The Immigration Crisis – the rise of “nativism.”

In August of Nineteen Fifty-four my father decided, after a family quarrel, that he would take his family and immigrate to the United States of America. It wasn’t difficult in those days: we stayed with Aunt Josefa, who lived across the border in Texas, and in two weeks my father’s immigration application was accepted. All of us, father, mother, sister, brother, and myself got brand new resident cards like the ones now known as “green cards.”

We went to live in a beautiful Gulf Coast town called Corpus Christi, in Texas. It was paradise. Our teachers were kind and stayed after school to teach us English, the school’s principal took me to the school library and told me to take home and keep any two books I wanted, so I could learn to read English faster. Our neighborhood was filled with refugees and immigrants from Europe and we could hear Italian, Portuguese, German, and French, among others, spoken and shouted at kids warning us not to fall in the water as we played among the ships anchored in the shipping channel.

Oh, how things have changed!

Immigrants, not only in the US but all over the world, are vilified, accused of taking jobs from the “native” workers, described as “murderers and rapist” by idiots such as Donald Trump, beaten by police, chased and jailed by border guards, and generally made to feel unwelcome.

How quickly the welcome signs were taken down!

Europe, which just a few days ago welcomed the refugees from the Middle East, has now begun to grumble that there are just too many. Germany has suspended train traffic with Austria; Hungary, acting like the right-wing police state that it is, has sent more guards to its borders to keep refugees from crossing through, and France, always wishy-washy concerning the issue, has decided to rethink the problem...again.

Immigrants against immigrants

The rejection of immigrants by people who are themselves immigrants or children of immigrants is nothing new. If you have watched Martin Scorsese’s bad film “Gangs of New York” or the excellent PBS documentary “The Irish in America”, you would be aware of a historical fact: that the most vehement, vociferous proponents of deportation or blocking of immigration are immigrants who now consider themselves “natives”, permanent residents, or citizens of the home country.

This has happened as far back as there have been humans on Earth. I can imagine the Neanderthals and other species of humans watching with trepidation as Homo Sapiens invaded their hunting grounds. (And, it seems they had good cause to be afraid since there are indications that our specie contributed to the extinction of other human species such as the Neanderthals).

In the Nineteenth Century, the Irish in the US rioted against the influx of other Irish. During the 1830s, riots broke out in rural areas among rival labor teams from different parts of Ireland, and between Irish and "native" American work teams competing for construction jobs.

Once the Chinese had helped to build the railroads in Mexico, an anti-Chinese sentiment that worried about an “unchecked influx of Chinese” grew to the point of frenzy causing riots and massacres of Chinese immigrants. (The Yaqui Indians were more native than anyone else in Mexico but their customs were “strange” enough to seem foreign so they were massacred, too).

According to Wikipedia, studies done in 2000 regarding opposition to immigration show that this phenomena is common in many countries because of issues of national, cultural, and religious identity. The phenomenon has been studied especially in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, as well as Europe in recent years, where immigration is seen as lowering the wages of the less well-paid natives. Thus “nativism” has become a general term for 'opposition to immigration' based on fears that the immigrants will distort or spoil existing cultural values.

In scholarly studies nativism, Wikipedia asserts, is a standard technical term. It goes on to say that "those who hold this political view, however, typically do not accept the term. A study done in 2010 found that "nativists...do not consider themselves as nativists. For them it is a negative term and they rather consider themselves as Patriots. Anti-immigration is a more neutral term for opponents of immigration."

Even in countries that were built by immigrants, such as the United States, anti-immigration has been common. It would surprise many to know that such an erstwhile and enlightened person such as Benjamin Franklin was hostile to Germans immigrating into his beloved state of Pennsylvania (named after an immigrant, by the way).

Countries such as Brazil, which in my experience is very racially tolerant and where the mixed blood population is significant, the rich and elite have always desired that the country be “more white.” Hence, there, as in Argentina and Uruguay, “white” immigration was encouraged but “other” races were discouraged from coming into those countries.

