Pomp and Circumstance Girls dressed as medieval Christians take part in Mojácar's Moros y Cristianos festival
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The wrangling over the past is of course merely a means of talking about the present. For Romero, the bishop's concern for the building's name is motivated by a fear of Islam, a fear that has risen in Spain since the March 2004 train bombing in Madrid by Muslim extremists. Fernández points out that simply having the debate is a sign of the Church's openness. "Would activists in Saudi Arabia be allowed to demand that a mosque be opened to Christian prayer?" he asks. "The fact that these discussions take place in Spain, which was and is a Christian country, is an indication of Christianity's tolerance."
A Matter of Faith
Is Spain still a fundamentally Christian place? The percentage of practicing Catholics is at its lowest in history (57.8% say they never or almost never attend Mass) while religious observance among Muslims continues to rise. Though Muslims currently make up a tiny portion of Spain's population (estimates run from 1% to 3%), in places like El Ejido in Andalusia in southern Spain, they are rapidly displacing those born Catholic.
Some 40 years ago, El Ejido barely existed. But that was before farmers in the surrounding region of Almería developed makeshift plastic greenhouses allowing them to grow vegetables in the area's poor soils year-round. Now the region supplies more produce to Europe than any other on the continent. And that has made Almería a major draw for migrant labor. More than a third of the city's 85,000 residents are immigrants; of those, a full 65% are from Morocco.
"I came to improve my life," says Azouz Damani, 27, who left his home in Nador, Morocco, seven years ago. For the first four years in Spain, he worked in the greenhouses, earning about $43 for a 10-hour day spent picking peppers and tomatoes in temperatures that routinely rounded 48°C. "It was a really awful job," he says. "But I wish I had it now." He has been unemployed since Spain's recession began in 2008 and lives now off welfare and odd jobs.
From his bench in a rundown neighborhood of El Ejido, Damani oozes resentment. He knows that in El Ejido's center, the broad, shady boulevards are tended daily by gardeners and street sweepers, but here, he says, gesturing sharply, no one comes to clean. "Look at this place! The city doesn't care about it. No one comes to get the trash; all the trees are dead." He is angry at the municipal government that, he says, refused to license the mosque where he prays, and he is angry at Andalusians who, he says, are "more racist than people in Madrid."
Eleven years ago, El Ejido was home to the worst race riots in Spain's history. After a Moroccan man was arrested in the stabbing death of a Spanish woman, hundreds of longtime residents, fed up with that attack as well as the growing incidence of petty crime, marched through the city, shouting racist slogans, destroying Moroccan-owned property, and throwing stones at immigrants. The violence lasted several days, yet neither that outburst nor the dangers of the crossing nor attempts by the E.U. to strengthen its borders has reduced the number of new immigrants. While the economic crisis has slowed the flow, it has not halted it for the simple reason that, however hard the conditions in Spain, the country still offers more opportunities to industrious migrants than they would get back home.
Since the riots, El Ejido has maintained an uneasy peace. Improved working conditions have helped, as have better social services. "We've achieved convivencia," says Manuel Ariza, head of social services for the city. "Just not integration." There are still separate Moroccan neighborhoods, and apartment buildings that — despite municipal attempts to create mixed residencies — are filled entirely by Moroccan families. Few Muslim immigrants have married native Spaniards. And some of El Ejido's schools remain voluntarily segregated. "What we've learned is that you can affect the peripheral elements — the policies, the economic opportunities," says Ariza. "But core things — religion, family values — those are very difficult to change." It's a sentiment with which Damani instinctively agrees. Asked whether he could imagine himself ever identifying with his new home, he shakes his head dismissively. "No way," he says. "I don't think I'll ever consider myself Spanish."
Blending Beliefs
Ramón Rubio feels an affinity for Islam as he works on the lacy plasterwork of the Alhambra's Salon of Kings in Granada. Built around the 13th century, the Alhambra was once the palace city for the Nasrids, Spain's last Muslim dynasty. Today it draws about 3 million tourists annually, making it Spain's most popular attraction. All those years and people have taken a toll, which is why the complex is undergoing a major restoration. Rubio, director of the Alhambra's tile and plaster workshops, spends his days pressed close to the ceilings, delicately repairing the polychrome domes that Nazari artisans adorned with tiny designs, hand painted in lapis lazuli, even though no one would see them from the ground. "Working here, you start to identify with them, even though they lived seven centuries ago," he says. "I'm not Arab, but I am Granadino, so there's this bond."