See how they run!

Skimming the Sunday papers online yesterday I came across an article in El País with the headline: El Juego Trágico del Verano – The Tragic Summer Game! It turned out to be about los encierros, the custom of running bulls through the streets of towns on their way to the bullring, incidentally giving (mostly) men the chance to hurl themselves in front of them to prove how brave they are. So here I am, talking about the bulls again.

We have a tendency to think that this activity is something that occurs in Pamplona for the Sanfermines at the start of July. This is not the case. There are some 15,000 encierros throughout Spain in the summer, 6000 in the Comunidad Valenciana alone! That seems to me to be an excessive number of occasions for people to injure themselves.

The young man who died in Pamplona this year, apparently, was not the only one, nor indeed the first, of this year. Four had died in similar circumstances before the Sanfermines and the latest victim was last Tuesday, a 16 year old in the small town of Cabanillas in Navarra. Who lets their 16 year old run down the street in front of bulls? Would you encourage him to play at dodging cars on a busy road?

The death in Pamplona was international news, however, because of the “fame” of the Sanfermines, referred to as “el referente de los encierros”, almost a gold standard with between 2000 and 3000 Spaniards and North Americans (and a smattering of other nationalities) showing off for the crowds. This year’s score: 1 dead, 41 injured and hundreds bruised. Hemingway has quite a lot to answer for!

The emergency services do what they can and the insurance companies inevitably do well out of it. I have heard that organisers have to pay around 4000€ insurance for the runners and 9000€ for the bulls. A significant difference! People who opt to do a stupid activity and bulls which are bred specifically for it.

According to aficionados one of the problems is the drunkenness of many of the runners and the fact that they are not in training. People who go from town to town to indulge this hobby, and there are many who do just that, should, it seems, be trained like athletes.

There are, of course, pressure groups trying to put a stop to it. Ecologistas en Acción claim that numbers of followers are going down. They say that Gallup polls indicate that only 10 -12 % of Spain’s population is in favour of bullfighting. And yet, people still go to the encierros and the corridas. Only 56 municipalities have officially disassociated themselves from bullfighting – and most of them are in Catalonia. Sociologist Enrique Gil Calvo explains the continued popularity as a very Spanish desire to go against social order and to show that you can overcome fear; running drunkenly in front of bulls is a perfect way of doing that!!! Anarchy AND machismo!!

By way of contrast to the Sanfermines with its international participation is the Palio, the horse race which takes place in Siena, Italy in July and August and which was written about in Sunday’s Observer, which I also skimmed online. Like bullfighting, the Palio can trace its origins to a long time ago in history. Forget Hemingway; the ancient Greeks have a lot to answer for!

The Palio raises some of the same health and safety questions as the encierros. 120,000 people pack into the square to watch. It’s an amazing throwback to medieval pageantry, with the costumes and the flag throwing but especially in the complete lack of sponsorship. Occasionally jockeys, horses, even members of the crowd are injured. One difference though is that there is no audience participation. The Palio gets an international audience but only the Siennese can take part, I understand, vying for the honour to represent their contrada or neighbourhood in racing a horse at top speed around the Campo, Sienna’s beautiful central square.

Observer journalist Henry Porter commented: “I admired the Italian gift for costume and uniform and wondered how the event would be affected by British obsessions with health and safety: flag-throwing limited to 10 feet, crowd reduced to a manageable number, no leaning on the barriers, no cavalry charge, no alcohol, no swords drawn, no crossbows or lances, knights on their steeds to be led by trained equine personnel, and the whole occasion policed by regiments of tubby marshals with shaven heads and DayGlo vests, the sort of display I imagine that Britain is going put on for the Olympics.”

All those comments could equally well be said about the encierros and about many another Spanish fiesta, including Vigo’s Reconquista, re-enacting battles from the Peninsular Wars. And I remain in two minds about the whole thing. I love all the pageantry but I wince almost every time at the health and safety aspects. And then, as far as I can see, apart from wearing a white shirt and a red neckerchief, the pageantry seems to be lacking in the encierros. I’m just too British by half, obviously!