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VIA Num. 2 / October'06

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The Value of Politics

Ángel Gabilondo Pujol

As an exception, this article is included here in the original Spanish version, being the transcription of the inaugural speech for the De Política i Polítics (On Politics and Politicians) Seminar, organised by the Centre d'Estudis Jordi Pujol, on 11th May 2006. This is a very perceptive reflection on present day political action and activity, based on highly detailed ethical and philosophical criteria and approaches. Language plays a vital role in this speech and is often essential in terms of specific concepts and the points made by the author regarding these concepts. For this reason we felt that it would not be appropriate, in the present case, to translate the article into Catalan. Politics, says Gabilondo, is making decisions, is deciding. Being a politician means choosing and making decisions in an environment that is often awash with complexity, uncertainty and strong demands. It is therefore a task in which bravery and courage are necessary, even obligatory, virtues.

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Dilemmas and the Horizon of Catalonia

Carles Boix

The main causes of the most evident paralyses and difficulties Catalonia may find itself immersed in today, possibly expressed in issues and phenomena such as an inflexible job market, difficulty and slowness in the field of scientific and social innovation and demographic decline or stagnation, are the same as those which practically the whole of Europe has been suffering from over the last two or three decades. However, there are other less evident aspects that we should also mention. The author claims the existence of a hegemonic ideology, of a dominant inf luential discourse that is largely the cause of the "encystment" or entrenchment of institutions and contemporary practices both within Catalonia and in the rest of the world. This ideology is highly entrenched in Marxistising concepts more befitting the fifties and sixties, something that we need to call into doubt, whether we really want to advance towards the true transformation of society and be able to take on the challenges facing us with new tools. Carles Boix tackles this from a comparative point of view, applying meticulous analytical objectivity. A look at the Catalonia of today and the challenges it faces, from his position as Professor of Political Science at the University of Princeton in the United States.

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Policies of Identity

Daniel Innerarity

Today, cultural homogeneity is still a fiction, an illusion. Apart from a few exceptions fragmentation is the most apparent characteristic of our most immediate environment and of practically the whole world. The author states: "There are nations that do not coincide with states and states that contain several nations". In this real scenario, it is indeed difficult to present or represent identity as a harmonic whole, or even to conceive of the world as a mosaic of impermeable cultures. These images have been completely transcended; the concept of uniform simplicity is not valid and, in any case, has given way to the complexity of juxtaposed communities and their different ways of life. This has a wide range of implications with very different consequences, one of which is language. Often, we still make use of concepts, and of the subsequent ideological derivations these inevitably entail, that are no longer of any use to us or that cannot be employed to define a plural and particularly amalgamated reality. The expression multicultural society, a euphemism according to Innerarity, is an example of the difficulty in finding appropriate concepts.

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Catalanophobia and Anti-Semitism

Oriol Pi de Cabanyes

A culture is a personality, a way of understanding the world and consequently a way of acting. A culture is therefore also an economy, the result of an attitude towards a material reality. Historically, we Catalans have tended to extol the virtues of work and yet, as noted by Jaume Vicens i Vives, "the Spanish, of migratory and nomadic origin, as very well defined by Professor Carande, one of their own, take time for time and cannot appreciate economic values without saddling them with some great general machine, whether such be called the Honrado Consejo de Mesta, Casa de Contratación, Reales Fábricas or even the INI. They are defined by the spirit, the way of thinking and the political gambits of the most famous of their institutions: the Mesta. The clashes between these two concepts of work (for the Spaniard, a divine punishment and for the Catalan a symbol of identity), although they have escaped the gaze of history due to their specificity, are of an extraordinary importance that cannot be ignored." It would be very interesting to carry out a historical study of different ways of thinking that might help us date the origin of the prejudice that links Catalans with Phoenicians, traders or shopkeepers. The prejudice associating Jews and money is Medieval and of religious origin, due to the fact that Christians, because of a highly restrictive and reactionary interpretation of religion, were not permitted to lend money at interest. The Jews not only dedicated themselves to this business but also became rich as a result, and thus the roots of anti-Semitism lie in envy and resentment. The article investigates these issues.

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Taking Populisms Seriously

Joan Prats

Populism, or rather populisms, because as the author says, the plural is a more appropriate way of expressing their heterogeneous nature and the diversity of expressions, is a phenomenon that is difficult to define. This article by Joan Prats not only attempts to alert us to the need to pay close attention to and take seriously the new populisms of Latin America, most recently personified by Ollanta Humala in Peru, Lopez Obrador in Mexico and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, who have also received the most media coverage. The article also provides an intense and interesting historical journey, accompanied by a highly detailed investigation, of the origins and "pre-history" of a phenomenon that is closely related to certain social, political, institutional and economic dynamics that are deeply rooted in many Latin American countries. The aim: to try to understand their nature and, in particular, the why's and wherefores of these populisms, of such ubiquitous presence in the political history of Latin America throughout the 20th century.

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The Values and Identities of the Young. An Empirical Approach.

Javier Elzo

In this text the sociologist Javier Elzo analyses the values and identities of young people based on recently published research into the youth of today. This is an analysis of Spain that tackles ethical values, values associated with purposes and with goals that must be achieved, with the aspects that are a priority in their life and the trust that they place in certain institutions. The article also tackles the traits that characterise today's young people, as mentioned by the interviewees themselves. In other words, a young identity from an ideological perspective, both political and religious, employing familiar indicators such as positioning on the right-left scale, political preferences and the sense of belonging to different geographical areas. As mentioned by the author, this is not an analysis "attempting to evaluate the values, if you'll pardon the redundancy, of young people" but merely a description, based on their preferences and on available data: their comments, what they feel is good or bad, their emphases, how they rate social movements, whether they be individual or social, the trust they place in institutions and their sense of belonging.

