INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT AGAINST BULLFIGHTS
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INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT AGAINST BULLFIGHTS
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Perhaps surprisingly in the 21st Century, bullfights still exist in several countries of the world, much to our shame in what we commonly regard as an "enlightened" era. These are barbaric shows, and relics of the Dark Ages. Nevertheless, these spectacles still exist due to the powerful lobbies that support them. These lobbies maintain this bloody business for profit, at the cost of animals' pain, torment and death. They have the support of national and local governments, and receive backing from financial enterprises keen to promote their brands as having a "cultural" flavour, and from the fashion media who like to display "chic" images, regardless of the suffering involved. Despite the increase in public awareness in recent years (opinion polls show that the great majority of citizens all over the world are opposed to this brutality), this minority continues to get rich by torturing bulls and horses. Several attempts to expand their dirty business to other countries are well known. Charitable bullfights to raise money for starving children of third world countries, and to fund research into serious diseases, etc, are blatant attempts to popularise their "sport" and give it a veneer of respectability. If this were not enough, even the Catholic Church does not condemn these acts. It's common to see bullfights in "honour" of saints carried out with the blessings of the clergy. The truth is, if a creature suffers then there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. All animals are sentient beings that experience joy, happiness, fear and pain, in the same way that human beings do. We can have no right whatsoever to make them suffer for our "enjoyment". If any torture inflicted to an animal deserves condemnation, bullfights are the worst kind of torture since they are performed solely in the name of entertainment. We must end the animals' torture and stop these shows of brutality and violence. It is too small a step from the intentional infliction of pain on an animal to the torture and killing of human beings. Jeremy Bentham once said: "It doesn't matter if they can reason; it doesn't matter if they can speak; what does matter is if they can SUFFER." |
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