Cecili Buele: "...on Mallorca, - an island of people with a ten times a thousand years of culture - any person who wishes can be a Mallorcan.” 
 28 August, 1999

Taking advantage of one of the most positive tools of Internet, that is the electronic mail, we have contacted Cecili Buele -- the new person responsible for Culture and Youth of the Council of Mallorca --  to interview him, simply by sending him a message to his personal mail box.  As easy and direct as that!  In a question of hours, without previous appointments, without intermediaries... these are the new forms that we have to promote. Cecili Buele defines himself as a nationalist, ecologist and of the left, he is a party member of PSM (Socialist Party of Mallorca) and in the previous four years he was a councillor on the Palma Council.
 

FIRST OF ALL, SR. BUELE, WE WISH TO CONGRATULATE YOU,  SIR, ON YOUR NEW RESPONSIBILITY AND TO THANK YOU FOR LETTING US INTERVIEW YOU.  WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING THAT OCCURRED TO YOU WHEN YOU FOUND OUT ABOUT YOUR NEW JOB?

Many thanks for your thoughts.  I am very enthusiastic about doing this interview via electronic mail.  It is the first time that I have done something like this.  I hope it won’t be the last. Anyway, I think we must be on personal terms, no “sir”, for friends I have been CIL until now, I am CIL now and I would like to continue being CIL always.

The first thing that occurred to me, when I was given this new job, was a whole mixture of very intense feelings:  on the one hand, a feeling of deep gratitude to Mallorca that I love so much: to the people of Mallorca - so welcoming and with so much love, to the people who wanted to vote the past 13th June – taking an active part in democractic elections  -, and above all to the people who that day wanted to vote the political option that I represent, PSM-Entesa Nacionalista. My personal and very profound thanks to all these people

It must not be forgotten that in the last elections, and that is particularly significant for me, certain events took place that have never happened on Mallorca. That were even unthinkable not long ago.  I have to point out two that affect me a lot:  for the first time in history, the Mallorcan Council has a nationalist, progressive government; for the first time in history, also, amongst the members of this nationalist progressive government there is one of the descendants - first generation - of the first African immigration that arrived on the island (74 years ago).  My father is African, from Equatorial Guinea;  my mother, Mallorcan, from Ariany.  There had to be a nationalist party, and it had to be PSM, to carry out a gesture such as that nobody had ever done before until now.  I am very grateful to Mallorca and I am very grateful for my party.

On the other hand, I was also invaded by a very profound feeling that encouraged me to make a public invitation, on such an occasion, to all the people who have come from outside Mallorca, and have wished to settle amongst us. I wanted to encourage them to carry out the fascinating task of  integrating into a society such as the Mallorcan. I wanted to tell them that it is worth it. I meant that here on Mallorca, an island of people with a ten times a thousand years of culture- any person who wishes can be a Mallorcan.  That there is no real barrier that impedes them. That there is no level that is barred to descendants of African immigrants;  even the highest and most honourable of  a governor.

So it must not seem strange, then, (to those who noticed) that the day of the constitution of the new Mallorcan Council, last July 29, I,  unused to wearing a tie wanted to wear one as the democratically elected councillor, and what is more, very proudly.  But, yes,  I didn’t want to wear any other except the same one that my father, previous errand boy of the building for 40 years, had to wear often very well tied and ‘don’t you move.’!
 

WHAT IS THE OFFICIAL DENOMINATION OF YOUR POST AND WHAT ARE YOUR DUTIES IN THE AREA OF GOVERNMENT THAT YOU TAKE OVER?

The official document that reached my hands, with the signature of the Honourable Srª Presidenta, the past Friday 13th August, was that of CONSELLER DELEGAT DE CULTURA I JOVENTUT (Councillor for Culture and Youth). I wish to believe that this title, as well as the responsibilities of YOUTH, also gives me the task to administer the areas that,  in the past four years, were the responsibility of the Committee for Culture and Heritage.  That is, everything to do with Archives, Libraries, Museums, administrative Service of the Historic Heritage, Teatre Principal, social-cultural promotion, etc., etc.  I say that ‘I believe’ because at the moment of answering your interview questions, we have not had the time to share out the different areas that each of the politicians of the Mallorcan Council will take care of.
 

ACCORDING TO THE PROGRESS PACT, THE MALLORCAN COUNCIL WILL BECOME THE GOVERNMENT OF MALLORCA, HOW WILL YOUR DUTIES COMBINE WITH THOSE OF THE COUNCIL OF CULTURE AND EDUCATION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BALEARIC ISLANDS?

