Send the infidels back to their caves

Having spent several weeks traveling in Spain this past Spring, I've been reading a couple of books on the country. One is a Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada by Washington Irving that relates the events when the Christians finally succeeded in evicting the Moors from Spain, sending the "infidel" away to preserve the holy Christian faith from impurities.

One of the things that's always mystified me about Spanish history is how a society that had practiced tolerance for five hundred years, with Muslims, Jews, Christians, and others living more or less peaceably together in such a productive and inventive mode that the arts and the sciences flourished could almost instantaneously revert to a bigoted, prejudiced, frightened community that would lead to the despicable acts of the Inquisition, purging the Jews, Muslims, protestants and others from the land.

Today, I fear, we are facing a similar turning point in America. Rudy Giuliani's spokesman in New Hampshire is calling for purging the Muslims from the world and sending them back to their caves. According to the Guardian, he said this about Rudy:

"He's got I believe the knowledge and the judgement to attack one of the most difficult problems in current history and that is the rise of the Muslims, and make no mistake about it, this hasn't happened for a thousand years. These people are very dedicated and they're also very very smart in their own way. We need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves or in other words get rid of them."

And, as our society becomes more and more eager to torture anyone that the president claims to be a "terrarist" in the name of saving the "United States" for Christianity, we look more and more like Torquemada burning the Jews and Muslims at the stake for their infidelity and the protestants for their heresies.

If you look at where that got Spain, it may give you a sense of where this country is headed. At the time of this turnabout (1492), Spain was at the pinnacle of it's power. It controlled much of Europe and would soon have the most extensive holdings of colonies around the world as it sent out the conquistadors to conquer the New World. But, within a century, it had fallen from that pinnacle and quickly became the most backward and one of the poorest countries in Europe. Its economy went to pot. Its government failed to function for the benefit of its citizens. It became almost a failed state, and remained such until the death of Franco 32 years ago. Only now is it beginning to come alive again, and who knows how long that will last?