Barcelona 2004 - A Lesson in Hypocrisy
Lisa Morrow - 23.05.2004 20:20
Inlichting over de "Forum of Cultures" in Barcelona (in het engels geschreven).
Barcelona's "Forum of Cultures" is not only a 141-day marathon event aimed at positioning the city as Europe's capital of "peace", "sustainable development", and "multiculturalism". It is also a project costing a whopping US $ 2.5 bn, the lion's share of which is going on property speculation (a convention centre, a luxury hotel, luxury housing, etc.). Just how this fits in with the Forum's avowed aims is open to question, especially when one considers that the miserable slums and ghettos ringing the Forum site (La Mina, Sant Adrià, and La Pau districts) will reap virtually no benefits from the event. Barcelona's Federation of Neighbourhood Associations has withdrawn from the event for precisely this reason, incensed at the contrast between lavish spending on the project and the crumbs given to the city's deprived areas.
Then there is the issue of the Forum's commercial sponsors, which include: Indra (arms manufacture - Sparrow and Meteor missile, Eurofighter, and F-100 frigate projects, among others); Nestle (slammed by UNICEF for promoting bottle feeding in the third world and thereby contributing materially to the 1.5 m infant deaths from pushing baby formula in developing countries); ENDESA power utility (roundly criticised in a World Bank report for the environmental damage caused by its dam projects on the Bio-Bio river and its total disregard for the land rights of the local Pehuenche indians); El Corte Ingles (garment manufacturer featured in a SETIM NGO report for its use of child labour in Moroccan sweat shops); and Coca-Cola (criticised by India's government for poisoning wells in the country's villages following BBC reports).
This corporate sell-out should come as no surprise, given the heavy involvement of a Jesuit business school - ESADE - in the early planning stages of the event. Sponsorship dollars and political self-interest did the rest.
There is also the coastline damage caused by construction on the Forum site itself (just one of the reasons why Greenpeace Spain withdrew from the event). The yacht haven included in the project has nothing to do with sustainable development. Incredibly, Catalonia's over-developed coast has one yacht haven every 15 kms. Vanishing beaches and a breakdown of sediment transport are the result.
Other NGOs - including Amnesty - have also refused to have anything to do with the event, appalled at the turn the project has taken.
Finally, one should note that the organisers have gone out of their way to avoid anything vaguely controversial. Sadly, this includes exclusion of Barcelona's gypsy groups (the gypsy community has suffered from centuries of discrimination in Spain) and refusal to endorse the Barcelona anti-war movements demonstrations against the war in Iraq.
As an exercise in "greenwashing" and corporate hijacking, the Forum is worthy of study (though not emulation). However, it has nothing to do with advancing the causes of peace, sustainable development and respect for other cultures.
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