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Reemplazo, Reconquista, y el poder de narrativas falsas
the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula initiated a series of wars aimed at expanding their kingdoms. These wars constitute the Reconquista, but the narrative surrounding them
POR SPENSER SANTOS
I
n 2017, cries of “Jews will not replace us” echoed through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. More recently, Tucker Carlson has promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which in his words is “the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far away countries.” And Republican lawmakers use language of replacement and invasion in other contexts as well, such as banning transgender athletes from participating in sports according to their genders in order to “protect women.” The fear of replacement rests on the acceptance of so-called “natural hierarchies” such as men being physically superior to women, the white European being superior to all others, Christianity over other religions, and so on. In other words, the key elements that make fascists out of conservatives. This brings me to my subject: the Spanish Reconquista. Or rather, the way that the common, simplified narrative of the Reconquista covers up reality and serves as a template for modern attempts to rewrite history by the right wing. First, though, some context. In the year 711, Arab and Berber Muslims crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, and under the leadership of Tariq ibn Ziyad, they conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula, then the post-Roman Christian kingdom of Visigothic Hispania. They were stopped from further invasion in 732 by the Franks at the Battle of Tours. Over the next seven centuries,
Emma McClatchey 1
Matices como estos se pierden cuando ideologues simplifican y distorsionan nuestra historia para fomentar y propagandizar el odio.
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has morphed over time. In 1492, the kingdom of Granada fell, and with it, the last territory on the Iberian Peninsula ruled
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by Muslims. In that same year, Ferdinand and Isabella not only authorized the Inquisition, but issued an edict demanding all Jews or Muslims in their kingdom convert or be forcibly expelled. This has, over time, led to the false narrative that the Reconquista was a deliberate, pointed military campaign specifically designed to remove Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. The false narrative that the Muslim invasion of 711 involved the wholesale replacement of Christian Europeans by an invading force of others. The false narrative that the creation of a white, Christian ethnotheocracy was justified. These false narratives elide much, of course, and paint a purely oppositional relationship between Christian and Islamic kingdoms during the period, motivated by religious difference. The Christian kingdoms of Spain often fought amongst themselves and forged strategic alliances with Muslim leaders. King Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile married Zaida, who was the daughter-in-law of al-Mutamid, the king of Seville, according to sources from al-Andalus. The previous Visigothic aristocracy was not killed or driven off, but integrated into the new power structure. There was, in short, no replacement. But Ferdinand and Isabella, like the modern alt-right, could use the idea to achieve their political goals. Nuances like these are lost when ideologues simplify and distort history in order to promote and propagandize hate, and the end result is a “reconquest” of something that was never actually lost (and likely never existed) and a purge of enemies. That is the foundation of MAGA, and for
To submit a story idea to En Español, reach out to spenser-santos@uiowa.edu
