On Saturday, I took this photograph of the Torre de la Vala. This tower is part of the ramparts of the Alcazaba, the (largely destroyed) citadel of the Alhambra, the palace and fortress of the former Moorish kings of Granada in Spain. At this exact place, the banners of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were flown on January 2, 1492, upon the surrender of King Muhammad XII of Granada (known to the Spanish as Boabdil). This marked the capture of Granada and the final expulsion of the Moors from Spain.
It all seems rather violent and provocative to me though. If perhaps the reconquistadors had negotiated and found a peaceful settlement rather than forcibly erecting their banners, then the so called “Tragedy of Andalucia” might not have occurred, and the world might be a better place with fewer grievances today. Rather than releasing occasional rants to Al-Jazeera from a cave somewhere near the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, Osama bin Laden might be a well adjusted and peaceful man running a flat pack furniture business from an office park in Abu Dhabi, and the World Trade Center in New York City might yet be standing.
Or perhaps not.
I visited the Alhambra in 1991, and had this impression of the palace and the gardens:
“Andalucian Dreams”(Link)
I’m gonna go with “perhaps not”.
Just keep in mind the unfortunate reality of just how many various and sundry “injustices” are largely rectified (increased civil rights, huge strides against racism, massive increase in overall wealth, etc, etc) and yet the terminally indignant go on being terminally indignant, and the terminally pissed off go on being terminally pissed off.
Ya think the parents and grandparents of the Rostock G-8 nimrod protesters were… more free…. wealthier…. healthier…. better off…. than those anarchist freaks? Bah! They call for more AIDS spending in Africa. Do ya think the reality that Bush as POTUS has pledged AND given more money for AIDS in Africa matters one whit to them? That if he quadrupled that figure tomorrow, that the freaks would so much as say Thank You?
Bah. They wanna be angry children because it is more fun than the heavy lifting and imperfections of the real world, and that is all that matters to all too many.
The greivance is all to often a facade. Bin Laden is pissed off for the same reason Hitler and Goering were. They are entitled to ultimate power, and they want it. If throwing Adalucia and Palestine over the side would help that end, they’d shut their traps about both in a heartbeat.
Yeah. I’m going with “perhaps not”.
I fear something similar will occur in the not too distant future in France, Spain, UK, Netherlands, Germany and other places with majority, (or soon to be majority), muslim populations in some local jusrisdictions.
I can see a forced exodus from those countries, with France the likely forerunner.
France is at least as left-wing as the other countries with huge numbers of muslim immigrants, but they are just contrary enough, and bloody minded enough, not to be as hamstrung by political correctness and multi-culturalism as the other countries.
Along similar lines, wouldn’t Lord of the Rings have been better if Frodo and the Elves had just returned Sauron’s ring to him? They could have invited him to Rivendel for a conference on the future of Middle-Earth, swapped Embassies, and had peaceful lives under the control of that Mouth of Sauron chappie.
You’re right. Nasty violence solves nothing!
nick g,
Have you seen this?
Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky discuss Tolkien
Of course it’s a parody, but it doesn’t really read like one.
I have visited Andalucia, including Granada several times and one cannot help but be in awe of the Moorish civilization of the time. But as with all civilizations it became decadent and riven with internal dissent and had to fall. Its no good viewing events of those times with the eyes of a 21st C human being. If we had perhaps done things differently in England we would still have a Catholic monarchy.
So, for me – a definite “or not”
I am not exactly an admirer of Ferdinand the Dark and Isabella and would have supported the other side in the civil war in Castile that brought them to power.
However, this war had gone on since 711 when the Muslims invaded the Visigothic Kingdom of what is now Spain and Portugal. Indeed the Muslims later advanced far into France before being driven back (although there were always areas of Spain that continued to resist them).
There were many different waves of Muslims and internal conflicts and there were many counter attacks (defeats and victories) and periods of relative peace (although never absolute peace – there were always raids, hence the name of “Castile”, the land of castles).
There were periods when the main Muslim areas were tolerant and periods when they were not (ditto with the Christian areas).