One can sense something similar happening in Europe as the media seems intent on showing us the “whitest” of the immigrants as people we should be compassionate with and the blacks as hooligans who riot and fight with the police.

This European Union, which in this matter as in so many others has shown it is far from being united, is ambivalent about what to do with this river of humanity flowing from east to west. One day we welcome the immigrants and shower them with gifts and kindness and the next we’re kicking them out (literally) like that Hungarian camerawoman who kicked and tripped a man carrying a child. One day we are citizens of the world and the next raving nativist.

We have to come to terms with the problem and accept that we are partly responsible for this diaspora. Europeans and Americans (in the sense of countries of the Americas) in our misguided efforts to impose our will on the Middle East and Africa, and in our greed for their natural resources and oil, in the hubris-fueled desire for empire and conquest, set up the situation from which wars and destruction emanate. 

We can’t go on lamenting that our economies “can’t take the burden”, as a commentator said in a television program. Even if the entire population of Syria were to come over, it would represent less than 5% of the population of the European Union.  This so-called European Union has to, for once, show some unity and come up with a solution not only by receiving the immigrants in several of the European Union countries, not just the UK, Germany, and France, but also by helping to end the cause of the immigration, that is, the wars in the Middle East and the despotism and terrorism in Africa, which we have exploited for our political and economic benefit.

The Migrant Crisis, a crisis "Made in Europe" and the US.

 

 

Background

In his book “Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of The Modern Middle East,” Scott Anderson, a veteran war correspondent for several news agencies and who has seen up close the conflicts in Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and several more, reminds us, if the title of the book has not done so already, that the recent conflicts in the Middle East are a consequence of the muddled politics, greed, and imperial desires of the United State and several European powers, France and the United Kingdom most prominent among them.

"Before most, "writes Anderson, "Lawrence seems to have accepted the modern concept of History as something malleable, that the truth is what people are willing to believe."

And, surely, with the avalanche of information we get from twenty-four hour news services, social media on the Internet, magazines, and newspapers, the malleability of History is sadly evident and the "truth" of events such as the so-called "Emigrant Crisis" is what the European and American public, lulled by decades of banal newscast and the silly rantings of "talking heads" like those of Fox News, that are more interested in muck raking for political purposes than talking about the political-economic motives that drove the United States and its European allies to invade Iraq (see documentaries such as "Breaking The Silence: Truth and Lies in The War on Terror" (2003)). (Note: Why is it (at least in France, it is) that these interesting documentaries are shown at midnight or later?).

The malleability of History is also disgracefully evident in the way that it is taught (or rather not even mentioned) in schools and how it is described in books that pretend to explain it to non-scholars and children. For example, during my research to gather material for a novel I was writing, I discovered the complicity (unknown to me, at least) and enthusiastic collaboration, not only of the French authorities but also of a sizable portion of the general public, in the persecution and deportation to concentration camps of French Jews, Communists, and anti-Nazis. But worse, I discovered that it is not only not taught in schools but that the public is deliberately misinformed, facts ignored, or taught in such a way that things such as the many concentration camps that existed in France soil before, during, and after World War II are portrayed as something the Germans forced on the French.

But, this "complicity of silence" is not particular to France. There is no country in the world that is not ashamed of some chapter or other of its history and tries to suppress it, ignore it, or simply deny its existence. Therefore, it is not strange that the people of this country, and particularly the people with whom I have frequent contact, ignore completely the historical reasons for the diaspora that we are now witnessing.