...That is still to be settled, and we will have to talk more than once, before finalising to the minimum  detail this kind of procedure.  There is no doubt, with the negotiations already maintained for the Pact of Progress, the agreements of which were signed by the different political groups that integrate it, that there will be no problem to define which will be the different duties and responsibilities connected to culture for the Mallorcan Council and for the Government of the Balearic Islands. And especially if you realise that the two departments have a member of PSM-Entesa Nacionalista in charge. I think that the task of defining duties and responsibilities has to be easy.
 

WHAT ARE YOU IMMEDIATE AIMS?

...First of all, both the Co-ordinator of Culture and  Youth, Srª Fernanda Ramon, who succeeds Sr. Pere Muñoz in the post, and myself, successor to Sr. Damià Pons, have proposed as a priority objective to get to know completely and utterly the whole department:  the people who work in it, the existing organisation, the different installations, the available resources, the future projects, etc.

Secondly, we wish to intensify contacts, conversations, communication with the entities, the associations, firms or individuals who are dedicated to making definite action to consolidate the culture on Mallorca as a growing reality.

Thirdly, we are analysing and studying closely the best way to apply the cultural programme that our political group presented to the electors.  A programme of cultural action that broadly intends to administer the area of culture and youth, with a view to contributing to the reconstruction of a Mallorca that is greener, cleaner, more cultured and sovereign, more open with more solidarity.

Finally, with the will to continue to follow the course initiated by our predecessors, we have chosen as one of the objectives of the next four years, to manage to stop the culture of  the Mallorcan Council being the poor relation of the most representative public administration of Mallorca and obtain, in this way, the human, material and economic resources that correspond to an island such as ours.
 

HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE OF MALLORCA AND THE BALEARIC ISLANDS AND HOW DOES THE CATALAN CULTURE FIT IN WITHIN THESE TWO REALITIES?

... With the impulse that we nationalist and progressive governments of the Balearic and Pitiüses Islands can manage to give, and with the support that the majority of the population of the islands can give, for the future I can see Mallorca, Menorca, Eivissa, Formentera and the other islands with a completely renewed outlook.  It is true that we still have the impetus of  galloping building development. It is true that there is an abusive use of cars.  It is true, that the environment is threatened.  It is true that the economy is valued above all other things.  It is true that the most serious situations of social rejection are increasing.  It is true that the currency, in stead of having two sides, has only one, a cross.  But I think that, we are still in time in many aspects.  Promoting more contacts.  Encouraging more conversations. Reaching more convincing decisions.  Sharing more factors for democratic living together.  Mallorca is Mallorca.  And, to continue being so, it cannot continue to float alone in the middle of the Mediterranean.  It forms part of the group of people that surround it, from a geographic point of view but also a cultural and political one.  The Balearic and Pitiüses Islands have had to struggle all our lives to obtain the full condition of adult people, with destinations, means, processes and efforts more or less shared according to the historic circumstances.  For the future, the Catalan culture and language have to continue to be strengthened as the only ones proper to out islands, if we really want to continue to be who we are.  Other cultures that some try to impose on us as being official, officious or ‘skilful’.  But they are only like a badly taken graft.  As Mallorcans, I think that we have to continue to learn to “unfold the four bars / out to the four winds of the world / flying them vigorously / without fear nor long faces / with the pride of being who we are.
 

AND TO END, WHAT PART DO YOU THINK THAT INTERNET HAS TO PLAY IN THIS FUTURE PROJECT

 ...Every day the part played by Internet is more essential within our society,  as all over the world.  To explain it how I see it, I would like to tell a story of what happened to me in the seventies, when I was working in Africa or South America. Whenever I wanted to write a letter to the family or friends, everyone knew what would happen.  It would have to follow a long process to reach its destination which lasted over a month, if everything went well.  And to get a reply, you had to wait another two months. Nowadays, I send my letters to the people I want within the heart of black Africa or to some corner of the Peruvian Andes, and I do it in a few seconds, while the reply comes back to me in a few minutes. It seems incredible, but it is completely true. The speed of personal communication that Internet allows is one of the most admirable factors of this new means of communication.  It has many others, such as the ease to acquire knowledge, the practically unlimited diffusion our own, strengthening links with other people, cultures, etc.

From a public institution, as is the Mallorcan Council, there is no doubt that Internet has become one of the most efficient tools to approach this public administration to the Mallorcan citizen, to make determined public services that at the moment suffer serious lacks, more efficient, to offer a better attention to different problems that results in a better way of living together in democracy, to set up round tables of citizen opinion where each one can contribute, suggest or criticise what he wants, etc.

And I will finish here today.  We can continue another day if you wish. Yours,  CIL.