Thousands
protest in Spain in favour of bullfighting traditions
The
rally in Valencia against local authority bans included a leading
‘torero’ who said that ‘this is our life, it’s a tradition’
Monday
14 March 2016 01.12 GMT
Thousands of
Spaniards have taken part in a protest rally in favour of the
traditional but controversial pastime of bullfighting.
The protesters
marched through the streets of the eastern city of Valencia to
protest at local authority bans applied in some parts of the country.
Famous names from
the ritualistic sport attending the march were Enrique Ponce and
Julian Lopez “El Juli” Escobar.
Both joined another
famous fighter, Jose Antonio Morante Camacho, better known as Morante
de la Puebla, at the gathering.
Participants held
aloft banners proclaiming the practice as a key element of cultural
expression.
“The bullfighting
world is aware of the problem and maltreatment we are suffering at
the hands of a part of the political class,” said Morante de la
Puebla.
“We are here to
say, this is our life, it’s a tradition,” he bellowed.
Ponce meanwhile read
a tract in defence of bullfighting, insisting the tradition has for
centuries been an integral part of Spanish culture even if some
refuse to accept it as such.
Hundreds of
thousands oppose plan for bullfighting courses in Spanish schools
Read more
And he urged that
“toreros”, or bullfighters, be treated with the same respect as
those pursuing “artistic” activities.
The morning had seen
a lower-key protest against bullfighting with some 20 semi-clad
activists who had splattered themselves with red ink to symbolise the
bulls’ suffering demanding the practice be abolished.
Spain is split
overall on the issue. Six years ago the largely autonomous regional
Catalan goverment banned “corridas”, as the pastime is known in
the region.
Some cities run by
leftist administrations including Madrid and Valencia also recently
cut subsidies for bullfighting.
Parlamento Europeu
aprova fim do financiamento às touradas
Mais uma medida
globalizadora da Europa Federalista e um atentado às tradições
vivas da Peninsula Ibérica e da Identidade Portuguesa.
O culto do cavalo
Lusitano, de múltipas actividades profissionais, da alta Escola de
Equitação, de toda uma rede de actividades e ancestralidades
insubstituíveis serão ameaçadas quando a Tauromaquia for ameaçada.
Paradoxalmente, o
argumento dos direitos dos animais não é válido.
Acabem com a
Bio-Indústria e com os aviários industriais, verdadeiros campos de
exterminio massificados no anonimato, mas não com os Touros de Morte
( em Portugal o Touro não morre na Arena, em Espanha sim) que vivem
em campo aberto, aristocráticamente, como indivíduos com nome e
gladiadores, até ao momento da morte explícita , pública ,
abertamente perante todos , em duelo com os humanos, na arena.
OVOODOCORVO
It
was Spain’s ‘national fiesta’. Now bullfighting divides its
people
In
the Spanish heartlands, fans and protesters present a portrait of a
tradition under threat
Duncan
Wheeler
Sunday
25 October 2015 00.04 BST
“Long Live the
Virgin of El Rocío!” Not the first words that would occur to me if
I were the recipient of a 25cm abdominal goring that reached my spine
– one of the many reasons I’m unlikely to ever have a successful
career as a matador.
The last words
uttered by Francisco Rivera before receiving medical treatment this
August for a potentially fatal injury not only revealed that
bullfighting remains inextricably linked with religious iconography,
they also illustrated that the ability to face death in both
theatrical and stoical terms is crucial to its allure and romance.
In technical terms
Rivera has never been a first-class torero, but this isn’t a
necessary or sufficient condition for success. At the age of 10, the
grandson of Antonio Ordóñez – idolised by Ernest Hemingway in The
Dangerous Summer – lost his father to a bull in 1984. Rivera Sr,
popularly known as Paquirri, was confirmed a martyr and a saint as
video footage circulated of a brave bullfighter bleeding to death
and, at the same time, comforting a visibly panicked and unprepared
surgeon.
Although vastly
improved medical facilities have reduced fatalities, 2015 has been an
unusually bloody year in human terms: as well as 13 fatalities in
encierros (running with the bulls), several matadors endured life-
and career-threatening injuries in the ring.
For the first time
in the modern age, the survival of what was once referred to as
Spain’s national fiesta is also in jeopardy. Animal rights
activists have found an audience among a significant proportion of
the population who increasingly view bullfighting as a financial
drain at a time of economic crisis, and a symbol of the nation’s
ills: cruel, parasitical and out of touch with reality. A profession
with deep-seated internal divisions finds itself ill-equipped to
defend itself against a concerted opposition and a rapid change in
public mood. Funding cuts have put the future of training schools
under threat; controversial new plans by the rightwing Popular party
government’s Ministry of Education to safeguard their financial
viability by incorporating bullfighting into vocational training
courses are meeting fierce opposition.
Ángeles
González-Sinde, former-minister of culture (2009-11) for the
socialist PSOE, told me that young people who came of age in the
early 1980s, in the aftermath of Franco’s death, often enjoyed
going to watch the bulls, and that there was a strong admiration and
affiliation with certain leading toreros who mixed with leading
lights of La Movida, the drug-fuelled youth movement that put Pedro
Almodóvar and his adopted city of Madrid on the international map.
