Posted on 02/22/2014 6:49:52 PM PST by DogByte6RER
Muslims Demand "Right of Return" to Spain
Muslim groups are demanding Spanish citizenship for potentially millions of descendants of Muslims who were expelled from Spain during the Middle Ages.
The growing clamor for "historical justice" comes after the recent approval of a law that would grant Spanish citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.
Muslim supporters say they are entitled to the same rights and privileges as Jews because both groups were expelled from Spain under similar historical circumstances.
But historians point out that the Jewish presence in Spain predates the arrival of Christianity in the country and that their expulsion was a matter of bigotry. By contrast, the Muslims in Spain were colonial occupiers who called the territory Al-Andalus and imposed Arabic as the official language. Historians say their expulsion was a matter of decolonization.
In any event, the descendants of Muslims expelled from Spain are believed to number in the millions—possibly tens of millions—and most of them now live in North Africa. Observers say that by granting citizenship to all of them, Spain, virtually overnight, would end up with the largest Muslim population in the European Union.
Much of the Iberian Peninsula was occupied by Muslim conquerors known as the Moors from 711 until 1492, when the Moorish Kingdom of Granada surrendered to the Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon), in what is known as the Christian Reconquest.
But the final Muslim expulsion from Granada did not take place until over a century later, beginning in 1609, when King Philip III decreed the expulsion of the Moriscos.
The Moriscos—Moors who decided to convert to Catholicism after the Reconquest rather than leave Spain—were suspected of being nominal Catholics who continued to practice Islam in secret. From 1609 through 1614, the Spanish monarchy forced an estimated 350,000 Moriscos to leave Spain for Muslim North Africa.
Today, up to five million descendants of the Moriscos are living in Morocco alone; there are millions more living in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Tunisia and Turkey.
In a recent essay published by the Morocco-based newspaper Correo Diplomático, the Morisco-Moroccan journalist Ahmed Bensalh wrote that the "decision to grant Spanish citizenship to the grandchildren of the Hebrews in Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, while ignoring the Moriscos, the grandsons of the Muslims, is without doubt, flagrant segregation and unquestionable discrimination, as both communities suffered equally in Spain at that time. The decision could also be considered by the international community to be an historic act of absolute immorality and injustice ... This decision is absolutely disgraceful and dishonorable."
Bensalh then went on to threaten Spain: "Is Spain aware of what might be assumed when it makes peace with some and not with others? Is Spain aware of what this decision could cost? Has Spain considered that it could jeopardize the massive investments that Muslims have made on its territory? Does Spain have alternatives to the foreign investment from Muslims if they ever decide to move that capital to other destinations due to the discrimination against Muslims?"
Bensalh is one of many Muslim journalists, historians and academics who are demanding that Spain treat Moriscos the same way it treats Sephardic Jews.
Consider Jamal Bin Ammar al-Ahmar, an "Andalus-Algerian" university professor at the Ferhat Abbas University in Sétif in northeastern Algeria. Al-Ahmar has been engaged in a six-year campaign to persuade Spanish King Juan Carlos to identify and condemn those who expelled the Muslims from Al-Andalus in the fifteenth century. Al-Ahmar is also demanding that millions of descendants of the Moriscos expelled from Spain be allowed to return there.
In a letter addressed to the Spanish monarch, Al-Ahmar calls for a "full legal and historical investigation of the war crimes that were perpetrated on the Muslim population of Andalusia by the French, English, European and papal crusaders, whose victims were our poor miserable people, after the collapse of Islamic rule in Andalusia."
The letter speaks of "the injustice inflicted on the Muslim population of Andalusia who are still suffering in the diaspora in exile since 1492."
Al-Ahmar wants the Spanish monarch to apologize "on behalf of his ancestors" and to assume "responsibility for the consequences" this would entail. He says it is necessary "to identify criminals, to convict retroactively, while at the same time to identify and compensate victims for their calamities and restore their titles." This process would culminate with "a decree that allows immigrants to return to their homes in Andalusia, and grant them full citizenship rights and restoration of all their properties."
The Moroccan historian Hasan Aourid believes Spain has a policy of "double standards" vis-à-vis the Moriscos. Aourid—who recently wrote a novel, entitled "The Moriscos," to "remember the tragedy of those expelled from Al-Andalus"—told an audience at the Casablanca International Book Fair that Spain cannot become "reconciled with itself without recognizing its Moorish dimension" and asked if "the suffering was lower for Muslims than for Jews."
