Great Memory but Better Amnesia:
Islam and Christianity in Portugal

Bem-vindo todos! Welcome back everyone!

Having bumped into and tripped over more treasures in Tavira, I have been off on another quest. Perhaps you remember from post 4 that simply biking past Igreja de São Roque sent me on a hunt. The centuries-old ruins littered across Tavira have challenged me to further wonder. In the end, they lead me on a quest to understand the complex relationship between Portugal and its Moorish history. This post also ends up as a meditation on memory and amnesia, that is, forgetting. Come along with me!

Somewhere earlier on this blog I had said that the history of Portugal and especially of its southern regions is one of successions. There is the migration. Then settling in. Then flowering. And finally comes assimilation by and into a new wave of migrants. Then, press the restart button.

Those already settled often see these migrants as invaders or conquerors. Sometimes they do indeed come with armies, but mostly they arrive with hopes and dreams as well as new vigor and fresh ideas. These may reignite the local culture that has somehow stalled. They can infuse explosive creativity into the fertile ground that already exists. Might I use a metaphor to explain? I love metaphor.

Warp and Weft

In the mid-18th century the Marquis de Pombal tried to drag Portugal into the Industrial Revolution with textiles and without much success. The silkworms were all dead within two years. The large cotton and wool manufactories, in order to achieve that same fate, needed 60 years. Nonetheless, Pombal bequeathed a fabric legacy to Portugal. High quality cotton and wool fabrics are still made in Portugal, mostly for the local market. But Portuguese cottons, in particular its flannels, have achieved luxury status in Western markets, like the United States.

These beautiful textiles are Portugal and, as a matter of fact, all human communities. They start with a base of tautly drawn threads or yarns, the warp. The warp forms the foundation and the structure of the fabric. Other threads and yarns of various colors and types, the weft, weave over and under the warp. The weft generally although not always forms the design. Fabrics of infinite pattern and color result. The threads and the yarns, individually, are weak, easily snapped when pulled or unwound when twisted. The fabrics, however, can only be cut with the sharpest shears or sundered with knife or sword.

I do not need to knock you over the head by dissecting the meaning of this metaphor. The fabric of any culture or civilization derives from a base, or the warp. Texture and vibrancy develop as the weft of newly arriving cultures weave into the warp. The fabric — its strength, beauty, intricacy and sumptuousness — derives from the whole. That is, the warp as well as the weft that gets added with each successive movement of the shuttle.

Now lets move from metaphor to some, albeit not all, of the facts.

Portugal’s Pre-Written History

The archeological record shows the presence of ancient humans in Portugal beginning about 400,000 years ago. The earliest ”Portuguese“ were Homo heidelbergensis. They were the common ancestor to both the Neanderthals and our species, H. sapiens. And both these human species made their own ways into Portugal and overlapped here briefly. The Neanderthals arrived tens of thousands years earlier than we “modern” humans.

There is some Paleolithic (more than 10,000 years ago) and lots of Neolithic (10,000 to 4,000 years ago) evidence of humans having made Portugal their permanent home. The Neolithic Portuguese (a misnomer because the Portuguese would not exist for another 5,000 years) where quite the megalith erectors. These Stonehenge like structures, albeit much older, are found across the country.

Later Bronze and Iron Age residents of the Algarve intermingled extensively with Mediterranean cultures. The Phoenicians, the Carthaginians and the Greeks had tradings settlements along the coast. Greek texts describe a highly sophisticated culture and governmental structure among the Turdetani. These non-Indo-European, non-Celtic people lived in the Tavira area. The Celts arrived later from central Europe. They settled and merged with local populations throughout Portugal as elsewhere in Europe.

Roman Lusitania

The Romans arrived in Portugal in about 330 BCE. Contemporary southern Portugal belonged to the Roman province called Lusitania. It was named after the non-Celtic people living near Lisbon. Contemporary northern Portugal was part of the province of Gallaecia, named for the Celtic people living near Braga. Many of Portugal’s important cities already existed in Roman times. These include Oporto, Beja, Santarém and Tavira, in addition to Lisbon and Braga.

Tavira’s ”Roman Bridge” memorializes the Roman presence in the city. It crosses the tidal Rio Gilão and connects the eastern and western halves of Tavira. The Romans, of course, did not build this particular bridge. It dates from the late 17th century. It does stand near or at the place where the Romans had built a bridge. The Moors, however, likely built the first permanent bridge across the river at this location. But this would be well after the Romans disappeared.