The writing of T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia, as he is popularly known) and of historians (most of them from western countries) tell us the that Middle East as we know it today was created, mostly, by the United Kingdom, or the British Empire if you will. It was that British Empire that carried out a war against another empire, the Ottoman one. For that reason, the British felt they were entitled to, as well as their staunch ally France, to redesign borders, create countries, and assign territory to others, as they saw fit. And, I might add, as it suited their economic and political purposes. It was these political and economic interest that guided the British and French to "invent" Irak, redesign Iran, designate Saudi Arabia as a Saudi kingdom, and to hand out spoils to sheiks and princes, creating a herd of small kingdoms poor in culture and world knowledge but rich in natural resources. Big enough to exploit but small enough to control.

In this "new" Middle East, the European powers repeated the same mistakes they made in the Balkans, or perhaps I should say, hey intentionally made in the Balkans. That is, to invent countries throwing together cultures, religions, and traditions highly antagonistic to each other, as they did, for example by creating Yugoslavia where Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians were set up for continuous strife. In Irak, these powers installed a repressive minority Sunni regime to control a Shiite majority. In Iran, they installed and protected for decades a repressive, corrupt regime run by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was overthrow by a social-religious revolution only to be shunned by the same countries who had set him up in power.

Speaking of Palestine, Lawrence once said in 1917 that if the creation of a Jewish state was allowed it would have to be created by the force of arms and only by the force of arms would it continue to exist given that it would be surrounded by a huge and hostile majority. Nevertheless, the United States, with the complicity of its European allies, did exactly that and sold it to the US public and general world opinion via propaganda and Hollywood movies (Exodus, for example). This is not to say that the Jewish people should not have a homeland but that the Palestinians did not deserve to lose theirs.

In 1920, French troops defeated Arab forces in the Syrian Kingdom, king Faisal (who had been an ally during WWI, had to flee, and in the San Remo Conference, Syria was chopped up, into present Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine (which would be later chopped up to create Israel). Syria and Lebanon became French protectorates and Palestine a British one. This arbitrary chopping up by the Europeans led to decades of strife as the different countries and peoples sought independence. The Europeans answered with brutal repression. While at home and abroad the US and the Europeans raved about Democracy, Free Speech, etc. in the Middle East they practiced quite the opposite. This political and economic domination and exploitation lasted up to the end of World War II. After the War, it began to crumble.

All of this is to say that the European and American interventions in the Middle East were motivated by the need to control politically so they could exploit economically a region highly unstable but rich in resources. The place was a bomb. The fuse had been lit and it was just a question of time until it exploded.

The Explosion

In March of 2003, the United States and a "coalition" of its allies invaded Irak. For reasons that are still obscure and uncertain, Saddam Hussein, who had in the eighties been an ally, and who the United States had covertly armed and supported in its war with Iran, was designated, along with Al-Queda, as the co-conspirators in the 9/11 attacks. Worse than that, he was accused of having hundreds, if not thousands, of Weapons of Mass Destruction who he was (allegedly) waiting to use on the American and European public. None of the powerful intelligence services of the US and its European allies, nor UN inspectors, nor anyone else ever found before or after the invasion, any such WMDs. Colin Powell, who should be ashamed of himself, showed cartoons, drawings, and blurry pictures of truck to claim "mobile laboratories of deadly chemical agents." They were old trailer trucks. Nevertheless, George W. Bush was adamant in finishing what his father had refused to do, that is, invade Irak and topple the Saddam Hussein regime. They did, they found the old dictator in a hole in the ground, and had him hung. The result of this unbridled hubris was a disaster of world-wide proportions.

The Consequences

The destabilization brought to the region by the War soon changed the configuration of the Middle East forever. Immediately after the fall of Saddam, a civil war started in Irak between Sunnis and Shiites; Iran, given that its archenemy, Irak, was in turmoil, started interventions in several of its neighbors supporting Shiite militias and rebellions with the idea of reducing the power of Saudi Arabia, the great ally and provider of the United States; a rebellion started in Syria, the Arab Spring brought dictator allies of the West: Mubarak in Egypt, Ben Ali in Tunisia, Gaddafi, the newly refurbished French ally, in Algeria. Bahrain, Yemen, and other Emirates were also affected or infected by these regime changes.

