Is bullfighting of 'special cultural value'?

by Neil Thomas
March 11th, 2010

My mother-in-law (yes, you are right, there is a mini-laugh coming at her expense) is about as good at languages as I am. Actually, of course, she is much worse than I am, but I was trying to be polite.

When she bought a house in Spain, she decided to try and learn some Spanish. Fair enough and I wish more would do just that. Actually, she was made to try and learn Spanish by father-in-law who would even take her supermarket shopping after their joint lessons and only let her put into the trolley the foodstuffs for which she could supply the Spanish name. This learn-as-you-go trial was inevitably abandoned as the danger of chronic starvation became apparent.

Father-in-law swotted his way into the fast-track class and so lost touch with mother-in-law’s progress in speaking Spanish. This was perhaps why, on their first visit to their new house (on one of the first – and at that time discrete – developments near Estepona), when he spotted the gardener walking towards them, he invited mother-in-law to say ‘hello’ to him, urging her to do so in her best Spanish. She rose to the challenge and spontaneously shouted out a friendly “Olé!!”

Father-in-law dragged her away muttering “‘Hola’, you should have said ‘Hola’!”

The point of this anecdote is that if a word that is especially associated with bullfighting is embedded in the psyche of mother-in-laws, then surely it demonstrates that bullfighting is a culturally emblematic sport of Spain.

It is, therefore, no surprise to hear that attempts to ban bullfighting (which are being debated in Barcelona) have provoked a response from Madrid. Clearly, to Spain’s capital city such attempts are, dare I say it, a red rag to a bull and the official response has been to give bullfighting protected art form status. The conservative regional government has announced that the bullfight is to be included on the list of items of ‘special cultural value’. This gives tax breaks to fight organisers and establishes the right to take action against protestors who ‘damage’ the region’s cultural patrimony.

So, what seems to be happening is that the Catalonians have entered the cultural ‘corrida‘ to fight the bull of cultural tradition – to take it by the horns – liberally waving capes of animal welfare in its face and generally maddening it, increasing its anger so that it makes a stand. The debate will be as much of a spectacle as a bullfight itself. Which side will triumph in the end? One thing is for certain, the bull is fighting back and it will not be a clean kill, even if the ‘matador’ wins, which at the moment seems less than certain, and winning the ear of the ‘bull’ itself even less so.