The Association for the Historical Legacy of Al-Andalus, a group dedicated to reviving the memory of the Muslim presence in Spain, says the Spanish government should treat Muslims and Jews the same way. By failing to offer Spanish citizenship to both groups, Muslims would become victims of "selective racism," said the president of the association, Bayib Loubaris.
Spain is unlikely to concede to these demands anytime soon. While few deny there are potentially millions of descendants of Moriscos living in North Africa today, the challenge lies in reconstructing reliable genealogies to determine legitimate heirs.
The issue of who is a Morisco and who is not will be a topic for discussion at a major international conference—"The Descendants of the Andalusian Moriscos in Morocco, Spain and Portugal"—to be held in Tangier from April 4-6, 2014.
But even if such genealogies could be compiled, calls to naturalize the descendants of expelled Muslims are sure to be opposed for another reason: the fact that the expulsion of the Muslims was part of a war to end the occupation of Spain by North African invaders.
Jose Ribeiro e Castro, a Portuguese lawmaker who drafted Portugal's law of return for Sephardic Jews, puts it this way: "Persecution of Jews was just that, while what happened with the Arabs was part of a conflict. There is no basis for comparison."
I will go to Spain and fight against those bastards retaking Granada and all those cathedrals, even if the Spanish don’t. That land belongs to Christendom.
not 1,000 years ago..
the Moslems were kicked out in 1492 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella...
the parents of Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII of England..
the same king and queen who sent Columbus to the New World...
Moslems who had Spanish nobility ancestors should be able to prove their direct family lines..
Now if the illegal aliens in the US would demand “Right of Return” and go back to Mexico, this idea would greatly benefit our country...
“The growing clamor for “historical justice” comes after the recent approval of a law that would grant Spanish citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.”
The law recognizing as Spanish citizens the descendants of the Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 is not recent, was Franco who did it during the Holocaust opening the doors of Spain and saving the lives of more than 60,000 Jews.
During the entire war, especially after 1942, the Spanish borders were more or less kept open for Jewish refugees from Vichy France and Nazi-occupied territories in Europe. Franco’s diplomats extended their diplomatic protection over Sephardic Jews in Hungary, Slovakia and the Balkans. Spain was a safe haven for all Jewish refugees and antisemitism was not official policy under the Franco.
FRANCISCO FRANCO, BENEFACTOR OF THE JEWS:
However general history may judge him, in Jewish history, Franco shall certainly occupy a special place... Jews should honor and bless the memory of this great benefactor of the Jewish people...who neither sought nor reaped any benefit from what he did.
—From a four page obituary in The American Sephardi Journal of the Sephardic Studies Program of Yeshiva University, volume IX, 1978.
James Michener in Iberia, 1968, page 547: “...Generalissimo Franco is highly regarded by Jews; during the worst days of World War II, when pressures from Hitler were at their heaviest, Franco refused to issue anti-Jewish edicts and instead provided a sanctuary, never violated, for Jews who managed to make it to Spain. Many thousands of Jews owe their lives to Franco, and this is not forgotten.”
In Resolutions of the War Emergency Conference of the World Jewish Congress, Atlantic City, New Jersey, November 26-30, 1944, page 15: “The War Emergency Conference extends its gratitude to the Holy See and to the Governments of Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain... for the protection they offered under difficult conditions to the persecuted Jews of Hungary...”
In the Congressional Record of January 24, 1950, Rep. Abraham Multer quotes a spokesman for the Joint Distribution Committee: “During the height of Hitler’s blood baths, upwards of 60,000 Jews had been saved by the generosity of Spanish authorities.”
Newsweek, March 2, 1970: “...a respected U.S. rabbi has come forward with surprising evidence that tens of thousands of Jews were saved from Nazi ovens by the personal intervention of an unlikely protector. “I have absolute proof that Franco saved more than 60,000 Jews during World War II,” says Rabbi Chaim Lipscitz of Brooklyn’s Torah Vodaath and Mesitva rabbinical seminary.
Hmmm... Will they —all— go there?
I have an idea...
If you use the same logic, the entire Middle East belongs to the Jews. The Jews were in all of the inhabited Middle East and North Africa before the Muslim Religion existed and a few thousand years before the birth of Mohammed.
Muslim logic.
Historical Justice aka Social Justice.
That muslims are dirty cult pirates???
All muslims need to be expelled from all countries they have invaded or migrated to in the last 1000 yrs . Where is Ghenghis Khan when you need him ?
