Tag Archives: Rome

In Support Of The True Fiesta Nacional

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One of Spain’s greatest and oldest cultural traditions is in danger of dying out completely because of EU legislation. The European laws, designed to protect citizens’ ‘liberty’ were introduced without a moment’s thought about the impact they’d have on this crucial feature of Spanish culture. I am, of course, talking about Spain’s true Fiesta Nacional.

Ever since the 1st century BCE, Spaniards have enjoyed the spectacle of gladiators locked in combat, fighting until one (or ideally all) of them dies a heroic death. Indeed, recent evidence proves that a Spaniard was himself the very bravest of Rome’s gladiators – he killed a nasty emperor and temporarily saved the empire from something.

But all this is now under threat – because of a bunch of killjoy lawmakers obsessed by destroying Spanish culture. EU legislators introduced so called ‘human rights legislation’ many years ago, but it is these laws that might now be used to stop us from enjoying one of the great cultural pursuits this country has to offer. And the sad thing is that this could all be prevented if the do-gooders understood that live gladiator fights aren’t really about men killing each other for the enjoyment of a crowd of baying monsters. You see, gladiator fighting is about so much more than that.

For those who haven’t yet had a chance to enjoy the spectacle of a gladiator fight, I’m going to explain a little of what makes it so special. First of all, there’s the amphitheatre it’s held in: these grand stadia have their roots in Roman architecture and are designed so that wherever a viewer sits, they can see the action. Amphitheatres used to litter Spanish cities like discarded sunflower seed shells, but now only a few remain. It’s worth remembering that Barcelona had loads of the places, while Madrid (which didn’t exist when the Romans occupied Spain) had none. Why that’s worth remembering, I’m not sure… but remember it, OK?

Next up is the sense of ceremony that surrounds the whole event. The gladiators are held in a sort of pen just before they’re released into the arena, and when they appear in their beautiful costumes, you can almost believe you’re watching ballet rather than deadly combat. Actually, I’m not sure about that: ballet exists as a way of interpreting violence, passion and the human experience by way of dance. Gladiatorial combat interprets violence by way of goading men to murder each other. But it’s still quite full of movement, I suppose.

The deaths, while certainly not the focus of gladiatorial combat, are really cool! Some of the best gladiators can make a rival’s suffering defence last for up to an hour, drawing the process of killing their opponent (which is not the main focus of the fight at all) into what seems like a true fight between equals. Of course, the truth is that the professional gladiators always win because their competitors, dumb and useless beasts that they are, are often drugged, underfed and tortured prior to the main event. Well, you wouldn’t want the star to die, would you?! Anyway, the death isn’t even the most important bit.

The most important bit is… everything. Of course, everything is geared in a way that it climaxes in the death… but that doesn’t mean it’s just about killing. You can buy an ice cream from the little man who sells them… and if he stands in the way of a good killing, just tell him to get the fuck out of the way. Because the death, while not the most important bit, is a moment so wholly Spanish – so ancient and lovely – that you really shouldn’t miss it. Yes, the death is not the most important part of the gladiator fight. It’s the killing.

Oh and, before you bring it up, no we really don’t see the killing as cruel. I mean, most of these guys are losers and criminals anyway. Sure, they’re doomed to die terrified but imagine how they’d feel if they caught lung cancer from second hand smoke. That’d be a much worse way to go… so you see, they’re really the lucky ones.

Can we really afford to lose this ancient, lovely and cool spectacle? To me, it seems self-evident that gladiatorial combat is above silly modern notions like ‘humanity’ or ‘law’. Clearly, amendments should be made to this legislation to ensure that future generations can enjoy the killing with their own eyes? As has been pointed out, these fights exist: it’s up to the opponents of gladiators killing each other to prove why it’s suddenly wrong.

So, dear reader, I call on you to . Together, we can preserve barbarity in these perplexing times.

Scratching a bad rash

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I’m getting a bit sick of the design and layout arond here. Thinking about a change. Also, the content: more righteous indignation, less paranoid speculation. Or was it the other way around?

Actually, I’ve been reading Nick Cohen’s interesting criticism of the left in today’s Observer. He makes a number of salient points in his dissection of everything that is wrong today with liberal-left politics and its general failure to adapt to the 21st century. I don’t agree with him on everything. But he does remind me why I decided some time ago never to align myself with any political group or party because there are simply none who seem to have the right approach to things. Spain is a classic example: I’m not a Catalan nationalist but I’m sympathetic with those who would like more autonomy for Catalonia. At the same time, I couldn’t support any of the parties who push for greater autonomy here because their memberships and leaders seem to be conniving, divisive pricks to a man. Besides, if greater autonomy means more laws banning me from drinking calimotxo or Xibeca and smoking weed at the beach with my mates, then perhaps it’s not such a hot tip?

The Iraq debacle is another good example (and this is what Nick Cohen is focused on): I’m naturally a Labour man but how can I vote for that party when Tony Blair still insists that it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t. Saddam was an awful, murderous bastard but the hell which has been unleashed on ordinary Iraqis does not justify his removal. Nick Cohen’s main argument seems to be that the left has lost its way because in its opposition to illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, curtailed human rights at home, rendition and Guantanamo, it has failed to condemn the evil which so called ‘neo-conservatives’ are determined to defeat. There’s a lot of ammunition for this argument and those employing it get a very real thrill from expounding the claim that the left wing is stuck in a bygone age when it could rely on being morally superior and nothing more. And it is true that numerous anti-American and anti-Semite worms have crawled out of the woodwork just in time to make us all look bad.

But the problem with Cohen’s position is that all he’s doing is claiming the moral high ground for the neocons. Basically, he seems happy to tell the left that they don’t recognise that the world has changed and things aren’t as clear cut as they once were, while at the same time he’s stating quite firmly that this is a simple case of moral imperative: we had to remove Saddam at any cost. Clearly, he wants to have his cake and eat it.

He continues by drawing attention to the millions of left wingers who demonstrated against ‘the overthrow of a fascist government’. To emphasise his point, he makes trite references to Rome, Madrid and Berlin – as if the residents of cities which had once lived under the shadow of a dictator should somehow ‘know better’. The problem is that opposing the war was never the same as appeasing Saddam. Who cares if he was happy about the protests? The point of the demos was to let our governments know that we weren’t going to be hoodwinked into an illegal war which would end up killing tens of thousands of civilians. And we were absolutley right.

The problem for those who were (and, carazily, still are) in favour of the war is that they really did think they were going to get things over and done with pretty quickly. They didn’t realise that they were going to visit on Iraq a state of murderous destruction not seen since the dark days of Saddam’s purges. Or if they did, they didn’t care.

The point of all this is, I suppose, to say that in the case of Iraq, there is no moral high ground. We on the left had nothing to suggest in the way of alternatives to getting rid of Saddam. We need the oil, the Iraqis need democracy and the world is a better place without that awful man. At the same time, supporters of the war must accept that they have made a colossal mistake in Iraq, causing the deaths of many tens of thousands of civilians, enraging an already volatile muslim community, establishing the dangerous precedent of pre-emptive attack and handing vast strategic power to a much more dangerous country: Iran.

In the end, Nick Cohen’s article is more or less spot on, insofar as it discusses the facts of the dispersal of the left-wing in Britain… (I only wish he’d write another about modern conservatism). While there are aspects of his argument which I find I can’t agree with, he’s correct about two important things: the left wing has lost its way horribly and we have failed to display any reasonable degree of solidarity with the Iraqis: the true victims of all this mess. Think on.