First.
I don't know anything about bulls.
Yes I am a country girl.
My childhood is in the marshes of Entre Ríos, Argentina.
I grew up among capybaras, horses and bulls.
Of course, meek.
At dawn he would go out with the gauchos - the wise Don Pelele - to move the cattle from one pasture to another: three hours out on horseback;
three back.
I have branded calves on fire
.
And I've even cut criadillas with facón.
Be careful, Iglesias!
But except for a beast of the zebu breed, which my father baptized
Adolfo
for his incredible ferocity, I hardly know the world of the brave bull.
The proof of my radical ignorance is that when the maestro
Morante from La Puebla
gave me a bull, on October 12 in Córdoba, I didn't know what to do.
I remained standing, looking first at the sand and then at the stretched out, spellbound, prey to my clumsiness and my emotion.
Morante, as Rubén says in this book - as beautifully written as it
is
edited -
is the best aesthetic expression of contemporary bullfighting
: Apolo y Dionisio.
The second reason I do not deserve this honor is that I am a politician.
And this book is a plea against the stupid and toxic politicization of the bulls.
The one that led Catalan nationalism
- a category in which I include the PSC, of course - to commit the misdeed of banning bullfighting in Catalonia and instead protect, claim and finance the
correbous
.
The third reason is that I am on the right.
Well, I would say radical center, but go: right-wing.
Another of the misunderstandings that Rubén Amón, in
El fin de la fiesta
(Debate) strives to undo.
The idea that bulls are the bloody diversion of the gentlemen, the posh and the marquesas
.
And, on the other hand, the protection of animals -and ecology-, the heritage of the people and of the enlightened and good-hearted people.
That is to say, from the left.
There is much talk now about the cultural battle.
It is the fashionable phrase and as such is lending itself to abuse and misrepresentation
.
This book, however, brings it back to its deep and exact meaning.
Not because bulls can legitimately be considered Culture, which they are, but because the test itself faces a certain vision of the individual and of society.
A
colorless, odorless, insipid, uniform
society
that abjures the rite, the liturgy and extreme creative manifestations
, writes Rubén.
A society in a water bath, I would add, in which individuals vegetate without apparent frights or tribulations;
overprotected, uniformed, leveled, overcrowded.
Porridge in perpetuity.
I'm going to tell you an anecdote.
A few years ago I interviewed Nicolás
Sarkozy
, who then aspired to regain the presidency of the Republic.
To do this he had to slow down
Marine Le Pen's
advance
and had written a book full of emphatic appeals to the identity of France, the greatness of France, and even the soul of France.
It is difficult enough to decipher the soul of a person to distinguish the soul of a nation ...
I asked him about this point and, somewhat irritated, he replied: "You also have an identity!"
"Me?"
But I am what tango calls
"a rare mix
.
"
A book mongrel.
But he insisted: "Yes, yes. And also - he reproached me - there is a collective identity. When I see my Spanish friends I see a collective Spanish identity."
Intrigued, amused, I asked her: "And that Spanish identity ... what exactly does it consist of?"
Without thinking twice he replied: "It is an identity fascinated by bullfighting, in which the omnipresence of death, of drama, stands out.
It has nothing to do with the French identity."
I repeat it slowly: "... A Spanish identity fascinated by bullfighting, in which the omnipresence of death and drama stands out.
Nothing to do with the French ...
"
I simply replied: "Well, in France there are bulls and in Catalonia they are forbidden."
From there the interview turned into a discussion about the presumed cultural identity of Catalonia.
Sarkozy even told me that the identity of nations never changes.
And finally.
We had our discrepancies.
"The bulls are Spain"
The bulls are Spain, without a doubt
.
Part of the triad "sun, sex and party" -the latter in its two meanings- that so scandalizes and fascinates the Anglo-Saxons.
But bulls are something more than Spain
.
They are the Mediterranean.
They are also Latin America: the great
King Rock
.
They are France, of course.
In the only photo I have of my paternal grandparents they appear together and smiling in the Nîmes bullring.
She, a modern Frenchwoman from Marseille.
He, a ruined aristocrat from Spanish Naples.
Those happy 20s.
And, of course, the bulls are also Catalonia.