The terrible wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and Irak, the civil wars in Algeria and Irak, and the unrest in the Emirates opened up a space for the deadliest of the turmoils manifestations, ISIS. The trickle of refugees that all of this caused was soon to become a river that threatens to develop into a human tsunami.

Other parts of the world

The wars in the Middle East affected more than just that region. North and Central Africa are also in crisis. All those countries that were a paradise for the oil and raw material companies, where the Western Powers installed repressive dictators friendly to global giant companies, are also in turmoil, suffering violent regime changes and/or terrorist attacks from Al-Queda affiliates like Boko Haram.

The chickens are coming home to roost

A commentator in an American TV program said that he hated liberal politicians saying that "the chickens have come home to roost" whenever there is a terrorist attack in a Western Country. On uses that saying to mean that all there is no action without consequences and that the decision taken today will have repercussions tomorrow. The imperialist ideas of centuries past, the collusion of western companies and dictators in African, Arab, and Latin American countries, the overthrow of legitimately elected governments that did not suit the interest of the Western Powers, the support of criminal governments like that of the Shah of Iran, Pinochet in Chile, and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe have created conditions of war, crisis, and the hate we see demonstrated toward Western Countries.

Through cultural domination expressed in the Internet, the movie industry, and other media, we have sold the idea of "the American Way of Life", an endless source of wealth of Europe and its Union of countries, and that peace and security is much better here than "there", wherever "there" is. People "there" know that our economic paradise is, in a large part, due to the exploitation by our western companies of their countries. Is it any wonder that they might want a part of it?

This crisis is not going to go away soon. It is not an airplane crash that is forgotten a week later when a new "breaking news" item occupies the news channels. This crisis is here for the long run. An "expert" in massive migration cases said in an Al Jazeera interview that the majority of immigrants would go back home "as soon a conditions in their countries improved and were appropriate." I almost laughed. There are 25 million Mexicans and Latin Americans in the US. A great part of them ARE NOT migrants; they are the sons and daughters of migrants. They have been born or have grown up in the US and consider themselves Americans; they have no relation to or desire to return to Mexico. Does this gentleman, or anyone in Europe for that matter, think that once these African or Arab children grow up into adolescents or adults, once they get a job, go to school, become part of our European societies in France, the UK, Germany, Austria, Spain, etc., they will want to go back to Syria, Irak, Togo, Ethiopia, or wherever?

No, sir. We're in this for the long run. "The chickens have come home to roost." We are suffering the consequences of the actions of our past policies, our dependence on oil, our prejudices, ignorance, and misunderstandings of other cultures. And now we have to live with that.

Road Trip to Southern Spain, Part 4: Sevilla

Before I start this blog post, a friendly reminder: there are just 19 days left in my campaign to self-publish my next novel in English, Spanish, and French. Here is the link:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mrinalika-a-third-world-romance-novel/x/8737005

OK, so on we go to Sevilla: "¡Quien no ha visto Sevilla, no ha visto maravilla!"

The city was hardly a "maravilla" when we got there in the middle of a thunderstorm. To make things worse, we had not received a confirmation from the host from whom we had requested lodging. Traffic was horrendous and to comply with Murphy's Law, the windshield wipers of our car were so worn that I could hardly see where we were going.

I found a parking space in a side street and as the rain thundered on our car's roof, SIRI, the marvelous application that is found on Apple computers, came to the rescue. Using Claudette's iPhone, I asked it to find the nearest hotel to our present location.

It turned out we were near the Macarena district, one of the most traditional and historic parts of the city, and there were six hotels nearby. I chose the nearest one, called the phone number that SIRI offered and made a reservation.

Although the app offered directions to the hotel, I chose to play it safe since it was still raining very hard and noticing that there was a taxi stand just a half block away, I hired a taxi to lead us to the hotel.

