There was a gathering last week of representatives of Spain's overseas tourism offices. They met with the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation, and there were people from the government in attendance as well. The acting president of the federation, Gabriel Llobera, called for regional government "responsibility" apropos the tourist tax. Which meant that he didn't want it to be increased. Fat chance of that, chum, the revenue's already been marked down in the government's budget and spending plan for 2018. He proposed that Madrid be asked for more money instead of the tax losing "our clients". Where's he been? This government has spent its entire period in office asking, nay demanding that Madrid hands over more cash.
The tourist tax, in Llobera's view, is clearly a form of general revenue-raising. The government of course denies this, which is why it's doubling the rate next year. It, the government, takes us all for fools. Of course it's revenue-raising, however much it might be glossed up with the vagueness of the constant chanting of sustainability, etc., etc.
The director of the Munich office, Álvaro Blanco, said that German tourists are accustomed to paying this type of tax. While true that there has long been a tax on hotel stays in Germany (which applies to everyone), it's only modest. There is being accustomed to paying a tax, and there is being accustomed to paying one at a particular rate. Biel Barceló recently came out with the ridiculous statement that the Balearic tax was "the cheapest, the lowest in Europe and even when it is doubled, it is still going to be relatively cheap in comparison". Taken for fools.
Blanco then went on to say that the most important thing was "to communicate what is done with the money". He added: "It's important that it goes towards projects which give added value to the tourist." Communicate. Now, there would be a novelty.
The tourism director-general, Pilar Carbonell, was at that gathering. She said that the government is "totally transparent" in respect of tourist tax collection and the allocations for spending. However, she admitted that "the government has failed to communicate where the tax money goes, and we have to rectify this". Carbonell pointed out that there is a web page with the information about tax spending, "but people don't know about it". As far as self-condemnation of an inability to communicate effectively goes, then this took some beating.
The director-general is right. There is a web page, but it takes a lot of finding. The government's website reflects the government's own labyrinthine organisational structure. Nothing, or very little, is easy to locate. I went hunting for it the other day. I wanted a complete list of the projects for the spending of the tourist tax revenue raised this year. All I got was the list for last year. Having made the announcement of this year's spending round last Monday, you would think that there would be a post that itemises it. Things obviously take a bit of time.
It isn't just that there is a failure to communicate. The communication which exists is lamentable, not least in terms of the transparency. Why, for example, do some projects not receive funding? It's no use the government pointing to its multi-page plan with its equations and specifications. No one, other than me, is going to bother wading through that lot. Even if they do, they still won't know the answer. And I don't.
Carbonell says that communication should all be about showing how tax money is "improving and preserving our destination". Fine, then each project should come replete with an explanation as to how. And all the projects should be clearly set out and available as information. It might help if the government had any proper social media means of doing so. But it doesn't. Its communication is wretched. Or should one say that it is wretchedly limited. The government's Facebook page, in Catalan of course, is asking the citizens their preferences for the seventy projects to receive tourist tax funding. Isn't this a bit late? The projects have been decided.
Participation is a different side to the communication coin. Podemos have called for there to be citizen participation in tourist tax-spending decision-making. Perhaps there should be, though given experiences with this participation in Palma - absurdly low numbers of people voting for projects from the 900 grand set aside for the "people's projects" - there could be little confidence in there being meaningful participation.
And what of the people who pay the tax? Should their views be taken into account? Maybe they should be, but one suspects that elements - politically and within society - might object. Moreover, how could tourists determine whether 4.7 million for a finca in Arta is worthwhile funding? They will just have to accept that it is worthwhile and that it is they who are paying for it.
Showing posts with label Participation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Participation. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
The Illusion Of Participation
It's hard to know if the past few days have been good or not so good for the citizens and their participation. What used to just be referred to as "turnout" must now be styled in this way. Taking part is so much more active than turning out. And, as is so often said, it's not the winning that matters but the taking part. Ask the town hall in Palma.
The citizens, those strewn across the whole of Spain, roused themselves sufficiently to put some five per cent on the election participation percentage. Was this a reflection of the new participative age? No, but it may well have reflected the fact that there were some other lots to vote for and that the citizens were being given the opportunity to vote no to the old lots. New parties should be formed for all elections might be the message.
