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HagiaSophia
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GRANADA, Spain —
"…Unfortunately for Spain’s Muslims, the militants who swear loyalty to Osama bin Laden are history buffs too. In claiming responsibility for the March bombings, they cited the loss of “Al Andalus” as motivation.
“We will continue our jihad until martyrdom in the land of Tarik Ben Ziyad,” they said in a communique issued after the massacre, alluding to the Moorish warrior and original Islamic conqueror of the Iberian peninsula.
Spain today, like most of Europe, is struggling with ways to accommodate its fast-growing Muslim community while keeping tabs on those who might turn to radical violence.
…"
"…The prime minister’s government is negotiating with two major Spanish Islamic organizations in an attempt to integrate Muslims into mainstream society as a way to prevent radicalization and reduce the alienation that feeds extremism and violence.
“Marginalization is a very dangerous thing,” Luis Lopez Guerra, the senior Justice Ministry official in charge of religious affairs, said in an interview in Madrid.
“If you have people poor and without work, you run the risk of them feeling alone and discriminated against, alienated from the values of the rest of society,” Lopez Guerra said. “Police measures alone can’t solve this.”
And so, in a country where the Roman Catholic Church wields enormous power, the government has established a $4-million fund for three “minority” religions — Islam, Judaism and Protestantism — and scrapped a previous administration’s plans to make the Catholic curriculum mandatory in public schools.
Among other, controversial recommendations, the government wants to require all mosques to register with the state. Also under discussion is a plan to license imams, supported by several Muslim groups who complain that too many clerics are foreigners who are unable to speak Spanish, and that Saudi Arabia wields excessive influence over Spain’s mosques.
The tension between Spain’s non-Muslims and Muslims, both immigrant and native-born, remains raw. Although incidents of overt retaliation against Muslims are rare, many Muslims feel they are, in the words of Gonzalez, the convert, in the eye of the hurricane.
Like the society around them, Muslims in Spain are torn over questions of assimilation versus cultural identity. The community is, moreover, fractured along generational and ideological lines. Then there are the differences between immigrants and native-born Muslims, most of whom are converts.
…"
latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-granada18jan18,0,933947.story?coll=la-home-headlines
"…Unfortunately for Spain’s Muslims, the militants who swear loyalty to Osama bin Laden are history buffs too. In claiming responsibility for the March bombings, they cited the loss of “Al Andalus” as motivation.
“We will continue our jihad until martyrdom in the land of Tarik Ben Ziyad,” they said in a communique issued after the massacre, alluding to the Moorish warrior and original Islamic conqueror of the Iberian peninsula.
Spain today, like most of Europe, is struggling with ways to accommodate its fast-growing Muslim community while keeping tabs on those who might turn to radical violence.
…"
"…The prime minister’s government is negotiating with two major Spanish Islamic organizations in an attempt to integrate Muslims into mainstream society as a way to prevent radicalization and reduce the alienation that feeds extremism and violence.
“Marginalization is a very dangerous thing,” Luis Lopez Guerra, the senior Justice Ministry official in charge of religious affairs, said in an interview in Madrid.
“If you have people poor and without work, you run the risk of them feeling alone and discriminated against, alienated from the values of the rest of society,” Lopez Guerra said. “Police measures alone can’t solve this.”
And so, in a country where the Roman Catholic Church wields enormous power, the government has established a $4-million fund for three “minority” religions — Islam, Judaism and Protestantism — and scrapped a previous administration’s plans to make the Catholic curriculum mandatory in public schools.
Among other, controversial recommendations, the government wants to require all mosques to register with the state. Also under discussion is a plan to license imams, supported by several Muslim groups who complain that too many clerics are foreigners who are unable to speak Spanish, and that Saudi Arabia wields excessive influence over Spain’s mosques.
The tension between Spain’s non-Muslims and Muslims, both immigrant and native-born, remains raw. Although incidents of overt retaliation against Muslims are rare, many Muslims feel they are, in the words of Gonzalez, the convert, in the eye of the hurricane.
Like the society around them, Muslims in Spain are torn over questions of assimilation versus cultural identity. The community is, moreover, fractured along generational and ideological lines. Then there are the differences between immigrants and native-born Muslims, most of whom are converts.
…"
latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-granada18jan18,0,933947.story?coll=la-home-headlines
