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Subject: What to think of this?
FJV    7/25/2004 3:17:43 PM
Spain which has pulled out of Iraq recommits troops elsewhere in the war on terror. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/02/spain.afghan.troops/ Not sure what to think of this. The terrorists are winning political victories that don't turn into military victories, the US is winning military victories that don't turn into political victories. Or should I coun't Spain recommitting troops to a front in the war on terror and German statements as small political victories?
 
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scholar    RE:Scholar, my reply   9/8/2004 7:56:30 AM
Thanks! I thought Spain's withdrawal from Iraq was shabby, however I prefer to withhold judgement since I know nothing about Spanish domestic politics. Among Jewish historians, btw, there has been an on-going re-assessment of Muslim Spain. The consensus is exactly as you put it; better than Germany, but no paradise. Of course, Catholic Spain's treatment of Jews is another matter; Isabella emerges as an evil bitch, and 16th-17th century spain seems to have been an altogether wicked place spreading its surprisingly racist wickedness throught the planet. No one, however, associates contemporary Spain with that Spain, the SPain of the Inquisition and Cortez. I'm presently reading a novel by Leon Feuchtwanger called "The Jewess of Toledo" about a Castillian king who had a Jewish "escrivano major" and then fell in love with his daughter. 13th century. It looks like it will end badly! It was written at a time when people still held to the fantasy of Andalus, so it's full of stuff about the glories of Islamic spain in contrast to the brutal crudeness of Medieval Catholic spain. I'm trying to read with a lot of skepticism. Still, it's entertaining.
 
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Tercio    RE:Scholar, some comments...   9/9/2004 2:05:44 PM
"Of course, Catholic Spain's treatment of Jews is another matter; Isabella emerges as an evil bitch, and 16th-17th century spain seems to have been an altogether wicked place spreading its surprisingly racist wickedness throught the planet. No one, however, associates contemporary Spain with that Spain, the SPain of the Inquisition and Cortez." Scholar, I think your view of Medieval and Inperial Spain has been highly influenciated by the traditional British view (not very favourable to Spain, btw). To expell the Jews was, sadly, something fashionable in Medieval Europe. If I recall correctly, Jews were expelled from England prior the Spanish expulsion, and later, they were expelled from Portugal, Flanders and the Republic of Venice. The main difference was that Jews could go back to say, Venice, sooner than later, but in Spain they couldn't do the same for two centuries (if I recall correctly). About Isabella, she was overall a stateman..., I mean, a statewoman >;-D. Remember that at that time they were no separation between State and Church and they were no separation between Religion and Politics, so after 800 year waging wars with the Muslims Ferdinand&Isabella thought that the best way to build a strong State was to have just a single religion (terrible as it is, for them made perfect sense), same conclusion got by the king of France 200 years before, when he launched a Crusade to exterminate the Albigensi heresy in the Languedoc ("kill them all and let God sort them out", as a bishop put it). About racism, I don't think that Spain was more racist than other European countries at that time. There were religious intolerance, of course (Jews and Muslims forced to convert into Catholicism or leave, persecution of Protestants), but racism?. For instance, Charles I of Spain (Charles V of Germany, Holy Roman Emperor) stopped the Spanish colonization of the Americas and asked the Pope's opinion about if that colonization was ethically acceptable. He only re-started the colonization when he got a favourable answer from the Pope. Who other nation did anything similar to this?. On the other hand, the first accusations of abuse over the Native americans came from a Spaniard, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, and as a consequence of that Philip II promulged a set of laws to protect the Native Americans (and as a consequence of that the trade of slaves from Africa to the Americas started to flourish, sadly again...). Of course those laws were not always enforced, but that's much more than other colonial powers did for the Native Americans, isn't?. About the Inquisition, it was not only in Spain, Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei were judged by the Italian Inquisition. On the other hand, the figures of women burnt in the bonfire accused of witchery in Germany are much higher than those of the Spanish Inquisition. Even the Calvinist burnt Miguel Servet in Geneva...And about religiuos tolerance, France has "the Night of St Bartholomew" and the Wars of Religion, Germany has the "30 Years War", which started as a German war of religion... About the Conquistadores, of course they were not William Penn, I neither try to say they were the incarnation of the theological virtues, but in a period of History like that, when to throw by slingshot corpses infected of Black Plague into a besiegued city to make it surrender was not rare, I don't consider they were so exceptional. As a summary, when Spain was on the top, its enemies (England, France, Dutch Protestants) started and intense propaganda campaing, the so called "Spanish Black Legend" (as an analogy, like Al-Jazeera now), with bloodthirsty Dagoes all around. On the other hand, Philip II started his own propaganda campaign, the so called "Spanish Pink Legend", where the sweethearted Spaniards were the benefactors of the Humankind. Neither of them fits the reality, Spain was not Wonderland in the XVIth-XVIIth, but neither Hell on Earth. Tercio
 
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swhitebull    RE:Scholar, some comments...   9/9/2004 2:16:26 PM
I wrote about this before, but the irony of the expulsion is that there is good evidence suggesting that King Ferdinand was a "converso" as were many of the leaders that led the final assault on Granada, and were members of the royal court. http://strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/12-1708.asp http://strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/12-1775.asp swhitebull
 