There was, though, an altogether more important exercise in participation. The citizens of Palma were deciding the fate of the terraces on the Born. For seven long days the voting lasted, following several long weeks of arguments given ample coverage in the media. And what happened? Under five per cent of the citizens cared enough to vote. Was this a triumph for direct democratic involvement?
Alfonso Robledo, the chap who's head of Mallorca's restaurants' association, was probably wetting himself laughing at the same time as he was congratulating the town hall for having organised the citizens' consultation. Around 3.2% of the citizenry was in favour of Born terraces, but this 3.2% was about four-fifths of those who had been bothered to take a second (less than that probably) to register their online preference in the terraces' favour. The Born was not to be Born free of terraces. All hail citizen democracy!
Alfonso intimated that the turnout, sorry participation, had been high, when of course he knew full well that it hadn't been anything of the sort. He was saying this, one fancies, to rub salt into town hall wounds, while at the same time careful to lavish it with praise. It had been, he suggested, difficult to get the man in the street to vote on a specific issue like the terraces. In other words, what he really meant was that the participation had been minimal - which it was - and that there was no surprise that it had been. Man in the street, man on the Clapham omnibus, man on the Palma bus lines that permit dogs (here has to be another subject for citizen democratic voting): they were all wondering why they were being asked the question. Was it not within the wit of elected politicians and business representatives to sort this out themselves? Sensibly, maturely, pragmatically.
If, as I have suggested previously, the terrace issue was all a ruse for the town hall to engage in a pilot scheme for online citizen decision-making, then it certainly didn't choose wisely. There again, perhaps it was aware that the citizens would let it off the hook. Having dug a frankly ludicrously large pit over a comparatively inconsequential issue, it didn't want to be buried by having to decide for itself, when all sense and public sentiment appeared to be weighed against it.
Maybe it had in fact been a different ruse. Act tough and display preservationist credentials, and then get the citizens to show they aren't nearly as fussed. Don't blame us, the citizens have spoken, all under five per cent of them. Nevertheless, noting the looks of three town hall sorts hauled before the media to announce the "landslide victory" in favour of the terraces, the town hall was far from pleased. Glum, glummer, glummest.
Instinctively drawn to such public involvement as I am, it has to be conceded (and frankly should be by politicians) that the vast majority is not. Perhaps it needs time and education to convert the masses to involving themselves. Or perhaps it requires genuinely significant questions to be posed. Cut taxes by 10%. Yes or no? (And make the outcome legally binding.) The polling website would go into meltdown.
Even for the arch advocates of citizen participation - our good friends in Podemos - there is a gap between philosophy and reality, or so I understand. Its consultations and its citizens' councils amount to comparatively little, so much so that in the heady and insane days of my student politics, the participants wouldn't have constituted a quorum.
Participation requires, to use an overused word, stakeholders. The world of business struggled with worker indifference towards participation until it started to hand out shares and created profit-sharing schemes. Workers had said you're the managers, your job's to manage; we're workers, our job's to go on strike. But the closeness of a business cannot, despite the rhetoric, be replicated in the vastness of the political machinery. You're the politicians, you sort it out.
The citizens, those strewn across the whole of Spain, roused themselves sufficiently to put some five per cent on the election participation percentage. Was this a reflection of the new participative age? No, but it may well have reflected the fact that there were some other lots to vote for and that the citizens were being given the opportunity to vote no to the old lots. New parties should be formed for all elections might be the message.
There was, though, an altogether more important exercise in participation. The citizens of Palma were deciding the fate of the terraces on the Born. For seven long days the voting lasted, following several long weeks of arguments given ample coverage in the media. And what happened? Under five per cent of the citizens cared enough to vote. Was this a triumph for direct democratic involvement?
Alfonso Robledo, the chap who's head of Mallorca's restaurants' association, was probably wetting himself laughing at the same time as he was congratulating the town hall for having organised the citizens' consultation. Around 3.2% of the citizenry was in favour of Born terraces, but this 3.2% was about four-fifths of those who had been bothered to take a second (less than that probably) to register their online preference in the terraces' favour. The Born was not to be Born free of terraces. All hail citizen democracy!
