A beast of a debate...

This Tuesday (5^th July) marked the beginning of one of Spain’s major summer festivals –the world famous Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.

The bull running festival, with origins that go back around 700 years, is a cultural institution across Latin America, Spain, Portugal and even parts of southern France. But growing movements in animal rights in Spain over recent years, as well as a ban on bullfighting in the northern region of Catalonia, is threatening to derail the tradition that sees around a million people flock into Pamplona (general population just 200,000) every year.

The bull running, known in Spain as San Fermin Festival, is held in the northern town every year. The seven day event begins on the 6^th of July with the launch of a ‘chupinazo’ rocket, and the first race takes place at 8am on the morning of the 7^th. Six bulls and six oxen are released into the narrow streets, and thousands of festival goers pursue them towards the bullring, where a fight will then take place, culminating in the bull’s death from a single sword thrust. Races and fights then take place every morning at the same time until the 14^th.

San Fermin is the most popular bull running event in Spain, with tickets for bullfighting in the town’s 12,500 seat arena selling out months in advance.

The tradition appears to be losing popularity with locals, however –the Canary Islands made it illegal as far back as 1991, and Catalonia’s ban on bullfighting will come into place in January 2012. Barcelona, the Catalonian capital, declared that it was an anti-bullfighting city in 2004. A 2002 poll showed that 68.8% of Spaniards surveyed had no interest in bullfighting at all.

Latin American is also falling out of love with one of its oldest traditions. In 2006 the city of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico cancelled its festival for good, and the practice has been outlawed in Cuba and Argentina.

The waning popularity of bullfighting has been capitalized on in recent years, with growing resistance from animal protection charities. Detractors call it a ‘blood sport’, and say it has no place in modern society –a claim that supporters deny. They say that because no competition is involved, there is no way the fighting can be called a sport –it is, in fact, art.

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Those against the tradition cite dangers to those taking part as one of their main arguments. Although only the experienced are supposed to take part in the running, it is often the case that tourists find themselves running alongside 700KG bulls –leading, predictably, to injury. The amount of alcohol that is often consumed adds to the risk posed to everyone. In August 2010, 40 spectators at a bullfight were injured when an aggravated bull jumped into the crowd in the town of Tafalla, just outside Pamplona.

Supporters argue that the danger to humans is overexaggerated, since only professionally trained fighters are allowed in the bullring –and only fifteen people have been killed in Pamplona’s race since 1924. In the same amount of time, between 200 and 300 people have been superficially injured –although these injuries are said to mostly consist of trips as the competitors run through Pamplona’s narrows streets.   

Protests against bull running and fighting are becoming more and more frequent, with estimates saying that 40,000 bulls are killed every year in Spain alone.

Since 2002, a rival event to the Running of the Bulls has taken place. The Running of the Nudes, where hundreds of naked or semi-naked protestors take to Pamplona’s streets to run the same route as the bulls, happens two days before the traditional festival begins. The Running of the Nudes is supported by a wealth of animal charities, including PETA, and numbers of runners are growing year on year –starting with 25 runners in 2002, the event peaked in 2006 with approximately 1000 attending.

The ‘nude’ aspect is designed to highlight ‘the naked truth’ –that the event is cruel and should be banned. Often protestors don red scarves and plastic horns during their run through the town, and brandish banners that declare ‘Bulls die bloody death in Pamplona’ and ‘The naked truth: Bullfighting is cruel.’

Supporters of bull running and fighting cite history and preservation of their culture as their main justification. Bullfighting was presented in a positive light in Ernest Hemingway’s 1924 novel Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises –the novel that brought the tradition into the British and US consciousness. Bullfighting is depicted as an art by traditionalists –Goya, Picasso and Orson Welles and countless others have discussed it favourably.

Foreigners living in Spain are often also swayed towards bullfighting as being the epitome of the country’s culture: ‘I'm honestly completely fine with bullfighting,’ says Kathryn Shaw, a student from Lancaster University who has spent the past year living and working in Madrid. ‘It’s a tradition and I respect traditions. I’ve been to one full one bullfight and that was enough for me, but I don’t' mind that they are still happening.’

Organisers of the Running of the Nudes believe that history is no longer enough to justify the continuation of the practice: ‘People have always tried to use tradition to justify horrible things, such as child labour and slavery,’ their website states. ‘But tradition doesn’t make something right. Bullfighting is a cruel blood sport that should have been relegated to the history books a long time ago.’

Catalonia’s imminent ban has been accused of being a political decision by some. It is well known that the region has a nationalist agenda, a legacy from the days of Franco, setting them apart from the rest of mainland Spain –although that this is the reason for Catalonia’s rejection of this particular part of Spanish culture is vehemently denied by Catalonians.

Economic considerations are possibly of most importance to those in support of bullfighting. With hotels filling up months in advance of San Fermin and revenues from bars, restaurants and shops sky-rocketing during the event, it would be difficult to find a replacement for this very lucrative business. Added to the fact that the majority of those involved are now tourists, as well as the livelihoods of those involved, and loss of the profits made from bullfighting seems highly likely to damage Spain’s already floundering economy.

Alexander Fiske-Harrison, writer of ‘Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight’ is split on the issue of bullfighting, but believes a ban would impair Spaniards’ choice over their own history: ‘Whether or not the artistic quality of the bullfight outweighs the moral question of the animals’ suffering is something that each person must decide for themselves.’

Some commentators have voiced the opinion that there is no need for a ban on bullfighting, because of the growing lack of interest from Spanish and Latin American people in this piece of their cultural heritage. It appears in some quarters that the practice will soon die out of its own accord. But seeing photographs of the thousands of people flooding into Pamplona this week, it is clear that this most controversial of traditions is still as popular as ever in some quarters.