darkens with the dread of a profundity that we can neither see nor understand. You prefer the passion of a storm, but you only paint the suspect calm of ambiguous existence, of apparent peace. Again the theme of lack of communication, because, as I have heard you say so many times, you can never again trust anything which completely surrounds you, either from the past or the future. And so, one thing leads you to another and from associations it is possible to draw out your interior world.

Step 2 – Trees, life, distance...

Now your tread stops in front of this tree which, misshapen by the fierce winter winds, tries to hold up the branches remaining to it... Sitting under the arcade, our looks cross and nature reappears in our conversation. Another element in your work that has always caught my attention is the symbology of the tree between chairs, a tree that is always alone... The movements in an interior space, right between two absences - the two empty chairs turned away from us - form the apex of a triangle with the roots leading out to you. The recurrence of death in the interpretation of your works should be contested; each viewer should read them to find answers to their own questions. For me there is always a path towards life, although there is the unseen dominating presence of fear, the fragility of the fractured instant struggling to grow in the shadows with no chance of ever seeing light. Many of these living and nonliving elements are reminiscent of aspects from when you practised informalism, because the state of mind became an arch of thought where changes, the formal evolution of the work, are always joined at the same base.

Step 3 – Locks, bolts, doors...

To stay or not to stay; doors, closed or ajar, connect your own every-day labyrinth, the house where you live, full of rooms and doors articulated on an angular plan on the corner of the building, with the interior world which reflects your work, always marked by absence, silence and mystery.

The closed world. The keyhole kept your emotions at a safe distance, but we could also say that blocking the gaze is no more than a transition to an uncertain future. In a visual way Amèlia is telling us you cannot put liberty under lock and key, as Virginia Woolf did in her essay A Room of One’s Own. By the same token you are interested in the individual perspective of the paintings themselves because the initial idea is extremely important, you see it like this and not according to one of the dictates of convention... You represent things according to a thought, a dream; always an imagined thing after seeing a mental image... Yesterday and today come together not only due to an underlying unity but an interior life that is vital to you at every stage of life...

Step 4 – Deepest night Clear-sighted in darkness. Amèlia’s nights and canvases which are nights for light to be discovered. You enjoy the nights when you do not sleep, when you take the notebook that nobody will ever see, so that no-one will discover the mystery held within every work of art. ‘A light rather than a force’, as Sansot2 tells us, and life in tiny drops, as our infinitesimal steps see out the light of day while we slowly make our way along the dark street that swallows us up in night; one of the many nights that point to the path of ideas or illuminate Amèlia’s pictorial scenes with mystery.

Glòria Bosch

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

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

First sonnet from Alone, and in Mourning J.V. Foix Alone, and in mourning, garbed in black, I have these visions of myself in dark solitudes, In pastures unknown or on slopes of stone, Stopped in my tracks beside pools whose depths astound.

Where am I? I ask myself. What ancient landscape, What dead sky, which silent meads, Do I foolishly seek? Towards which miracle Of a long-lost star do my familiar steps lead?

Alone, I am eternal. A thousand-year old terrain Entices me, what was strange is no longer strange, I was born to this place; desert without oasis Or snow-capped peak, here I rediscover where I have wandered already, and, from God, a legacy I can make mine. Or, how to fall to the devil’s design.

(Translated by Hillary Gardner)

J.V. Foix (Barcelona 1893-1987) used to introduce himself as ‘a researcher into poetry’. His work is highly experimental, combining the old and the new in a subtle way: ‘M’exalta el nou i m’enamora el vell’ [I am enchanted by the new and in love with the old]. As portrayed by the critic Arthur Terry his characteristic strengths envelop his mercurial imagination which constantly creates new and surprising images, a unique verbal texture, an ability to work equally successfully in the relative freedom of the prose poem and in the strict meters of the sonnet and the ballad, and above all the absolute assurance with which he moves between a vast cosmic vision and the minutest detail. His poetical works include surrealist experimental prose poems and traditional sonnets, published in collections such as Sol i de dol [Alone, and in Mourning] (1936), which includes the above poem.

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