Alfonso intimated that the turnout, sorry participation, had been high, when of course he knew full well that it hadn't been anything of the sort. He was saying this, one fancies, to rub salt into town hall wounds, while at the same time careful to lavish it with praise. It had been, he suggested, difficult to get the man in the street to vote on a specific issue like the terraces. In other words, what he really meant was that the participation had been minimal - which it was - and that there was no surprise that it had been. Man in the street, man on the Clapham omnibus, man on the Palma bus lines that permit dogs (here has to be another subject for citizen democratic voting): they were all wondering why they were being asked the question. Was it not within the wit of elected politicians and business representatives to sort this out themselves? Sensibly, maturely, pragmatically.
If, as I have suggested previously, the terrace issue was all a ruse for the town hall to engage in a pilot scheme for online citizen decision-making, then it certainly didn't choose wisely. There again, perhaps it was aware that the citizens would let it off the hook. Having dug a frankly ludicrously large pit over a comparatively inconsequential issue, it didn't want to be buried by having to decide for itself, when all sense and public sentiment appeared to be weighed against it.
Maybe it had in fact been a different ruse. Act tough and display preservationist credentials, and then get the citizens to show they aren't nearly as fussed. Don't blame us, the citizens have spoken, all under five per cent of them. Nevertheless, noting the looks of three town hall sorts hauled before the media to announce the "landslide victory" in favour of the terraces, the town hall was far from pleased. Glum, glummer, glummest.
Instinctively drawn to such public involvement as I am, it has to be conceded (and frankly should be by politicians) that the vast majority is not. Perhaps it needs time and education to convert the masses to involving themselves. Or perhaps it requires genuinely significant questions to be posed. Cut taxes by 10%. Yes or no? (And make the outcome legally binding.) The polling website would go into meltdown.
Even for the arch advocates of citizen participation - our good friends in Podemos - there is a gap between philosophy and reality, or so I understand. Its consultations and its citizens' councils amount to comparatively little, so much so that in the heady and insane days of my student politics, the participants wouldn't have constituted a quorum.
Participation requires, to use an overused word, stakeholders. The world of business struggled with worker indifference towards participation until it started to hand out shares and created profit-sharing schemes. Workers had said you're the managers, your job's to manage; we're workers, our job's to go on strike. But the closeness of a business cannot, despite the rhetoric, be replicated in the vastness of the political machinery. You're the politicians, you sort it out.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Llorenç Moyà And The People's Fiestas
In Palma last week they took a significant step in the direction of something which should have long been the case. The town hall is to seek the far greater participation of residents in the make-up and organisation of the Sant Sebastià fiestas in January. While town halls, not only Palma's of course, have a key role in staging fiestas, there have been calls for greater involvement of the public. Fiestas are for the people, and the people very often have ideas that can break the monotony of the year-in, year-out routine of fiestas by breathing new life into them. Palma witnessed this last weekend when the Orgull Llonguet association organised the grand battle between the Canamunt and Canavall. Water pistols and water guns were at the ready at the Parc de la Mar and they proved to a great success as part of what are otherwise rather neglected fiestas for the Mare de Déu, the Virgin Mary's birthday.
This said, there is evidence from the villages of Mallorca of how public involvement, a grassroots movement if you like, has already been helping in boosting fiestas. A great deal of it has come from the "quintos" youth groups. They have been responsible for introducing what are an increasing number of "battles" into fiestas - the likes of Petra and Sencelles are only quite recent. And one can go back further in time, to the early years of the post-Franco era, to find how local associations were instrumental in fiesta revivalism and event creation. Sarau Alcudienc, the Alcúdia cultural association, is a prime example of a group which invented what have become certain "traditions", such as the figure of Rei en Jaume (King James I), quite a number of years before Santa Ponsa did so for its fiestas.
While individuals and groups have played their parts in shaping fiestas, they haven't, as a rule, been responsible for creating fiestas, for the whole kit and caboodle as they have become. In Binissalem, however, this was the case.
The town's Vermar grape harvest fiestas and fair started this weekend. A couple of nights of art have been added to what is one of Mallorca's premier fiestas, marked as it is by its own battle - of grapes - its treading contests and its wine fair. But these are fiestas which took hold almost by accident. There was no grand design for them when, in 1965, a writer from the town created a gathering of wine enthusiasts at the Can Gelabert cultural centre. By the following year, the gathering was morphing into a party, and the Vermar fiestas were born.
