PICTURES: La Monumental and the end of bullfighting in Catalonia

In 2010, Catalonia banned bullfighting, an infamous and barbaric bloodsport that is still legal across most parts of Spain where it is deemed culturally important and protected as an ‘artform’. We travelled to La Monumental, Barcelona, the last bullfighting arena in commercial operation in the Catalan region, to tell the story.

On the 25th of September 2011, amid the cheers of thousands of bloodthirsty spectators, Barcelona hosted its last-ever bullfight at Plaza de Toros Monumental de Barcelona - known simply as La Monumental - ending 600 years of history and ‘tradition’. The now pristine sands covering the ground were that day soaked in the blood of six bulls, the last of the thousands that were tortured and tormented at the hands of picadors, matadors and rejoneadors armed with swords and lances.

Constructed in 1917 as an arena complicit in untold brutality towards non-human animals, La Monumental is now an important cultural and events venue where it has hosted concerts by the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. With poetic irony, we were here today for an event by Heura, a Barcelona-based startup with a mission to change Spanish culture through food. Where better to demonstrate change, a shift away from barbarism and towards compassion, than in a place where humans once called for the deaths of countless animals?

If we forget for a moment what took place here, La Monumental itself is architecturally astounding, strongly influenced by buildings of the Mudéjar and Byzantine periods, cultures that have touched the Iberian peninsula in centuries past.

When walking through the now empty hallways and ascending the stairs to the upper terraces and stalls with their tiled mosaics and graceful archways, it is easy to lose oneself in the beauty and forget the many tragedies that took place here.

Yet one is never far from a stark reminder of La Monumental’s horrific past. The poster for the arena’s last bullfights, or corridas de toros, shows the names of the matadors on those fateful days - Serafin Marin was the last perpetrator of a series of bloody miseries inflicted on 12 bulls across two days.

This spiralling staircase with its ornate, patinaed balustrade and pleasing geometry led spectators down to the outer courtyard circling the inner arena. Watching bullfighting - at least at La Monumental - was something of a pastime of the elite akin to a night at the opera if you could afford to pay for the best seats in the house. Past guests of honour included Spanish kings, the fascist dictator General Francisco Franco and regional Catalan presidents like Lluís Companys, some of whom may have walked these very steps.

At the foot of the staircase we see what is now a museum, but was once the place where the horses and bulls were kept. It is a common misconception that the matador fights the bull alone and without any advantage, with only a sword and red cape - in truth, matadors are preceded by several picadors on horseback during the first stage, and in the second stage, matadors plant sticks with barbed ends called banderillas into the bulls’ shoulders to weaken them further prior to killing with a sword.

A sign on the wall above the entrance to these stables reads “cuadra de caballos rejoneadores”, or “take care of rejoneador horses”. Rejoneadors are a type of bullfighter who fights a bull on horseback, sometimes called the Portuguese style due to its association with Spain’s Iberian neighbour.

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Horses are the forgotten victims of bullfighting. In a typical three-stage bullfight, horseriding picadors stab and weaken a bull’s neck with lances so he cannot raise his head by the end of the first stage (tercio de varas or “part of lances”), therefore making him less dangerous to the matadors in the third part (tercio de muerte or "part of death").

Before 1915, the horses who were ridden by picadors were afforded no protection from the bull’s horns and would often be disembowelled or receive other horrific injuries. Today’s picador horses wear thickly padded skirts to protect their abdomens and heads, but not those ridden by rejoneadors.

The name matador comes from matador de toros, which translates as “killer of bulls”. Not so elegant in English. Matadero, the wording on the sign above the doorway here, means “slaughterhouse”, the place of killers. Historically, once killed in the ring, the bull was slaughtered and his flesh taken back to the matador’s village to be shared amongst the villagers. Meat from bullfights can still be eaten today in specialist restaurants whose proprietors claim it to be “more ethical” because bulls bred for bullfighting are raised separately to intensively farmed cows. They are bred for their strength, aggression and physique, and so are afforded relatively high welfare standards for most of their life - if only that was enough to cancel out the unimaginable cruelty at the end of their lives.

