With emotion, Elsa Stettner recalls the one and only bullfight she’s seen. She was eight and had unknowingly been taken along by a friend’s parents. “The matador’s cape had fallen over the bull’s face and eyes. It was running and running at full speed until – bang – it crashed smack into the barrier,” she said. “The horrible images just kept coming into my head for days and days.”
Now, this lawyer is leading a new campaign to put an end to bullfighting. “We think it’s scandalous that the city of Guadalajara – a city that’s mature, generous and dignified – uses public resources to pay for bullfights.”
“It’s a practice from the Roman times, when killing man-to-man was seen as a sport. We don’t do this anymore. How can we tolerate this bad treatment and torture of animals?” says Stettner.
The current campaign comes in response to the recent celebrations for Guadalajara’s 468th birthday, which included a public-sponsored bullfighting event. “I can’t believe its being organized with our money, by the culture director no less!”
Bullfighting is legal in eight countries (Mexico, Venezuala, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador in Latin America and Spain, Portugal and France) but “shouldn’t be seen as normal,” Stettner argues. “In boxing, people decide to fight each other. They’re exercising their wills and are under equal circumstances,” she says. “But they’ve never asked the animal if it wants to participate in this unequal and abusive event.”
Stettner has been working for animals since she was three years old, when she held the dream of having a big property to take in all the animals off the street. Her group, which started with two people and has grown to 12, has received support from individuals and organizations in Mexico City, Monterrey, Argentina, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala and even a very passionate priest from Colombia – Stettner sees the Catholic values of altruism as being inherently in opposition to bullfighting. “We’ve been surprised by the number of citizens who without direct involvement, are involved in answering our campaign – sending cards to complain to the officials,” she says.
The campaign will start by installing massive, life-size photos of tortured bulls in downtown Guadalajara (“people need to get used to it”). It has strong ties to the group Animal A.C., whose president, Judith Reina Garcia de la Cadena, in her time, was a pioneer for animal protection.
“They were seen as crazy women with nothing better to do,” says Stettner. “Now, because of them the abattoirs work more humanely, laws have changed and people from Jalisco are much more conscious about animal suffering.”
Along these lines, Stettner sees bullfighting as another moral obstacle which needs to be surpassed that we will one day look back on as atrocious. “There’s always been a way to explain terrible, barbaric practices, from the slavery of the Black people to the capturing of the Jews in Nazi camps,” says the self-described mother of two human children and 33 non-human children. “This is not a new subject. Science, religion, culture, feeding, fun – there have always been horrible abuses committed which have caused unspeakable suffering,” she says. “And there’s always been a reason – fake arguments – to justify these atrocities.”
Stettner, who a few weeks ago helped free Sally Wilson’s dog from Mexican Customs (GR January 30), equally disapproves of other Mexican traditions that she says abuse animal rights. They include cock-fighting, dog fights or horse-tripping by charros (Mexican cowboys), where horses are made to run at frantic paces and then are tripped, with many stumbling face-first to their deaths. “They’re terrible, abusive and brutal activities. All this needs to be changed so that our society has a more moral quality and communal feeling.”
On the other hand
Jorge de los Reyes, director of the Guadalajara’s Nuevo Progreso bullring, strongly – and perhaps obviously – disagrees with Stettner. “Bullfighting is a source of employment for lots of people, and this is what we should think about, bettering people,” he says. “We should look after animals but not above humans. What bothers me is the person who can’t eat, such as the people of Haiti, my equals.”
For de los Reyes, the bullfight is a spectacle. “Bullfighting isn’t an act of barbarity. It’s a manifestation of art, created by man before danger,” he said. “It juxtaposes the intelligence of man before the force of the animal, demonstrating man’s supremacy over the animal kingdom.”
He also sees it as important culturally: “Mexico can’t and shouldn’t deny that our roots are from Spain. They brought the religion, the culture and bullfights are now a part of this.”
De los Reyes, also a lawyer, does not see the issue as an abuse of animal rights. “To have rights, legally one must have obligations as well. This is impossible for an animal.” In fact, he adds, the fights allow the bulls to live a far better life, receiving the best care from birth. He notes that without bullfighting, for example, the Lidia Bull would now be extinct.
Stettner scoffs at this justification: “It’s pure speculation and should be proven,” she says. “Just because they breed the bulls does that mean they are allowed to cause pain, torture and death? Definitively, this is outrageous thinking.”
Similarly outrageous to Stettner is De los Reyes’ financial rationale: “There are always economic reasons to justify cruelty (to animals) … from bullfights to abattoirs, to circuses and laboratories,” she says.
Finally, the two differ in how much longer they think bullfighting will survive. De los Reyes says the practice is very well supported and liked. “All the municipalities in Jalisco celebrate bullfighting. It’s a tradition here in Guadalajara along with the majority of states in Mexico.”
Stettner thinks the days of bullfights are counted. “However, we’re probably talking 20 to 25 years more to end this practice.” If you wish to express your support for the campaign, Stettner suggests writing an email to Guadalajara Mayor Aristoteles Sandoval at aristoteles@guadalajara.gob.mx or Culture Director Myriam Vachez at myriam.vachez@gmail.com. Otherwise, check out anti-bullfighting group Amedea at www.amedea.org.mx.
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