Excerpt from...
The Interference of al-Andalus
Spain, Islam, and the West

by Hishaam D. Aidi


Of the African American volunteer fighters who heeded the call of the
Communist International in 1936 and went to battle Franco’s fascist
forces in the Spanish civil war, most were galvanized not only by socialist
and anti-imperial ideals but also by a Pan-Africanist consciousness that
prized Islamic Spain as a glorious era when African civilization extended
into Europe. Inspired by Spain’s Moorish past, these black fighters hoped
to rescue tolerant, pluralist Spain from the gathering flames of European
fascism. Many were thus stunned by Franco’s use of Moorish troops in
his anticommunist “crusade,” by the rabid anti-Muslim racism of the
Republican forces, and, more broadly, by how the Moor and Spain’s
historic relations with the Islamic world figured so centrally in a civil
war fought ostensibly for domestic reasons. African American soldiers
were so appalled by the hatred of Moors on the Republican side, that
some — especially those who were mistaken for Moroccans and shot at
by fellow Republican troops — contemplated quitting and returning to
the United States. Langston Hughes was particularly intrigued by the
racial dynamics of Spain’s “Moorish question.” “I knew that Spain once
belonged to the Moors, a colored people ranging from light dark to dark
white,” he wrote. “Now the Moors have come again to Spain with the
fascist armies as cannon fodder for Franco. But, on the loyalist side, there
are many Negroes of various nationalities in the International Brigades.
I want to write about both Moors and Negroes.”1

[b]The question of Moorish influence and the so-called Black Legend,
regarding Spain’s oriental and African genealogy that had allegedly left the
Spaniards a “sensual and inferior race,”2 have preoccupied Spanish intellectuals
for centuries, pitting those who proudly or lamentingly concede
Islamic influence in Spain and Hispanic civilization against those who
deny such vestiges and, in the words of the novelist Juan Goytisolo, prefer
to believe in a “clean-shaven Hispanic civilization” (“la afeitada civilizacion
hispana”) free of Semitic influence. The memory of the “intrusive”
Moorish presence lies deep in the Spanish psyche. And at critical moments
in Spanish history — in 1898 with the collapse of the empire, in the 1930s
during the Spanish civil war and its aftermath, in the late 1970s with
the end of Francoism and the democratic transition, and in 1986, with

Spain’s accession into the European Union — the country has gone through
moments of painful self-examination about its “qualified Westernness,”3
pondering if it was the eight-hundred-year Muslim presence and Spain’s
subsequent cultural and ethnic hybridity that kept the country mired in
poverty and despotism as the rest of Europe progressed.[/b]
The war on terror, the Iraq war, and the 3/11 attacks on Madrid, along
with increasing clandestine migration from North Africa and disputes
with Morocco over Spanish enclaves in that country’s northern coast, have
revived what in Spain is historically called the “Oriental question”: what
it means to be so close to the Arab world, and Europe’s “shield” against
Islam. The attacks of 3/11 triggered much public agonizing about Spain’s
being caught in the cross fire of a clash of civilizations (“in the eye of
the hurricane,”4 as one journalist put it), between a strident, retaliatory
Western nationalism that seeks to spread democracy in the Middle East
and a militant Islamism that targets Spain for partaking in the war on
Iraq and views the Iberian Peninsula as a long-lost Islamic dominion, to
be regained the way Zionism repossessed Palestine millennia after its loss.

[b]The international political situation after 9/11 and 3/11 has brusquely resurrected
questions about Spain’s location between Africa, the Orient, and
the Western world, with the epoch known as “al-Andalus” appearing at the
center of discordant historiographies and “imaginative geographies.”
The historian María Jesús Viguera Molins has noted the “conflictual”
nature of the “historiography of al-Andalus,” with Spanish historians at
different periods of their nation’s history either romanticizing or denigrating
the Moorish era; the influence of contemporary politics on their
writing was such that, as she put it, myth risks replacing history and the
present risks displacing the past.5 Liberal historians often romanticized
al-Andalus, while conservative historians saw the Muslim presence as an
interruption, an “interference” in an essentially Spanish nation and course
of history. Over the past century, imperialism, decolonization, and the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict have polarized interpretations of al-Andalus
even outside Spain, with Left-leaning writers across the West adulating
the tolerance of Granada and the role of Moorish culture in sparking the
Renaissance, but with conservatives seeing the Moors as “enemies of
learning” whose insidious influence doomed Iberia (and southern Italy)
to centuries of “cultural backwardness.”[/b]

I begin this essay by discussing Spain’s centuries-old disquiet about
the “Islamic interregnum” and show how at critical historical moments,
intellectuals have revisited the Oriental question from varying ideological
standpoints. Focusing on the twentieth century, I examine how the Spanish
state has mobilized the country’s Islamic past and maneuvered the Spanish
political and geographic imagination to use the country’s proximity to