Leaving the stables area we turn to see the entranceway to the bullring. The doorway to a small capilla or chapel is to the right, presumably where matadors would pray before a fight. How many prayers were offered up for the lives of the bulls and horses?

Heura co-founders and food activists Bernat Añaños and Marc Coloma walk out into the bullring waving to a very different audience to the ones that filled the stalls before the advent of the ban ten years ago. Heura positions itself as a mission with a product, rather than a product with a mission, to stress that the principle of non-violence towards living beings and social justice comes first. The 18,000-strong cheering crowd may not have been there that day, but the rise in demand for vegan-friendly products is seen by many animal justice campaigners as a sign that times really are changing.

“Society found a way to transform La Monumental from a place of barbaric animal abuse to an amazing platform for an evolved form of entertainment. As the tides shift and the plant-based protein movement continues to make animal-based meats more and more obsolete, Heura recognizes that the power sits with the people, and we ask the world to make their voices heard.”

— Marc Coloma, Heura co-founder and CEO

In the foreground, the stands from where the picadors would have watched and waited as the other stages of the bullfight were underway. In the background, Heura’s slogan for the launch event. In a country like Spain where food is as much a part of culture and tradition as bullfighting, if not more so, there is a strong case for culinary activism. So much of Spanish and Catalan culture revolves around food, and the lack of veganised versions of chorizo and other important ingredients is a major barrier to the adoption of veganism, according to Coloma.

The Canary Islands was the first Spanish autonomous community to ban bullfighting in 1991, followed 20 years later by Catalonia. Some would think that the story ended there, but in 2013 the Spanish national parliament passed new legislation protecting bullfighting as an 'indisputable' part of Spain's 'cultural heritage'. This new law was then used in 2016 by the Spanish Constitutional Court to overturn the Catalan ban, stating that the Catalan Parliament had no authority to ban anything legal in the rest of Spain. So far, Barcelona has defied the overruling.

The end of bullfighting in Catalonia is undoubtedly a victory for animal rights activists who fought for years to have the welfare and sentience of bulls and horses recognised. However, bullfighting was also central to a political and cultural war between Catalan nationalists and Spain. Despite bullfighting in rings like La Monumental being portrayed as quintessentially Spanish, bullrings are relatively uncommon and inaccessible. Only major cities in Spain have a bullring, and the best seats can cost EUR 100.

While the history of bullfighting on the Iberian peninsula goes back thousands of years and is believed to have been brought to Spain in Roman times as a substitute for gladiatorial combat, modern bullfighting is a relatively recent phenomenon. The bull became the symbol for Spanish nationalism, liberalism and pride of the common people, particularly during the civil war of the 1830s and the rule of the nationalist dictator Franco, an avid supporter of bullfighting not least of all in Barcelona where there were once three bullrings.

During Franco’s regime, bullfights became a metaphor for a supposed race and a single homogenous nation with an identity misunderstood elsewhere in Europe. But as Franco’s rule ended and people sought to distance themselves from everything that he represented, a ban on bullfighting was fuelled by Catalan nationalism in opposition to Spanish governance. Now, with recent tensions flaring up between Spain and Catalonia and renewed demands for independence, bullfighting has once again become embroiled in a political and cultural war. On the extreme end of the political spectrum, the Far Right has again adopted bullfighting as a symbol of Spanish nationalism, ironic as the aim is to slay and butcher the bull.

Catalonia is known for being progressive, but in regards to bullfighting, the critics of Catalan independence say that the ban is less an act of compassion than it is a rejection of Spanish rule, especially as bull-running events - where people run in the streets with bulls, sometimes with flaming torches tied to their horns, the embers burning their eyes - are still permitted in parts of Catalonia and can be organised by villages, small groups and even families for special occasions without the need of a ring (and expensive tickets).

Whatever the motivation behind Catalonia’s ban on bullfighting, bulls are no longer made to fight in bullrings and horses are no longer forced to dodge their horns. Wider political and cultural struggles can sometimes work in favour of animals where compassion alone isn’t quite enough.

COMING SOON: We will be speaking to Heura co-founder and CEO Marc Coloma about the company’s mission and how its new vegan chorizo will play a key role in his vision to change the culture and renew time-old traditions through food activism.

Visit heurafoods.com.

Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager for Surge.