Barcelona Bans Bullfighting

Ironically, no one did more to romanticize the barbaric sport of bullfighting than American writer Ernest Hemmingway did with the publication of his non-fiction book, Death in the Afternoon. After all, even though it has a longstanding tradition in Latin America, Portugal, France, and Spain, bullfighting has always been every bit as morally repugnant as dogfighting in Hemingway’s own country, the United States.

But to read this book, one would think that developing an appreciation for the death-defying “magnificence of bullfighting” is every bit as important as developing an appreciation for the life-affirming experience of good sex or good food.  And if you doubt my reading, here’s how Hemingway rationalized his blood lust for this bestial ritual:

Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and the degree of brilliance in the execution is left in honor of the fighter… About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Well, it seems that Catalonia has finally decided that there’s no national pride in having its capital city of Barcelona be known as much for bullfighting as for the Sagrada Familia, the neo-gothic cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi. For the parliament in this “autonomous community” of Spain voted this week to ban bullfighting.

The enlightened view that bullfighting is irredeemably “cruel” prevailed over the traditional view that it is an essential feature of Spain’s national heritage and enduring character. Now latter-day guardians of this animal sacrifice fear that the moral indignation inherent in the Catalan ban will inspire other places where bullfighting is still practiced to … see the light.

Hope springs eternal. Indeed, it is instructive to note that Britain banned foxhunting even though hunt-loving aristocrats insisted that it was as essential to their way of life as tea and scones.  And pay no mind to all of the talk about this foxhunting ban being repealed; because the Liberals in Britain’s new Tory-Lib Dem coalition government would not stand for it.  But I digress….

The ban on bullfighting in Barcelona will take effect in January 2012. 

Olé !