Oh yes, and I also agree on the issue of ‘race’. There is only one race, the human race AKA Homo sapiens L. !

I agree wholeheartedly on the issue of past atrocities and modern generations: people should never be made to atone for the sins of their ancestors.

I agree with you in that the Jews were subject to racism. Racism has little to do with “race” as such, since there is no way of defining someone’s race and ultimately we are all mixed race and related to each other to some extent.

To me racism is more to do with the persecution of a group of people because of something they have in common, be it religion, skin colour, hair colour, political leanings, or even the football team they support.

Most Spanish people I know don’t trivialise the inquisition, although they don’t see what it has to do with them anyway – it was from a different age. After all, if the Spanish can’t move on from what happened in their country many centuries ago, what hope is there for certain other european countries where atrocities are still very much fresh in the memory?

It’s relevant from a historical perspective because it shows that racism has a long history in Spain, like anywhere else in Europe.

True, the Inquisition took place all over Catholic Europe and Jews were persecuted almost everwhere, but it was Spain which invented the concept of ‘limpieza de sangre’ (this shocked Simon Wiesenthal). The fact that Jews are not a race is irrelevant, because they were treated as such by their persecutors.

As far as the historians are concerned, I’d have to look up their names but I have read several references in a book about Spanish history by Robert Lemm, a pro-Franco and pro-Opus Dei historian from Holland.

Nobody knows exactly what went on, though I can imagine some Spanish nationalists might have attempted to play it down, while Spain’s opponents might have exaggerated it.

However I’d still be interested in knowing which historians have trivialized it. If it’s just some historian(s) at the end of the 19th century, or indeed under Franco, then I really don’t see how it is relevant to a discussion on the extent of racism in modern Spain.

I agree with most of the viewpoints in your post, but the problem is that ‘los reyes católicos’ didn’t see it that way at the time. They considered the Jews to be aliens, hence the expulsion order and the concept of ‘limpieza de sangre’.

However, I think you are wrong regarding The Inquisition. Ethnic cleansing? Cleansing, it was, but ethnic?. All the Spaniards back in XV century belonged to the same ethnicity, no matter their religion. Gipsies were the only exception.

Surprised? They were the same people. Same people, 3 different religions. There weren’t 3 different “races”, everybody was very mixed, just like now. That’s what we were and still are, a beautiful mix.

The Reconquista didn’t become a War of Religion until the XIII century. Until that time, marriages. alliances, conversions, mixing, fighting, loving, hating, etc…was the norm, not the exception. Everybody was fighting against everybody, for the possesion of land. Religion didn’t count at all. Just read the “Cantar del Mio Cid”, and you’ll see what I mean.

It was a mess, and we, the Spaniards, are the result of that.