Looks like hitory is repeating itself in Holland with all this propaganda against the Blacks, Coloureds and Muslims. I guess that when Wilders' PVV party enters the government with the next elections, they should flee.
Between 1609 and 1614, approximately 300,000 Moriscos—new Christians converted from Islam—were expelled from Spain. This mass relocation of people was the end result of a drastic decision that was many years in the making.
First discussed in government circles in 1582, the possibility of expulsion slowly gained credence as desirable government policy and merited full consideration after Philip III's accession to the throne in 1598. Three factors mainly determined the ultimate acceptance of the expulsion as a remedy for national ills. First, the utter failure of the assimilation of Moriscos into a normative religious and cultural mold underscored the seeming futility of previous governmental efforts. Throughout Spain, and especially in Valencia, where Moriscos were numerous and often lived in separate villages, Moriscos continued to cling to traditional religious and cultural practices. With women often serving as guardians of traditional knowledge, Morisco communities managed, despite great pressure, to maintain specific practices such as circumcision, the ritual slaughter of animals, traditional dress, prayer, and the production of aljamiado literature, which was written in Castilian with Arabic characters. A multitude of signs—no matter how equivocal—convinced the authorities that Moriscos could never be fully assimilated into Christian society.
The failure of assimilation partly engendered another factor favoring expulsion that was critical at the time: state security. Constituting a large and visibly different minority, Moriscos often aroused suspicions of collaboration with Spain's enemies. Some contacts between Morisco communities and the Ottomans, Barbary corsairs, and French Protestants had occurred and were known to authorities. Moreover, given the rather hard-fought Morisco revolt of 1568–1570 in Granada, the crown worried about the possibility of another rebellion coupled with foreign invasion. This constant threat of Moriscos as potential traitors who could threaten the very safety of the state also influenced the decision to expel them.
Finally, the actions of individuals proved crucial to the government's decision. During the reign of Phillip II, fears regarding Moriscos were already evident and perhaps more compelling, yet expulsion was hardly discussed. During the reign of his successor, however, two figures stand out as crucial to the edict of expulsion: Juan de Ribera, archbishop of Valencia, and the Duke of Lerma, favorite of Philip III. Ribera, in a tireless and persistent fashion, was perhaps the most vocal advocate for expulsion. As early as 1601, he urged the king to expel the Moriscos because of their obstinacy, heresy, and the danger they presented to state security. The Duke of Lerma's support for expulsion likewise seems to have been crucial. Until January 1608, the Council of State had continued to discount expulsion as a viable alternative. In an amazing turnaround, however, the Council of State, with Lerma presiding, voted to expel the Moriscos on 30 January 1608. Some historians have speculated that the duke stood to profit greatly from the confiscation of the estates of Moriscos in Valencia.
Spawned by this mixture of long-term causes and individual animosities and opportunities, the expulsion was carried out between 1609 and 1614. Of all the Morisco communities, the ones in Valencia suffered the most as they accounted for approximately 120,000 of the 300,000 expelled. In some areas of that kingdom, moreover, force was necessary to remove the Moriscos. A few thousand irregular troops and their families briefly resisted in the mountainous regions close to Castile before being decimated by Spanish soldiers. Although perhaps more peaceful, the expulsion of Moriscos from other areas inevitably resulted in serious hardship. From Morisco children being kidnapped to save them from the infidel to the abuse heaped on Morisco families by local authorities and seigneurs and from the perils of a voyage at sea to deaths due to malnutrition or banditry once they reached North Africa, the expulsion witnessed many tribulations. At the same time, sympathetic neighbors and local authorities sometimes helped Moriscos remain in Spain or even return after the expulsion. For example, the Count of Oropesa managed to certify the appropriate Christian behavior of his Morisco tenants who remained in Spain. In Catalonia, the Bishop of Tortosa protected many Moriscos and even allowed numerous families to return to his diocese. Other Moriscos remained after taking their case to the courts, while less fortunate ones sold themselves into slavery as the price of staying on Spanish soil. Despite these isolated cases of Moriscos who remained in Spain, the expulsion of 1609 was, for the most part, complete. Historians have estimated that perhaps only a few thousand managed, through some means or other, to remain, though precise numbers may never be known.
Most Moriscos settled in North Africa, Constantinople (Istanbul), and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, although small colonies emigrated to France and Italy. Their fate varied. While those in Tunis managed to prosper and become a political force, many unfortunates who disembarked on the Algerian coast were robbed and killed by marauding Berber bandits. Likewise, while those arriving in Constantinople settled in a specific neighborhood and were reputed to be an influential minority, those who traveled to Morocco were not well received and were insulted as Christians. Their trail as a distinct community within their new homes disappears in archival sources around the late eighteenth century as they became integrated into the dominant communities.
