Contexts Editor
At the time of writing, the statue of Cristóbal Colón, aka Christopher Columbus, pointing out to sea in the port area of Barcelona, which, just like Nelson in Trafalgar Square, is high up on a phallus beyond the reach of the masses, has just received a reprieve from the mayor of the city Ada Colau. What is to be done? Much of what draws people to Barcelona was built directly from imperial and colonial knock-off, and there are many monuments to city grandees who directly or indirectly benefited from or supported slavery. Their fingerprints are everywhere. Much of the wealth that financed the astonishing 19th century built modernista quarter, the Eixample, came from the colonies. The “casas de indianos”, as they are called here, originally a disparaging term applied by the local elites to these ostentatious dwellings built by this returning new wealth. The Güell family is a case in point – they funded much of Gaudi’s ambition and genius, and gave their name to one of his masterworks, Parc Güell, made their fortune in Cuba and amassed a whole lot more during the Catalan industrial revolution. On the other hand, and to add a tone of complexity, Eusebi Güell, Gaudi’s principal benefactor, also funded the building of Colonia Güell in Santa Coloma, just south of Barcelona, an industrial (textile) community built from the same kind of enlightened capitalist socialist values that built the model village of Bournville around the Cadbury’s chocolate factory in south Birmingham.
One creative way of confronting the colonial past and present of a city such as Barcelona was introduced in 2016: guided tours focused on telling the history of slavery in relation to the city and its monuments, buildings and essential DNA. With the mention of guided tours, in writing this now, I suddenly notice myself acutely feeling disappointment and sadness. Why? Because I’ve spent a long time now imagining friends and colleagues here in what, over 20 years has become my city and now, well… the GASi circus will NOT be coming to town. By the end I was really invested in the idea of group analysis camping out for a while in the city, being shown around, leaving a footprint, learning more than a few words of Spanish and Catalan and possibly some flamenco, downing some cava and paella together, making new friends and so on and so forth. But, as has now been documented, despite 3 and a half years of LOC, SSC, MC, GASi, APAG and SEPTG graft in working to make it happen, BCN2020 has been defeated by COVID-19. But, and it’s a big BUT, not all has been in vain, new friendships have grown, and important lessons have been learned and, I am happy to report, the spirit of Barcelona very much lives on in the online event that is at this very moment being planned: The 1st GASi Online Symposium in Group Analysis.
Yes, as I say, I am sad and disappointed. However, there are many reasons to be cheerful. A fundamental goal of the Barcelona event was to bring costs down and improve accessibility to the event for colleagues from within Spain and from countries less advantaged economically. This being in addition to GASi’s long-term and on-going aim of broadening its membership and creating a more international, diverse and inclusive organisation. We had chosen venues that are embedded in an old working class community of the city and that better embodied, both in terms of cost and location, the core value of inclusivity. At the same time, gradually over time and as we struggled to negotiate and haggle to bring our costs down, it became clear to me that there are limits to this and that quite possibly there is something intrinsically at fault with the whole idea of the GASi Symposium. The thing is that while we succeeded in bringing costs down, it never appeared to me to be enough. The costs of participating (registration plus travel plus accommodation…plus plus plus) were still way too high. So, the question that I needed to be asking began to become clear to me: is the GASi Symposium essentially and inescapably an elitist and privileged luxury? I suspect that the Online Symposium will allow us to better achieve our goals of nurturing internationalism, diversity and inclusivity. The fees, while still having to cover the costs we have incurred over the past few years, are significantly lower and, access, by dint of being online, is significantly enhanced.
This ground-breaking event will be making maximum use of the latest video-conferencing technologies. It will cover nearly 3 days of experiential, scientific and social events. We will have the opportunity to meet, engage with and hear about the latest work of many of the leading exponents and thinkers in the fields of Group Analysis and Group Psychotherapy.
COVID-19 may have taken away our unhealthy default cosy illusion of security and invulnerability deeply embedded in our beliefs and privileges. However, as well as bringing capitalism to its knees for a while, it has surely caused us to reflect more on how things need to change in a more permanent sense. Perhaps for GASi, the Symposium, our major happening, needs now to be re-conceived if we are to be serious about growing our organisation on the pillars of inclusivity, diversity and internationalism.
Peter Zelaskowski
peterzelaskowski@gmail.com