A Bit More Bull: The bullfighting ban

"A sad day." One of the reactions to the news of the Catalonian ban on bullfighting. The local press in Mallorca sought opinions and found them, "The Diario" even asking Joaquín Sabina, a well-known Spanish singer and someone from the left, who believes that the ban is a "tremendous mistake", one made by ignorant politicians. A one-time matador believes that other regions will not follow the Catalonian lead in instituting a ban. The Catalonians have never wanted bulls, he believes; they just want to demonstrate that they are somehow "special".

The anti-bullfight brigade takes quite a different view, as you might expect. Rather than a sad day, it was one to celebrate. The bullfight, as with other social, cultural and political issues in Spain, has the power to divide opinion, and to divide it markedly.

To read what Sabina had to say was surprising. Here is someone who was in exile for some years. He was an opponent of the Franco regime, which was fully supportive of the traditional "Spanishness" of the bullfight. Yet he considers that the ban does away with centuries of cultural heritage. Or perhaps it is not surprising. The bullfight is not a political issue per se, even if politicians have decided its fate in Catalonia; right and left are equally as likely to support it or reject it, and the vote in Catalonia was one of conscience - a free vote in other words.

To brand the politicians who backed the ban as "ignorant" is a peculiar charge. Whereas some observers from outside Spain might be considered thus when it comes to all the arguments for and against, it seems implausible to believe that Spanish (Catalonian) politicians would not know them. Much as though there is a political dimension (Catalan-Spanish relations) to the decision, it is also implausible to suggest that the ban is purely a political snub to Spain.

The cultural aspect is fundamental to the debate as to the future of the bullfight; Sabina is not wrong in this regard. Spanish culture is spectacularly at variance with others in its disregard for what might be considered the norm. As there is only a nodding acquaintance with health and safety when it comes to certain traditions, so there is often a thumbing of the nose to animal welfare. But local culture can appear to practise double standards. Compared with the harmless duck tossing of Can Picafort (banned), the bullfight is, in the view of many, cruel and obscene. The ducks are a soft target though and do not have a cultural symbolism or power.

Yet to what extent should this culture be neutered? Do we wish to see Spain go further in becoming somehow homogenized within a set of standards which, while not determined by a European authority, smack of pandering to sensibilities in other European countries? The ban was of course inspired not by outside opinion or law but by Spanish (Catalonian) citizens, and many of the changes that Spain has undergone over the past decade and especially just recently are in line with a liberal morality in most of Europe - gay marriage, easier divorce and abortion; all of them arrived at by shifting mores in the country. The Spanish have become "good" Europeans in this respect, and should be applauded for having done so. The Catalonians, who crave independence within the European Union, have, through the ban, made a political statement in proclaiming their greater "European-ness", even if they demonstrate hypocrisy by allowing other bull "traditions" to persist. For the rest of Spain, the question it has to address is how it can reconcile increased social liberalism with seemingly archaic manifestations of culture, of which the bullfight is the most obvious.

I have no wish to see the culture neutered. Nor do many Spaniards. And nor do many from other countries. But this is precisely what has been happening, and, for the most part, we have been happy to stand and clap. The bullfight remains a vestige of an old Spain. The argument as to its continuance is one about the heart and soul of the country. The bullfight is repugnant. But ban it and what would Spain lose?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.