Whereas the expulsion largely curtailed the Moriscos' viability as a distinctive cultural group, the consequences for Spain have been debated mostly from an economic point of view. Mired in an economic depression fostered by debasement, rising prices, and faltering population levels, Spain in the early seventeenth century presumably suffered from the expulsion of such a large and productive group. Valencian historians in particular have castigated the expulsion as harmful to that kingdom's economic viability. Although recent studies have helped contextualize the magnitude of the economic impact and have placed the somber specter of Spanish decline in a more nuanced light, few question that the expulsion of the Moriscos exacerbated an already gloomy economic situation in early-seventeenth-century Spain.
Bibliography
Casey, J. "Moriscos and the Depopulation of Valencia." Past and Present 50 (1971): 19–40.
Clissold, Stephen. "The Expulsion of the Moriscos, 1609–1614." History Today 28, no. 12 (1978): 817–824.
Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio, and Bernard Vincent. Historia de los moriscos. Vida y tragedia de una minoría. Madrid, 1978.
Epalza, Miguel de. Los moriscos antes y después de la expulsion. Madrid, 1992.
Gozalbes Busto, Guillermo. Los moriscos en Marruecos. Granada, 1992.
Lea, Henry Charles. The Moriscos of Spain: Their Conversion and Expulsion. Philadelphia, 1901.
—CHRISTIAN BERCO
Mentioned in
Philip III Francisco Ribalta (art) Spain and the Middle East duque de Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas Lerma (Spanish statesman) Iberian Peninsula: Overview 1610 (chronology) 1609 (chronology) Refugees, Exiles, and Émigrés (history 1450-1789) Morisco Revolt Gallinera Andalusian Arabic Alonso de Sotomayor Carxe Francisco Goméz de Sandoval y Rojas, Duke of Lerma » More» MoreRelated topics
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The Royal Institute for International Relations IRRI-KIIB, Brussels Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, The Hague Why 9/11!? The Root Causes of International Terrorism Preventing Violent Protest Behaviour. An Arab region perspective; A role for Europe? by Maurits Berger Institute Clingendael Brussels, 20 November 2003
Dear Ladies, Sirs, your excellencies, You are in luck today, because I am a lawyer. Had I been an anthropologist, historian or sociologist, I would have spend the next hour – and preferably the whole day – discussing the definition of ‘modernity’. So, as a lawyer, maybe I should start with a disclaimer: I will discuss the concept of modernity with you this morning, but will avail myself of a definition that I find workable, but that may very well be irrelevant or even offending to my scholarly colleagues. As the title of this plenary session implicitly suggests, the concepts of ‘Islam’ and ‘Modernity’ are considered anathema. The concept of modernity is usually appropriated by the West. Modernity is us. Opposing Modernity and Islam implies the incompatibility of Islam with the ways and values of our times or, more accurately, with our ways and our values. I tend to disagree with this assumption. The Muslims in the Arab world, with who I am more familiar, have a deep love-hate relationship with the West. The love is definitely with regards to modern technology, but also other values. The Arab Human Development Report of 2003, which is to be discussed by the next panellist, for instance indicated that democracy is definitely embraced by a majority in the Arab world. But this is where the hate comes in. The aversion towards the West is caused by the West taking the moral high ground, by advocating its own values as the only valid standards with disregard for any alternative. It is this alternative that is posed by Islam. In this presentation I want to argue that Islam in its present political turmoil represents the epitome of modernity. But before we continue, we must make a clear distinction between modernity as a process, and the fruits of modernity. It is my contention that the developments of political Islam in the 20th century, but especially in the past thirty years, is a process of modernity par excellence. The products of this modernity, however, are different from ‘our’ Western historical experiences. This is a problem of conceptualisation often encountered among Westerners: we cannot perceive of social-political developments leading to different result than ours. But here we are, witnessing exactly that. But first, what do we mean by ‘modernity’? In the European eighteenth century experience, I find it can be characterized by the following three elements. Revolutionary force: First, it was a revolutionary force, for it aimed at replacing old value systems for new ones. The impatience with which this need was accompanied made it not a gradual change, but a revolt against the old order. The same is happening with Islam, which is used as a rallying force against the present condition of most Muslim countries that are suffering from political oppression, corruption, nepotism and, more general, social-economical collapse. The heydays of socialism are over, and the present generations are trying to cope with debris of overpopulation, unemployment, and a collapse of the education and healthcare systems. Under the banner of Islam, people are not only demanding changes, but they are actually proposing alternatives: the Islamic model. Fair enough, this model is oftentimes tantamount to a battle cry, a mere slogan. But for many it has concrete alternatives. Reinforcing and new hope: The European revolutionary force of modernity represented and reinforced a new hope for the future. It restored man to his humanity and to his responsibilities and propelled him into new age of hope, prosperity, progress. And rightly so: modernity has brought the West liberty and knowledge. Just as the Europeans in