The story of Álvaro Múnera Builes
This article was originally published on the following page
The first photo has been doing the rounds on the internet with claims it is Álvaro Múnera Builes, a Colombian animal rights activist who in his youth fought as a novillero, a ’novice bullfighter’, under the name ‘El Pilarico’ in Colombia and then Spain. In fact, not only is this not true, it could not be true.
The second photo is how Múnera actually looked in his novillero’s ‘suit of lights’.
As you can see, this is not the same man. Also, the first photo is clearly too recent, the colours and grain being form the 1990s, while Múnera stopped fighting bulls in 1984.
What is more, Múnera did not leave bullfighting because of some conversion in the bullring; quite the reverse. It was the bull that made him leave.
In 1984 a bull called ‘Terciopelo’, from the breed of Marqués de Villagodio, caught him in the foot and tossed him across the ring, fracturing the fifth cervical vertebrae in his neck - along with other injuries – which rendered him permanently paraplegic.
It was only later after he had been transferred from hospital in Spain to a recuperative facility in Miami to be closer to his relatives in Colombia that he developed a ‘moral’ problem with bullfighting. According to his own account, it was the doctors, nurses, other patients and their families treating him with contempt because of his bullfighting past which caused the change. In his own words, he converted to their point of view because “there are more of them, they must be right.”
Whatever you think of this as a reason for an ethical about-turn, it is clear that it was not the behaviour of a bull while dying that caused this man to end his run of 150 bulls killed.
One thing I can say with complete confidence is that matadors don’t reach that stage in their career – well beyond that of Múnera - and suddenly think it’s all a mistake in the ring. He will have killed hundreds and hundreds of bulls before that moment. Much like the matador Sebastian Castella in the photo above in a strikingly similar situation.
The reason for the similarity is that to sit on the ‘strip’ around the ring after the sword has been placed in the bull is a common desplante, or act of defiance, within the part-scripted, part-improvised spectacle that is the corrida de toros. Whatever the corrida is, it is certainly not a fight (the English word bull-fight derives from our foul old hobby of bull-baiting with dogs), and the concept of fairness or sport no more enters into the corrida than it does the slaughterhouse.
Which is not to say that feeling is impossible. The reason I know all this about the bulls and the bullfighters is I spent two years living with them to research a book on the subject. And despite all that time, I was still moved to write the following passage about my visit to Pamplona.
"It was a strangely moving experience running side by side with a bull, close enough to touch, although that was frowned upon. He was pure-brown in colour and apparently totally ignorant of my existence at his flank, his whole being determined only to keep with his herd and get clear of this mass of humanity. The kinship I felt with him was purely physical, locomotory, but it was still more than superficial.
Later that evening I watched the one and only bullfight I will ever see in Pamplona. The party atmosphere from the streets was magnified in the ring. Not one, but six bands were in operation, each one from a different fan club celebrating. The fans themselves danced and shouted and swore and drank, half the time with their backs to the sand. The matadors valiantly tried to get their attention by fighting, but the bulls were so distracted by the noise – and being run through the streets that morning – that they were almost impossible to make charge. It was an ugly, barbaric thing.
And then the bull I had run beside came in, and although he was fought well, he refused to die, despite the sword being within him. As the crowd cheered and booed, swayed and screamed, he walked over to the planks and began a long, slow march around the ring, holding on to life as though with some internal clenched fist, refusing to give up, refusing to die. I had run next to this great animal, had matched myself to him as best I could, and in doing so felt some form of connection to the powers that propelled him. Now I watched them all turned inwards in an attempt to defy the tiny, rigid ribbon of steel within his chest, and having been blinded by no beauty, tricked by no displays of courage or prowess by the matadors, I just saw an animal trying to stay on its feet against the insuperable reality of death. I left the plaza de toros with tears in my eyes."
(From Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight, published by Profile Books (UK). Serialised in The Independent on Sunday.)
If you really want to know what happens in that bizarre world, and all the ethics around it, read the book. As well as receiving excellent reviews from the press, and being listed in their essential reading lists - and shortlisted for the Sports Book of the Year 2011 – they also point to the moral complexity of it all.