As a deputy for Barcelona I conjure myself so that one day they will return
.
In my first political stage, I was assigned a seat in a corner of the Parliamentary Group together with Esquerra República de Cataluña.
My neighbor was
Joan Tardà
.
One afternoon, as the session languished, I found him engrossed, reading a book.
I looked at his cover:
Juan Belmonte, matador de toros
.
Surprised, I asked him: "Hey, Joan: how is it possible that you read this marvel that brings together Belmonte and Chaves Nogales, the Spanish teacher and the symbol of the Third Spain, and then from the rostrum promote the destruction of all that one and other mean? "
"Good book,"
he replied without raising his head.
These anecdotes serve to illustrate how deeply rooted the identity topic is in the collective imagination.
To what extent the association between bullfighting and identity is problematic
.
And above all how difficult it is to oppose abolitionism with an alternative intellectual corpus.
That is the enormous value of
The End of the Party
.
A smart essay.
Elegant.
Cartesianly conceived and structured.
A combat manual.
Rubén Amón offers bullfighting a rational, thorough, comprehensive and effective defense
.
An arsenal of arguments that qualifies and goes far beyond the identity framework.
"An eminently hypocritical society"
And now, if you will allow me, I want to highlight four ideas from the book.
The first is the claim of
adult citizenship
.
The bulls are a spectacle for adults.
Not in the literal sense, of course.
But yes metaphorical.
To begin with, there is death.
And this is explained especially well by Rubén
.
Death is the great outlaw of contemporary society.
Well, more than death itself, the vision of death.
Ours is an eminently hypocritical society.
We accept death, what a remedy, but as long as we don't see it.
It is enough to remember -and Rubén does- the scandal that caused the publication on the cover of EL MUNDO of a photo of the Ice Palace, with hundreds of coffins lined up.
Corpses of the coronavirus.
There is only one thing we endure worse than the display of human death:
the display of animal death
.
We don't go through there.
Poor dog
Excalibur's
sedation
during the Ebola crisis sparked a popular uprising.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, 100,000 men and women have died in Spain, many of them in the most horrible loneliness.
We have the biggest excess of death in Europe.
And on the other hand, this scandal - this is indeed a scandal - has not provoked a single protest
, demonstration, march, or concentration.
Nothing.
Not to mention the Twitter revelry that followed the deaths of bullfighters
Iván Fandiño
and
Víctor Barrio
.
That already falls within the most radical inhumanity, if not directly anti-humanism.
Ours is a Disney society.
And the bulls challenge it.
They challenge her.
Also in another sense, even more demanding.
The honest hobbyist assumes the eminently adult premise that not everything in life is mohair and cellophane.
Not everything is good, pretty and cheap
.
Not even moral.
To be an adult is to understand that the human soul has dark areas.
That we have atavistic, irrational drives that we have learned to master.
Although it is at the right limit and sublimated by art, ritual and beauty.
There are the bulls.
Right to offend
Of course bulls can be offensive.
But in the face of a domesticated and falsely moralizing,
sanctimonious
society
, I claim my right to offend and to be offended.
The second important issue that this book addresses is the role of the hero in society.
Rubén masterfully analyzes the trivialization of the hero in contemporary societies
and contrasts it with the bullfighter who risks not just prestige but life
.
I would go even further.
And here I am going to commit a sin in the eyes of our author.
The end of the Festival
denounces the determination to ideologically label bullfighting.
But I am going to say it: the bulls are neither of the right nor of the left, of course.
But they do have a lot of liberals.
In the purest, less infected - less political! - sense of the word.
The bullfighter is the self-made individual.
Those boys I saw sitting on the wall of the Nuñez Cervera tentadero in Tarifa, a moving mixture of ambition and humility.
The bullfighter is the individual from below.
Literally.
Rubén explains it: in front of the man on horseback -the knight-, the man on foot -the bullfighter-.
And something else.
Surely you remember the famous fragment of the speech that
Theodore Roosevelt
delivered at the Sorbonne, April 23, 1910, under the title
Citizenship in a Republic
.
Says so:
"It is not the critic who counts, the one who points to the strong man when he stumbles or who tells the doer of things how he could have done them better.
