The Spanish government has recognized the right of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain after the fall of Granada in 1492. This move will be applauded as an act of justice, albeit a late one.

However, the real reason behind this act has nothing to do with this. When Granada fell to the Catholics in 1492, Andalusian Muslims and Jews signed an agreement with the victors to guarantee their religious rights. Two years later, the Catholics broke this agreement with the Jews and expelled them from their homeland. Many Sephardic Jews then took refuge within the Ottoman Empire.

Similarly, this act of ethnic cleansing by the Europeans is also unrelated. Five years after the agreements were signed, the Catholics also broke their side of the deal with the Muslims, leaving them with no choice but to convert to Christianity or face slaughter. Like this, a community of those who secretly remained as Muslims, known as the Moriscos, was born.

The new governors of Andalus did not support the exile of Muslims from the land, as they held key positions in the field of art, trade and agriculture. Rather, they wanted them to convert and remain in servitude. Speaking Arabic, dressing in Islamic attire and resembling Muslims in anyway through practice and behaviour were sufficient grounds to persecute this otherwise Christian-appearing community during the inquisition. They were even punished for going to public baths and refusing to eat pork.

In the face of this oppression, some Moriscos tried bribing the authorities to delay or at least lighten their punishments. At times they attempted to rebel, but these attempts were quashed with violence. The Alpujara rebellion of 1569 lasted three years until the Holy Roman Empire sent reinforcements to contain the uprising.

An interesting point to note, however, is the fact that not all of these Muslims who were forced to change their religion were Arabs. The chances are that most of them were natives of Spain who had become Muslim during the Andalusian era. By 1609, after a number of generations, it appeared as if the Spanish had been Catholicized. Despite this, it was decreed that the Moriscos were not good Christians and efforts began to banish them from Spain.

This decision to exile the Moriscos was to open the way for greater dilemmas. Those Moriscos who had genuinely accepted Christianity but were still outcast had two choices. If they were exiled to Muslim lands, they would have to leave their children who were younger than the age of ten behind. On the other hand, if they went to another Catholic country like France, they could take their children with them. In the end, between 400,000 and one million Moriscos were exiled from Spain.

The Ottomans concerned themselves tremendously with this situation, accepting exiles to provinces such as Algeria and Tunisia, all the while exempting the Moriscos from paying taxes. Some travelled across France and Italy to the Balkans and the Ottoman capital Istanbul, where they settled in the Galata district. Some Moriscos who were forced out of Andalus fled to Granada before the city fell, until they too were exiled 100 years later.

The Moriscos were the sacraficial lambs of the first stages of Renaissance Europe and what we know as the becon of mordernity today. Braudel called this banishment of people from the same land and same bloodline as the result of the anger of a civilization.

In 2009, 400 years after the Moriscos were banished, a number of Spanish opposition intellectuals and non-governmental organizations started a campaign for the state to apologize for this atrocity. Meanwhile, those who felt that the public wasn’t ready for such an apology asked the authorities to start the process by granting royal awards. Neither demand was realized.

Spain, however, has started by apologizing to the children of the Sephardic Jews by giving them the right of return. Up to 3.5 million Jews from around the world are expected to be elligable to apply. Justice may have been granted to one community, but the anguish of the other continues. Now the descendents of the Moriscos, who are the real children of Spain, also seek to end the aggrivation which has given them a sense of great loss.

Besides being an act of ethnic cleansing, the exile of the Moriscos is a manifestation of the consciousness of pre-modern Europe. It is one of the aspects that highlight modern Europe’s marginalizing attribute. A Europe that fails to apologize to the Moriscos and return their rights indicates their inability to clear their conscience and hold themselves to account for their crimes.

Ýlgili YazýlarEnglish