Authors
Núria Almiron
Publication date
2015/10/14
Journal
Critical Animal and Media Studies: Communication for Nonhuman Animal Advocacy
Publisher
Routledge
Description
In July 2010 the Parliament of Catalonia banned bullfighting following a popular legislative initiative signed by 180,000 citizens under the leadership of the platform PROU (Catalan for ‘Enough’). Catalonia was the second autonomous region of Spain to pass such a law—the Canary Islands had already done so in 1991—yet the Catalan ban is worth mentioning because it was the result of a wholly grassroots lobbying movement to end this cruel tradition. The petition was only the most visible step in a long and brilliant advocacy campaign conducted by a coalition of animal rights groups on behalf of a large majority of Catalan citizens who did not approve of bullfighting for animal welfare and animal rights reasons (and who had had ‘Enough’of it). A great victory of ethics, this case also reflects an essential political economy truth with regard to social consent on nonhuman animal abuse. Skilled advocacy was not the single issue at play in the Catalan ban. Another sine qua non condition for the success of nonhuman animal advocates in this case was the fact that they did not have to confront a powerful industry with an influential professional communication engine behind it. At the time when the ban was implemented, bullfighting was a declining business in Catalonia and had been for decades, only surviving due to Spanish government subsidies and a handful of tourists. Had bullfighting been a more vigorous industry there (or in the Canary Islands years before), the slogan used by Catalan animal rights groups—“Torture is neither art nor culture”—would likely have been defeated by the prevailing centuriesold truth: for a large majority of nonhuman …
Scholar articles
N Almiron - Critical Animal and Media Studies: Communication for …, 2015