It was a terrific choice: the hotel was near a large avenue that would allow us to leave the city quickly and without hassles, it was also near a side street that had a bus stop that would take us to the historical center, and it had a great automated parking system: you stop your car before the parking entrence, punch in your reservation or room number, a door opens, you drive your car into an elevator that is like a small room, the elevator takes you to your parking level (ours was the first floor) then the other door opens and you are told audibly and on a digital display which parking space has been assigned to you. Fantastic.

We went up into the lobby, checked in, and went to our room to rest.

Our luck changed and after we had had lunch, the sun came out. The receptionist told us which bus to take to go to the "casco histórico", of the city and off we went.

It was a short ride and we got off at the bust terminal in center city. It is located on a street bordering a nice park called "La Plaza Nueva":

From there, we walked to that part of the old city called "El Arenal". It has been converted into a pedestrian area.  The architecture of the buildings, like most in the older parts of the city, is a mixture of the severe, conservative Spain of mid-Twentieth Century and the graceful Moorish styles.

One can even see the imprint of the Moors in the heavy-handed structures built by the Church. As in this entrance to the Cathedral.

Sevilla, like most large cities in Europe, has surrounded its historical center with a series of large, bustling neighborhoods and districts; but, unlike most old European cities, it has managed, like Córdoba, Granada and other southern cities of Spain, to grow in an orderly fashion with wide avenues, and urban planning that calles not only for correctly structured streets and freeways but ample public transport, like this tram:

It is truly a nice mixture of the old and the new. Madrid's Metro is an engineering marvel (because it was built very deep into the ground in order not to disturb its above ground structures) but these trams, like the ones in Paris and Bordeaux, are more pleasant to use because you are not just being rushed about in dark tunnels: you can actually see the city up close.

And speaking of seeing the city up close, we decided to do the touristy thing and take a tour in a horse drawn carriage. By the old city walls, we found a carriage:

It was not only a slow-paced, tranquil way to "see the marvels" of Sevilla, but the guy was an excellent guide and raconteur of stories about the city and about how they had managed to get special traffic privileges for the horse drawn vehicles. (It was nice to see how the car and bus traffic respected the "calandrias" in the busy streets.)

He took us along the Guadalquivir river, which is not only a deep water port, but also the heart of Andalusia. The river is lined on both sides by wide, palm-lines avenues that were brightly lit in the afternoon sun. (Sorry, no picture!)

From the river we went to Maria Luisa Park. The park used to be part of the gardens of the San Telmo palace. In 1893, they were donated to the city of Seville by the Duchess of Montpensier, the Infanta Maria Luisa Fernanda. Just before World War I, in 1914 the city began the construction of buildings that were to be the Ibero-American Exposition in 1929. Most of the park was incorporated into that Exposition. 

Some of the park's buildings housed the office of the Exhibition; they later became public offices.

The huge structure that was the main exhibition area of the fair surrounds half the perimeter of the park. It now houses museums, headquarters for the Army units stationed in the region, and federal offices.

Back in the center of the city, we went for a stroll around the heart of the old city, the legendary Barrio de Santa Cruz.

It has been cleaned up, painted pretty, and the streets are no longer paved with round, uneven stones but it still retains its beauty and charm.

This is where all the tourist want to go and take pictures, and with good reason. It used to be the Jewish quarter before they were expelled from the city. It has some of the oldest churches of the city and, indeed, or all Spain. The city's Cathedral is here and so it the beautiful minaret of the old Moorish mosque, La Giralda; unfortunately, it has been converted into a bell tower. But, there are plenty of other things to see. Lots of "photo ops" as they say: streets lined with the ubiquitous orange trees,

Great sidewalk cafés and restaurants,

After all that walking, we repaired to one ourselves. It was tucked away under the street awnings so necessary in a city that can be boiling in summer.