Interestingly, since the 17th century, Portugal has latched onto it’s Roman legacy. It’s national epic, The Luísaids, imagines a direct line between Rome’s province of Lusitania to then contemporary Portugal. Every Portuguese high school student reads Vaz de Camões’ arguably great poem. Few, on the other hand, learn much of the rich history of Portugal prior to Rome’s entrance on the scene. Then there is a hop-skip-and-jump to the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries

Additionally, I would argue that the Roman presence in Portugal was not terribly consequential for the Portugal that would evolve. The memory of Rome becomes divorced from the reality; it is comparatively outsized. Other peoples left far greater marks on the country and the character of its people. Their memory remains buried or, perhaps, lost.

The Suevi and The Visigoths

Two Germanic peoples, the Suevi and the Visigoths, arrived in Portugal as Roman prowess ebbed. Originally, they were allies of the Romans; the Visigoths more so than the Suevi. But each availed themselves of Roman weakness to create their own empires. The Suevi took Gallaecia. The Visigoths won Lusitania and much of Spain. There was not much of a fight from Rome.

From the ruins of Rome, the Suevi and the Visigoths built strong, vibrant kingdoms. Scant written record remains. Notably, however, they created the only new cities in Europe after the fall of Rome until Charlemagne came along. They have left a rich legacy of jewelry, art and artifacts as well. Most importantly the Visigoths bequeathed their legal code; it remained in use for centuries after the collapse of their kingdom.

The Suevi and the Visigoths were Christian as well as Pagan. The leading families retained their native Pagan faith. Ordinary folk entertained Christianity. The Christianity was Arian; the later Inquisition would not have approved of this Christianity nor the Paganism.

Half of millennium later, the nascent Portuguese nation would latch onto these partial memories. Rome and Christianity would become Portugal’s inheritance. Foreign invaders had stolen this inheritance. The Portuguese must, would, reclaim it. They must retake and rebuild Christian Rome, which did not exist. In reality, they would create a memory, a story, based in the past but with little actual connection to the past.

Caliphate of Al’Andulus

The foreign invaders and the inheritance-robbers were the Moors. The Moors came from the Middle East; they adhered to Islam. In 711 they crossed into what is today Spain from north Africa. The already weakened Visigoth kingdom, which covered much of contemporary Spain and Portugal, became the new Caliphate of Al’Andulus.

Al’Andulus is inarguably the absolute pinnacle of European culture from the 8th through the 12th centuries. Mathematics, medicine, astronomy, literature, music, poetry, agriculture, the decorative arts, architecture, etc. all flourished in leaps and bounds. European historians, focused on northern Christian Europe, define this period as the Dark Ages. The light shone brilliantly in and from Al’Andulus.

As well, government in Al’Andulus was cutting-edge and ecumenical. The Moors came to settle among the locals just like the Visigoths, Romans, Celts and all the others before them. They would add richness to the soil not replace it.

Christians, Jews and pagans were free to adhere to their cultures. The Moors assimilated the best from each. Talented and capable non-Moors assumed and ascended leadership within the Caliphate.

There was no violent, forced assimilation. Nonetheless, it was certainly not easy to be a non-Moor. New churches, synagogues or temples could not be built. Second-class citizenship was normative. Opportunity, jobs, access to capital and education were severely crimped. Over-time the non-Moor population shrank precipitously. It was just easier to be a Moor than not.

Common Ground

The Moors where not reclusive and the rest of Europe was not stupid. Medical, scientific and mathematical knowledge flowed freely across borders and among cultures. Trade was extensive. Moorish learning streamed into non-Iberian universities like Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Vicenza. From there it made its way to rest of Europe. This interchange fostered a delayed albeit rapid flowering of late Medieval and Renaissance art and science.

Indeed, there was a place where and a time when these entirely disparate world views found common ground. Here they exchanged ideas, art, music, poetry, theorems and formulas, and so much more. The differences among and between them mattered but so did the common ground they found. The thirst for knowledge and the hunger for beauty — the common ground — mattered more than the differences.

Memory and Amnesia

Eventually the Suevi kingdom of Gallaecia split in two. Its southern bit became the County of Portugal and eventually a kingdom. The Portuguese counts fashioned themselves into kings, of course. The northern and eastern parts of Gallaecia morphed into the Kingdom of Asturias, the seed of a future Spain.

Principally in Asturias, a myth, based in partial, fragmented memory, grows. It also blossoms within the emergent Portugal. The pieces of this memory are of ancient Rome and of Christian faith, which now combine. The myth requires amnesia.

The memory that the Romans came as migrants — albeit with an army — and settled among Lusitani, Turdetani and Celts drifts from consciousness. The reality that Arian Christianity coexisted with pagan faiths, both indigenous and Roman, as well as with Judaism gets submergeded. The memory of books full of Arabic and Islamic medical knowledge and mathematical innovation must be remade.

