FIESTA NACIONAL OR A LOAD OF BULL?

The Catalan parliament recently voted to ban bull fighting in the region. However the decision was as much based on politics and separatism as it was on any concern for the rights of animals and cruelty towards them.

The reaction in the rest of Spain has been to staunchly defend the ‘fiesta nacional’. Yet whilst it might be identified as “national” to the exclusion of Cataluña the true home of the bull fight and the industry that surrounds it is in Andalucía.

Indeed last week the mayor of Ronda, Antonio Marín, asked the Andalucía government to deem the town the centre of studies and investigation of “Tauromaquia”. Ronda’s bullring was founded in 1785 – the oldest in Spain – and the mayor wants his town to have the role to defend “the traditions of Andalucía”.

Hence the decision of Los Verdes to demand that the Andalucía government bans bullfighting will send shock waves through the world of the corrida.

So what are Los Verdes proposing? First they need to collect 25,000 signatures to present to the Andalucía parliament to demand a debate – this must be done within three months. The Catalan parliament required 50,000 but Los Verdes are confident that 25,000 signatures can be obtained easily within the time period.

So what are Los Verdes arguments? Mario Ortega, Los Verdes spokesperson, says the ‘fiesta nacional’ would not survive in Andalucía if it did not receive subventions from the public authorities. He claims bullfighting receives 13 million euros from town halls, 12 million from the regional government, nine million from the various provinces and four million euros from RTVA – the Andalucía broadcaster.

In terms of the environment many argue that without the bull fights the “dehesas” on which the animals are raised would simply cease to exist. Not so says Ortega “only nine per cent of the ‘dehesa’ breed bulls that are for the ‘lidia’” or fighting bulls “and less than five per cent of the bulls that are breed in these spaces go to the plaza de toros”. He claims the majority of farms breed livestock for meat products.

Although this is a Los Verdes initiative the party is appealing to all supporters of the left in Andalucía not to defend the ‘fiesta nacional’ as part of their identity or “the traditions of Andalucía” as Ronda’s mayor would describe it.

It also says that 80 per cent of young people want the “toros” to be abolished... but if that is the case the young may have to wait to they are much older before their aspiration becomes a reality.

TALKING BULL

Make no mistake to enter the ring and face a charging bull takes guts and courage whatever your views on Spain’s ‘fiesta nacional’ may be.

Many years ago I visited a matador who had retired after he found he fell in love with the bulls. At his home he had a giant bull that he had rescued when it was just months old. It was tame or as tame as an animal with an inbred sense to kill that is the size of a very large car with giant horns can be. With Pepe I could stand alongside it, stroke it as he talked to the beast like a loving father, which he was. I certainly wouldn’t have gone near it alone.

I saw my first bullfight within weeks of arriving in Spain. It was at the small Mijas bullring that some say is the oldest in Spain but there are many other rivals for that title. I was determined to see for myself what all the fuss was about and sadly it was rather a grim affair. One of the bullfighters was the well-known Antonio José Galan, now like the bulls he faced sadly deceased, who carried out his task with skill and finesse. The other matador was a butcher, had the crowd howling with anger and was finally escorted from the tiny ring by Galan with his protective arm around the dejected man’s shoulder.

My second and last bullfight was just a few weeks later when the legendary Manuel Benítez Pérez, “El Cordobés”, appeared at the Málaga bullring. Some 25 years earlier Spain had given him a medal for tourism, he had become a film actor, bedded some 4,000 women and sired 30 children and still found time to become the country’s most internationally famous matador. I wanted to see this fascinating character before he left the stage and having done so have not visited a plaza de toros since.

However neither have I sided with either entrenched group of views on the ‘fiesta nacional’, as in religion I am an agnostic. Those who argue that if tourists stopped going to bullfights it would rapidly die are talking bull. The whole mystique of the ‘toros’ is deeply engrained in the Spanish character and there are those who would only rush to their TV sets when a bullfight is on – especially the celebrated events surrounding the major events such as Las Ventas in Madrid. The Spanish King does watch ‘corridas’, the Queen (who is Greek by birth) doesn’t. There are devotees and there are ecologist groups who would have it banned tomorrow. It can dominate television schedules; it is avoided by many like the plague. The plaza de toros is the central location in many towns but as in Puerto Banús this weekend the sands will not be stained with blood but the sweat of Spanish and German tennis stars as they compete in the Davis Cup.

One day, one day, the bull fight in Spain will perhaps die a natural death. However that will be after my hopefully peaceful passing, the slaying of many more bulls, the goring of numerous matadors and not before the aficionados of the ‘fiesta nacional’ put up a fierce fight to the death.

(As I wrote this news came in that the famed running of the bulls in Pamplona’s San Fermin festival had claimed the life of one of the participants. Around four and half minutes after the bulls were released a man was gored to death whilst nine others were injured. The festival was made internationally famous by Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises – and this is the first death since 1995 when 22-year-old American Matthew Tassio was gored.)