North Africa for different political purposes: to justify colonial incursions
into Africa; to rally African and Arab states against the United States,
Great Britain, and France after World War II; to demand membership in
the European Union by underscoring Spain’s historic role keeping Muslim
hordes off Western soil. The Spanish state’s mobilization of history and
manipulation of geography richly illustrates Edward Said’s argument about
the political power of “imaginative geographies” and how the hardy, seemingly
ageless, entities we know as “Europe,” “the West,” and “the Orient”
are, at bottom, “ideological confections” whose contents and borders are
shaped by conflicting state interests and nationalisms.6
Since 9/11 and 3/11, Spain is again a country facing two directions:
searching for a place in the Western world and trying to define its relationship
to the Orient, a process that requires the country to reexamine
its ties to its historic others — Jews and Moors, two peoples who now have
their own states and nationalisms. After Franco’s death, the Spanish state
began to reassess the dictatorship’s historic amity with the Arab world and
hostility toward Israel, and its leaders are still trying to negotiate a place
between American and European approaches to the Orient and their differing
visions of the Jew’s and the Arab’s relationships to the West. The
current crisis has fractured Spain politically, producing different political
blocs, each with a different vision of the country’s position in the West, its
relationship with the Orient, and of the Muslim’s and Jew’s places within
the Spanish nation. Hughes’s depiction of Spain as an ideological battleground
and a country with profound racial and cultural anxieties holds
true seven decades hence.


Al-Andalus and the Rise of the West

---

The dispute over Moorish influence in Spain touches not only on the
issue of Islam in the formation of modern Spain but on broader, equally
uncomfortable questions of Spain’s position in Europe and the role of
Islamic Spain in the formation of Europe and the rise of Western civilization.
Did Andalusia, as claimed by many historians, and Arab and
Muslim nationalists, serve as a conveyer of knowledge from the classical
worlds of Islam and ancient Greece to Europe above the Pyrenees?
Was Islamic Spain an era of cultural efflorescence that helped spark the
Renaissance? Historians have bitterly contested this perspective, maintaining
that Islamic Spain was neither as tolerant nor as oriental as its
champions claim, nor did it have the impregnating cultural influence
on the rest of Europe. The Western philosophers who developed the
idea of “Europe” drew a continuous line from ancient Greece through
Rome right up to the Renaissance, largely ignoring the role of the Judeo-
Islamic centers of learning in Andalusia or Sicily that had translated
and contributed to the classical heritage “rediscovered” by these modern
thinkers. The ascending Christian Europe was defining itself against the
Orient, principally the Arab-Muslim world, and European nationalists
were not going to acknowledge a cultural debt to their main adversary.
Spain, which had been occupied by Muslims, has been the least willing
to acknowledge any substantive Islamic cultural influence.
But the possibility of “cultural borrowing” and “reactive adaptation”
that may have occurred between 711 and 1609,7 after which the remaining
Moriscos of Alpujarras were expelled, has bedeviled Spanish historians
for centuries. If between the eighth and eleventh centuries historians
portrayed “the Moor” as invariably brutal and menacing, writers from
the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries began to romanticize the Islamic
epoch and produce a literature of “Maurophilia.”8 In the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, Spanish historians began to acknowledge
the achievements of Islamic Spain, but insisted that this was the work of
people who may have been outwardly oriental but were still ethnically and
biologically “Spanish”; Spain, to these scholars, was the product of an
unbroken cultural continuity whose origins could be traced back as far as
the ancient Celtiberian past.