She believes this connection has been lost, and that teenagers now
see bullfighting as something alien to their increasingly globalised
culture.
When I was at the
Sonorama indie music festival this summer I had to go alone to a
bullfight as none of my extended group wanted to accompany me. By
contrast, two weeks later I found myself at a private beach club in
Sotogrande – generally frequented by ageing politicians, property
tycoons, bankers and a diverse cast of players from the world of polo
– and found the room where bullfights are broadcast on Canal+ to be
a popular hotspot.
The retired monarch,
Juan Carlos, is a fierce advocate of the bulls (his son, Felipe VI,
has retained a diplomatic silence), but this is of limited use to
proponents of bullfighting when his standing in public opinion is at
an all-time low. Images of the emeritus king in San Sebastián to
celebrate the return of the bulls after three years did little to
dispel ingrained prejudices about aficionados as cigar-smoking
reactionary figures from an older generation.
The overturning of a
prior prohibition in the Basque coastal city was the result of a
change in municipal rule; in fact, it is impossible to understand the
debates surrounding bullfighting without taking into account the
territorial and political reality of a nation state comprising 17
autonomous regions, with more than 8,000 mayors.
Having been
prohibited for many years in the Canary Islands, the 2011 ban in
Catalonia fed into independence debates, evidence for nationalists of
their distinction from the centralist state. This approach sidelined
the tradition of bullfighting in and around Barcelona, while the
dismissal of a cultural activity as the manifestation of a
conservative Spanish heartland fails to mention that it continues to
be practiced in much of southern France.
José Tomás, the
world’s leading bullfighter, made a conscious decision to stage his
comeback to a sold-out crowd in the Catalan capital in 2007; his 2012
solo performance in Nîmes with six bulls – the standard, although
by no means unique, format is for the contemporary bullfight is for
three toreros to take on two bulls each – is considered the finest
corrida of the modern age.
While the
unpredictability of an event that depends as much on an animal as a
human being is crucial to the frisson of live performance, the
communion between a torero, bull and audience rarely achieves the
degree of synchronicity to satisfy the purist’s definition of art.
This is a serious obstacle for the casual attendee, especially when
decent tickets generally cost upwards of €50 (£36). Hence the
appeal of flamboyant showmen and celebrity toreros, who prove
particularly popular in provincial bullrings, and frequently as part
of the festivities associated with the patron saint of a local
village or small town.
In terms of pure
entertainment, Juan José Padilla, replete with his now trademark
eyepatch – the result of a near-fatal goring in 2011 – and pirate
paraphernalia is difficult to beat, at least until one becomes
(over-) familiar with some of his trademark tricks. I watched Morante
de la Puebla, many aficionados’ matador of choice, booed for an
under-par performance with a bull in Antequera last summer; the
audience was more indulgent of a chaotic display by El Pana, a
septuagenarian Mexican who smokes a cigar before taking his sword.
The maverick, undeterred by the fact it took him six inelegant and
cruel attempts to kill his second bull, lapped the ring at an
ever-increasing speed, whipping the crowd into a frenzy as if he had
just delivered a masterful pièce de résistance.
The sanctity of the
ritual has also been disrupted repeatedly this year by protesters
jumping over the barrier to interrupt the matador’s performance.
Peter Janssen has been particularly active in this regard. In August
this Dutch national jumped into a ring alongside a fellow protester
in Marbella during an appearance by Morante, who subsequently refused
to kill the second bull in protest against the police chastising his
team for manhandling the intruders; the bullfighter has also taken
legal action against activists for calling him a murderer.
The pro-bullfighting
lobby often accuse their critics of anthropomorphism – the
attribution of human qualities to animals – although they are
hardly immune from this tendency. Fighting bulls always have names,
and commentators on Canal+ have been known to talk of how an
under-performing animal is “lucky” to have a skilled torero able
to bring out their best qualities.
Popular chants and
slogans on demonstrations include “Bullfights, the animal
Guantánamo”, “Bullfighting, shame of the nation” and “Torture
is not culture”. The bigger and more troubling question is: does
bullfighting’s cultural status justify its continued existence?
Federico García Lorca and Pablo Picasso were great aficionados, and
individuals who would normally be considered civilised continue to
take great pleasure in the act of watching a man face a potentially
deadly animal. Reared on processed meat, Anglo-American audiences
increasingly have little direct contact with the harsh realities of
nature and often lack a sensibility or vocabulary with which to
discuss or dissect death. But perhaps the strongest argument against
bullfighting is that aestheticisation can distract from the reality
of what is taking place. The moral challenge is to resist simplistic
rejection without lapsing into a pastiche of Hemingway.
Duncan Wheeler is
associate professor in Spanish Studies at the University of Leeds,
and Visiting Fellow of St Catherine’s College, Oxford. His book,
The Cultural Politics of Spain’s Transition to Democracy, will be
published next year by Bloomsbury
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário