Recognition of the Sephardi community, but not the Moorish community.

Spain surprised, without warning, by making public its intention to grant Spanish nationality on a discretionary basis to approximately a quarter of a million Sephardim, the Jews who were expelled from Spain during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, who were the promoters of the Inquisition tribunals.
In principle, the Spanish decision is not at all surprising, but is, once again, sovereign and calculated, given that until just over a month ago, the Spanish king, Juan Carlos I, had apologized to the Sephardic community.
But he did not make the same gesture to the Moorish community, which in turn was expelled for religious, onomastic, cultural, racial and linguistic reasons from Spain.
Although Spain has voted in favor of Palestine, a Muslim homeland, as an Observer Country in the United Nations, and although Spain is considered the first Western architect and promoter of the Dialogue of Cultures and Alliance of Civilizations, unfortunately, it has not yet been able to put an end to a sinister chapter in its history, that is, the Muslims who were expelled from Spain during the reign of the Castilian Isabella and the Aragonese Ferdinand for the same reasons for which the Sephardim were expelled, and who, today, are the object of naturalization in Spain.
The decision to grant Spanish nationality to the grandchildren of the Hebrews of the Spain of the 15th and 16th centuries, ignoring the Moors, grandchildren of the Muslims, is, without a doubt, a flagrant segregation and an unquestionable discrimination, since both communities suffered at the same time what they suffered, in the Spain of that time.
Such a decision could also be considered by the international community as an absolute historical immorality and injustice.
It could even be considered as a purely selective policy that would undeniably affect Spain’s image among the Arab-Muslim world.
Is it not a question of applying the law of the funnel?
Why does Spain not treat the Moorish and Sephardic question by the same standards?
Is it not fishing in troubled waters to do justice to some and discriminate against others?
Is Spain aware of what it could mean to be at loggerheads with some and make peace with others?
Is Spain aware of what a similar decision could cost it?
Has Spain considered that it could jeopardize the massive investments made by Muslims in its territory?
Does Spain have alternatives in foreign investment to Muslim capitals, if someday those capitals disembark to other destinations because of its segregationist decision towards Muslims?
This decision has been taken after having included as a crime in the Penal Code the denial and trivialization of the Holocaust, the annihilation of Jews by Nazism during the Second World War, and it is absolutely ignominious and dishonorable.
To tell the truth, this measure would have been a praiseworthy action if it had included on an equal footing the Moriscos together with the Sephardim.
But, as the descendants of the Muslims have been excluded, the decision is, in my opinion, unworthy and condemnable.
It could also have been a bold action and a first step towards conciliation and normalization if it had not been selective and discriminatory. The Spanish measure contradicts its own involvement, albeit symbolic, in its promotion and inauguration, recently, in Vienna, of the International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue “King Abdullah Benabdelaziz”.
It is also contradicted by the Foreign Minister’s own statement, when he says: “The peaceful coexistence of different cultures and religions is one of the main challenges of the globalization process, and it is therefore necessary to -. said Margallo – to encourage dialogue without prejudices that have poisoned coexistence for a long time and that continue to poison coexistence in many parts of the world even today”. The Ministers of Justice and Foreign Affairs of Spain, architects of the measure, are adding fuel to the fire, because they are, by conscience or unconsciousness, doing it on purpose or by inadvertence, provoking with their incendiary and seditious measure, improvised and indifferent, the morale of the Muslims, because the Jews as well as the Moors gave together during their stay in Spain palpable proofs of compromise and coexistence before the excessive megalomania of Isabella and Ferdinand committed their sinister ravages of unjustly and arbitrarily driving them out of Spain.
To my way of conceiving the decision, once again sovereign, I think that with the measure, Spain silences a considerable part of its legacy as significant as no one else, because the Moors played a monumental role in Spain; proof of this is that their vestiges are still evident in many aspects in the Spain of today.
Architectural traces in the Alhambra and the Alcázar of Segovia.
Liturgical traces in the attestations of the Magi.
Idiomatic traces in the Arabisms included in the Spanish language.
Toponymic traces in cities such as Alicante, Madrid, Seville and Valladolid and onomastic traces in the surname Alcántara, to give an example.
Finally, it is absolutely curious that Spain, plural and multiple, is reconciled with the descendants of the Jews without reconciling with the grandchildren of the Muslims.
It would be a crass mistake for Spain not to have treated that chapter by the same standards.
I hope I am wrong!
I think that if Spain also naturalizes the Moors, as Mansur Escudero, former president of the Islamic Board of Spain, proposed, it would increase its linguistic, cultural and ethnic richness and would be considered a pioneer and a model and fair reference in the reconciliation with its past at the international level.
Spain has at hand a historic and unrepeatable opportunity to remedy the fracture suffered by its backbone when denying so far to the Moriscos what it granted to the Sephardim.
In short, the Moriscos do not ask neither naturalization nor indemnification, but they ask for consideration and rehabilitation.
In other words, a simple pardon!
Author: Ahmed Bensalha Source: www.correodiplomatico.com Ahmed Bensalha is a journalist and lives in Casablanca.
Spanish-speaking and well versed in Spanish-Moroccan relations, he is also a translator by profession.
He worked for the first Spanish-language Moroccan weekly, Morocco Siglo XXI.