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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Suicide before eviction and the bull debate

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at how the suicide of two sisters who were about to be evicted from their home has angered Spanish society, and how animal cruelty is back in the news as Pamplona’s running of the bull festival kicks off. 

Published: 6 July 2024 14:18 CEST
Inside Spain: Suicide before eviction and the bull debate
Pro-animal rights activists of Anima Naturalis and PETA organizations hold signs reading "Stop the torture, end bullfighting" during a protest against bullfighting and bull-running on the eve of the San Fermín festivities. (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA / AFP)

Two sisters, aged 54 and 64, took their own lives on Monday in the Barcelona neighbourhood of Sant Andreu, just hours before they were due to be evicted from the flat they’d been living in for most of their lives.  

They owed more than €9,000 in rent after stopping monthly payments in March 2021. It’s since emerged that their mother contracted Covid-19 and died that month, reportedly leaving the sisters without any financial resources. 

Some 300 people gathered in Barcelona on Tuesday in protest against the double suicide, with organisers stating that “these are not suicides, they are murders”.

Another Catalonia resident, Alex (70), took his own life this year in the city of Sabadell earlier in 2024. 

For Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni, the sisters’ suicide represents “the hardest and most dramatic side” of the problems of access to housing in Barcelona.

Spain’s Parliament recently approved the suspension of evictions (desahucios in Spanish) of vulnerable families until 2028, but somehow the Sant Andreu sisters, who were known among neighbours for living a private life, fell between the cracks. 

Their tragic death showcases how not all people who fail to pay their rent in Spain are squatters (okupas) who are capitalising on the system’s loopholes. 

The lines are indeed blurred, and in the current context of rising rents and an enormous lack of social housing in Spain, there are many people who are struggling and simply cannot afford their rent or mortgages, rather than purposely choosing not to pay.

READ ALSO: Inquiokupas – The type of squatter homeowners in Spain fear most

In other news, animal rights groups PETA and AnimaNaturalis on Friday staged a protest in Pamplona against the “mediaeval cruelty” of the San Fermín running of the bull festival, which kicks off on Saturday.

Around fifty activists wearing horns on their heads and mediaeval stocks over their shoulders marched through the streets of the Navarran city to illustrate their opposition. 

Their messages reflect that not everyone in Spain (and certainly even less so overseas) is in favour of the bull-themed event, which includes both bull runs and bull fights. 

According to AnimaNaturalis, some 17,000 local festivals in Spain include some form of animal cruelty.

In their eyes, San Fermín, an event known around the world, normalises the mistreatment of animals. 

The question of whether such festivals are “tradition” or “torture” is by no means new, and yet not much has really has been done in modern-day Spain to bring these practices in line with the policies of a progressive government. 

Ask any Pamplonika (local of Pamplona) if they think that the encierros (bull runs) are cruel and they’re likely to deny it, as not only have they grown up with the running of the bull, they will argue that the animal is not physically hurt. 

An animal activist on the other hand will point out that bulls can feel claustrophobia, fear and panic when running down narrow streets surrounded by hundreds of humans. 

Whatever one’s view, there’s clearly a need for consensus, and for at least “traditions” that clearly cause animals pain and/or death to be banned. 

Take the Toro de La Vega, which saw a whole town chase down a single bull with spears with which to stab it to death; a barbaric act that was banned in 2022. 

The mother of all taboos is of course bullfighting itself, something as stereotypically Spanish as it gets, but so attached to the fabric of some corners of Spanish society that most politicians feel the need to tread carefully when broaching the subject.

IN DEPTH: Will bullfighting ever be banned in Spain?

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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: 10,000 crumbling castles and Galicia’s ‘pyromaniac’ ad

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at the struggle to preserve the country’s more than 10,000 castles and how a promotional advertising campaign for Galicia looks like it’s inciting people to torch the region’s forests.

Published: 27 July 2024 10:48 CEST
Inside Spain: 10,000 crumbling castles and Galicia's 'pyromaniac' ad

You’ve probably spotted a few castles on hilltops over villages as you’ve driven through Spain, and that’s because they’re everywhere. 

Each of Spain’s 50 provinces has at least a dozen or two, if not hundreds, as in the case of Barcelona, Cuenca, Cádiz, Soria, Zaragoza or Guadalajara.

The preservation of these vestiges of Medieval (and more often than not Moorish) Spain were actually a priority for Spain’s fascist dictator Francisco Franco, who in 1949 rolled out legislation which banned any of Spain’s castillos (castles) from being demolished.

However, Spain’s castles are “in general” in a “calamitous, catastrophic” state, Miguel Sobrino , author of the study “Castillos y murallas”, told Spain’s leading daily El País.

From the Napoleonic Wars to poor restoration jobs between the 1960s and 80s, many are the reasons that have meant that only a handful of these castles are in a presentable state. 

“Castles are like beetles, they die and dry up on the inside, but they seem to be alive because the exterior does not change,” Sobrino added metaphorically about the fact that many of these fortresses still look impressive from the outside and from afar.

Others blame the lack of funding from public coffers, and the fact that there is no law in place encouraging private investors to act as patrons for Spain’s heritage. When there is money available, the mayors of the underpopulated villages where these castles are usually located don’t always know how to organise the restoration properly.

Spain’s crumbling castles are another example of how “Empty Spain” is often overlooked and underfunded, despite being some of the most vivid examples of the country’s rich history.

Something that has been getting the attention it deserves (but for all the wrong reasons) is an English-language tourism campaign by the government of the green north-western region of Galicia.

“It’s a match, Galicia” reads the poster, with an icon of a flame and, in the background, a photo of the lush forests of Galicia’s Ribeira Sacra.

It was meant to draw a parallel between Tinder’s “It’s a match” slogan when the dating app puts two people together, and the fact that Galicia is ‘a perfect match’ for tourists.

However, social media users were quick to pick up that the wording and imagery appeared to be inciting people to set Galician forests on fire.

“As much as the Culture Council tells you to, don’t take matches to the mountains,” one X user jokingly wrote in response.

Even though it’s a harmless lost-in-translation gaffe, forest fires are no laughing matter in Galicia, nor anywhere else in Spain. 

Galicia had its worst forest fires ever in 2022 and the following year was a particularly terrible one for incendios (wildfires) in Spain, with more than 85,000 hectares scorched.

2024 hasn’t been as bad a year for forest fires yet (46 percent less than in 2023), but we are now in the midst of the heatwave season in Spain, when these destructive blazes tend to rage hardest and for longer.

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