Can Cruelty be Culture?

Photo of the day: A bullfighter works with his cape defiantly in the face of hundreds of anti-bullfighting protesters. (I like this scene a lot. Boy do I wish I'd signed up for the Fotomaratón!)

In the wake of a court ruling requiring Mayor Petro to permit bullfighting in the Plaza Santamaria, animal welfare organizations marched today against the Fiesta Brava. Meanwhile, young bullfighters continue their month-long hunger strike in front of the plaza. They've vowed to continue until a bullfight is actually held in the plaza. The mayor hasn't allowed bullfighting for the past two years, and now argues that the plaza has structural defects which would make holding events there dangerous. The bullfighters suspect that Petro invented that 'danger' as an excuse for not allowing bullfighting.

'Saying that a bullfighter is an artist is like saying that a rapist is a romantic.'

'If bullfighting is art, then stabbing is culture.'

'It's not art or recreation, but cruelty.'

'Bogotá without massacres.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours