Spain Forced To Face Past 'Evil' Of Expelling Moors

Very little has changed in Spanish attitudes towards the non-Christian, non-European aspects of its heritage, writes Isambard Wilkinson

Leaning against a farm outbuilding with his large, swarthy hands jammed into the tops of his trouser pockets, Jose Antonio Lopez was disgusted.

"No! For God's sake!" he exploded at the suggestion that he could be descended from North African Moors, despite his dark olive complexion. "We did not have any moro in the family. We drove them all out centuries ago."

The farmer's outright denial of a mixed or mestizaje past is typical of the majority Spaniard view of the non-Christian, non-European aspects of Spain's heritage.

While the architectural jewels of Islamic Cordoba and Granada are claimed for Spain, blood ties with its Moorish past have always, albeit sometimes to avoid the attentions of the Inquisition, been assiduously covered up. But now a new debate has opened over the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from the peninsula that began in 1492, prompted by the discovery and publication of a pamphlet by one of Spain's great intellectuals, Gregorio Maranon, who died in 1960.

The 49-page paper, found behind some books in the author's house, already typed and hand-corrected, argues that, after nearly eight centuries of fighting, intermarriage and conversion in Iberia, the Muslims' expulsion "was an evil, but a necessary evil, because it was better than the existence and growth within the Spanish state of a foreign and hostile people".

Maranon, a polymath who wrote scores of books on subjects ranging from rheumatism to the Iberian soul, is revered as one of the great Spanish intellectuals of the 20th century and his views have re-ignited the debate.

Newspaper columns are full of the issue and next week a panel of leading historians will discuss the high level of integration between Christians and the moriscos, Spanish Muslims.

The debate was given added poignancy this week when the Moroccan ambassador to Spain, Abdesalam Baraka, accused the Spanish authorities and media of "enjoying and fomenting hatred towards 'the Moor'." He called for an end to a primitive, centuries-old hatred.

At the beginning of the 11th century, three quarters of Spain's population was Muslim but, as soon as Ferdinand and Isabella completed the reconquest of the country for Christianity, the Muslims were ordered out. Since then the Moor "bogeyman" has remained deep in Spain's collective psyche.

Just two years ago it cast its shadow over the "invasion" of the tiny Parsley Island by a handful of Moroccan gendarmes, who provoked a full special forces operation, backed by four frigates and two submarines, to remove them. Much of the media coverage was in language reminiscent of the old rivalry.

By contrast, although the Sefarad, Spain's Jewry, were also expelled and for 400 years there was no Jewish community in the country, rancour between Jews and Christians has largely dissipated. In 1992 King Juan Carlos wore a yarmulka to attend a service of reconciliation in a synagogue.

Opinion polls conducted by the state-run CIS and Elcano Institute think-tank repeatedly show that Spaniards regard North Africans as "violent" and "untrustworthy".

As many as 71 per cent of them say of all foreigners they meet Moroccans "arouse the most animosity".

About a quarter of Spaniards would not like to live in the same block of flats as a "Moor".

Mustapha El Mrabet, the head of an immigrants' association in Madrid, said: "Very little has changed in Spanish attitudes towards us for centuries.

"Now they want to replace us with Latin Americans, because they are Catholic, speak Spanish and, they say, have Spanish blood in their veins. They deny their past. Wherever we look we see Arabic names. 'Madrid' itself derives from the Arab Majerit. Even the cathedral, the Almudena, has an Arabic name."

Not far from Mr Lopez's farm lie the ancient walls of Toledo, for 300 years an important centre of an Islamic kingdom.

Toledo's past is romanticised as the "City of Three Cultures", a place where learned Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together in a harmonious pursuit of knowledge with only the odd massacre and purge.

But Mr Lopez chooses to emphasise his Catholic credentials. He pointed to a pig sniffing among some rubbish in the farmyard.

The matanza, literally "the slaughter", is an old custom dating from the days of Islamic rule. It separated the Christian Spaniards from their Muslim conquerors. After 1492, it became an overt signal that one was not a closet Muslim or Jew.

Get your history right. I made no statement regarding Jews converting others. If I had pointed out that only Christians possessed an animus regarding second class citizenship under the Moslem, I'm sure someone would've pointed that out. As for second class citizenship indeed Jews suffered it throughout Christendom as well as expulsion and pograms (e.g. see "God Jews and History" an excellent book).

As for your analogy to the Nazis and the Spanish Inquistion you're wrong! Converted Jews and Moors both experienced persecution and death under the Spanish Inquisition, because they were converts to Christianity, and accused of heresy. Those unwilling to convert were expelled. I'm not trying to be an apologist for the Spanish Inquisition here and I don't justify what happened either. The issue wasn't that they were persecuted or suffered death because they were Jews or Moors but because they had been accused of heresy, regarding the faith they were forced to adopt, right or wrong. The Nazis on the other token weren't attempting to gain Christian converts among the Jews. Being a Jew in itself was criminal and worthy in their eyes of justifying death.

During the period of the Reconquista it was a regular practice for the people living in any particular little administrative area to adhere to the religion professed by the local prince.

This deal went on for centuries. In the end the prince of the last little bit of Al Andaluz sought an agreement for no "forced conversions".

No deal was made. Folks who wanted to continue practicing Islam had to leave the country for North Africa, Egypt or other holdings of the Turkish empire. Jews were not touched until the expulsion order of 1492. Many did a "public conversion" and stayed in Spain (SEE: Conversos, Marinos). Interestingly enough, these folks were among the very first Spanish emigrants to the New World. There are estimates that a quarter to a third of the ethnic background of the Spanish population in the 15th century was, in fact, Jewish. Only some 60,000 Jews are known to have left Spain.

After 500 years of occupation, the "Islamic" population and the "Christian" populations were interchangeable right down to the warf and woof of their hair except in Carvajal, or where a knight had come to join the Christian side in the Reconquista and steal a town or two. It is noteworthy that Isabella's Grandfather Rene d'Anjou was the Brotherinlaw to the King of England, Uncle to another, and grandfather of another. His nearest cousins included the King of France. He inherited a couple of titles for Spanish conquests made by one of his ancestors.

Among his grandsons you will find the founders of Protestantism in France as well as their opponents (d'Guise) in the "Catholic faction".

The "French" had been involved in the Reconquista since the time of San Cho Noe.

The Spanish (Christians, Jews and Moslems) were civilized folks in those days ~ in fact, just about the most civilized people in the Mediterranean world ~ and they had laws to regulate the process of change. It was only when Castile and Leon formed a unified state that they returned to the law of "one state, one people, one religion" imposed by the Moslem conquerers half a millenium prior.

Gene by Gene

Scientists Use Genetics
to Trace Viking Heritage

By Svein Michelsen

April 3 — By mapping the genetic history of a remote British island group, scientists have uncovered new clues about the way Britain was populated and may even help doctors fight modern-day diseases.

The study published today by geneticists at University College London set out to reveal whether the ninth century Viking invasion of the Celtic Orkney Islands is evident in the genetic makeup of its present-day inhabitants. By studying the genetic roots of a population, the study's main author, David Goldstein, says we can reveal facts about human history that archaeology and written sources are unable to uncover. Such studies also have an epidemiological significance since they can help researchers isolate genes that influence common ailments such as heart disease.

Although the cultural and linguistic influence of the Viking invasion was never in doubt, the study aimed to chart the extent to which the Norsemen interbred with the islands' indigenous population. Samples from male islanders as well as from control groups in Ireland, Wales, Norway and the Netherlands were examined to uncover Y chromosome heritage.

Surprising Similarities

Goldstein found there was a strong Scandinavian genetic influence among the 71 islanders that were examined — evidence that there was plenty of Viking blood among the now far-from-fierce islanders.

But when examining the Celtic credentials of Orkney's males against the Welsh and Irish control groups, the scientists stumbled across a remarkable similarity in the gene patterns passed down the male line. The similarities suggested that the populations on the so-called "Celtic fringe" of the British Isles shared Y chromosome characteristics that pre-dated the fifth century Saxon invasion of the islands.

This was confirmed when the geneticists compared the Irish and Welsh samples with those of Basques, an ancient people inhabiting the border regions between Spain and France. The study concluded that the Basque, Irish and Welsh make up "a Y chromosome community with members more closely related than they are to the other European populations."

But what about the women?

In contrast to the stubborn Celtic Y chromosome, Goldstein found there is genetic similarity between the British Isles and the rest of Northern Europe in the X chromosome, or in other words — women. Women enhanced the genetic diversity of the Isles, starting approximately 8,000 years ago. Goldstein explains this may be due to the fact that men controlled the ownership of land and brought women to live with them and sometimes even traded women as commodities.

The isolated Orkney Islands were a convenient starting point, Goldstein said, since there were only two discernible genetic influences upon the population — Celtic and Viking. Tracking the genetic make-up of the rest of the British Isles — a project that is expected to be completed in the next six to eight months — will prove a far more daunting task as Roman, Norman, Saxon and Norse influences will all have to be disentangled.

Following up on the findings in Orkney, the research will continue to focus on areas that can be linked historically to specific population groups. York, or Jordvik as the city was called in Viking times, is one of the 20 locations Goldstein's team plan to visit in the coming months. The scientists hope to collect 2,000 samples to map the genetic types that make up the present-day British population.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.