Article source including links to buy the book
The first photo has been doing the rounds on the internet with claims it is Álvaro Múnera Builes, a Colombian animal rights activist who in his youth fought as a novillero, a ’novice bullfighter’, under the name ‘El Pilarico’ in Colombia and then Spain. In fact, not only is this not true, it could not be true.
The second photo is how Múnera actually looked in his novillero’s ‘suit of lights’.
As you can see, this is not the same man. Also, the first photo is clearly too recent, the colours and grain being form the 1990s, while Múnera stopped fighting bulls in 1984.
What is more, Múnera did not leave bullfighting because of some conversion in the bullring; quite the reverse. It was the bull that made him leave.
In 1984 a bull called ‘Terciopelo’, from the breed of Marqués de Villagodio, caught him in the foot and tossed him across the ring, fracturing the fifth cervical vertebrae in his neck - along with other injuries – which rendered him permanently paraplegic.
It was only later after he had been transferred from hospital in Spain to a recuperative facility in Miami to be closer to his relatives in Colombia that he developed a ‘moral’ problem with bullfighting. According to his own account, it was the doctors, nurses, other patients and their families treating him with contempt because of his bullfighting past which caused the change. In his own words, he converted to their point of view because “there are more of them, they must be right.”
Whatever you think of this as a reason for an ethical about-turn, it is clear that it was not the behaviour of a bull while dying that caused this man to end his run of 150 bulls killed.
One thing I can say with complete confidence is that matadors don’t reach that stage in their career – well beyond that of Múnera - and suddenly think it’s all a mistake in the ring. He will have killed hundreds and hundreds of bulls before that moment. Much like the matador Sebastian Castella in the photo above in a strikingly similar situation.
The reason for the similarity is that to sit on the ‘strip’ around the ring after the sword has been placed in the bull is a common desplante, or act of defiance, within the part-scripted, part-improvised spectacle that is the corrida de toros. Whatever the corrida is, it is certainly not a fight (the English word bull-fight derives from our foul old hobby of bull-baiting with dogs), and the concept of fairness or sport no more enters into the corrida than it does the slaughterhouse.
Which is not to say that feeling is impossible. The reason I know all this about the bulls and the bullfighters is I spent two years living with them to research a book on the subject. And despite all that time, I was still moved to write the following passage about my visit to Pamplona.
"It was a strangely moving experience running side by side with a bull, close enough to touch, although that was frowned upon. He was pure-brown in colour and apparently totally ignorant of my existence at his flank, his whole being determined only to keep with his herd and get clear of this mass of humanity. The kinship I felt with him was purely physical, locomotory, but it was still more than superficial.
Later that evening I watched the one and only bullfight I will ever see in Pamplona. The party atmosphere from the streets was magnified in the ring. Not one, but six bands were in operation, each one from a different fan club celebrating. The fans themselves danced and shouted and swore and drank, half the time with their backs to the sand. The matadors valiantly tried to get their attention by fighting, but the bulls were so distracted by the noise – and being run through the streets that morning – that they were almost impossible to make charge. It was an ugly, barbaric thing.
And then the bull I had run beside came in, and although he was fought well, he refused to die, despite the sword being within him. As the crowd cheered and booed, swayed and screamed, he walked over to the planks and began a long, slow march around the ring, holding on to life as though with some internal clenched fist, refusing to give up, refusing to die. I had run next to this great animal, had matched myself to him as best I could, and in doing so felt some form of connection to the powers that propelled him. Now I watched them all turned inwards in an attempt to defy the tiny, rigid ribbon of steel within his chest, and having been blinded by no beauty, tricked by no displays of courage or prowess by the matadors, I just saw an animal trying to stay on its feet against the insuperable reality of death. I left the plaza de toros with tears in my eyes."
(From Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight, published by Profile Books (UK). Serialised in The Independent on Sunday.)
If you really want to know what happens in that bizarre world, and all the ethics around it, read the book. As well as receiving excellent reviews from the press, and being listed in their essential reading lists - and shortlisted for the Sports Book of the Year 2011 – they also point to the moral complexity of it all.
Article source including links to buy the book