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Talking of Leadership in Catalonia

Àngel Castiñeira

The question of generational change and also, more specifically, the construction of a new leadership as a necessary condition for present day societies to successfully take on new challenges is one of the central areas of consideration, and also one of the main activities, of the Centre d'Estudis Jordi Pujol. VIA also wishes to contribute in this respect from a reflective and analytical approach. We previously tackled this question in an article, published in the first issue of the magazine (see Cornella, Alfons; "Planning Generational Change", in VIA 01 March 2006), in which the author put forward four broad areas where action had to be taken, deliberately and quickly, in order to increase the number of young points of reference. This new article by Àngel Castiñeira, also a member of the magazine's Editorial Board, deals with the issue of generational change, the renewal of human capital and the rise of new leaderships and elites in Catalonia's political arena in relation to the events that have occurred over the last few years. An evaluative approach that, while based on the particular reality and status of the present day's most immediate political panorama, does not, for instance, sidestep the need to define specific concepts. To give an example: change, says Castiñeira, should not be interpreted merely or simply as replacing one person with another, there are many other issues at stake.

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The problems of the European energetic policy

Joaquín Almunia

European Commissioner Joaquín Almunia starts his VIA's magazine article by giving a view and putting in context historically -at European level-, from which he locates the debate pioneered with the Green Book of the European Commission on a "European strategy for a sustainable, competitive and safe energy". In the second part of the text -the most extensive one-, Almunia sets out the big focal points of this project. The author focuses especially on every referring to the need to assure the supply, using and promoting the diversity of energy sources within our reach. At this point, renewable energies and nuclear energy -as long as some specif ic essential safety requirements are assumed, being considered a priority by the Community- are pre-eminently placed in his thoughts. Finally, Almunia mentions the necessar y research of equilibrium when striving for competitiveness within the sector.

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Energy, or Decisions that cannot be Postponed

Pere Torres

The debate on energy is usually lively, although it often tends towards oversimplif ication with consequences that are far from positive, or to the expression of extreme positions. On the other hand, energy models and different energy sources are both loaded with nuances, favourable and unfavourable elements, with "pros" and "cons", that must be objectively taken into account. This article, which offers us an introduction and overview to help us set the theme that is central to this section of VIA 02, namely whether or not to go back to nuclear energy, provides a panorama of the key aspects in the debate and attempts to highlight those points that should be taken into account in order to seriously tackle the design of an energy policy.

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Nuclear Energy. Perspective and Future.

Felicià Fuster

Some months ago Felicià Fuster, a doctor in industrial engineering, former President of Endesa and renowned expert in energy issues, took part in a presentation organised by the Centre d'Estudis Jordi Pujol concerning the theme "The Energy of the Future". Regarding the debate concerning a possible return to nuclear energy, Fuster states that, whatever the case, it would be sensible to aim for a model of implementation and recuperation of the nuclear energy option, which would doubtless need to be safer while also offering the greatest possible guarantees in terms of the present and the future. Felicià Fuster, as we said one of the world's leading experts in energy issues, has been President of the Committee on Fusion Industry (CFI), President of the External Advisory Group (EAG) on Thermonuclear Fusion of the European Community DG XII, and has also played a key role with her contribution to the development of the experimental project ITER (International Tokamak Experimental Reactor) regarding the commercial use of nuclear fusion, takes a look at her own personal development and the main stages in the defence and promotion of different energy sources.

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Nuclear Energy and the Environment

Antoni Gurguí

A little over one and a half years ago, one of the gurus of the ecological movement, James Lovelock the father of Gaia Theory, and by whom we also publish an article in this Debate Section, surprised a lot of people with a piece in favour of rethinking our opposition to nuclear energy. Are we about to see ecologists calling for nuclear energy? Could it be that, finally, a part of the ecologist world is really starting to put the interests of the environment before pure ideology? To put scientific evidence before well-intentioned intuition? Or could it also be a veritably progressive approach, as opposed to the immobility resulting from an attitude which says "no to everything" and which has made some of these groups and movements into the most conservative and intransigent in our society as well as being a real danger to progress? These and other somewhat controversial questions are tackled by the author in this article.

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Nuclear Energy, a Promise for the 21st Century

Mohamed ElBaradei

As indicated in the title, nuclear energy may well hold out great promise with regard to the resolution of the immense problems and great energy needs of the future. But with one necessary condition, that it must always be accompanied by the highest possible safety guarantees. As ElBaradei himself puts it, it is a case of a promise and an opportunity with conditions. In this highly interesting speech, transcribed and published here for the first time in Catalan, this Nobel Peace Prize winner examines both the factors that encourage the positive replacement of nuclear energy, as well as those that must be categorically borne in mind if nuclear energy is ever to fulfil its promise at a global level.

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The Nuclear Hope

James Lovelock

In this article, James Lovelock, an environmentalist of acknowledged prestige, particularly due to his elaboration of Gaia Theory, which conceives of the earth as a self-regulating system, talks here of the need not to renounce nuclear energy but to take it into account as one of the energy sources of the future. Lovelock claims that this is a safe, clean and effective energy source. All in all, this article is of great interest due to the fact that Lovelock, a scientist who has dedicated a large part of his life to protecting the environment, sustains his approach and defends his arguments in favour of nuclear energy on the basis of markedly environmentalist grounds and, above all, from the vantage point of the credibility that he has always enjoyed in the ecologist movement through the world.

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Notes

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