Yesterday's Vanguardia ran profiles of four top-scoring students in June's university access exams, one for each Catalan province. Their marks, out of 10, were 9.65, 9.65, 9.65 and 9.33, and their high school transcripts are likewise stellar. So where will the best and brightest go to school next year? Laura, from Barcelona, will go to law school at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Elisabeth, from Olot (seventy miles from Barcelona), will be starting biomed at the Universitat de Barcelona. Juan, from the town of Tarragona, will start Spanish at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (in Tarragona). It's not clear where Jorge, from Ponts, will study Chemistry. (Apparently he hasn't made up his mind.)
These four students are the top scorers out of over 25,000 who sat the exams. Most university programmes set a pretty low cut-off: 5 is common and I don't know of any over 8. So are these, the best and brightest from Spain's most highly developed economy, headed to Europe's best universities? Or to Spain's best universities? Or abroad? The Pompeu Fabra law school isn't bad, and the U de Barcelona's Faculty of Medicine is among if not the best in Spain, but one wonders if the institutions deserve the students, who have chosen--if that's the word, as the choice is almost made socially before they act--to stay at or very close to home. The best and the brightest could do better.
30 June 2010
16 June 2010
It's Party Time!
Barcelona Mayor Jordi Hereu has an official photo album. The photographs are the work of his press office, some of them clearly posed, and categorised. One appears under a number of headings: it shows the mayor against a backdrop of city buildings, from a Gothic church tower in the middle distance to a Jean Nouvel skyscraper farther back:
The photograph has appeared on the City website and in City publications. It's also in Socialist Party publications, e.g.
The overlap doesn't end there. There's the masthead of the City's monthly bulletin:
And that of the Socialist Party's:
Different, but perhaps not different enough to be different. Here's are two sidebars:
A prize goes to anyone unfamiliar with Catalan who can guess which was published by the City, and which by the Party.
So who paid for the photograph? The City or the party? Or is there--after thirty-two years--some overlap?
The photograph has appeared on the City website and in City publications. It's also in Socialist Party publications, e.g.
The overlap doesn't end there. There's the masthead of the City's monthly bulletin:
And that of the Socialist Party's:
Different, but perhaps not different enough to be different. Here's are two sidebars:
A prize goes to anyone unfamiliar with Catalan who can guess which was published by the City, and which by the Party.
So who paid for the photograph? The City or the party? Or is there--after thirty-two years--some overlap?
13 June 2010
Multi-taskers: Montse Balaguer
Over the last few posts I've been asking if civil society can be bought or simulated. The case I've taken up is that of a plebiscite held in Barcelona in early May. Citizens were given three options on a significant local planning issue: two options were advertised by City Hall and loudly endorsed by a raft of organisations. (See, for example, this op-ed piece in the local edition of the Spanish daily El País.) Turnout was low--under 12%--and 80% of those who bothered to vote opted for the half-hidden third option, that of leaving well enough alone. My example today is that of a civil society aggregator, an umbrella organisation ostensibly speaking on behalf of the whole of third sector in Barcelona: the Consell d'Associacions de Barcelona, or Barcelona Associations' Council.
The CAB is funded by City Hall (in 2009, of 228282 euros of income, 216060 came out of municipal coffers) and housed is a city building. It's hard to gauge real membership, as member organisations are themselves umbrella groups representing smaller associations. All told, the membership list stands at twenty-one, and some of the members are clearly political in orientation.
The CAB's server lodged a website--http://ladiagonal.cab.cat/--which pushed the very message City Hall was pushing in its own pre-plebiscite blanket advertising, though couched in different word. As I mentioned in another post, the CAB signed a manifesto in favour of the very two options favoured by City Hall: of the signatories, four are also members of the CAB, meaning that they signed the manifesto twice.
Montserrat Balaguer i Bruguera, the president of the CAB is--and has been, in a different guise--herself a municipal worker in Mataró, whose governing coalition is led by the same party as is the Barcelona council. She now has a job for life as a "socio-cultural animator".
The association has its own ethical code of conduct, which it recommends to members and to the city's third sector. The code has its own web domain--http://www.codietic.cat--and an office, apparently staffed. (The code's home page is not much more than a news feed, and none of the news has a specifically ethical focus.) The tenth and final item of the summarised code is "an arms-length relationship with government". The CAB echoed its paymaster: the arms invoked must be very short.