Isabel and Ferdinand liberated and saved Spain from their Muslim conquerors. Franco saved Spain from the communists and the Nazis. He walked a fine line in World War II. His actions relative to Nazi Germany were pragmatic as were the Swiss. Franco’s actions relative to the Jews was heroic. He deserves a place in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteous_Among_the_Nations
but that will never happen.
Franco groomed Juan Carlos (a Bourbon of Royal heritage) to be his heir to power and King of Spain. When Franco died this happened. Juan Carlos never indicated his true hope for Spain all those years he was under Franco’s tutelege. Franco raised like a son.
Once Juan Carlos assumed the throne and had near dictatorial power over Spain he quickly gave democracy to Spain for it first time in history. This resulted in a Coup de Tat by the Military. They had the guns, and the power to do anything they wanted. Juan Carlos had nothing except the support of the people. Spain was on the precipice of a second civil war.
King Juan Carlos gave a nationally televised address denouncing the coup and urging the maintenance of law and the continuance of the democratically elected government. The coup soon collapsed. After holding the Parliament and cabinet hostage for 18 hours the hostage-takers surrendered the next morning without having harmed anyone.
The Generals leading the Coup were old men at this time. They remembered the horror of the Spanish Civil War when they were young men in arms those years ago. They loved Spain and Franco those many years ago. Fortunately they stilled loved Spain. Though they had the Army, the weapons and everything to impose their will, they stood down.
They loved Spain and would not subject her to the horrors they endured and also inflected those many years ago.
When Juan Carlos addressed the Nation on Television that night, he knew he could be a dead man before the sun rose the next day. He loved Spain and those Generals that opposed him also did. No one died, and Spain remained free.
Franco saved Spain from the Communists and is a hero. After the civil war in Spain democracy was totally impossible due to instability in Europe and the looming World War II. Franco did not understand that Spain needed saving from him at the end of World War II.
Juan Carlos saved Spain from Franco and Generals that opposed freedom in Spain. Juan Carlos is a great man and a hero. This will never be noted in history with the exception of a few Spanish scholars.
ps
If you ever visit Spain and do not Speak Spanish you will find it a wonderful and delightful place.
If you visit Spain and can Speak Spanish you will find a culture and people that will amaze you. Rent a car and go where the Middle Class Spanish take there holidays. Talk to the old men and women. The young are much like the young in our country.
Madrid and Barcelona are good to visit because of their history and museums. But, they are big cities with all the problems of our big cities. The small villages and small towns of Spain are wonderful. When we go to Spain we rent a car and leave the City and find places to stay and visit. It is nice, very nice.
We should look to Spain for its history. There are many things to be admired and also many to be abhorred as also in our history. If we do not we will be condemned to repeat Spain’s and our own horrible errors.
The flannelheads are entitled to all the bowls of fishheads and pea gravel they can eat. On second thought hold the fishheads and double up on the pea gravel.
From where a Nazi/Islamic shoulder has set foot he shall never retreat.
bkmk
“adrid and Barcelona are good to visit because of their history and museums.”
Actually, I was in Barcelona, and I loved it. So much to do and so much Art Nouveau. In particular, Gaudi. And the countryside is beautiful. I’d go back in a heartbeat if I were younger. Plus during the summer you could fry an egg on the street during the day. So you stay up all night instead. Good idea.
Muslims are a cancer.
Thanks DogByte6RER. Spain needs to point out that anyone can move to Spain if they plan to abide by Spanish laws and don’t have a violent criminal history.
EXCELLENT YOUR COMMENTARY. THANK YOU
“HITLER STOPPED BY FRANCO” by Jane Boyar and Burt Boyar is an eye opening eyes book to be read by those in search of truth.
General Franco of Spain stopped Adolf Hitler in 1940. N.Y. Times #1 Best Selling authors Jane and Burt Boyar document this stunning fact: Spain, the weakest nation in Europe, defied the mighty Nazi war machine and altered forever the course of modern history. Here is the story - with all its intrigue and secret liaisons - of how General Francisco Franco denied to Adolf Hitler the strategy that would have won World War II for the fuhrer. And, while refusing Hitler’s demands, Franco literally saved the lives of more than sixty thousand Jews, giving them refuge from the Nazis, despite enormous risk to himself and Spain. When asked by his Foreign Minister, “What will Hitler think if we do this? Franco replied, “What will God think if we don’t?”
“is without doubt, flagrant segregation and unquestionable discrimination”
so be it, it is form of “affirmative” discrimination, positively for descendants of people who had long been a peaceful part of Spain - Spanish Jews, and negatively for descendants of people who had been colonial conquerers of Spain ruling over the native population
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