The Global Refugee Wave and Migrant Crisis

@Quad I'm glad to hear about that and hope that both Spain and Portugal can avoid the problems that Europe has right now with the muslim community.

Edit: Page-topper, sorry

edited 11th Feb '16 10:31:51 AM by raziel365

Nobody wants to go to spain or portugal! They are silly places.

Nato sends patrol to eastern Med to combat people smuggling.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/11/nato-tasks-naval-patrol-with-combatting-people-smuggling-in-the-mediterranean

edited 11th Feb '16 10:52:25 AM by Zarastro

Latin America says otherwise.

By that logic, the Wisigoth also were conquerors, and so were the Romans, and the Iberes before them. Most of the population of Al Andalus was non-Arab and autochtonous, and converted to Islam over time. Since I'm specifically talking about the Moriscos expulsed or forced to conversion after the conquest of Granada by the "Catholic Kings", I'm pretty sure few or none of the expulsed Muslims at that point were conquerors, let alone descendents of conquerors.

If the Sedardi Jews are getting EU citizenry extended to them, then so should the descendants of the expulsed Moriscos.

The death of Europe's most generous nation Poor Sweden, so rich and naive.

Is this ludicrous comparison even worth arguing about?

They were the result of years of forcible conversion, rape and colonisation by an agressive foreign power. Quit trying to justify historical wrongs just because the perpetrators happened to be Muslim.

edited 11th Feb '16 7:44:10 PM by LogoP

Where has Handle tried to justify anything? He's simply made the point that if the decadents of Iberians ethnic cleansing victims are receiving reparations then all of them should. By the logic of "it's okay to ethnically cleanse the descendants of a conquer" the all ethnic cleansing is justified because everyone was a conquer at some point.

Only in this thread would we get people arguing in favour of ethnic cleansing just because the victims were Muslims.

edited 11th Feb '16 8:09:56 PM by Silasw

Huh, the expulsed moriscos, did they keep their spanish dialect like the sefardim?

I don't know about the language. I do know that most of them ended up North Africa, especially Salé, Tetuan, Tangiers. They maintained a distinctive culture of their own, bringing with them new art forms and new crafting and farming skills to the region. As you might guess, for quite some time, they were suspected of being fake Muslims because they had spent more than a hundred years in Spain under forced conversion to Christianity... being suspected of being insincere all along, and called New Christians. You could only call yourself an Old Christian if your family had converted... I don't remember if it was six or nine generations ago. The Inquisition wasn't set up for catching Protestants, but hidden Muslims.

I could look up more details if you want.

As for those here who buy into the logic of the "Reconquista"... Please stop for a moment and think carefully.

It was not exactly unknown in other parts of Europe. For example, the last remaining Pagan part of what would became England, the Isle of Wight, was converted by Wessex in 685 by....wiping out most of the local population.

I thank you, the handle, for the info.

My thoughts on moriscos right to spanish citizenship: Sure, why the hell not? They've tried already.

My thoughts on the reconquista: Hispanic america's dialects (and people) are descended from canarian and andalusian dialects, and I am grateful for arabic linguistic contribution to spanish, ojalá hubiera otra forma...So given that my existance and language are tied to it, I can't help but to find my predisposition to reconquest favorable.

Entiendo a lo que te refieres. Although the dilemma is as old as Hispanic America, you got Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Bartolome de las Casas.

And hidden Jews and some intellectuals/artists, I know.

I feel that we've been going way off-topic (and I've contributed to it, sadly). Just to keep it as short as possible: Handle, as Zarastro pointed out, the comparison you've made between Visigoths, Romans and Iberes/Iberians (who encompass the Lusitanians and many other tribes) is ludicrous, because the historical and social contexts of assimilation are different. You can't take that logic Up To Eleven, because it ignores the different political situations said groups of people were part of (or became part of later on).

Now, should mouriscos apply for citizenship or get a certain compensation, just like Sephardic Jews? Absolutely (though I find it odd that there haven't been any news or reports of interest in regards to us, and I don't know what the Spanish government is doing in that regard).

But the Reconquista is something that shaped the very national identity of both Portugal and the various regions that later on became unified as Spain (which slowly became codified throughout the centuries, in our particular case). And while said national identity does encompass some Arabic legacy (the numbers, many names starting with Al - e.g. Algarve - which is good, naturally), we both know the clock won't be turned back. There won't be an al-Andalus or an al-Garbh. History is done, and we can only learn from it and accept the course it took. Hence why I said that there's no longer a need for Reconquista (unless a foreign nation deliberately invaded us, which is something that won't happen for the foreseeable future - besides, we're not really relevant nowadays, anyway).

If mouriscos want to apply for citizenship, sure, but I do wonder if there is any cultural connection left (it seems that this matter is more prominent in Spain, from my perspective). We ended our Reconquista in 1249, and most religious, cultural and ethnic groups seemed to have become gradually homogenized (our [small-scale] Inquisition aside, which was obviously very anti-Semitic, and which kicked out the Sephardic Jews quite a few centuries after our Reconquista ended).

EDIT: Ok, so it wasn't as short as I originally intended this post to be. Anyway, I've said everything I wanted to say in regards to this matter.

Anyway, to get back on-topic: NATO launches sea mission against people-smugglers.

edited 12th Feb '16 7:44:36 AM by Quag15

Thank you for summing that up.

I have yet to understand what took so long for NATO to do this.

How is this Migrant crisis the "Death" of Sweden? Sounds like a rather alarmist title,that one article.

In a desire to not be the "we're off topic but I'm going to get the last word in" guy I've made a post in the Euopean politics thread about the Reconquista stuff.

I love how the Australian government frame their horrible treatment of asylum seekers as fighting the evil and misleading people smugglers. I've heard some horror stories about those offshore camps...

As for Sweden, reports of its death have been highly exaggerated.

Americans over-exaggerate everything.

Looks we are up for quite some showdown in Bruessels next week. Orban vs Merkel

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/merkel-refugee-plan-faces-resistance-in-brussels-and-ankara-a-1077131.html

I feel tempted to grab some popcorn for that confrontation.

The inquiry of the events that happened in Cologne has concluded that the authors of the agressions were mostlly Moroccans and Algerians that were living in Germany for a few years already and not the the recently-arrived Syrian refugees (link in Portuguese).

"Of the 58 suspects, 2 are Iraqis and 1 is a Syrian. The remaining 55 are mostly Moroccans and Algerians, with 3 Germans being among this group. The Cologne procurator^note is attorney the better word? Dunno has revealed this to Die Welt."

edited 13th Feb '16 11:15:31 AM by Quag15

Deploy Juncker.

At this rate, we North Africans are going to develop an international reputation...

Nato launches naval patrols to return migrants to Turkey

http://apokoronasnews.gr/nato-launches-naval-patrols-to-return-migrants-to-turkey/

Hopefully that'll work.