Moros en la Costa! – Mauren an christlichen Ufern. Abwehr und Inkorporation des Fremden im Süden Spaniens

Abstract

Abstract

‘Moors’ on Christian shores – repelling and incorporating the ‘Other’ in Southern Spain. Since the Muslim presence on the Iberian Peninsula and the Christian (Re-)Conquista of Al’Andalus from the beginning of the 8th century, the encounter between Muslim and Christian cultures has left visible traces in the concrete landscapes, as well as invisible traces in the collective memory, of today’s Spain. Spain’s South is still an important site of junction and fracture between the Occident and Orient, Europe and Africa. Mainly illegal, immigration from the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan countries over the Mediterranean Sea has been on the increase since the 1980s, a fact that has revitalized the old dichotomy of Moors against Christians. The attacks by Al Qaeda in Casablanca and Madrid (2003/2004), as well as the dramatic ‘sceneries of flight’ into the barbed wire embankments of the Spanish enclaves Ceuta and Melilla, have heighten social tensions and nourished new fears of foreign Muslim infiltration. In the face of current global events, ‘clash’ and dialog with the cultural, religious or ethnic ‘Other’ are a central theme in social discourse as well as in the folklore practices of Southern Spain, which are described in the article.