Sevilla does have its share of "maravillas". Its modern parts have far outgrown the old city. People still live in neighborhoods such as Santa Cruz, but the old districts such as La Macarena and Triana no longer resembles their romantic image of song and poem as described by Bécquer and Lorca.

Nevertheless, I would still recommend that one visit the city. We only programmed a day and a half for it. One should allot a lot more time than that. This was just a scouting trip for us and we made a note to come back and dedicate more time to it. But for now, it was time to go to what would be the highlight of our trip: GRANADA!

Road Trip to Southern Spain, Part 3: Córdoba

We arrived in Córdoba in the early afternoon on a gray, rainy day. The rain was not a downpour but rather one of those persistent sprinkles that is more a bother than a problem.

I was surprised at how modern the city was. I expected the troops of Caliph Al Hakam II to stop us at the gates of Qurtubah to ask us what business we had in the capital of the Islamic Emirate. Instead, we found a modern city of wide avenues and palm lined streets and handsome bridges spanning the Guadalquivir River.

The sidewalks of the beautiful Paseo de Córdoba

The traffic on the streets is proper of a city of 325,000 inhabitants; but, it is a gentle kind of traffic, as if people are not in a hurry to go anywhere. One has the sense that one is in a tropical city, and indeed, the climate of Córdoba is classified as subtropical-mediterranean.

We had been told, by the person who was renting us a room through Air BandB, that we were to head out of the city vía the highway going towards Villa del Rio, a nearby town. We were to look out for a restaurant named "Las Torres" and once there our hostess would come and lead the way to her home.

The problem was, our GPS could not find its way to Villa del Rio. The information of Córdoba's streets and avenues was outdated. (Note to self: DO NOT travel to another country with outdated map information.) Street signs were no good either because as is the custom in Spain, once inside the city, signage tells you little about getting out of it.

Fortunately, again the police came to the rescue. We spotted a motorcycle cop talking to the driver of a car. We parked behind them and I approached the policeman to ask directions. It turned out that the men in the car were plain-clothes policemen. When they heard that we were lost, the cops in the unmarked police car offered to show us the way.

We followed them and soon they pointed toward an avenue that led out of the city. They told us to follow it and sure enough the avenue turned into highway E5 which the signage said was the way to Villa del Rio.

The restaurant that our hostess had indicated was eight kilometers down the road. We were a little wary of being so far out of town but we had committed to that reservation and we decided to make the best of it.

We called our hostess once we were parked in front of the restaurant and she came along ten minutes later. She was a small woman with a very Andalusian accent and face. She was very charming and friendly. After introductions, we followed her to her home.

It was a good thing she had come to fetch us because the way to her house was a bit convoluted, involving crossing the highway, going over a bridge, and following a rustic road into the countryside.

But, the house was as charming as our hostess. Córdoba is very hot in summer and the house was built with that in mind: it had a large, roofed veranda, the house was located north to south so the prevailing winds could run through it and the windows did not face the hot morning or evening sun. There was a large swimming pool and large, old trees that afforded plenty of shade. Our room, on the north end of the house, was large and comfortable.

Our hostess served us cold drinks in the cool veranda and when we asked how we could get to the old city, to fabled Córdoba of the Caliphate, she offered to show us the way there.

We followed her in our car and she went into a very large shopping mall.

"My advice if for you to leave your car here," she told us. "Parking in the streets of the old city is not permitted and the parking garages expensive. We are within walking distance of the walls of the old city and there are buses that come to this shopping center from there, if you are too tired to walk back."

We bought a couple of cheap umbrellas in a shop owned by a Chinese person. Chinese immigrants seem to be everywhere in Spain now, and most of them own or work in the kind of shop that sells cheap goods from China.

The rain was now just a slight sprinkle and it soon stopped. The walk to the old town was very nice, down a wide avenue with the air cool and moist. Soon our hostess bade us good-by and we continued on our own toward the old city. Soon, like the barbarians of old, we were at the gates.

