The Congress of Mexico City has agreed to transform bullfights into “no violence” shows, in which the animal cannot be killed or before or after the fight. This decision has returned to the debate on the future of a cultural tradition that has more and more detractors.
The bullfighting critic Antonio Lorca He considers that these types of reforms suppose in fact the disappearance of bullfighting, since the brave bull only makes sense for the fight. The former Podem Carlos Saura León It considers, on the contrary, that the tradition of bulls will end up disappearing by itself and that until then the most sensible thing is to move towards a show where the bull does not suffer.
A death sentence for the brave bull
Antonio Lorca
Joaquín Vidal said, remembered bullfighting critic of this newspaper, which, like the chicken, serves to make a good broth, the brave bull has been born for the fight. And he was right. What is the meaning, if not, the existence of the chicken, or that of the bull itself, of fibrous meat, whose greatest gastronomic claim is the macerated tail in wine.
It happens, it is true, that while the domestic bird is sacrificed in the hygienized and cold rooms of a slaughterhouse, the bull dies (kills him) in the course of a bloody public show in which blood is caused; rather, in the heat of a struggle – that is the meaning of the word fight – between a human being and an animal selected by self -taught of genetics, such as farmers, for the creation of a rite that, for many, is a way of understanding beauty.
Beauty, yes, emotion, passion …, the art of bullfighting is known as the fusion between that force of nature that is the brave bull and intelligence, technique, inspiration and genius of a bullfighter capable of creating a mysterious spark that removes the spirit of who is capable of internalizing that ancestral rite called bullfighting.
But it is a violent rite, yes, in which the bull dies of truth and has the opportunity to be part of the collective memory, and the bullfighter plays glory, failure and also his own life.
That is the mystery of the Fiesta de los Bulls, incomprehensible and unbeatable, which dazzles some and produces rejection in others.
The Congress of Mexico City has recently approved a new legal figure, “Bullfighting Free of Violence”, and assumes it as a step forward in social evolution, and not as what is, a transfer to anti -country and animalist groups. Some 27,000 signatures – something more than half of the capacity of the monumental bullring of the Mexican capital – asked politicians for the total prohibition of the party, and they have responded with a cartoon reform (the tasks will last 10 minutes, swords and flags will be banned and the horns of the bull will be covered to avoid wounds).
It is not an evolution approved reform, but the suppression of bullfighting in Mexico City disguised as progressivism. There will never be a bullfighting show without rods of chopping, without flags, without rapier, without danger, without passion, without glory, without failure, without death … there is no love of bulls that resists such mutilation to the very essence of bullfighting. This party makes no sense converted into a spick.
In addition, in an attempt to protect the animal, Mexican politicians have decreed the death sentence of Toro Bravo. What value does your life have if not for fighting?
In an attempt, “Fallido – to protect the bull, have given a slice to history, the economy, the dreams of bullfighters and candidates for glory and the illusion of fans of that country, few, perhaps, but deserving that their right to go to a place and enjoy a full bullfighting show.
By the way, where are Mexican fans? Isn’t it, perhaps, that they are as minority as the anti -country, but less active, and their indolence has allowed the lawlessness of the capital of the capital? Mexico has lost the high bullfighting prestige of past times, many spectators have fled their squares, and perhaps there, and in the absence of national legislation that protects and covers bullfighting, this reformist postureo resides that announces such a gloomy horizon.
The Festival of Bulls is a mystery, and as such it has remained alive throughout history despite its detractors and prohibitionists. Today, again, they try to break it, zaherirla, break it and denaturalize it. Today, with more passion than ever, we would have to remember Juan Ramón in his shortest poem: “Don’t touch him more, that is the rose!”
Or bullfighting evolves or will be lost in history
Carlos Saura León
In 2017 we approved in the Balearic Islands a law known as “Balearic bulls.” Driven by Podemos and backed by groups such as Més and the PSOE, its objective was clear: acting in the margin of our competences to eradicate suffering and cruelty in the bullfighting show in our autonomous community. In front of her, the guardians of an alleged “culture of state” rose, determined to raise the sacrifice of a helpless animal to the national aesthetic enjoyment category. A tradition legitimized by the weight of the centuries and the anxious of blood of an increasingly scarce and aged audience.
The arguments that were used then avoided addressing the essential. The bullfights – who, deep down, are the true antitaurinos – said they defend the bull, when they actually condemned him to torment. Those who are in favor of bulls are the ones who do not want to see them tortured until death. There was talk of the extinction of the bull of fight, the millenary character of bullfighting or the economic losses of the sector. But the truth was not told. Its objective justified any means, by dishonest or cheater that was.
The heart of the debate was and is that they do not conceive bullfighting without suffering. They say that this sacralized suffering is inseparable from the aesthetic enjoyment that causes fans. They also defend the idea of a struggle in equality between the bull and the bullfighter. Thing that it is very difficult to sustain: it is a clearly unequal confrontation, in which a human being – intelligence and technical – causes the death of 99% of the bulls between cheers and “Olés”, while only approximately two out of 10,000 human participants in the show. It is, in reality, a ritualized humiliation, an abusive and cruel despotism, a slow agony of the animal, whose force goes out between tears and lunge, until it falls fulminated. This is the tragic essence of bullfighting that Ortega and Gasset spoke, although it is only truly tragic – in the most unfortunate sense of the term – for the bull. Bullfighting has long been a way to satisfy an ancestral death drive, wrapped in aesthetic rhetoric. However, it is worth asking whether a responsible, democratic and mature society can afford a symbol as barbaric and brutal as is that of the fight with blood. Or if, on the contrary, we must choose to move towards more friendly forms. Since, like so many other practices considered culture, it must face a dilemma: either it evolves or will be history sooner rather than later. The metaphysics of traditional bullfighting, they say, needs pain: without suffering, there is no rite. The blood, the bramides, the spasm of the wounded body are part of the show. That said, why wouldn’t it change? Haven’t other traditions change? If, as they say, the art of bullfighting resides in dance between bull and bullfighter, why don’t fans want to preserve that expression without killing the animal? That would be the most balanced option, since social sensitivity progresses towards a more compassionate ethic with all sensory beings. It is obvious that bullfighting will fall by its own weight. But if we are looking for a middle ground between tradition and progress, the logical thing would be for those who still defend the fight adapt to the new times. As in Portugal, or as recently approved in Mexico City: Lidia yes, but without death.
The liturgy of traditional bullfighting has covered for centuries of aesthetic solemnity a sadism of slow agony, disguising it as culture. And, indeed, from an anthropological point of view, it is. But culture not only describes what we have been: it must also be questioned about what we want – and we must – be. In a democratic society, the legacy cannot be an excuse to perpetuate violence. Bullfighting, in its crudest form, is nothing more than a relic of patriarchal logic: domain, blood, submission. And perhaps the time has come for art to stop smelling to death.