The CAB is funded by City Hall (in 2009, of 228282 euros of income, 216060 came out of municipal coffers) and housed is a city building. It's hard to gauge real membership, as member organisations are themselves umbrella groups representing smaller associations. All told, the membership list stands at twenty-one, and some of the members are clearly political in orientation.
The CAB's server lodged a website--http://ladiagonal.cab.cat/--which pushed the very message City Hall was pushing in its own pre-plebiscite blanket advertising, though couched in different word. As I mentioned in another post, the CAB signed a manifesto in favour of the very two options favoured by City Hall: of the signatories, four are also members of the CAB, meaning that they signed the manifesto twice.
Montserrat Balaguer i Bruguera, the president of the CAB is--and has been, in a different guise--herself a municipal worker in Mataró, whose governing coalition is led by the same party as is the Barcelona council. She now has a job for life as a "socio-cultural animator".
The association has its own ethical code of conduct, which it recommends to members and to the city's third sector. The code has its own web domain--http://www.codietic.cat--and an office, apparently staffed. (The code's home page is not much more than a news feed, and none of the news has a specifically ethical focus.) The tenth and final item of the summarised code is "an arms-length relationship with government". The CAB echoed its paymaster: the arms invoked must be very short.
10 June 2010
Multi-taskers: Julio Ríos
One of the civil society organisations backing the City of Barcelona's policy proposals in the recent Barcelona plebiscite was the Federació de Cases Regionals. The cases regionals are social clubs for an older generation of immigrants who'd come to the city from elsewhere in Spain rather than abroad. Their day-to-day business centres on dominoes, dancing, and food.
One of these clubs, the Casa de Ceuta is a modest affair, as befits the modesty of Ceuta itself, a town on seventy thousand inhabitants on the northern African coast, one of two remaining Spanish enclaves. Julio Ríos Gavira presided over the club from 1993 to 2000, when he was elected president of the federation of cases regionals. It's a prominent post, of the kind that can get one a seat beside the Minister of Defence:
Mr Ríos enjoys a seat on the Consell de Ciutat, which is not as its name suggest city council but a consultative body set up to address the democratic deficit by means other than direct election. (Interest groups or functional constituencies are represented on the council, but do not stage internal elections to chose their representative. But that's another story.)
Why did Mr Ríos, on behalf of his federation and its membership, endorse a plan to remodel a major thoroughfare and build a new street car line? Will regional dancers dance down the avenue? Might regional walkers walk down the avenue? Perhaps not: here's a list of municipal grants to cases regionals in 2010, from which I've omitted the object of each grant. Grantees may thus appear more than once:
That's just from one level of government out of eight, and under one heading (that of participation). Why bite the hand that feeds?
Why did Mr Ríos, on behalf of his federation and its membership, endorse a plan to remodel a major thoroughfare and build a new street car line? Will regional dancers dance down the avenue? Might regional walkers walk down the avenue? Perhaps not: here's a list of municipal grants to cases regionals in 2010, from which I've omitted the object of each grant. Grantees may thus appear more than once:
- CASA DE LOS NAVARROS - NAFARREN ETXEA: 1.000,00 €
- CENTRE COMARCAL LLEIDATA: 1.500,00 €
- CASA DE VALENCIA EN BARCELON: 6.000,00 €
- CENTRO ARAGONES DE BARCELONA: 3.700,00 €
- CASA DE CADIZ ASOCIACION ANDALUZA: 1.800,00 €
- CASA DE ALMERIA EN BARCELONA: 2.200,00 €
- CENTRO ASTURIANO DE BARCELONA CULTURA: 2.500,00 €
- CASA DE MENORCA A BARCELONA 600,00 €
- CASA REGIONAL DE MURCIA Y ALBACETE: 2.200,00 €
- CASA DE CEUTA: 3.400,00 €
- CASA DE MADRID EN BARCELONA: 5.200,00 €
- HOGAR EXTREMEÑO DE BARCELONA: 2.500,00
- CASA DE SORIA EN BARCELONA ACTIVIDADES CULTURALES: 2.300,00
- CASA DE CUENCA EN BARCELONA: 2.800,00 €
- CASA DE ANDALUCIA EN BARCELONA: 4.500,00 €
- CENTRO GALEGO DE BARCELONA: 5.100,00 €
- FEDERACION ENTIDADES CULTURALES ANDALUZAS EN CATALUÑA: 5.000,00 €
- FEDERACION ENTIDADES CULTURALES ANDALUZAS EN CATALUÑA: 36.000,00 €
- AMIGOS DA GAITA "TOXOS E XESTAS": 7.500,00 €
- AGRUPACION CULTURAL GALEGA SAUDADE: 8.000,00 €
- FEDERACIÓN DE ENTIDADES SOCIOCULTURALES DE CASTILLA Y LEON: 2.300,00 €
- AMICS DE MALLORCA: 1.100,00 €
- CASA DE CANTABRIA EN BARCELONA: 1.200,00 €
- FEDERACIÓN DE CASAS REGIONALES Y ENTIDADES CULTURALES: 8.000,00 €
- CENTRE ANDALUZ CULTURAL Y ARTISTICO MANUEL DE FALLA: 2.000,00 €
- CENTRE CULTURAL EUSKAL ETXEA: 1.000,00 €
- CASA DE CASTILLA LA MANCHA EN BARCELONA: 2.000,00 €
- FEDERACION ASOCIACIONES EXTREMEÑAS EN CATALUNYA: 4.000,00 €
- HERMANDAD ANDALUZA NTRA.SRA. DEL ROCIO: 4.000,00 €
- FEDERACIO D'ASSOCIACIONS BALEARS A CATALUNYA LES ILLES BALEARS A BARCELONA: 500,00 €
- FEDERACION ANDALUZA DE COMUNIDADES: 1.800,00 €
- CENTRO ARAGONÉS DE SARRIÁ: 2.800,00 €
- CENTRO CULTURAL GARCIA LORCA 9 BARRIOS DE BARCELONA: 1.000,00 €
- CENTRO ANDALUZ DE LA COMARCA DE ESTEPA Y SIERRAS DEL SUR: 500,00 €
- CENTRO LEONES DE CATALUNYA: 3.000,00 €
- FEDERACION DE COMUNIDADES DE CASTILLA LA MANCHA EN CATALUÑA PROJECTE ACTIVITAT: 4.000,00 €
- FEDERACION DE ENTIDADES GALEGAS DE CATALUNYA: 12.000,00 €
- CENTRO ANDALUZ COMARCA DE LINARES: 1.500,00 €
That's just from one level of government out of eight, and under one heading (that of participation). Why bite the hand that feeds?
07 June 2010
Multi-taskers: Carles Martí Jufresa
After the Diagonal plebiscite the mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu, asked for the deputy mayor's head. He got it, close-up included. Or did he? I asked a friend last weekend if Martí had returned to civilian life, à la John Profumo. She laughed. No, she said, he's running the party's next campaign.
His party lists the posts Martí holds:
Diputat/da Provincial
Regidor/a de Benestar Ajuntament de BARCELONA
Regidor/a de Cohesió Territorial Ajuntament de BARCELONA
Regidor/a de President Districte Ajuntament de BARCELONA
Primer/a Secretari/a Federació Barcelona
Conseller/a NacionalOr held, evidently. It seems that Martí is no longer a provincial deputy and he's obviously no longer on city council. He's on the party's payroll rather than the public's, at least in appearance. Parties are publicly funded, so the money's ultimately coming from the same place: he's been moved sideways.We in the West tend to be smug about accountability, as though it were native and original to our cultures. It isn't. It's as old as politics and may erupt into political life informally. Take the reaction of parents in Sichuan Province, China, as their children--in many cases, only children--had died in the May 2008 earthquake because schools had been built below standards. They used the Internet to find the names of officials who should have seen to it that the buildings were properly inspected. Here's what happened to one of the officials:
He got the message: Martí didn't. Expect him to run for the Catalan parliament in the fall.
