Respect local cultures? Sometimes that culture doesn’t deserve respect

I’ve seen it with my own eyes: the bulls don’t stand a chance. Spanish people sometimes defend this as a fair fight, as a noble challenge, but you only have to ask them, how often is the matador gored to death?

It’s rare. And that’s because in Spanish bullfighting, the deck is stacked against the animal. That animal will almost inevitably be tortured to a slow, painful death. It will be taunted by multiple aggressors, stabbed repeatedly with swords, exhausted and finally killed while a crowd gleefully watches on.

Bullfighting in Spain is a spectacle, but it’s morally wrong.Credit: Alamy

And this is culture. This is history and passion.

You try, whenever you’re travelling, to immerse yourself in culture. This is what travel is all about. This is why we do it.

So you try to eat the food and drink the drinks, you try to listen to the music and dance the dances. You obey the social norms. You try adjusting your life and your expectations and your judgements to match a foreign world.

It pays to remind yourself sometimes of a handy phrase a friend of mine once coined: “It’s not wrong, it’s different.”

The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, after which six bulls a day are slaughtered.Credit: Getty Images

Because sometimes when you’re travelling, those differences can feel wrong. The fact no one seems to pay any attention to pedestrian crossings in some places feels wrong. The fact everyone is eating dinner at 10pm feels wrong. The fact you have to pay a little extra money to the person who made your coffee, on top of the money you’re already paying for the coffee, feels wrong.

But other countries do things differently. The world would be a terribly boring place if they didn’t. So you just roll with it and accept it and appreciate the difference.

At some point, however, you do have to draw a line and decide that some things really are wrong. This can feel antithetical to the whole idea of being a traveller and not a tourist, to judge others and their cultures and their histories by our own beliefs, but the fact is that if you have no red lines, you’ve surely lost your way.

It’s OK to say: actually, this is not just different – it’s wrong.

To me, bullfighting is a prime example. This is a deeply cherished part of Spanish culture, a culture that, by and large, I truly love. And I also understand, from experience, that bringing this up with Spanish people is only setting yourself up for a world of pain (despite the fact the popularity of bullfighting in Spain has been noticeably dipping in recent years).

To them, bullfighting is a vital part of their history and their traditions. It’s a noble art in which (mostly) men pit their bravery and their skills against the might and rage of a full-grown bull. It’s primal and yet beautiful, savage and yet honourable.

You know all this before you see it, which makes the full horror of the experience even more of a shock. This is wrong. It’s very, very wrong. There’s no other way to view the slow torture of animals for the pleasure of people.

This isn’t the only example you will find as you travel, of course. The mistreatment of animals is one you will observe in multiple cultures across the globe. The mistreatment of people, particularly women, is something that you will also witness.

It’s just our culture, locals will explain. You don’t understand. It’s just different.

But it is wrong, and it deserves at least that acknowledgement, and even better, some action. Because there are things that tourists can do to state their point of view without coming across as the preaching foreigner.

The most obvious is to remove your custom. I’ve been to a Spanish bullfight because I thought I should see it, I thought I should try to understand what these people who I love and respect see that is so beautiful about a barbaric practice.

But I wouldn’t tell anyone else to do it. I would say don’t – don’t go. Don’t go to festivals like the nine-day San Fermin in Pamplona either, the Running of the Bulls, in which six bulls a day are slaughtered.

Don’t eat food on your travels if you disagree, ethically, with its consumption. Don’t support businesses that offer experiences that go against your personal moral code.

Seek out businesses, instead, that do right by your values, that support women in countries where they are culturally discriminated against, or support minority groups that are similarly maligned. Do that in your own country, too.

You can make a difference as a traveller, and this dollar-value support is far more likely to sway local opinions than a sermon delivered by an outsider, regardless of how well-meaning or right, you are.

Bullfighting will disappear eventually, I’m certain of that. It doesn’t stand a chance. And you, as a tourist, can help deliver its last rites.