The Last Bull In Barcelona

On Sunday evening the last bull in Barcelona, the last bull in Catalonia, will meet its maker, skewered on the matador's sword of truth. The final red cape will come down on bullfighting in Catalonia and on the bullring, the Monumental, bringing to an end almost one hundred years of the "corrida" in the arena. On 1 January next year the Catalonian ban on bullfighting comes into effect. The bull is dead; long live the bull.

The ban, a largely political manoeuvre of anti-Spanishness dressed up behind the cloak of animal rights, will be only the second such prohibition in Spain. Others may follow, and if they were to, they would genuinely be in the name of animal rights. Driven by popular petition, to which the Catalonian parliament was not obliged to accede, the ban is colossally hypocritical; the bull-runs (the "correbous"), which are a Catalan tradition, are unaffected, while the bullfight, never a particularly strong tradition in Catalonia and far more associated with "Spain", will be no more.

Or will it be no more? The politics of the bullfight are far more complex than the process that brought about the Catalonia ban, a process that allows for possible changes to laws on the basis of petitions (the so-called popular legislative initiatives). The national elections are looming, and Catalonia could yet find itself back to square one, and the bull, who might have looked forward to a long and happy life, could yet find itself back in the circle of the arena.

The national government has more or less abrogated any responsibility for decision-making regarding the bullfight. Despite it having effected a transfer of administrative oversight from the interior ministry to the culture ministry, and having also accepted that the bullfight is of cultural importance, it is left to regional governments to arbitrate on the bullfight's future, if they so wish.

However, the Partido Popular, set to win the elections in November and generally in favour of the bullfight (or at least not particularly against it), may choose to challenge the right of the regions to decide. Catalonian PP members, of which there are indeed some, suggest that a constitutional court could decree that the regions don't have the competency to decide. An opposite view is that the national constitutional court could not overturn Catalonian legislation.

The PP, justified in arguing that the ban lacks coherence given the non-ban on bull-runs, could make the bullfight an electoral issue, but it would be one of even greater irrelevance than fox-hunting was when Tony Blair was brandishing his animal-rights credentials; Spain has matters of far greater importance to worry about than bullfighting and than Labour had to.

It would be a political mistake in any event. Though support for the bullfight might play well in some parts of Spain, the Spanish no longer much care for the bullfight; overwhelmingly so, to the tune of about two to one. Moreover, the economics of bullfighting, for which there are conflicting views as to how much it contributes to national or local coffers, are such that it isn't cheap to stage. Allied to the costs of bullfighting, there is the fact that the number of events has slumped dramatically - by over a third between 2007 and 2010.

Geographical variance in terms of popular support or rejection of bullfighting tends to bolster the current situation of allowing the regions to decide as to its future. Catalonia is a special case, as it always is a special case, but the ban there does nevertheless reflect an indifference towards bullfighting.

In Mallorca, where politicians at the time of the announcement of the Catalonia ban were divided as to whether they would support or not a similar move in the Balearics, the indifference is of a different order. Protests against bullfights and indeed against the island's only correbou (that of Fornalutx, one that is not as disturbing as those in Catalonia where flames come from the end of the bulls' horns) are token. Indeed the Fornalutx correbou protest this year, shunted off into a sports arena and ignored by the locals at the request of the mayor, was a PR fiasco.

For many, the Catalonia ban looked as though it might spell the end of the bullfight in Spain as a whole. It was never likely to because of the peculiarities of Catalonian politics; from November it will be even less likely.

The bull is dead. Long live the bull? Maybe not, and in Catalonia maybe not. The sword of truth may stay only briefly in its sheath, to return one day to the Monumental.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.