the eighteenth century, Muslims also demand that their humanity be restored to them. The most powerful emotion that is driving this force of unrest and revolt is the feeling of exclusion and alienation. People want to be part of society, enter the labour market, participate in politics, get married. But everywhere they turn they walk into a brick wall. The young man who eagerly studies his way through (often free) university education, and graduates as an engineer or a doctor, is then confronted with unemployment and economical crisis. If he wants to get a job, he must invest in connections, corruption and bribery. If he wants to start his own company, he has to fight himself through the jungle of (again, often corrupt) bureaucracy in order to get all the permits, but even if he were to succeed he won’t get a loan from the bank because credit is not extended to individuals. The lack of income will make it impossible for him to get married, since he cannot meet the requirements of providing the house and maintenance for his wife and children. If he then wants to ventilate his frustrations and complaints by political means, he is barred from taking part in the political process, either because political participation requires prior consent by a party committee, or because political dissent is suppressed in all kinds of ways. Either because of unemployment, or nepotism, or corruption, or whatever other reason beyond their control, people are denied access to their own society. These now are powerful motives for radicalisation – the urgent, almost desperate call for changes and new hopes. People do not want to overthrow their own world just for the sake of overthrowing it – they want a future, they want to be included into their own society. Innovative: European modernity offered new alternatives to the existing order. These alternatives are what we nowadays know as rationality, liberty, democracy and secularism. In Islam, a similar development can be witnessed. There is a eagerness to restructure society. New concepts are being developed: ‘Islamic’ democracy, the ‘Islamic’ state, ‘Islamic’ banking. These are developments of the past thirty or fifty years. On a smaller level also, communities, disenchanted and alienated by their societies, turn away from the state and create their own micro socio-economic infrastructure. In doing so, they are very innovative. Islamic banking (meaning the use of Islamic financial instruments) is a good example. As I mentioned, no bank will provide you with a loan because all the banks are either state banks or still based on socialist structures and thus prefer to give loans to large industries. Now it happens to be that consumer credit is the pivot of Islamic finance. It has lead a dormant existence for hundreds of years, but now, all of a sudden, it has been revitalised, providing new alternatives to the desperate financial needs. We now come to the next question: does this Islamic modernity create violence? I’m not a lawyer anymore now; I’m a politician, because the answer is yes and no. No, because a majority opts for non-violent responses to all the changes described above. These communities are trying to resocialise themselves, restructuring their own infrastructure. It is a non-violent movement. But there is also a yes. Yes, it does create violence precisely because of the feeling of alienation and exclusion that it engenders and which is, in my opinion, the root of radicalisation. The minority that radicalizes does not turn away from a state that is not providing anymore - they actually turn around and fight this society. These radicals mirror their experiences to those of the prophet. He was also forced to leave his hometown Mecca, but returned victoruously. The modern Muslim refuses to be downtrodden and alienated by society. They recapture the discourse and say: “You are not expelling us, you are not alienating us; walking is our own decision and that makes us the true Muslims”. This argument has served some to legitimise the use of arms in their confrontation with the society that they no longer consider ‘Islamic’. The situation in the West is different from that of the Arab or Muslim world, of course. But I do see similarities because the already existing feeling of exclusion and alienation among Muslims in the West was reinforced by 9/11. Muslim are now distrusted and their loyalty is put into question. They are constantly on the defence and oftentimes have to justify themselves. In Holland there was panic when 9/11 happened. What were we going to do with 900.000 Dutch Muslims? What was their reaction to the attacks, to the ideology professed by al-Qaeda? But they were not responding because they had nothing to do with it. That only deepened our suspicions, which again reinforced their feelings of alienation. I was shocked when on separate instances a Pakistani and Moroccan friend, both women, born in Holland and completely integrated into Dutch society, told me last summer upon returning from visiting their relatives: “I have been checking the prices of houses over there because might come a time when we will have to leave Holland”. This is a dangerous situation! The danger lies exactly with those Muslims in the West who have embraced even Western modernity. They will do anything to be like us, but still they will be mistrusted given the feeling that they are not allowed to take part in this society of ours. Here is the parallel with the Arab world, because the extreme militants there are not the poor, but middle class, the highly educated who want to take part but who are excluded. The same is now happening here in Europe. When we are talking about threat, I think there is one. But it has nothing to do with Islam or even with modernity. It has everything to do with alienation and exclusion. Thank you.
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