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?