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ABSTRACT
This article explores the resonances of the Morisco past in present-day Spain and the connection between the commemoration of the 1609 expulsion and Spanish-Moroccan relations today. It looks at the different forms of remembering the 400 years since the Decree of Expulsion was issued, its critics, and how these public memory projects intersect with colonial narratives, before investigating how the conflicting pasts converge and are reinterpreted in current discussions about the place of Islam in Europe. By examining the claims about history and memory made by different actors reacting to the commemoration of Spain's expulsion of the Moriscos, the article shows how the Muslim subject is acknowledged as part of the country's historical past, yet is hardly accepted as part of Spanish society today.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my colleagues that reviewed the article: David Stenner, Catherine Terrien and Camila Pastor. I am also grateful to Ruth Mas, Charles Hirschkind and Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla for the conversations along the years and their comments and suggestions to improve this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Viguera (Citation1995, 61–70) has observed how the medieval historiography of the Iberian Peninsula moulded two different images of al-Andalus: from the eight to eleventh centuries, al-Andalus and Islam enjoyed their greatest preponderance and were perceived as a danger by Christian historiography. However, from that point to the fifteenth century, when the Christian monarchs gradually strengthened their position, al-Andalus became a problem that had to be resolved. Viguera characterises this second stage as a period of ‘erroneous idealization’ that aimed to extol the enemy in order to magnify the eventual victory of the Christian monarchs.
2 This term is often translated as coexistence or conviviality, but it is used as well in Spanish to refer specifically to the culture and social conditions of religious coexistence in al-Andalus. See the discussion about the current uses of the evocation of the convivencia in Manzano Moreno (Citation2013) Available in English ‘Qurtuba: some critical considerations of the caliphate of Cordoba and the myth of convivencia’. Accessed 16 February 2017 http://www.awraq.es/blob.aspx?idx=6&nId=96&hash=ac20943d589408c5a0a3cd2c1e0908a4 and González Ferrín (Citation2016).
3 Monitoring Islamophobia in Spain is a task primarily carried out by civil associations. One of the latest international reports that devotes a chapter to Spain is the European Islamophobia Report 2015, edited by the Turkish think tank SETA (Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research). The author of the report on Spain, Alfonso Casani Herranz, is a researcher at FUNCI (Islamic Culture Foundation). Casani opens his report with the words of President Mariano Rajoy, who ‘stated that he did not believe Islamophobia could be a problem in Spain’ before discussing the difficulties in establishing exact numbers, undoubtedly related to this all too common assumption expressed by President Rajoy. Accessed 1 February 2017 http://www.islamophobiaeurope.com/reports/2015/en/EIR_2015_SPAIN.pdf. The special report on Islamophobia published in the same year by the Observatorio Andalusí (linked to one of the two big Muslim umbrella federations, UCIDE (Union of Islamic Communities of Spain), includes reports against and attacks on mosques and individuals collected by the federation to demonstrate how the existing information on Islamophobia at international level has an impact in Spain as well. Accessed 1 February 2017 http://observatorio.hispanomuslim.es/isj15.pdf. Finally, The Citizen Platform against Islamophobia offers more detailed data, reporting 278 cases in 2016, including attacks on individuals and mosques and hate speech. It also warns that according to official sources, only 10% of the cases are reported. Accessed 1 February 2017 https://plataformaciudadanacontralaislamofobia.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/informe-islamofobia-en-espac3b1a-2015-pcci-informe-anual-20164.pdf.
4 Founded in 2006, Casa Árabe is a consortium of public administrations led by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs whose role is currently defined on its website as that of a ‘strategic centre for Spain's relations with the Arab world, a meeting point where different role-players and institutions, both private and public, from the worlds of business, education, academia, politics and culture can dialogue, interact, establish lines of cooperation and undertake joint projects’. Accessed 1 May 2016 www.casaarabe.es.
5 Gema Martín Muñoz. ‘Expulsados de su patria’ (Expelled from their homeland). El País (30/04/2009) Accessed 21 January 2017 http://elpais.com/diario/2009/04/30/opinion/1241042404_850215.html
6 The memory of the Moriscos in Morocco has been the object of two recent works that elaborate on it as social construction and cultural representations. See González Alcantud and Rojo Flóres (Citation2015) and Luque Gallegos (Citation2017).
7 One of the most outstanding scholars on the history of the Moriscos, Barrios Aguilera (Citation2010), has written about the commemorative publications, providing a very good guide to the various academic initiatives. See also the report published in one of the major newspapers compiling the main events and publications. Miguel Ángel Villena. Moriscos, una memoria recobrada (Moriscos, a recovered memory), El País, 9 May 2009 http://elpais.com/diario/2009/05/09/cultura/1241820001_850215.html Accessed 23 February 2017. This is not an exhaustive compilation, but just a sample of the impulse that the commemoration gave to the study of Morisco history.