This is one of the gates to the old city.

This is what it's like once you are inside.

It is difficult to describe such a beautiful city. But, even as beautiful as it is now, it is hard to imagine what it must have been like in its glory days when it was one of the largest cities in the world and a center of art, literature, religious studies, and commerce and trade.

What makes the old city of Córdoba different from the tourist traps like Carcassonne, or Toledo, or Taxco in Mexico, is that people still live there and are the majority. They outnumber the tourists, although I should be fair and say that the locals seem to stay away from the spots most visited by tourists: the Grand Mosque, the Cathedral, or the gardens of the Alcázar.

The Gardens of the Alcázar.

This is not to say that the old city does not have its share of shops selling souvenirs to tourist. It does. But, they are nowhere as overwhelming as they are in Toledo. In fact, they are restricted to a small area within the old city walls. It was a pleasant surprise.

That first day we did a quick tour to survey the layout of the old city and to plan for the next day's visit. We took note of the Grand Mosque and other sites that are of "must see" category and because it was raining again, we took a taxi rather than a bus back to the shopping center where we had left our car.

Once safely back in the home of our hostess, we sat in the veranda to have drinks and some food she had prepared for us. She told us that her family owned the large piece of property where not only her house was but also those of her brothers and sisters are located. Like all gypsy families, they liked living close to each other, sharing things, helping each other out.

As night fell, the warm, humid air gave way to a quiet, cool night. Since we were in the countryside, all was quiet and peaceful. We could hear someone playing a guitar and singing softly. Our hostess told us it was one of her nephews, "Que le gutaa mucho tocaa, la guitaa," (who likes to play the guitar a lot) she said in her thick Andalusian accent.

We retired early because we knew that the next day would be a long one.

We got up early the next morning. We had coffee in the veranda and our hostess offered us the traditional breakfast food of southern Spain: toasted bread topped with a mixture of seasoned fresh tomato sauce and olive oil.

Off we went in our car. Again we left it in the shopping center's free covered parking space. There is no parking space near the old city because, as we found out, by city ordinance the circulation of cars is prohibited within a large radius of the old city walls in order to protect them from car fumes. Only electric city buses and hybrid taxis are allowed as well as horse drawn carriages.

The fact is that Córdoba is pretty free of smog. The days were very clear and the prevailing winds from the Mediterranean keep them that way.

Once we were within the old city walls, we rushed down a narrow city street to the large open courtyard in front of the Grand Mosque.

This is one of the many ways of going from one of the city gates towards the center of the old city. Once you navigate these streets using the tower of the cathedral as a guide, you get to the center courtyard that still uses the same canal watering system that the arabs installed a thousand years ago.

This is not a great picture but you can see the irrigation canals running from tree to tree and the bell tower of the cathedral in the background. As we would discover here and in Granada, the Arabs not only made the most of the water available, they used it very wisely in the sense that it provided utility and decoration and comfort at the same time: fountains gurgled soothingly, water mirrors reflectes the sky and flowers, canals and distribution systems cooled the air.

We found that there was no need to rush. The courtyard area is large and the mosque so accommodating that you don't have the crowds and lines of other tourist sites. We bought the tickets and in we went to the Mosque.

It is difficult to describe something that is very beautiful and perfect but which has been ruined by the stupidity of misguided religious fervor. One can see the intention of the original architects to make one feel enveloped by infinity and perfection in the repetition of columns and arches.

It is not difficult to imagine muslims sitting in quiet corners of this vast space, silently reading the Corán, or schools of children being taught to read the Holy Book, or the faraway voice of a Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

But, then, as you wander around, staring in amazement at the beauty and delicate art of the Mosque, you come up with this:

In order to obliterate the Caliphate, vanish all Islamic faith from Córdoba, and crush the spirit of the city with the fist of religion, Charles V ordered that it be "converted" into a cathedral. However, when he visited the finished cathedral, he famously said, "they have taken something unique in the world and destroyed it to build something you can find in any city." I would go further and say that they destroyed perfection to produce a vulgar display of power and vanity.

