The bloodthirstiest kid in the planet

A tiny boy, aged 11 years old, originally from France and Mexico got to the headlines of the main online news agencies all around the world these days. He is a matador participating in bullfights called novilladas or becerradas, since the bulls are around his same age.

By the name Michel Lagravere Peniche, he'd be an average boy, of the kind that will gladly sit back and enjoy his daily Bob Sponge Squarepants show on TV, weren't it for the world record he tried to establish in his hometown of Merida in Mexico: six young bulls transfixed and killed with a sword in a single afternoon (not taking into account the blows with bandarillas deftly applied by himself).

On account of his feat the English journalist Tom Meltzer, from The Guardian, has placed the kid high on the list for the bloodthirstiest kid in the planet. Another important motive in the English journalist's consideration was the fact the six young bulls were just six more on the long list of 160 calves put to death by the tiny torero since the beginning of his career at six. Yes, I said 160 calves. A farm's worth of young cattle terminated.

"I don't like football, but I would never criticize this sport."

MLP

The Guinness Book of World Records has stated they aren't recording the feat, firstly for not having any judge at the place the event happened and lastly because no one would be sent anyhow, since the Book staff turns down any requests of record confirmation based upon cruelty to animals. Lagravere has been banned from fighting in Spain - where the minimum age for this kind of activity is 16 - and in Arles, in France, only region of that country that still preserves the tradition, for violating laws against both cruelty to animals and child labor attracting the eyes of NGOs and hundreds of demonstrators to the front of the plazas.

So the kid and his father - French bullfighter Michel Lagravere - went on to kill bulls in other regions of the world where the legislation is far more permissive as Mexico, Colombia, Peru or Portugal (where even so there seems to be laws preventing the killing of bulls in some arenas, passed by the Marquis of Pombal). The two carry cloaks, swords, bandarillas and a lawyer to help where everything else fails. Promoters connected to bullfight are glad to see the advent of baby-faced bullfighters. Actually their presence in the corridas has estimulated the attendance of more public to this kind of entertainment activity.

What is interesting is to follow the debate inside and outside the news reports, in the comment sections of the news, the overall mood of indignation over an issue that is neither absurdely complex nor simple and definitive as it seems, but mainly the arguments against and for the corridas, some of them real awkward coming from the matador himself, others from the common sense of the population, usually shocked at the news.

The boy, for instance, says the environmental activists are a pain in the ass and that telling him not to do what he is so passionate for is like telling a motorcycle competitor not to take part in motocross competitions or telling a footballer not to play football. Though Lagravere is completely right in saying human passions and skills should never be curbed, it's hard to imagine how bullfights compare to football or motocross unless you're a tiny eleven-year-old torero. He is just an eleven-year-old kid and even being the bloodthirstiest kid in the planet, is still just a child. Even if his arguments could have been better elaborated I can even get to admire the brat's tenacity and determination.

"Why won't they stop the wars? There are people dying all over the world and they have to worry about the bulls."

MLP

What has never contributed to this debate is the refusal in discussing traditions and uses as a part of the practice of respecting different cultures. Respecting different cultures has never prevented anyone from getting involved in the discussion or try to understand what makes these people so bloodthirst all over the world, not only in Spain, France, Mexico, Colombia or Peru. Why is it that there are still people worshipping in in the temples of Taurus in all of of the countries above mentioned? Why do the police still bust countless fighting cock and pitbull arenas in Brazil? Why are Asians so fond of rumble fish?

Discussing what passion these things bring inside is complex, since emotions can't be explained. Physically something can be both food and poison as are the Brazilian maniva and the Japanese fugu. What is thrill to some is boredom to others. It is obviously a fact that the bull must be humiliated and physically shattered before it gets what - at the time it comes - will be regarded as a coup de grace. This is not a matter for discussion. Those doubting how the animal feels might find an answer by stabbing themselves with a letter opener on the back and they'll get the picture (what is obviously not needed, even junkies cringe at hypodermic needles, let alone a full-blown bullfighting sword).

"I feel very deep things when I bullfight, I feel them with my soul."

MLP

That said, what explains the great majority of these traditions (without mentioning in Brazil the notorious ox party held by Azorean descendants in the state of Santa Catarina, where the poor animal is burned and cut to pieces while still alive) is the fact that sufferance and violence are inalienable part of the show and that it only resists the test of time because violence resists the test of time. This passion for naked ultraviolence is something I seek to study and understand in my clients. Many of those I have treated - the worst being in 1994, just as I started as a psychologist - would make the sanguinary little Lagravere look as one of the Care Bears (what he might happen to be in his everyday life). Men and their rituals and their societies and all of their ceremonial attire or paraphernalia, their panoplies of war in coats of arms bring this kind of passion inside - heraldics that's been repeated from the times of ancient Roman lictors and fasces, on through sophisticated European medieval clans and getting to the humblest grafitti communities in any big city in the planet. There are exceptions for kids that are not adept to physical violence, but you won't see them in this weblog. I'm just not that lucky.

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