End looms for Barcelona bullfights

Bullfighting fans in Barcelona enjoyed a historic afternoon corrida last month.

The main draw for a 19,500 sell-out crowd in the Plaza Monumental, the brick-and-tile bullring of the Catalonian capital, was Jose Tomas Roman Martin, a 34-year-old described as the "messiah sent to revolutionise Spanish bullfighting" by the bullfighting critic of El Pais, Antonio Lorca.

That afternoon, Lorca wrote, Jose Tomas reached his apotheosis. But the report carried an undertone of melancholy.

Praising the bullfighter's grace, emotion and astonishing calm, Lorca lamented the possibility that base "politics" could put an end to such a spectacle once and for all in the Catalan capital.

The headline in El Mundo said it all, asking: "End of the line for bullfighting in Barcelona?" The answer to the question may be known before Christmas.

And it may well be "yes", if an imminent vote in the parliament of Catalonia goes against the "aficionados".

Campaigners have raised 180,000 signatures for a petition calling for a ban.

One conservative national party has come out against the ban, but major leftwing and green local parties have declared their support.

The deciders will be Catalan nationalists and Socialists. But some observers say the row is less about animal rights than Catalan identity.

"There is an element of animal rights but it is mainly about Catalans wanting to leave behind the Spain that is mystical, dark, bloody, Catholic," said British writer and broadcaster Robert Elms.

"Barcelona is becoming a bright, clean, cosmopolitan city, like so many others in Europe. It has lost its mystique."

The city's only other bullring, Las Arenas, is being turned into a leisure and shopping centre.

There has long been a strong anti-bullfighting movement in Catalonia.

But the charge that the anti-bullfighting camp is motivated by identity politics has infuriated many.

A New York Times article on the row quoted Paco March, bullfighting correspondent of Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper, saying his 15-year-old daughter had been called a fascist by classmates because she had a picture of a "torero" stuck to a schoolbook.

"We want to be different from the rest of Spain by not killing bulls ... but we're just killing off our own culture," March said.

But supporters of the ban said many locals simply wanted "to eliminate a shameful practice that is considered repulsive by a large number of Europeans".

In 2004, campaigners declared Barcelona "an anti-bullfighting city". More than 20 Catalan towns followed its example. Animal rights groups claim polls show more than 60 per cent of the city's residents want to see bullfighting end.

Elsewhere in Spain, although crowds still fill stadiums, sometimes paying €100 ($200) or more to touts for seats, bullfighting has undoubtedly lost popularity.

But no one is talking about a nationwide ban. Many attempts have been made to end bullfighting, none very successful.

In 1567, Pope Pius V decreed that torturing bulls for amusement wass "contrary to Christian duty and piety", and ordered an immediate halt to it. A public outcry forced his successor to repeal the decision.

ERAS OF BATTLE

1133 - The first corrida takes place in Logrono at the coronation of Alfonso VIII.

1567 - Pope Pius V tries to ban the sport.

1700 - King Felipe V bars the aristocracy from taking part, but bullfighting, on foot, gains popularity with the peasantry.

1726 - Spain's first professional bullfighter, Francisco Romero, from Andalucia, introduces the estoque (sword) and muleta (crimson cape).

1785 - The first purpose-built bullring is inaugurated in Ronda with a display by Romero's grandson Pedro.

1932 - Ernest Hemingway dedicates Death in the Afternoon to the Ordonez family of matadors.

- OBSERVER