Also the very language in which this new myth communicates itself will be one of amnesia. Portuguese and Galician, like all languages, are assimilations from among each of the peoples who came and stayed. They are formed from pre-history settlers like the Turdetani and also Celts, Romans and Visigoths. They are heavily influenced by neighbors like the Moors. Any Portuguese word that begins with ”al” like the Algarve and alfarrobeira are from the Moors. There are many such linguistic gifts from the Moors.

Reconquest or Conquest?

But to grow and to expand — that is, for its new kings to gather bigger fortunes — Portugal needs a new story, a national myth. The story will be built on selective memory and collective amnesia. It will exalt the Roman inheritance and assume its preexistence. The myth will forget religious coexistence and forgive heretical indiscretion. It will remember only Christian purity.

Portugal and the various kingdoms that will one day become Spain will reconquer. They will take back and liberate Al’Andulus with the memory, the myth, of Christian Rome. The memory of a Islamic conquest replaces an Islamic migration that injected new life into an older, faltering migration. They will invent a reconquest that is really a conquest. Their’s will be a pushing out rather than an assimulation.

This new mythic identity, grounded in Roman Christianity, will grow into hegemony. Then, when dominate, there is little room for the other; differences are pushed away and eventually pushed out. The gates then shut tight. Brutally, in the late 15th century, the country’s Jewish and Muslim populations are ejected once and for all. Even those that converted in order to stay are sidelined as New Christians, that is, in-betweens who are neither this nor that. A wholesale slaughter of Lisbon’s New Christians will occur in 1506.

Learning From Mistakes

I like to think that the Portuguese have come to terms with this history of fabricated memories and collective amnesia. The myth allowed and empowered a long, destructive dictatorship grounded in a phony national story. Before that it encouraged rapacious colonialism. And it justified one of the cruelest, most violent systems of slavery the world has known. I really do hope the Portuguese have learned. The kind, generous and welcoming people I have met make me want to think so.

I am a careful observer; I see hopeful glimmers. Black Africans are treated with respect here, and migrants of all backgrounds are welcomed. The Portuguese are capable of looking past differences to see commonalities. But I know as well that the Roma are widely reviled. And I find the rapid rise of the far-right Chega Party troubling. Its platform is a list of divisiveness. It is anti-LGBTQ, anti-migrant, anti-Roma, anti-Europe, etc. The platform stands for nothing because it stands against nearly everything.

More troubling for me than Chega’s rise is my Portuguese friends’ causal lack of serious concern about its rise. That itself can be a convenient amnesia. How did the Salazar dictatorship happen? What about colonization? And slavery? We expelled Jews and Moors in 1497, why? In 1506 we massacred thousands because of a made up story about Christian Rome? Perhaps this is too harsh. But I believe too firmly that we humans are tribal and a bit too lazy.

The Stone Wall

I mentioned in a previous post how difficult I find it to hold tolerance and personal conviction in balance with the appropriate tension and restraint. I rarely go overboard on the side of tolerance; my personal convictions get me hot-headed. The appropriate balance and restraint require constant effort. I can be lazy, avoiding the required work. The bulk of human animals are like me, that is, stuck in both their tribe and their laziness.

I feel another metaphor coming on?

Tavira is old, ancient. Many of its buildings are centuries old. They are all constructed in the same way. When and where the stucco fails away, then the structure is revealed. You see irregular, odd shaped stones laid next to each other, one after another. The dense red Portuguese soil — full of lime and clay — is piled on top. Then the mason lays another layer of stones, each different, each unique. The wall rises higher and higher.

Each stone, different from every other, fits into the differences of the stones next to it as well as above and below. What gives the wall its strength, its ability to endure over centuries, is the tension created by the differences between the stones. One leans into or onto another and applies pressure; it resists but also adheres.

So, yes, the differences among the stones are the wall’s strength, part of it at least. The earth — the Portuguese soil — is as well. It fills spaces where the differences might be too great. The soil braces the stones against one another. That is, the earth wedges the stones together, not separating them as mortar might.

Together We Endure

Now consider this as well. The stones were all pulled from the earth, separately. The earth is their beginning, the commonality or community that they share. In the wall the stones are reunited, still separate, all unique and all different. They are held together by their differences and the tensions these differences create. But the earth, their common ground, binds them as well.

A wall cannot stand and certainly cannot endure for centuries without both the differences among the individual stones and the red earth between them. We are no different. Our differences and our shared commonality is what makes us strong, and what will allow us to endure. I think that maintaining the tension between these — between tolerance and personal conviction — is the challenge of our day.

Têm um bom fim-de-semana! Até quinta! // Have a good weekend! See you again next Thursday!