Bullfighting and torture. Cartoon of 05/05/2024 in CTXT
Translation of the cartoon: The Ministry of Culture abolishes the National Bullfighting Prize. "Well, torture will not be rewarded, but neither will it be punished".
Culture abolished the National Bullfighting Award, this prize for torture will no longer be awarded or convened for its 2024 edition. This award, promoted by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2011, had been awarded since 2014 and was endowed with 30,000 eurazos.
It is argued that "the social majority is against animal abuse" and the abolition is due to a "new social and cultural reality" and the increase of "concern for animal welfare". This is a reality. Even the most fanatical bullfighting fans can no longer hide the fact that the support of the public for bullfighting has collapsed over the last few decades and it is no longer understood that this activity revolves around the mistreatment of animals.
"Attendance at bullfighting events is, according to data for the period 2021-2022, only 1.9% of the population".
This should no longer surprise anyone, as the Ministry recalls that in 2023 it was decided not to award any Medal of Fine Arts to "anyone linked to the bullfighting sector".
Despite the anger and the usual reactions of the most fanatical bullfighting fanatics that their bloody activity is being persecuted, the only thing the government is going to do is to withdraw a medal. The PSOE has always been very lukewarm and cowardly, if not complacent, about ending the slaughter of bulls as a leisure and entertainment activity, which some have insisted that it was "the national fiesta".
Thus, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun Urtasun, has replied to the Autonomous Communities that have already announced that they will establish their own bullfighting awards:"If in 2024 they want to award an activity that generates animal torture, they are free".
Meanwhile, the PP say that they will recover the prize when they govern, as long as Feijóo wants to govern, of course, and other aspiring intellectuals quote different famous people who praised the killing of bulls in a public act as if that were a weighty argument to maintain it and above all demand that money be pumped into it from the public purse.
The winner of the cynic of the year award is the obtuse de Almeida, who uses Federico García Lorca, shot in August 1936 by Franco's regime, in his defence of who knows what. Franco's ministers would end up founding the party from which the Partido Popular would later be born, the black joke tells itself.