That writer was Llorenç Moyà. Born in Binissalem on the day of Epiphany, 6 January, 1916, the town hall is to honour him next year. It will be the year of Llorenç Moyà.
Vermar was largely his idea, and though it had an unmistakeable commercial element to it - the promotion of the local grape and bodegas - there was also a strong sense of embracing and reviving Mallorcan rural traditions, customs and indeed costumes. The role of the "vermadora", the fiestas' maid of honour, was invented and she was clad in traditional garb.
While Moyà will, for many, be most associated with the establishment and development of the fiestas, there was much more to him. The year in his honour will also be a celebration of his work as a writer and poet, one of the foremost names in Mallorcan literature, who came to prominence in the 1950s, a member of a new wave that was nonetheless influenced by earlier figures such as Miquel Costa i Llobera, the Pollensa poet, and Joan Alcover, who wrote the poem, "La Balanguera", that was to be set to music and to become Mallorca's hymn.
Moyà holds, therefore, an important position in Mallorca's culture and he is representative of the way in which writers and poets were instrumental in driving forward fiestas and events in their home towns and villages. To Moyà can be added the likes of Miquel Bota Totxo, important in establishing the Pollensa Festival and revitalising the Moors and Christians, and Alexandre Ballester, the man who knew everything about Sa Pobla.
Not everywhere in Mallorca will have an illustrious son (or daughter) with the claims of a Moyà, but most will have someone from the past who was key to the activation or re-activation of fiestas. The people's involvement is in fact something of a tradition. And now it too is being revived.
This said, there is evidence from the villages of Mallorca of how public involvement, a grassroots movement if you like, has already been helping in boosting fiestas. A great deal of it has come from the "quintos" youth groups. They have been responsible for introducing what are an increasing number of "battles" into fiestas - the likes of Petra and Sencelles are only quite recent. And one can go back further in time, to the early years of the post-Franco era, to find how local associations were instrumental in fiesta revivalism and event creation. Sarau Alcudienc, the Alcúdia cultural association, is a prime example of a group which invented what have become certain "traditions", such as the figure of Rei en Jaume (King James I), quite a number of years before Santa Ponsa did so for its fiestas.
While individuals and groups have played their parts in shaping fiestas, they haven't, as a rule, been responsible for creating fiestas, for the whole kit and caboodle as they have become. In Binissalem, however, this was the case.
The town's Vermar grape harvest fiestas and fair started this weekend. A couple of nights of art have been added to what is one of Mallorca's premier fiestas, marked as it is by its own battle - of grapes - its treading contests and its wine fair. But these are fiestas which took hold almost by accident. There was no grand design for them when, in 1965, a writer from the town created a gathering of wine enthusiasts at the Can Gelabert cultural centre. By the following year, the gathering was morphing into a party, and the Vermar fiestas were born.
That writer was Llorenç Moyà. Born in Binissalem on the day of Epiphany, 6 January, 1916, the town hall is to honour him next year. It will be the year of Llorenç Moyà.
Vermar was largely his idea, and though it had an unmistakeable commercial element to it - the promotion of the local grape and bodegas - there was also a strong sense of embracing and reviving Mallorcan rural traditions, customs and indeed costumes. The role of the "vermadora", the fiestas' maid of honour, was invented and she was clad in traditional garb.
While Moyà will, for many, be most associated with the establishment and development of the fiestas, there was much more to him. The year in his honour will also be a celebration of his work as a writer and poet, one of the foremost names in Mallorcan literature, who came to prominence in the 1950s, a member of a new wave that was nonetheless influenced by earlier figures such as Miquel Costa i Llobera, the Pollensa poet, and Joan Alcover, who wrote the poem, "La Balanguera", that was to be set to music and to become Mallorca's hymn.
Moyà holds, therefore, an important position in Mallorca's culture and he is representative of the way in which writers and poets were instrumental in driving forward fiestas and events in their home towns and villages. To Moyà can be added the likes of Miquel Bota Totxo, important in establishing the Pollensa Festival and revitalising the Moors and Christians, and Alexandre Ballester, the man who knew everything about Sa Pobla.
Not everywhere in Mallorca will have an illustrious son (or daughter) with the claims of a Moyà, but most will have someone from the past who was key to the activation or re-activation of fiestas. The people's involvement is in fact something of a tradition. And now it too is being revived.
