“A lot of people come to Dénia, a coastal city in Alicante, on vacation. Many German, English, French people also live here, many Ecuadorian, Colombian, Moroccan, Indian people, there are many cultures and many nationalities,” says Laura, from Dénia Animal Save. “And bullfighting is no longer popular, the vast majority reject it, both tourists and temporary residents. Why allocate public budget for that, instead of investing in much more important things, in everything that is to benefit, for good, such as medicine, student scholarships, actions for people without resources, soup kitchens, aid for animal shelters, which would need more significant investments than what they receive?”
“People of other nationalities think this is bullshit, it’s not done anywhere,” says Lisa, a young German woman. “We Germans, English or Swiss don’t like to come. We like to see the bulls and cows in their habitat,” he emphasizes. “Not so many people go from here either, nor to the sea Not even the bulls, and people from outside believe that it is mistreatment.” If young people from other countries participate “it’s just to be crazy, they’re drunk.” What kind of conniving scheme empowers people to give away public money for such aberrant violence? Patriotic soflams and rallying oratories try to maintain the stale and brutalizing bullfighting that, in parallel to the budgetary pocket, feeds sexist fantasies that could well fit into what is defined by the American writer Peter Trachtenberg: “An incomplete, cruel but not creative facsimile of masculinity , powerful but not truly powerful.” Is there some non-explicit contract between the so-called Spanish Transition and these cruel activities? “Whoever doesn’t like it shouldn’t go,” they summarize from official bodies. “Those animals live better than us,” they say. “It is tradition and these must be respected,” they rule.
Álvaro, also from Dénia Animal Save, corroborates that, “for the most part, foreign people do not support celebrations with animals, many people from other countries who live in Spain join the demonstrations showing their rejection.” It is citizenship that does not understand “how everyone’s money can be used to mistreat animals.” Most are unaware that their taxes as residents are used for that, “and when you tell them, they are stunned.”
In Dénia, as in the rest of Spain, signatures are being collected for the ILP (Popular Legislative Initiative) ‘It’s Not My Culture’ -with a deadline until November-, in order to repeal the law that declares bullfighting as cultural heritage. “Unfortunately, people of other nationalities cannot sign because they do not have a DNI (National Identity Document), they have a NIE (Foreign Identity Number), which frustrates them and worries them because they pay their taxes, are residents, have properties , but since they do not have the official Spanish document, they are not involved, I know many people who would like to sign,” reveals Julia, a member of the feminist collective and collaborator at the Animal Protection Agency. “We are carrying out a great activism with the signatures, taking advantage of each show, I have collected a lot,” he explains.
Dénia has “a large percentage of foreign population, which is against bullfighting. Together with Dénia Animal Save, we have intervened in the plenary session of the City Council, as there was a proposal by the PP and Vox to revitalize and strengthen the bous to the sea. This show must end. He is a caveman. It’s anachronistic. It must end not only because of the damage that is caused to an innocent animal, but also because of what remains of us, of humans, of our species, by participating and having fun with such atrocities,” Julia concludes.
For his part, Diego Nevado, spokesperson for said animal association, points out that “PSOE and Compromís voted against; Perhaps Compromís is more for the work than the PSOE. Publicly, they have recognized that just by reducing it they have saved ten thousand euros for the neighborhood. They say that they reduced it by half due to the Animal Welfare Law, but the truth is that it was after the distressing death of a bull, which occurred again this year in Jávea and which, as they acknowledge, caused serious damage to their image at the level international. At the moment, I don’t think it will go back in this legislature.”
The writer Antonio Gala questioned the illusory supremacy of human beings over the rest of the planet’s inhabitants, a species, he wrote, that “is distracted by slaughtering geese or roosters in spooky celebrations; he runs calves or bulls without art and without respect; “He kills for the sake of killing, without hunger serving as an excuse.” And thus, naturalizing horror, violence is instilled. Nevado remembers that last July, at an anti-bullfighting rally held in Valencia, “tourists said that they could not understand how these events continue to be held.” Julia comments that the municipalities “propose that there be veterinarians present in the bous to the seato try to whitewash a little the mistreatment that is carried out.”
Why don’t drownings and heart attacks in cattle cause outrage? “Unfortunately, since you don’t see blood, you don’t see abuse, it’s seen as simple fun in which the bull doesn’t die; and they do die.” Laura alleges, with hope, “that people are evolving and want something different, a party where everyone can participate and no type of violence is practiced with animals. The majority of the people of Dénia see it as absurd, boring, and no longer see the fun in everything that involves the participation of a cow or a bull. It does no good to feel powerful in front of a cornered, defenseless and shocked animal, at forty degrees in the shade, an animal that has been there for more than an hour, before going out to the square or to the parade, or to the entrance of bousin a metal box, which is like being inside a pot over a lit fire and, when they come out of there, they are shocked so that they stampede and it seems that they are brave bulls, when in reality they are heifers and young bulls. That public money allocated to bullfighting “is no use other than for four machirulos to believe that they are gods.”
Deaths of bystanders and participants, injuries and concussions do not seem to be sufficient reason to prohibit such sadistic activities, in which “the animal tries to defend itself by any means possible and its only weapon is its antlers; Unfortunately, there are many people who die, animals too, not to mention the injuries that are caused to the nose when trying to escape through places they cannot, they get caught on their horns, there are bent legs, falls and, of course, drowning. The aforementioned Antonio Gala would confess: “I am always shocked by man’s indifference to the torments he causes in animals; It is only comparable to his indifference to the torments of his fellow men when they are not before his eyes.”
#Stop #bous #mar #Dénia