The debate about the Orient’s role in Spain’s formation has been
most personified by the acrimonious exchange between the historians
Américo Castro and Claudio Sanchez-Albornoz. Castro celebrated Spain’s
mixed ancestry, arguing that Spanish cultural identity arose in the Middle
Ages through the symbiosis of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian elements;
Sanchez-Albornoz saw Muslim Spain as an “interruption” to an eternal
“Spanish” continuum. Castro argued, in his influential España en su historia,
written in exile after Spain’s fall to the fascists, that Spain was not an
“eternal” entity but one that came into being after the Muslim invasion of
711 and the interaction of what he called the “three castes” — Christians,
Jews, and Muslims. Castro celebrated Spain’s hybridity, emphasizing that
Andalusia’s tricultural heritage had influenced figures like Cervantes and,
in crossing the Pyrenees, affected the thought of numerous European
philosophers.9
In España, un enigma historico, Sanchez-Albornoz replied to Castro
that the latter had overstated the impact and misunderstood the nature of
the contact between Muslims and Christians, which was fundamentally
conflictive and not amenable to positive and creative cultural exchange.
He maintained that most of the components of “Spanish” culture are
either idiosyncratic or consist of Roman, Gothic, and elements of non-
Semitic provenance.
[b]If Castro viewed 711 as momentous in the birth The Interference of al-Andalus 71
of Spain’s hybridity, Sanchez-Albornoz saw the Moorish invasion as a
national disaster and the principal cause of his homeland’s entrapment in
despotism and economic backwardness. He argued that twelve centuries
have gone by, and Spain has still not been able to overcome that “tragic”
and “fateful” moment of 711. The prolonged military struggle against
Islam had drained Spain’s economy and held the country back from the
rest of Europe: “Slow-witted, barbaric Africa . . . twisted and distorted
the future fate of Iberia, and took it down a path, which cost Spain dear.”10
Sanchez-Albornoz insisted, though, somewhat contradictorily that Islam
affected but did not modify Spain; his homeland must not be viewed as a
nation with a “hereditary defect,” the “base offspring of a corrupt father,”
“an offshoot of Islam,” or “diseased because of an Oriental virus.” Spain is
in fact a member of Europe, and in the Middle Ages created and conveyed
a vibrant civilization to the rest of Europe, but its sacrificing to shield
Europe from the onslaughts of Islam and Africa left it an intolerant and
impoverished society.11[/b]
Curiously, both Castro and Sanchez-Albornoz saw Spanish imperialism
as a response to Islamic expansionism, if not a direct Islamic influence.
Castro argued that the myth of Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moor
killer) and his shrine in Compostela, which played a crucial ideological
role in the Reconquista of Spain and the conquest of the New World,
was itself an Islamic influence, in that it essentially mimicked the idea
of a “warrior-prophet” like Muhammad with a shrine and pilgrimage
center like Mecca. Castro underlines the importance of this myth in the
dialogue between Christian Spain and Europe beyond the Pyrenees, and
in the emergence of a European identity, since all over Western Europe
Santiago’s shrine was seen as a Christian Mecca (“to face the Mohammedan
Kaaba”) and led to the forging of a common European self against
a common adversary.12 These arguments about Spanish militarism being a
necessary response to jihad, the Spanish Inquisition as a “necessary evil,”
the cult of Santiago as the patron saint of “fortress Spain,” and Spain as
protector of Europe against Islam have been made by different Spanish
leaders in varying political contexts, from Franco’s forays into Morocco
to Spain’s participation in the Iraq war.

Franco and the Colonial Imagination

---

[b]The Spanish-American War of 1898 and the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico,
and the Philippines at a time when European powers were seizing territories
in Africa had profound political repercussions in Spain and generated
much agonizing about the country’s lesser position in Europe. After 1898
Spain would shift its attention to the European front, and to Africa where
it would attempt to carve out a small empire to make up for its lost possessions
in the Caribbean, beginning a long-standing practice of trying to
dominate North Africa to gain acceptance in the West. The liberal prime
minister Conde de Romanones put it bluntly in his memoirs, “Morocco
was for Spain her last chance to keep her position in Europe.”13 Joaquin
Costa, a noted “Africanist,” as government experts on North Africa were
called, and one of the strongest proponents of regeneracionismo, post-
1898 economic and political regeneration, would explain the 1898 defeat
and loss of empire in terms of the Black Legend (“the Africa that has
invaded us”), yet still argue that Spain should lay claim to some territory
in Africa, since colonizing that continent, specifically Morocco, was crucial
to his nation’s return to glory.14 Throughout the twentieth century,
Spain would try to establish control over Morocco — or at least over the
frontier with Morocco — to gain acceptance in Europe, where, paradoxically,
it was excluded and seen as backward because of its historic ties to
North Africa.[/b]
When Miguel Primo de Rivera became leader of Spain in 1923, the
anticolonial struggle in northern Morocco was raging, and the “Moroccan
question” was one of the most pressing and divisive political issues.
Franco, however, adamantly opposed a withdrawal from Morocco and,
during the Spanish civil war, would oddly make Spain’s Islamic past
and colonial presence in Morocco central to the fascist cause against the
“infidel” Republicans. Franco, who had learned Arabic while crushing the
Moroccan rebellion in 1921, would lead tens of thousands of Moroccan
mercenaries (“tropas mulatas”) in what the generalissimo described as his
crusade against the “Red, atheist Republic.” Franco defended the use of
Moroccan troops, saying the fascist side was defending Christian values
in an alliance with Muslim believers against the “godless” communists.
Moorish troops were in fact often baptized before going into battle. If the
fascists used the Moroccans both as cannon fodder and as psychological
weapons, the Republicans, in turn, revived the centuries-old cry of “Moros
en la costa!” (“Moors on the Coast!”), warning of the savage, sexually
rapacious Moorish invaders “awaited by virgins in paradise” and describing
their side as defenders of Europe against el Oriente.15

Bump.