Sunday, February 08, 2015
Have You Got A Moment?
I recall that when Francina Armengol was given the keys to the presidential suite at the Council of Mallorca in 2007, she was going to usher in a new way of doing things. Her door, she said, would always be open, by which she didn't mean that the general public could just wander in off the street and have a good old nosey around. Rather, Francina was all for doing things differently; she was an open and communicative president and not the one from whom she had taken over (now residing at his majesty's pleasure). Eight years later, we find Francina in pole position (if not actually first in the polls) to become Bauzá's successor, and so she has been reflecting on ... the need for a new way of doing things. These new ways come in eight-year cycles, it would appear. "Another way of doing politics is possible," she informed a gathering of PSOE-ites in Valencia. "Through dialogue rather than imposition." "Through participation and ..." At this point, lights will have gone on in the minds of the fellow PSOE-ites. Participation. Now, where have we been hearing about this?
Suddenly, everyone's talking about participation, and they have to thank (and/or fear) Pablo Iglesias for doing so. Yes, there is a new and participative way of doing things, and someone had beaten Francina to the idea by several months. Her version, whatever it might in fact be, is political catch-up blended with ample dollops of opportunism. What are Podemos good at? Participation. Right, we'll have some of that for ourselves. And, blow me, only a few days later, PSOE in Calvia were unveiling their own participative re-invention. Under the slogan - "have you got a moment" - they've come up with a mobile app through which residents can answer three questions, such as "what is it that most concerns you about Calvia?" A multiple choice gives various options for answering - corruption, safety, taxes, tourism, etc. More than this, they are planning on having "participative budgets", so that the folk of Calvia can decide where money goes for certain things.
This isn't as revolutionary as it might sound, as they already do this in little old Algaida, where the council is PSOE-controlled and which is the home town of Francina's predecessor as leader of PSOE, her good chum and former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich. So, it's been Algaida which has been the source of inspiration for Francina; has it? Possibly, but new ways of doing things haven't simply shifted towards citizen decisions as to how 300 grand are spent; new ways have emerged because things have been turned on their head. And Francina knows full well by whom and why she has to get the participation craze as well. As Little Eva might have sung (but didn't): "Everybody's doing a brand new political dance now. Come on, baby, do The Participation".
Suddenly, everyone's talking about participation, and they have to thank (and/or fear) Pablo Iglesias for doing so. Yes, there is a new and participative way of doing things, and someone had beaten Francina to the idea by several months. Her version, whatever it might in fact be, is political catch-up blended with ample dollops of opportunism. What are Podemos good at? Participation. Right, we'll have some of that for ourselves. And, blow me, only a few days later, PSOE in Calvia were unveiling their own participative re-invention. Under the slogan - "have you got a moment" - they've come up with a mobile app through which residents can answer three questions, such as "what is it that most concerns you about Calvia?" A multiple choice gives various options for answering - corruption, safety, taxes, tourism, etc. More than this, they are planning on having "participative budgets", so that the folk of Calvia can decide where money goes for certain things.
This isn't as revolutionary as it might sound, as they already do this in little old Algaida, where the council is PSOE-controlled and which is the home town of Francina's predecessor as leader of PSOE, her good chum and former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich. So, it's been Algaida which has been the source of inspiration for Francina; has it? Possibly, but new ways of doing things haven't simply shifted towards citizen decisions as to how 300 grand are spent; new ways have emerged because things have been turned on their head. And Francina knows full well by whom and why she has to get the participation craze as well. As Little Eva might have sung (but didn't): "Everybody's doing a brand new political dance now. Come on, baby, do The Participation".
Friday, March 30, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Thousands stage demonstration against labour reform
60,000 people, according to union sources, took to the streets of Palma yesterday evening in a protest against labour reform as a culmination to the general strike. Across Spain, 861,150 people took part in protests, according to government figures. The day's protests led to 116 injuries, the majority of them to police. The unions say that over 10 million people supported the strike, the government insisting that participation was very moderate compared with the 2010 strike. Only two people were arrested in the Balearics where the protests went off with little incident. The worst incidents were in Barcelona where police and radical youths engaged in a battle late yesterday evening.
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