The agreement between the Senate and the Toro de Lidia Foundation (FTL) for the Upper House to accept the granting of the National Bullfighting Prize in close collaboration with the entity chaired by Victorino Martín is a double-edged sword with unforeseeable consequences.
First of all, this is a surprise. This was not what was foreseen in accordance with the intentions expressed by the Senate and the FTL following the suppression of the award by the Ministry of Culture.
And it’s not good news. If the Senate, with an absolute majority of the PP, grants the so-called National Bullfighting Prize, it is politicizing the bullfighting festival, turning it into the demand of a party with a certain ideology and doing a disservice to this cultural heritage that is all Spaniards and includes followers of all political tendencies. Support guided by good intentions can become a problem that offers new arguments to those who work every day and with renewed efforts for the disappearance of the party. Who would guarantee, on the other hand, the continuity of the award the day the Popular Party loses its hegemony in the Senate?
The Senate can call for a bullfighting prize if it so wishes, but it cannot replace that of the Ministry of Culture.
It is rightly said that bullfighting lacks political affiliation as such a cultural fact, and this should remain the case despite the efforts of some detractors to pigeonhole it into the Franco regime or the right. This was neither the letter nor the spirit of the motion that the Senate approved on May 29, days after Culture announced its intention to suppress the award. With the favorable vote of the popular parliamentary group and the abstention of the socialists, the Upper House urged the Government to recover the prize and the Medal of Merit in Fine Arts, and added that until both are recovered “the Senate, in collaboration with the Parliamentary Bullfighting Association, the parliamentary groups and the autonomous communities that want to join, it will annually host the Senate Prize for Bullfighting.”
The Parliamentary Bullfighting Association is not the Foundation, but a club like many others that exist in Spain, formed by a group of parliamentarians and former parliamentarians whose main activity is the granting of annual awards that are presented in the Senate building. And the name Senate Prize for Bullfighting has nothing to do with the so-called National Bullfighting Prize.
But there is more. Although the FTL never officially confirmed it, the intention expressed by sources in the organization and not denied was from the first moment the creation of an award in collaboration with the Autonomous Communities of the Junta de Extremadura, the Generalitat Valenciana, Castilla La Mancha, Andalusia and Madrid, publicly opposed to Culture’s decision.
In addition, the entity chaired by Victorino Martín announced on October 2 that it had filed an appeal before the administrative litigation chamber of the National Court against the order that suppresses the National Bullfighting Award, on which the judges have not yet decided. pronounced.
In conclusion, the Senate can call for a bullfighting award if it so wishes, but it cannot replace the one from the Ministry of Culture that bullfighting received like other cultural sectors. If the Foundation admits this, it would be simply accepting the decision of Minister Ernest Urtasun, and the politicization of the bullfight, which is one of the malicious stigmas that distort and stain the essence of this spectacle.
Better that there be no national award before a party, whatever it may be, appropriates it
It does not seem appropriate that bullfighting—bullfighting fans and bullfighting fans—admits the suppression of the National Prize without fighting a battle against a ministerial order that borders on illegality, adopted by an anti-bullfighting minister who defines himself as a democrat and has no qualms about skipping the bullfighting order. law to the bullfighter despite his promise to respect the constitutional mandate.
It would be more logical to wait for the court’s decision on the appeal presented by the FTL, and, whatever the verdict, continue working on the necessary fronts to recover that award that bullfighting deserves as a cultural industry. Only in the hypothetical case that it were not possible to rescue the prize – the responsibility would be that of the sector and the fans, since there are many groups that have managed to get the authority to rectify their decisions – could the Toro de Lidia Foundation be the one that , invested for this case as a representative of the sector, would award a prize with the collaboration of public and private entities that so consider.
Not the other way around. The Senate, no. Politicization, no.
All political options fit into the bullfight, but it does not belong to any of them. Better that there be no prize before a party, whatever it may be, appropriates it.