You have good taste in threads
.
If your up for a currently on going interesting read I suggest you try
https://www.nairaland.com/1501884/what-does-igbo-notion-personal#19487182
.
That said maybe I should tend to this topic with pictures of moors in spain along with those weird festivals the Spanish have each year where they dress up in black face(not all of them) to commemorate kicking out the moors.

[size=24pt] Fiesta de Moros y Cristianos [/size]

[img]http://2.bp..com/-vs6LZ-cYCX0/TxBgW52YG-I/AAAAAAAABLg/5V_qO1Q-p4M/s1600/DSC_0061+copia.jpg[/img]
[img]http://fiestas.edreams.es/images/2009/02/moros-y-cristianos-alcoy1-420x315.jpg[/img]

[size=24pt] V.S [/size]
[img]http://www.xn--espaaescultura-tnb.es/export/sites/cultura/multimedia/galerias/propuestas_culturales/moros_cristianos_alcoy_t0300884.jpg_1306973099.jpg[/img]



The Moors' last sigh

Slaughter by the sea
By CHRIS WRIGHT | July 7, 2011



On a recent Saturday night, as Americans prepared for fireworks in celebration of a long-ago battle for independence, the Spanish seaside town of Moraira was gearing up for a holy war. It took place, as always, on the town's main beach, and it involved women and children, as well as bare-chested men. As tourists, we headed down to watch the Christians kick the hell out of the Muslim invaders — again.

Each year, communities up and down Spain's Costa Blanca hold what they call Fiesta de Moros y Cristianos — a spirited, multi-day celebration of the Reconquista. For locals, the story is a familiar one, if not strictly historically faithful: Muslims invade Spain in the early hours of the eighth century; in 1492, the Spanish kick the troublemakers out. In reality, the Moorish period was an age of art, science, and religious tolerance in Spain, but that doesn't matter. It's the bloody expulsion that Moraira's celebrants are interested in. The occasion is marked with parades, dancing, and the wholesale purchase of fake blood.

This year's rehashing of the story began when a rabble of grumpy-looking Moors overran a small hill near the beach. The Christians didn't respond in earnest until the following evening, when they filed onto the sand carrying banners and swords, kitted out in period costume, applauded by the inhabitants of a temporary bleacher. The opposing armies hollered at each other for a while, in Spanish, an exchange that seemed to amount to:

"Get off our hill!"

"No!"

At one point, a marauding horseman rode around setting fire to market stalls, only the stalls wouldn't catch, and the marauding devolved into frustrated fiddling, the kind you see over an uncooperative barbecue grill. After more shouting, the combatants began firing fake guns at each other, the noise of which caused some of the children in the audience to weep. The kids' discomfort intensified as a man paraded around with another man's head on a pike. It wasn't a real head, but try telling that to a two-year-old.

Soon, corpses littered the ground. Never mind that one of the dead could be seen checking his watch, it was an unsettling spectacle, and not only for the pre-schoolers. "Yes, um, well," remarked a middle-aged woman named Jan, from Chicago, who was seated in the front row. "I'm not sure we'd see anything like this at home." When the subject of American Civil War re-enactments was raised, the woman frowned and said something about "the whole 9/11 thing," before being drowned out by another volley of gunfire.

What Jan-from-Chicago seemed to be getting at was this: in her part of the world, the notion of Christian armies beating the bejesus out of Muslim armies has uncomfortable political connotations. Not so for a young local man named Tomas, who came to watch the battle from the nearby town of Benissa. "This is not politics," he said. "It is historical."

I didn't stay to watch the end of the fight. My own little girl appeared to have been slightly traumatized by the sight of the dripping, disembodied head, and I already knew how it ended. As we walked away, fireworks streaked into the sky, crackling triumphantly. The small hill had been retaken. Mission accomplished.



Moros y Cristianos
(Spanish: [ˈmoɾos i kɾisˈtjanos]) or Moros i Cristians (Valencian: [ˈmɔɾoz i kɾistiˈans]) literally in English Moors and Christians, is a set of festival activities which are celebrated in many towns and cities of Spain, mainly in the southern Valencian Community. According to popular tradition the festivals commemorate the battles, combats and fights between Moors (or Muslims) and Christians during the period known as Reconquista (from the 8th century through the 15th century).

The festivals represent the capture of the city by the Moors and the subsequent Christian reconquest. The people that take part in the festival are usually enlisted in filaes or comparsas (companies that represent the Christian or Moor legions). The festivals last for several days, and feature parades with bombastic costumes loosely inspired by Medieval fashion. Christians wear fur, metallic helmets, and armor, fire loud arquebuses, and ride horses. In contrast, Moors wear ancient Arab costumes, carry scimitars, and ride real camels or elephants. The festival develops among shots of gunpowder, medieval music, and fireworks, and ends with the Christians winning a simulated battle around a castle.

-Wikipedia

Green and white, really?

Lord have mercy.