Coughing Blood: The bullfight

AnimaNaturalis is not popular. Animal rightists, it offends traditional animal abusers, other animal-rights groups and a fair chunk of what you might think would comprise its natural support, the youth. Its modus operandi of strident agitprop and public protest, be it against the correbou, the circus or the bullfight has failed to garner significant popular support.

Last year AnimaNaturalis staged a protest in advance of the bull-run correbou in the village of Fornalutx. It was most revealing that to the fore among those hurling insults in its direction were the young.

A curious and ill-formed philosophy, if one can use such a word, exists among Mallorcan youth, especially that in more rural areas. Catalanist, Luddite in a hankering for a return to the values of the land and in rejecting mass tourism, politically right-on in being eco-conscious, it is also largely politically incorrect in respect of animal welfare.

Whereas this youth philosophy coincides, to differing degrees, with the values of certain political parties and campaigning groups like the eco-warriors of GOB, it diverges on the matter of animals and animal tradition. It is cultural fundamentalism.

AnimaNaturalis is not popular because it poses difficult questions. In attacking traditions to do with animals, it also attacks an insularity of Mallorcan society by confronting it with issues that this society is ill-equipped to deal with; ill-equipped because a not untypical Mallorcan response to individual or collective attack is to adopt a haughty and petulant righteousness. Mallorcans are argumentative, but they are not great at argument or with dealing with confrontation.

The unpopularity of AnimaNaturalis extends to other animal rights groups who prefer, they say, greater diplomacy. A reason for these other groups distancing themselves from AnimaNaturalis in Fornalutx was that they believed their approach would have brought about greater concessions from the village mayor in amending the correbou. Instead, the mayor, though he did make some changes, was pushed into a corner in siding with those who lobbed the insults at AnimaNaturalis. Or so it was claimed.

There is another way of looking at this. AnimaNaturalis is not passive. As much as fierce defence, passivity is what symbolises attitudes towards animal rights and most obviously the bullfight. It was once explained to me that there would be greater public displays of protest against the bullfight were it not for the fact that people do not wish to be seen or cannot afford to be seen to be protesting. This is cultural fundamentalism of a different order; it is one with echoes of a style of Mallorcan feudalism, the passing of which was only relatively recent and which thus remains within society’s consciousness as well as within some of its current-day mores.

Though opinion polling has shown that the popularity of the bullfight has declined in Spain as a whole, the lobby for its continuance is strong, as is the social dynamic which appears to neuter protest. In an uppity and liberal part of Spain such as Catalonia, the dynamic operates in reverse, so much so that legislation was driven by popular petition to ban the bullfight. Yet a Catalanist sympathy among some of Mallorca’s youth does not extend to what has been nuanced as the real reason for Catalonia’s bullfight ban – anti-Spanishness.

In Mallorca the numbers that have gathered to protest at the annual bullfights in Alcúdia, Muro and Inca have been small to the point of irrelevance. In Inca AnimaNaturalis couldn’t have anticipated what might actually prove to be a turning-point in both its fortunes and the whole bullfight debate in Mallorca.

One of the bulls was on the rampage. No matador was to be seen. The bull was unscathed, it was being taunted from the safety of the wooden barrier and the terraces. Until, that is, the promoter of the event took it upon himself to act as matador, thus, so it is claimed, breaking a regulation that only those listed, i.e. the matadors, can participate.

There is a video on You Tube which has gone not exactly viral but which shows what happened. I have been to the bullfight and I have witnessed similar scenes, but I had a sharp intake of breath when I saw the bull cough blood and stumble having been struck with the sword by the promoter-matador. I am neither for nor against the bullfight, for the reason that it is not my argument, but this was sickening, and the power of the video might be to persuade those whose passivity has been the norm and those of a culturally fundamental bent to recognise that perhaps AnimaNaturalis has a point.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Theme For An Old Theme Park

Would you go to a theme park in Inca? Would you go to anything in Inca? The market brings in plenty of visitors, but it is a generally unlovely town, stuck in the centre of the island and filthy hot at the height of summer. Nevertheless, an old theme is to be revisited – that of a theme park.

This is the sort of thing that Mallorca could do with more of. Whether Inca would be the right location, or whether it would be the right sort of theme park; well, these are legitimate questions. The mayor of Inca is to make representations to a Danish company which had previously been interested in a theme park development on the island.

The story of the theme park goes back a number of years. In 2002, a plan for a park in Inca was halted on environmental grounds. The same company, Theme Park Group, turned its attention to a potential development in Calvia, one that caused an almighty great enviro stink. It, too, was abandoned. There was talk of its being revived, but this time in Campos where, you might recall, there has been yet another eco-controversy surrounding yet another golf course. Moreover, it would seem that the company at one point had an option to buy the Son Bosc finca in Muro, the site of the golf farce. Could you imagine the uproar that would have caused? It’s a great shame they didn’t buy it. The sport alone from the warring parties would have been wonderful to behold. A theme park in Muro would have made far more sense than a golf course, but not of course to the enviro-ists, various tree-huggers and bee-eating birds.

That the Inca project has resurfaced has to do with the creation of a third industrial estate on which there is to be provision for entertainment. It may also have to do with a shift in attitude at the Council of Mallorca under the land plan. The boss of Theme Park Group once asked whether Mallorca wanted a theme park, the answer to which seemed to be no. But now there might be a yes.

However, the report on Inca’s new interest from “Ultima Hora” refers to 50,000 square metres of land on the industrial estate being given over to entertainment. Now just think about this. If you are familiar with the Bellevue complex in Puerto Alcúdia, that stands on some 200,000 square metres of land, sufficient to put up a decent-sized theme park perhaps. But on a quarter of the land? That doesn’t give you much theme or park. Unless the report is wrong, it is hard to see how the company would be interested. When it was talking to Inca before, it had in mind some 900,000 square metres. This was reduced substantially, by a third, when the Calvia alternative arose, but this would also have stripped the theme park of an aquatic element.

A theme park has to be on a grand scale. And grand scale is pertinent when you consider the colossal “Gran Scala” in the desert near Zaragoza, a development that would have Mallorca’s hoteliers salivating in anticipation, far more so than a damn golf course here or there, were something similar to be created on the island, which it wouldn’t be. (Gran Scala, when and if it is finished, is due to occupy more than 20 times the land area of the original Inca theme park plan.)

Mallorca can ill afford to turn down the sort of projects that Theme Park Group had in mind. The smaller Calvia development would have represented investment of almost 200 million euros and the creation of 3,000 jobs. What the original Inca one would have entailed, Heaven only knows. And we are unlikely to ever know, just as it seems unlikely that the company would accept something as mini as Inca now wants.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.