The Spanish and the Portuguese — Once and Future Dhimmis?

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.


In May 2008, the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, stated that Islam is part and parcel of Europe and condemned the concept of a clash of civilizations. “Islam today is part of Europe. It is important to understand this. One should not see Islam as outside Europe. We already have an important presence of Islam and Muslims among our citizens,” Barroso told a press conference after a dialogue between EU leaders and twenty high-level representatives of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in Europe. The Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dr. Mustafa Ceric, responded that Islam is indeed part of Europe but unfortunately Turkey is not yet part of Europe. “Following this logic Europe has to prove that Islam is part of Europe by not delaying the acceptance of Turkey to the EU,” he said.

I find this especially sad since Mr. Barroso, prior to becoming the unelected leader of the EU, was Prime Minister of Portugal, a country that was for centuries under the Islamic yoke. Do the Portuguese miss their past status as dhimmis? The reaction of the Nordic countries to mass immigration and Muslim intimidation, with the exception of Denmark, has been pathetic. I’m certainly not proud of it, but at the very least countries such as Norway, Finland and the Baltic nations have had little historical exposure to Muslims. The Portuguese and the Spanish do not have this excuse, after centuries of Islamic occupation and hard struggles to regain control over their lands, which makes their current actions all the more difficult to understand.

Observer Soeren Kern thinks that “Since Spanish Socialists (more often than not) have trouble winning arguments on their own merit, the preferred tactic is to demonize their opponents instead.” He’s undoubtedly correct about that, although I do no see how that makes Spanish Socialists different from their counterparts elsewhere. According to Kern:

“Italian voters in April [2008] returned Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to a third term in office. The center-right leader was given a strong mandate to crack down on runaway immigration and spiraling street crime, two hot-button issues that are intrinsically linked, not just in the minds of Italians, but in those of many other Europeans too, especially in Spain. As a result, Spanish Socialists are (rightly) worried that Berlusconi’s get-tough approach will jeopardize their own fantastical vision of turning Europe into a post-modern multicultural utopia. It therefore comes as no big surprise that Spanish Socialist Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, who is also commonly known as Spain’s high-priestess of political correctness, recently lashed out at the no-nonsense immigration policies of the new Italian government. Her pontifical rebuke declared that the Spanish executive ‘rejects violence, racism and xenophobia, and therefore cannot agree with what is happening in Italy.’” Moreover, “By rewarding illegal immigrants with Spanish (and thus European) documentation, Zapatero has unleashed what is known as the ‘call effect’ to people as far away as Kashmir who now believe that Spain is an easy gateway into Europe.”
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Gustavo de Aristegui, the foreign affairs spokesman for the conservative (but in my view still a bit too soft) Popular Party, explains in his book The Jihad in Spain: The obsession to reconquer Al-Ándalus that, in schools throughout the Muslim world, maps are used with Spain and Portugal colored green because they are still considered part of dar al-Islam, or the House of Islam. According to antiterrorist sources, eight Jihadist groups have settled in Spain, located mostly in Catalonia, Madrid, Andalusia and Valencia. Their threat is real, since most of these sleeping cells “can be activated at any time and perpetrate criminal attacks.”


As AMDG from the blog La Yijad en Eurabia says: “The fact that Spain is one of the targets of the Third Jihad is not surprising. Muslims have the religious obligation to expand Islam — mostly political Islam; conversion can be forced later on in many ways — and in particular they have the compelling obligation to retrieve those lands on which Islam once ruled. Al Andalus — that is Spain, and not only the south of Spain, the modern Andalucía — was once under Mohammedan yoke and is therefore among the priorities of the Jihad. The answer by Spaniards to this threat cannot be more discouraging. Spanish government withdrew its troops from Iraq immediately after the first terrorist attack, even if they were not combat troops. Their next initiative was the proposal of the Alliance of Civilizations.”

The Socialist PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was swept to power by the Jihadist terrorist train bombings in Madrid in March 2004, the largest peacetime attacks in Spain’s modern history. He has been surrendering his country to Muslims and mass immigration every day since then. Zapatero, who has said that “sexual equality is a lot more effective against terrorism than military strength,” appointed a pregnant woman as Minister of Defense in April 2008, thus making a mockery of his armed forces and signaling to everybody that his country has no intentions of defending itself.

There are also serious plans afoot to create a tunnel linking Spain (and thus Europe) physically to Morocco and Muslim North Africa. As usual in Western countries, Socialists who seek to destroy their own countries are de facto allies with Big Business interests, the same business interests that have championed the borderless EU common market, who desire bigger markets and an abundant supply of cheap labor, and tend to view defended national borders as an obstacle to both. According to a study by the Group for Reflection and Proposal on Business and Immigration, Spain needs over two million new foreign workers until 2020, many of whom will undoubtedly be Muslims.

In June 2008, it was announced that an “interfaith meeting“ sponsored by Saudi Arabia was to be held in Madrid. The dialogue would be held by the Saudi-based World Muslim League. “Prominent figures among followers of the divine messages will take part in dialogue concerning life in human societies, international cooperation, human rights, and issues of security, peace and living together in the world,” said a statement by the agency.

As Robert Spencer commented at Jihad Watch: “There are several angles to the choice of Spain for the site of this ‘dialogue’: One, obviously, is that it would be rather awkward to invite a large contingent of religious leaders to a place where they are forbidden from carrying bibles and other sacred texts, and from displaying religious symbols. And, of course, they certainly couldn’t hold the meeting in Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, since no non-Muslims are allowed there. That might lead to uncomfortable questions when one considers that Rome, Jerusalem, and other cities are open to all visitors. But beyond that is Spain’s history as an Islamic possession and the trumped-up myth of the nearly utopian, Islamic Andalusia of yore; the idea of going back to those ‘good old days’ will surely be a source for much of the propaganda that will come out of this Saudi-led venture.” Spencer feared that a more accurate term for this event would be “interfaith monologue.”

As I’ve stated in my online essay Socratic Dialogue vs. Islamic Dialogue, Muslims understand the term “dialogue” in a way that differs sharply from that of Westerners. For them, “dialogue” does not mean an attempt to rationally debate a topic in order to arrive at the truth. Truth is already given: It’s called sharia, and the only “dialogue” that is acceptable is one that will lead to the implementation of sharia, one way or the other. When they invite to a “dialogue,” they actually mean that we should negotiate our surrender, or else…

Poul E. Andersen, former dean of the church of Odense, Denmark, warns against false hopes of dialogue with Muslims. During a debate at the University of Aarhus, Ahmad Akkari, one of the Muslim participants, stated: “Islam has waged war where this was necessary and dialogue where this was possible. A dialogue can thus only be viewed as part of a missionary objective.” When Mr. Andersen raised the issue of dialogue with the World Muslim League in Denmark, the answer was: “To a Muslim, it is artificial to discuss Islam. In fact, you view any discussion as an expression of Western thinking.”

Since its inception, Islam has been waging an aggressive war against the rest of mankind, with the stated purpose of bringing every single human being on earth under Islamic rule. Infidels have been presented with only three options: Convert to Islam, die, or submit under Islamic rule as a dhimmi, a second-rate citizen in your own country subject to serious financial pressure, constant verbal humiliations and frequent physical abuse. Islam hasn’t changed in the last 1400 years. Unless we are prepared to accept conversion or dhimmi status, we have to fight. The Spanish and the Portuguese knew that once. One can only hope that they will remember it again.