8 In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Madrid on 11 March 2004, a number of non-academic books were published with titles such as Spain versus Islam: From Muhammad to Ben Laden (Cesar Vidal. España frente al Islam: de Mahoma a Ben Laden) and Jihad in Spain: The Obsession to Recover al-Andalus (Gustavo de Arístegui. La yihad en España: la obsesión por recuperar al-Andalus). However, idealizations of the Andalusian past are equally distortive. For further reflections on the distortions and the importance of the past in the present, see the work by historian Manzano Moreno (Citation2013). Using a different perspective and with a different purpose, anthropologist Hirschkind (Citation2013) has also provided important reflections on the historiographical approaches to medieval Spain projected into the political present and their validity when considering the place of Muslims in European societies today.
9 Diario de Sesiones del Congreso de los Diputados, IX Legislatura, Comisiones, Asuntos Exteriores, No. 424 (2009), pp. 12–14. Accessed 23 February 2016 http://www.congreso.es/public_oficiales/L9/CONG/DS/CO/CO_424.PDF
10 In 1992, the King of Spain asked for forgiveness for the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 during an official ceremony. Later on, a legislative initiative made it easier to the descendants of the Sephardic community to obtain Spanish nationality based on their historical roots. A similar treatment has been denied to the descendents of Moriscos on the basis that whereas Sephardic Jews preserved the language and culture of Sepharad, the Moriscos, even if they maintained their identity, assimilated into the Muslim majority culture of the societies in which they settled. However, the Moroccan claim for reparations has focused on recognition and forgiveness.
11 Antonio Manuel (Almodovar del Río, 1968), professor of Civil Law at the University of Cordoba, is (particularly at the local Cordoba level) a well-known human rights activist, author, musician, and was independent candidate for the Andalusian Party in 2012 and briefly for Podemos in 2015. He has been involved not only in projects affecting the Moriscos, but also in the ‘Mezquita-Catedral de tod@s’ campaign as the visible face of the petition. He is actively involved in the activities of the Fundación Blas Infante.
12 Since 1985, it has been possible to request Spanish nationality after two years of residence by citizens from countries with a historical relationship with Spain: Latin America, Andorra, Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Portugal, and Sephardic descendants. Since 2015, a new law has granted Sephardic descendants the possibility of obtaining nationality without any period of residence. The preamble to the law includes a long argument laying out the historical reasons for this privilege. See Ley 12/2015, de 24 de junio, en materia de concesión de la nacionalidad española a los sefardíes originarios de España. Accessed 23 February 2017 https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2015/06/25/pdfs/BOE-A-2015-7045.pdf
13 Mansur Abdussalam Escudero (Malaga, 1947-Almodovar del Río, 2010) was one of the key figures in Spanish Islam, both on the political-institutional level and in terms of interreligious dialogue. He headed the Islamic Commission (the official representation of Islam as a religious minority to the state) from its creation until he became convinced that his leadership was not representative of the new plural reality in 2006. However, he stayed involved in different transnational Muslim networks. His sudden death in October 2010 interrupted his personal projects regarding the shared use of the mosque-cathedral and the recognition of, and reparations for, the Moriscos. In 1989, he founded the Junta Islámica, which he led until his death.
14 Sebastian de la Obra is another well-known cultural and human rights activist in Cordoba. In 2012, he was an independent candidate for the Andalusian Party along with Antonio Manuel. In 2006, he founded the Casa Sefarad in Cordoba as a museum and cultural centre to disseminate information about the Sephardic tradition.
15 The jury acknowledged the NGO's work fighting poverty and hunger and promoting education in more than 60 countries for 50 years. Accessed 23 February 2017 http://www.premiosprincipe.es/2010/premio-principe-asturias-concordia.html
16 The Spanish press has published different stories about Morisco descendants in Morocco. See for instance ‘Los Hijos de al-Andalus’ (The Sons of al-Andalus). Accessed 23 February 2017 http://www.elmundo.es/suplementos/cronica/2006/565/1156629601.html
17 ‘La Junta Islámica pide para los descendientes de moriscos la nacionalidad española’. ABC 30/07/2006. Accessed 23 February 2017 http://sevilla.abc.es/hemeroteca/historico-30-07-2006/sevilla/Cordoba/la-junta-islamica-pide-para-descendientes-de-moriscos-la-nacionalidad-espa%C3%B1ola_1422675589669.html#
18 Text of the candidacy. Accessed 22 February 2017 www.moriscosconcordia.com
19 Beyond his widely acclaimed literary career, Vargas Llosa is a prominent voice in the Spanish political and cultural arena. His argument here is very close to the reply of the PP spokesperson in Congress.
20 ‘La expulsión de los moriscos’. El País, 29/11/2009. http://elpais.com/diario/2009/11/29/opinion/1259449212_850215.html Accessed 1 May 2016.
21 Possibly the most paradigmatic case would be the re-reading of national history commemorated in 1992 in light of new democratic values. I have previously examined this topic regarding the forms of visibility of Islam in contemporary Spain. Arigita (Citation2009).
22 I would like to thank Sara de Jong for suggesting me this reference of Patricia Noxolo.