The credit goes to the man in the sand, whose face is covered in dust and sweat and blood
, who fights bravely, who is wrong, who fails again and again because there is no effort without a setback, but who strives to achieve his goals, who knows great enthusiasm, great devotions, who wears himself out in a worthy cause; that at best he savors the triumph of great successes, and at worst, if he fails, at least he does so by risking with greatness, so that his place will never be among those cowardly and cold souls who do not even know victory. nor defeat ".
The bullfighter is the man in the arena.
In a straight sense, but also in a metaphorical, political sense, as Savater would say.
He is the man who does not limit himself to criticizing from the sidelines or hides in the mockery, but who personally assumes the risk and responsibility.
The one who does not look for shortcuts or other culprits or the overprotection of anyone
.
The one who exhibits immeasurable courage.
Before the most demanding public.
Against a noble rival, at his height.
In the shadow of death itself.
In this time of imposture, calculation and cowardice, in this time of victimism and skin-deep susceptibilities,
the figure of the bullfighter emerges as something more than a hero: a civic example
, an exemplary citizen.
The third issue that Rubén addresses with particular effectiveness is the absurd contrast between bullfighting and ecology.
I have laughed, not to cry, with his account of the new movement that seeks to prohibit non-inclusive language when it affects animals.
Expressions such as: "we get bored like oysters", "kill two birds with one stone", "crazy as a goat" and "catch the bull by the horns" are outlawed, as denigrating.
The latter was used by Rajoy at least twice a week
.
The word "pets" may not be used either.
From now on they will be our "companions".
Or, perhaps better, our "comrades".
And to see how long they take to demand that we apologize retrospectively to the animals for the historical abuse we have inflicted on them.
All those bison dragged into the cave.
And who will be the first world leader to get on their knees?
And, by the way, I am looking forward to being explained what obligations the animals are going to have in just correspondence with their rights.
It is already known: there are no rights without obligations
.
As a comrade of several dogs and a cat, it is a matter that interests me greatly.
Rubén says that there is no truly environmentalist party in Spain, unadulterated by radical animalism.
Is right.
I encourage the PP to be that party.
Able to understand and explain that bulls combine, in an unusual and truthful way, conservation with transgression.
Being able to be conservative and transgressive at the same time!
What an opportunity.
The value of transgression ...
Perhaps it is the most important thing that Rubén has written, even if it is quoting my former parliamentary adversary
,
Carmen Calvo
.
Although, on second thought, Calvo and I could talk about this over coffee.
"Communism or Freedom", they say - we say - now.
Well, in the bulls it was possible to say "Communism and freedom."
It is not necessary to mention the bullfighting communists.
There were so many.
And big.
Universal.
The Festival adds up and unites because it is an area of freedom
.
Escape the tutelary ambition of bureaucrats and despots.
It demands respect for the freedom of others and also an unwavering commitment to one's own.
A willingness to bear the cost of heterodoxy.
That cost is high and bravery is rare.
Our society is accommodating, gregarious and submissive.
The water bath.
And yet I am not pessimistic.
First, because pessimism is rude, as
Rosa Belmonte
has said
.
The Apocalypse is another form of utopia.
But there are also objective reasons for optimism.
Like the one Rubén displays at the end of the book.
It is not a childish optimism, but a combative one.
Of the citizen who stands up.
That he does not give up and that, beware, he does not compromise either.
Better the prohibition of bulls than a transaction regarding death
, which would be a deferred death.
Not that of a bull, but that of the bull.
Abolition would also have another advantage over starvation.
And it is that after her would come the clandestinity.
And secrecy, as Amon points out in one of his last paragraphs, an intelligent and good-humored paragraph, is an enormously attractive idea.
Exciting, I would say
.
We would pass to the Resistance, the fate and fate of free men.
If that happened, this layman, this profane raised among tame cows, would happily offer herself as the last pawn of the gang.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
Bulls
culture
In BucleMorante, against silence and for Seville: "You have to press"
Loose end Baudelaire
In loopTauroemoción registers a letter with all the professional associations to give bulls in Leganés: "Alberto, forget about it until after the elections"
See links of interest
Holidays 2021
Spain - Greece, live