Bullfighting: the beginning of the end

Catalunia votes to ban one of the most barbaric 'events' in Europe.

It looks like the UK press just twigged it, but two weeks ago the Catalan Parliament voted to begin the legislative process that will totally ban bullfighting from the autonomous Spanish region.

With 67 votes in favour (including the separatist Catalan left, the Greens and most socialists), against 59 (the conservative Partido Popular and some socialists), the Catalan parliament endorsed "Prou", a recent petition calling for the traditional Spanish 'corrida de toros' to be outlawed - on the basis that "a subsidized, legal and public event wherein animals are tortured and killed is unacceptable in the 21st century".

One of the most shameful aspects of Spanish politics is the fact that, in 2008 alone, 600m Euros of public money were granted in support of the bullfighting industry.

Though opinion polls suggest that bullfighting is frowned upon by over 72% of the Spanish population, Catalunia is the region where opposition to the 'event' is overwhelming.

This spurred extra controversy from Spanish nationalists accusing the Catalans of closing in on bullfighting as another means to the end of separatism. And yet in the last twenty years hundreds of town councils across the whole of Spain and the Canary Islands have declared themselves 'bullfighting-free zones'.

Those supporting bullfighting generally cling on to:

1- Some unspecified notion of "tradition", a point that glosses over the endless list of obnoxious activities that have been upheld throughout history in the name of tradition, from public flagellations and corporal punishment through patriarchal social orders or arranged marriages.

2- The fact that a huge number of animals are killed anyway by the meat industry, as if two wrongs automatically made a right.

3- The myth that before the 'fight', bulls are well-fed and especially farmed. Which means that if Jewish prisoners during WWII had been fed haute cuisine and hosted in quality hotels instead of concentration camps, the Nazi gas chambers would have earned legitimacy.

Supporters also generally ignore the fact that a bull is never killed in one go, and it can take ages until its body is weakened and finally stabbed through the heart.

Traditionally, the event was presented to the public as a contest between the brave matador, who boldly risks life and limb to tackle a mad and ferocious beast.

The reality is somewhat different. Bulls, who are not aggressive animals, are kept in dark rooms and deprived of water and food for days in the run-up to the massacre. The idea is to stress them out and make them 'angrier'. Just before they're released in front of the toreador, they are attacked by men on horseback called picadores, whose task is to stab the animal with lances in order to render him less dangerous for the battle. In the process, it is not uncommon for the horses to end up severely injured by the pain-crazed bull.

In fact, what spectators see is not a normal, healthy bull, but a weakened, half-blinded and mentally destroyed version, whose chances of harming his tormentors is virtually nil.

It honours Catalunia that the country is moving away from such a bloody, barbaric, cruel and useless ritual. Unlike some glaze-eyed opponents suggest, the ban is not an act of "socialism" and "state interference", it's an act of humanity and progress instead.

It's evidence that we are finally moving away from a medieval society where, say, it was normal for prisoners to have their body torn apart, presumed witches to be burnt at the stake and men to routinely batter women in order to re-assert their masculinity.