It is with a deep feeling of sharing other people’s shame (“vergüenza ajena” we say on Spain) that I am writing to you to comment on the arrogant, aggressive and ignorant speech in Georgetown University of our previous head of Government Mr. Aznar. As a compatriot of him I am certain to share my feelings with many American friends and with the astounded majority of the Spanish People who had the misfortune to have seen long excerpts of that shameful academic act.
To compare the complex and long lasting process of territorial extension of the Christian kingdoms of Northern Spain towards the South with the recent crimes of fanatics terrorist reveals not only a crass ignorance but represents also an insult to our culture and to the best or our traditions. Most students in Georgetown University know well that the long lasting kingdoms of Arab Spain were, up to the Renaissance, a beacon of intellectual light which allowed the preservation and extension of Greek philosophy, a spate of brilliant medical doctors, mathematicians, town planners, mystics, engineers, and architects, some of whose genial remmants we can today admire. Arab Spain was also a haven of tolerance where Jews and Christians lived together peacefully most of the time. Most unfortunately the same cannot be predicated of unified Christian Spain in which a period of intolerance and decadence was concomitant with the forced and cruel expulsion of Jews and Moriscos (i.e. Spanish converts from Islam).
Mr. Aznar seems to be a trite acolyte of Professor Huntington and of the ideological kind of determinism traceable to “clash of civilizations”. Fortunately our present President of the Government is favorable to the cooperation of different cultures in order to achieve word peace and through its extension eradicate violence. The absurd and unlearned historical background of Mr. Aznar and his rancind “national catholicism” reminded me of the first lesson given to me (in 1937) about Spanish History in which we learned that “The first dwellers of Spain came with Tubal, son of Japhet and grandson of Noah”. We hope that Mr. Aznar may one day regret his warlike and near racialist notions, and read, of course in U.S., about the men of Atapuerca.
Yours sincerely:
José Pérez Oya.
Note: Mr. Pérez Oya (National Identity Card 35819425) has been member of the United Nations Secretariat (from 1958 to 1989) is B.A.; M.A. Oxon. He lives retired in Spain, Vigo; Rua Reconquista 1-3B. His telephone 34 (Spain) 986 (Vigo) private 225406.
Letter from Spain to Georgetown University