The Omayyad Caliphate of Cordoba was an advanced society in many ways, but it was not Christians who destroyed this Caliphate (any more than it was Christians who had caused Abderrahem to flee to Spain back in 755). Although one should not over stress this – for example the irrigation system (which according to the B.B.C. and so on was all created by the Muslims) was basically Roman.
Much though I dislike both Ferdinand and Isabella it is hard to see how their advance chanced much. Had they not attacked an attack would have had to have been made later, or some fresh wave of Muslims from North Africa would have used this area in southern Spain as bridgehead for an advance of their own (which may be happening at the moment).
When I typed “chanced” I should have typed “changed”.
Hylas – sadly this parody is more or less the sort of thing that passes muster in mainstream academic life (it is not just Chomsky and a few odd ball types).
I, for one, am glad that Ferdinand & Isabella won. They then felt free to finance the expedition of that Italian fellow, C. Columbo.
This eventually led to me looking out a window at a beautiful day (don’t tell anyone) here in the Pacific Northwest of the then un-imagined US of A, instead of hustling sheep around some moist and gloomy glen in Scotland ( a nice place to visit).
In Spain, they say, uhm, gracias, I believe.
By “this war” I, of course, I meant the conflict with the Muslims in the Iberian area – not the civil war.
Winger may have a point that the other side (the King of Portugal and the daughter, and J. was his daughter, of the Henry IV of Castile) might not have funded the trips of the Italian fellow.
After all scholars knew that the world was much bigger than he said it was – so there was no easy way to the East Indies by sailing west.
Other people would still have sailed west (they had done and were continuing to do so), but perhaps not the Spanish.
Although remember Portugal and Castile might have become one country (which might have had interesting results in uniting sea exploration). With Aragon (and its interests in Italy and so on) quite seperate.
I too go with the ‘perhaps not.’ From what I understand, fruitcake fundamentalism and the turning away from the rationality of Islam’s golden age was in full swing by then. Without the reconquest there’d still be something else the the fruitcakes to go mental over when the saw the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment. This would most likely be something (they’d consider) provocative in the resurgence of this-worldly pagan arts and sciences. IIRC, Ayatollah Khomeini said that what the Iranian clerical leadership fears the most is not US might but US universities, and I believe it is a sentiment traceable back to philosophical trends that started two centuries before the reconquista was completed. Andrew X is entirely correct.
JJM
I, for one, am glad that Ferdinand & Isabella won. They then felt free to finance the expedition of that Italian fellow, C. Columbo.
Its just a shame that he and his descendants were keen to claim that he discovered the Americas. In fact the Vikings had been there centuries before and he was probably following a map. Still America does have a better ring to it than Vinland I guess.
Wow! Chomskyism sure is a corrosive frame of mind! I have just been rethinking ‘Wuthering Heights’. With Chomsky-vision, I realise that Heathcliffe is an unwitting slave of the reigning power-structure! His savage energy (think ‘Imperial colonies’) is channelled away from the destruction of the class-system, and into supporting his oppressor, by the promise of the good things in life (Cathy). Of course, Capitalism doesn’t deliver what he was lead to believe it would, and he can only wait for an illusory after-life to find happiness, unable to see beyond the paradigm that blinds him! I see it all!!
Now let’s deconstruct “Atlas Shrugged”!
Thanks, Hylas!
Final explusion perhaps but they threatened the coast for many years. In 1543 the port of Palamos on the costa brava of Catalonia was completely destroyed by saracen corsairs[1].
1.Source Andrew Bostoms excellent book, ‘the Legacy of Jihad’
Of course they raided as far north as Iceland.
These days there is a strong Muslim presense in Sweden.
Although not all the Muslims are hostile. For example, there is a female comic in Norway (I can not remember her name) most of whose material is an attack on the more demented interpretations of Islam.
However, I am not sure that this lady is a Muslim.
As normal it is not the colour of someone’s skin or where they come from that counts – it is the ideas in their heads.
Of course the “Holy Office” in Spain (which was under the control of the Crown, not of Rome) did not agree – holding that “blood” was a good indication of what someone thought (and they tortured people till they agreed).
However, I am not a fan of the Spanish Holy Office.
But then they would say “with your family name……”