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scholar    Spanish racism   9/9/2004 2:26:43 PM
By racism I was thinking mainly of the Spanish obsession with "purity of blood" (limpeza de sangra or some such thing...I know no Spanish (despite the exhortations of my Chilean wife to learn!) From what I've read, Spain went a step beyond the pedestrian sort of anti-Judaism (that is, Jews are bad because of their religion) to real racism (Jews are bad because of the blood), or rather, conversos are suspect because of their mixed blood. Leaving aside Spanish colonialism, which may have been the most brutal, the inquisition was no picnic! On a lighter note, your present king's official annulation of the 1492 expulsion decree was really classy. A book that I HIGHLY recommend on Spain and Jews is Yerushalmi's "From Spanish court to Italian ghetto", about a Spanish court doctor who flees Spain and converts from crypto-Judaism to Judaism once in Italy. The opening stuff about the racism of Spain is fascinating, esp. the weird demonization of Jewish bodies. Neat stuff. I can only hope that it exists in Spanish in translation.
 
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Tercio    Conversos-swhitebull   9/15/2004 1:19:07 PM
Swhitebull, even worse, researchs suggest that Fray Tomás de Torquemada, the first (and worst) Inquisidor General came from a family of "conversos": http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~gbrandal/Illum_html/Torquemada.html Tercio
 
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swhitebull    RE:Conversos-swhitebull   9/15/2004 1:45:49 PM
..Swhitebull, even worse, researchs suggest that Fray Tomás de Torquemada, the first (and worst) Inquisidor General came from a family of "conversos":... UGH!! ;-(
 
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Tercio    RE:Spanish racism-scholar   9/15/2004 2:30:20 PM
"By racism I was thinking mainly of the Spanish obsession with "purity of blood" (limpeza de sangra or some such thing...I know no Spanish (despite the exhortations of my Chilean wife to learn!)" Excellent point, I hadn't taken account of the "limpieza de sangre" fever... "From what I've read, Spain went a step beyond the pedestrian sort of anti-Judaism (that is, Jews are bad because of their religion) to real racism (Jews are bad because of the blood), or rather, conversos are suspect because of their mixed blood." Well, I think I have to make a comment here. The Inquisition has not authority over the Jews nor over the Muslims (after the conquest of Granada, Muslims were allowed to remain in Spain keeping their religion, culture, legal system and so on..., they were called "moriscos", and after some revolts they were forced to conversion or expulsion in 1609: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/M/Moriscos.asp Inquisiton juridiction was over "any threat to the purity of the Catholic faith", they prosecuted Protestants as the considered their faith heresy and they prosecuted converted Jews or Muslims under the assumption their conversion has not been "sincere". The main problem was not the "blood" (as a matter of fact, the intermarriage rate between so called "Old Christians" and "New Christians" was high), the problem was the assumption (in the majority of the cases, false) that the "conversos" had converted to Christianism to take advantage of the rights set by the legal system of the time for Christians but remaining Jews (or Muslims) in heart. A question that has not be forgotten is that Jews&Muslims and later on "conversos" from both faiths did pretty well in bussines, science, reached high position in the Catholic Church... hence there was a HUGE envy to them. http://www.catholicleague.org/research/blacklegend.htm "Leaving aside Spanish colonialism, which may have been the most brutal, the inquisition was no picnic!" About the Spanish colonialism, it was over the top in Cuba (the taino poblation was wiped out by a mixture of disease and brutal slavery), but in other areas was as brutal as others (the British treatment of African slaves in the Caribbean, the anhilation of its Native American population by Uruguay starting practically the day after they reached independance from Spain): http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/REFORM/EMPIRE.HTM And let's no forget that after the initial period of "all for free" measures were taken (of course you can argue their effectivity) http://www.eiu.edu/~historia/2003/conquest.htm Of course I'm not trying to say that the Spanish colonialism was wonderful (of course it wasn't, some events can be described as totally shameful), but I think is not fair to endorse the death of thousands of Indians by diseases to the brutality of the Spanish rule (who knew about disease propagation in the XVIth century?), for instance, or to say that was absolutely disastrous for the Indians (As a matter of fact, several tribes in the American Southwest have gone to court in the last years to keep control of their comunal lands, supporting its case in laws set by the Spanish rule). "the inquisition was no picnic!" Of course not, but it was neither what Edgar Allan Poe described in one of hsi short stories (something about a Pendulum...) "On a lighter note, your present king's official annulation of the 1492 expulsion decree was really classy. A book that I HIGHLY recommend on Spain and Jews is Yerushalmi's "From Spanish court to Italian ghetto", about a Spanish court doctor who flees Spain and converts from crypto-Judaism to Judaism once in Italy. The opening stuff about the racism of Spain is fascinating, esp. the weird demonization of Jewish bodies. Neat stuff. I can only hope that it exists in Spanish in translation." Reference taken, I'll try to go through Kamen's "The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision", he's usually pretty balanced and well documented... Tercio
 
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Tercio    RE:Spanish racism-scholar, correction   9/15/2004 2:32:53 PM
Reference taken, I'll try ALSO to go through Kamen's "The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision", he's usually pretty balanced and well documented...
 
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