His party lists the posts Martí holds:
Carles Marti Jufresa
Tinent d'Alcalde Ajuntament de BARCELONADiputat/da Provincial
Regidor/a de Benestar Ajuntament de BARCELONA
Regidor/a de Cohesió Territorial Ajuntament de BARCELONA
Regidor/a de President Districte Ajuntament de BARCELONA
Primer/a Secretari/a Federació Barcelona
Conseller/a NacionalOr held, evidently. It seems that Martí is no longer a provincial deputy and he's obviously no longer on city council. He's on the party's payroll rather than the public's, at least in appearance. Parties are publicly funded, so the money's ultimately coming from the same place: he's been moved sideways.We in the West tend to be smug about accountability, as though it were native and original to our cultures. It isn't. It's as old as politics and may erupt into political life informally. Take the reaction of parents in Sichuan Province, China, as their children--in many cases, only children--had died in the May 2008 earthquake because schools had been built below standards. They used the Internet to find the names of officials who should have seen to it that the buildings were properly inspected. Here's what happened to one of the officials:
He got the message: Martí didn't. Expect him to run for the Catalan parliament in the fall.
02 June 2010
Multi-taskers: Javier García Bonomi
My last post described an instance of the colonisation of civil society by the state on behalf of political parties. In this post, and those to follow, I'd like to examine political actors, the signatories of a manifesto calling upon Barcelona city residents to vote in a plebiscite and vote for either of two out of three options available to voters. I will argue that the signatories are not neutral and the organisations that they represent either not transparent or not representative of civil society.
One of the signatories is the Argentine-born lawyer Javier García Bonomi. Mr. García Bonomi presides over the umbrella organisation for Latin American immigrants in Catalonia Fedelatina, which he founded in 2004. He's on the board of the Taula d'Entitats del Tercer Sector Social de Catalunya (a third-sector platform, set up in 2003), Fundación BABEL: Punto de Encuentro (an NGO doing development work , set up in 2004). the Mesa per la Diversitat en l'Audiovisual (set up to watch over multiculturalism in media regulation in 2005), and sits on a city-wide consultative council in Barcelona, the Consell de Ciutat. He co-hosts the Saturday afternoon radio programme "Communitat" on LatinCOM, a public broadcaster targeting Latin American immigrant listeners.
Is Mr. García Bonomi neutral? Did he act in the interests of his membership in endorsing the plebiscite? More importantly, can he be seen to be neutral? He is a member of the Catalan Socialist party, sitting on two committees which overlap with his mandate at Fedelatina. It's the party that controls the provincial council, which funds LatinCOM; the party that controls Barcelona city council, which staged the plebiscite; and the party that dominates the Catalan Parliament, which controls the Consell de l'Audovisual de Catalunya, which names board members to the the Mesa per la Diversitat en l'Audiovisual. Fedelatina is publicly funded, and not transparently so, as they do not acknowledge the funding that they receive. In a sense, then, García Bonomi the political activist is funding García Bonomi the community activist. Is one of his selves independent of the other? Or is the third sector is really para-public?
One of the signatories is the Argentine-born lawyer Javier García Bonomi. Mr. García Bonomi presides over the umbrella organisation for Latin American immigrants in Catalonia Fedelatina, which he founded in 2004. He's on the board of the Taula d'Entitats del Tercer Sector Social de Catalunya (a third-sector platform, set up in 2003), Fundación BABEL: Punto de Encuentro (an NGO doing development work , set up in 2004). the Mesa per la Diversitat en l'Audiovisual (set up to watch over multiculturalism in media regulation in 2005), and sits on a city-wide consultative council in Barcelona, the Consell de Ciutat. He co-hosts the Saturday afternoon radio programme "Communitat" on LatinCOM, a public broadcaster targeting Latin American immigrant listeners.
Is Mr. García Bonomi neutral? Did he act in the interests of his membership in endorsing the plebiscite? More importantly, can he be seen to be neutral? He is a member of the Catalan Socialist party, sitting on two committees which overlap with his mandate at Fedelatina. It's the party that controls the provincial council, which funds LatinCOM; the party that controls Barcelona city council, which staged the plebiscite; and the party that dominates the Catalan Parliament, which controls the Consell de l'Audovisual de Catalunya, which names board members to the the Mesa per la Diversitat en l'Audiovisual. Fedelatina is publicly funded, and not transparently so, as they do not acknowledge the funding that they receive. In a sense, then, García Bonomi the political activist is funding García Bonomi the community activist. Is one of his selves independent of the other? Or is the third sector is really para-public?
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