Spain Must Apologise for its History

It emerged on 9th April 2009 that the descendants of the Moors, the Muslims who invaded and conquered the Iberian Peninsula, want an apology from the Spanish government for the expulsion of the 'Moriscos'.

Moriscos were part-Muslim citizens who generally converted to Christianity after the reconquista.

Spanish Muslims are agitating for the apology, billing the Spanish Inquisition's move against 'anti-Christian' influences as Europe's first case of ethnic cleansing against Muslims.

All this is very telling.

Because the elephant in the room is this; if the descendants of those who drove out the Moors must apologise to the descendants of the Moors for asserting their independence, then why should the latter not apologise to the former for invading, colonising and subjugating them for the best part of 700 years?

Can you imagine if the families of British soldiers and colonial officials killed by the Mau-Mau demanded an apology from the Kenyan government?

There would be mirth in many quarters, but also outrage at their tenacity.

Because the world doesn't work like that, does it? Only White, Christian Westerners can ever be guilty.

Of course, apologists for Islam will launch into a lecture about how Al-Andalus represented the pinnacle of Islamic and European civilisation at that time; it had art, culture, a thriving Jewish community etc etc etc.

But the fact is, it also had Dhimmis, Jizya, and blood taxes. It had a form of Devsirme, enslaving Christian boys for the Muslim army, and also a system whereby the independent Christian provinces in the north had to deliver a certain number of virgins for the harems as a form of tribute.

Are these the hallmarks of an enlightened society? If this is indeed one of the most enlightened Muslim societies which has ever existed, does that not indeed tell us something?

If the enlightened aspects alone atone for the sins, then why is the same not true of Western colonialism?

Do our gifts of art, literature, music, civil service and government institutions, democracy, secular law before which all are equal, technology, medicine, education not allow us to be forgiven for the stains on our record?

Well, no - in fact, they not only don't allow us to be forgiven, but they don't even deem to prevent us from becoming a despised and hunted minority in our own lands.

In some senses, I don't blame these Spanish Muslims; they are simply taking advantage of a system we created, whereby people of all kinds and cultures are given respect where it has not been earned. Unfortunately for us, that is a Muslim specialty.

For if an apology is forthcoming, aren't there quite a few people that representatives of Islam should be apologising to? They are asking people to regret a normal part of history. As KGS at Tundra Tabloids put it:

Remember folks, wars, expulsions and domination of the other have happened throughout the history of the world, but yet it's only the Muslims who want to remember only what "the others" have done, never what they themselves have inflicted upon the Non-Muslim world.

Exactly.

Here is the full story from the Times:

It was the start of one of the earliest and most brutal episodes of ethnic cleansing in Europe, so Spain is, understandably perhaps, a little reluctant to mark the occasion.

Four hundred years ago today King Philip III signed an order to expel 300,000 Moriscos - or part-Muslims - who had converted from Islam to Christianity.

Over the next five years hundreds of the exiles died as they were forced from their homes in Spain to North Africa at the height of the Spanish Inquisition.

There are no plans to mark the date officially, although the occasion is being remembered in a series of exhibitions, conferences and public debates.

The anniversary comes days after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, met Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, in Istanbul to celebrate the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations, which is intended to foster friendship between the West and the Islamic world.

Some Muslim writers and Spanish and Moroccan campaigners believe that Madrid should apologise for the wrongs committed during the 17th century. Juan Goytisolo, a Spanish novelist, said:

“Official and academic Spain retires into the fortress of cautious silence, which reveals obvious discomfort. The expulsion was the first European precedent ... of the European ethnic cleansings of the last century.”

The anniversary highlights once again the uneasy relationship which exists between modern-day Spain and its Moorish, or Muslim, past. Muslims conquered much of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century after arriving from North Africa but, centuries later, their armies were finally expelled in 1492 after the victory of the Catholic monarchs King Ferdinand of Castile and Queen Isabella of Aragon.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims who remained in Spain were forced to convert to Christianity, but many continued with their Muslim names and ways of life, defying all attempts to create a Catholic state.

After military losses to the Protestant Dutch, King Philip signed a decree on April 9, 1609, to expel these reluctant converts, in a move he hoped would strengthen his kingdom.

Historians record the brutal conditions in which many hundreds were killed during the forced resettlement in North Africa over the next five years and Spanish society was, in fact, weakened economically and politically as a result - particularly in areas such as Valencia and Aragon, where the majority of the Muslim converts had lived.

Historians and writers have urged the Government to use the anniversary of the event to make overtures to the Islamic world. José Manuel Fajardo, a Spanish writer, said: “Mr Zapatero has an opportunity to transform one of the most tragic episodes in the history of Spain into an opportunity for a re-encounter between the West and Islam.”

However, a spokesman for the Government said: “There are no plans to mark the anniversary.”

The defeat of the Moors in 1492 and the expulsion of the Moriscos from 17th-century Spain has become a politically sensitive subject, with Osama bin Laden referring to it in repeated calls for the restoration of al-Andalus, the former Muslim kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula.

Ah yes, 'friendship between civilisations', 'respect'. These words are clearly meaningless, though - because all such concepts have to be mutual, and they're clearly not. You'll notice also that it does not mention apologising to the Jews who were also driven out, despite their obvious respect for everyone else on the planet.

Does the Muslim world seriously think it has nothing to apologise for?

Ultimately it seems the Muslim world has a sort of merged superiority and inferiority complex - on the one hand they're noble warriors spreading enlightenment at the point of their swords, but on the other they're history's eternal victims, unfairly picked on by everyone around them.

Does the author of the article serious think Osama bin Laden will be satisfied with an apology? If anything, it will embolden such characters, by showing them just how weak and ashamed to exist the modern West has become.