Figueres, Teatre-Museu Dali, Catalonia. Flickr/Ilya Bogin. Some rights reserved.Without claiming to represent anyone but myself, I wish to focus my statement on what, under the present circumstances, I represent here today, namely civil society, as a member of civil society.
The expertise I can contribute to the struggle against corruption and for democratic regeneration has not been acquired through my academic or professional training –which is in the arts – but my experience as a person who, together with other people sharing similar concerns and affected by the results of corruption and bad government, has decided to act now that it is clear that our institutions are neglecting their functions.
As I hope to show, I believe that one of the keys to ending the problems this committee is confronting is precisely a joint effort between organised citizens working outside the representative institutions on specific problems and needs, and organised citizens working within these institutions, which is to say, you. All too often I have seen how democracy regresses and is weakened when this circuit of action is broken.