But, what survives is of incomparable beauty. It reminds me of how fractals in mathematics take a simple mathematical statement and by endless repetition produce a complicated but beautiful object. The art of Islam is like that. A simple geometric figure, repeated countless times, or a phrase from the Corán or quoted from Mohammed, placed midst these geometric repetitions, becomes a pattern that is mesmerizing. There is no better example of this than the mirhab, the door that points to Mecca:

I suggest that my faithful half-dozen readers go to this link for further reading and information about this wonderful building and its very interesting history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque–Cathedral_of_Córdoba#The_Reconquista

But, since we must go on with our visit of the city, let me say that the sadness we felt at what had been done to the Mosque, was somewhat abated when we wandered out into the more quiet and sedate parts of the city, that is, where the locals live.

We went down one of the many narrow streets that make up the heart of the old city:

This street, like all the others in the old city, was impecable. The whitewash of the walls, the cleanliness of the stones, and even the windows facing the street seemed to have been cleaned by expert hands. The whiteness of the walls gave the streets a pristine, almost recently constructed air which would have been overwhelming in its brightness had it not been for the green of plants and trees, and the many colored flowers we found along the way.

The thick doors and heavy cast-iron bars were signals that the inhabitants of these houses wanted their privacy respected. Nevertheless, we quietly peeked into the open entrance of a few homes to catch a glimpse of the inner gardens and patios like this one:

Or this one:

We Mexicans inherited from the Spaniards the love of plazas and open spaces in the middle of the city where people could socialize, rest and find relief from the heat in the shade of trees, and generally feel the essence of a town because the "three powers", the church, the government (usually the municipal palace and jail) and commerce (in the form of shops and cafés) were all within sight of the townspeople.

At the end of a particularly interesting street,

...we were forced to turn right and we found this:

This is what we call a "plazoleta", an open space that is not the main plaza of a town. This one had a nice restaurant on one side, the Archeological Museum on the other and large, expensive-looking homes on the other two sides. Notice the white poles in the middle of the street. Those lower and rise to allow or keep out unauthorized vehicles. Only residents and official vehicles have devices that allow them into these streets.

We sat down to have a drink and something to eat under the shade of the trees.

A man from the restaurant was cutting slices of ham from a whole "pata negra" leg and shank. We got a picture of him as he was bringing out the ham! But, alas, not of him slicing it. I did ask for a "porción" of ham and some olives to go along with our beers. Both were up to the standards of Spain: Excellent!

The houses surrounding the plazoleta were more substantial than those crowding the sides of the narrow streets:

We had a quiet, restful lunch and thus restored we headed back toward the center of town through another series of narrow but interesting streets.

Again we passed the Cathedral with its massive, inelegant tower:

And the once-beautiful Moorish doors that were defaced by "adapting" them to Christian iconography:

We left the city by what remains of the time when the Romans were the masters of Hispania:

The Roman bridge with its fortified gate.

We waited for the bus by the stop for the horse-drawn carriages.

Which wait for customers in the appropriately named street:

"Lover of the Rivers" would be the translation. I say appropriate because the Moors loved water and they loved their river, the Guadalquivir. Their presence is everywhere in Córdoba: in the architecture, names of places, food, and music to name the most obvious. But, more importantly, it is in the spirit of the city where their legacy is more profound. As one resident said, "Somos más Moros que Españoles." (We are more Moorish than Spanish.)

On the way back, we commented that we were sorry not to have allowed more time for Córdoba which deserves it and we said that next September we would dedicate a whole week to it, not only the old part but also the new which as a lot of things to offer, too.

We went back to our room, had drinks and traded anecdotes about the city with our hostess, and the next day we headed on E5 to our next destination: Sevilla!