CATALONIA BANS BULLFIGHTING

Wednesday 28 July 2010

Today the Catalan parliament has voted to ban bullfighting. The move has been some time coming, after a popular petition was put forward asking for a ballot on the issue.

 This is a hugely complex subject, one that has drawn in all kinds of tensions and paradoxes that make up ‘Spain’: regionalism-centralism; left-right; tradition-modernity... etc.

 I’ve been looking into bullfighting - its pageantry and origins - as part of the research for OR THE BULL KILLS YOU - the first in my series of detective novels set in Spain, published next February by Chatto & Windus.

 It’s interesting that the Catalan ban has come at a time when interest in bullfighting in the region is historically quite low. Only two or three years ago the last of the functioning bullrings in Barcelona - the Monumental - was facing closure owing to low attendances. This despite the fact that the city had been a major bullfighting centre in the past, with three fully functioning bullrings. There was a recent blip in this decline when José Tomás - regarded as one of the greatest bullfighters ever - made a comeback at the Monumental, filling the place to the rafters.

 In some ways, Tomás’s return may have led indirectly to today’s vote, however: he gave temporary respite to a tradition that seemed about to die of natural causes. For the anti-taurino movement, therefore, a ban was the obvious choice.

 For some, the Catalan moves against bullfighting have been seen as part of the region asserting an identity separate from the rest of Spain - and indeed Catalan nationalism is going through a bit of a purple patch at the moment. But bull traditions have long been a part of the region’s culture - particularly in the southern province of Tarragona, where bullrunning is a huge part of summer fiestas.

 Meanwhile, other Spanish regions, such as Valencia and Madrid - both run by right-wing administrations at present - have recently declared bullfighting to be an ‘asset of cultural interest’ in moves designed to ‘protect’ the tradition, and also draw out political and regional battle lines in the argument over the issue.

 Muddying the waters in this way is all part of how so many things in Spain get politicised - usually for the worse and with no obvious advantage to the debate concerned. The point is that banning bullfighting is a way for some Catalans to make themselves feel more removed from the rest of Spain (whether it makes up part of their own cultural identity or not), while for plenty of Spaniards it will almost certainly have the effect of making los toros more popular - as a reaction to the Catalan move. Anti-Catalanism is a powerful force in some areas.

 My own experience, though, is that most Spanish people have ambivalent feelings about bullfighting - they may not watch bullfights themselves, but wouldn’t want to go so far as to prohibit them. The arguments against the spectacle are clear enough, and yet it makes up an important part of Spain, its culture and its history. Great Spanish artists and writers from Goya to Lorca, Ortega y Gasset and Picasso have all dealt with bulls and bull lore in depth. Ortega y Gasset even went as far as to say you couldn’t understand Spain and its history without first having an understanding of bullfighting...

 Banning something that significant to a country is never going to be easy. And ironically today’s Catalan move may actually strengthen bullfighting in the short- and mid-term in the rest of Spain. With José Tomás at its head, people are talking of a new golden generation in terms of the quality of matadors.

 They won’t be around for ever, though, and if in the future overall standards fall to where they were, say, five years ago, the question of bullfighting’s survival in its present form may once again be placed in doubt.

Jason Webster is the author of four highly acclaimed travel books about Spain, including SACRED SIERRA: A year on a Spanish mountain.  In February 2011, Chatto & Windus launch Jason Webster’s new crime series with Or the Bull Kills You, set in the world of Spanish bullfighting and introducing Inspector Max Cámara of the Spanish National Police: a flamenco loving, dope smoking detective who thinks in proverbs, worries about his fertility and gets unwillingly dragged into the bullfighting arena.