imomus | Notes from Toledo

Notes from Toledo

Sitting in the station reading the English-language version of El Pais, the Spanish newspaper that comes with the International Herald Tribune, I found an article about mosques in Spain. Headlined "Mosques? Not in my neighbourhood!", the article describes how "when a group of Muslims decides to open a mosque, the neighbours mobilize to stop the project". People think their house prices will plummet, that bearded terrorists will walk their streets, that there'll be noisy calls-to-prayer, and so on. Since the mid-90s there have been 60 blocked mosque projects in Spain, often on technicalities ("fire hazard"). As a result, Muslims gather in much more discreet, architecturally low-key prayer centres.

None of this information prepared me for the beautiful shock of arrival in Toledo, an ancient walled town about half-an-hour by train from central Madrid. In fact, if anything proves that Islamic architecture increases your house prices, it's Toledo. The station is a tiled Moorish fantasia, pure Morocco. Climb through the labyrinth of streets to the top of the hill and you sense the layout of a middle-eastern town. The abbeys are organised around central courtyards featuring fountains in the arabic style. The post office is an exotic north African space. Everywhere you find patterned tiles, bulging rounded gridded windows, buildings called "alcazar" and "alhambra". There are synagogues and Christian buildings too, of course -- and even a Chinese-looking house built by a Spanish Inquisitor -- but the Muslim presence is one of the things that makes Toledo a treasure.

Back in Madrid yesterday evening, I went to the World Music section of 24-hour culture store FNAC. I was hoping to find a CD similar to one I already have, a recreation of Arabo-Andalusian medieval music (you can hear samples of it in my song Going For A Walk With A Line).

I asked the assistant where I might find such a fusion. "Oh," she told me in Spanish, "there's Arabic music and there's Andalusian music, but they're different things." Eventually -- and, it seemed, reluctantly -- the assistant dug out two CDs that contained the required fusion. It had happened somewhere, apparently, just not in her back yard.

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Cut them Spaniards a bit of slack. Wasn't so long ago that Islamic extremists killed a couple of hundred Madridians. And the recession is biting harder there than elsewhere. I think the French are more anti-Arab than the Spanish.

And at least some part of the most recent anti-Islamic barking is liable to be less about Isabella and Ferdinand riding off to conquer Grenada, and more about something resembling the "liberal xenophobia" in the vaguely Dutch pattern -- which is more culturalist than nationalist at heart, and involves fears about the presumed violence and illegality of a supposedly illiberal people, really.

And of course it's everywhere a local flavour and a local mix. But it seems even people who moan about the Turks on the Gates of Vienna are a varied and diffuse lot.

Edited 2009-09-22 13:09 (UTC)

Arabo-Andalusian medieval music sounds really interesting.
What are the CDs called?

there's Radio Tarifa, for one

First of all, Islamic architecture is one thing, and active mosques are another. Spain was under arab rule for over 700 years, so it's not just Toledo, but the whole of the county that was deeply influenced by Islam, their architecture, their culture and even their language. Those are historical monuments and turist sites, so of course they are prestigious and increase your house price!

While I have never lived near a mosque myself and have no idea whether the neighbors are right in their fears or just prejudiced (also very possible), the two things have nothing to do with one another.

About the store: I think the sales assistant just didn't understand what you meant. She probably thought you were talking about flamenco, which is mostly Andalusian and whoud be a very common thing for a foreigner or a tourist to buy.

Your targets are so easy Momus, I think that's why your blog is so limp-wristed in general. Poo-pooing racist spaniards, that evinces real insight. And you might get your facts straight about architecture in Toledo. I know the city well, I spent almost a year living there, and though there is much Islamic archictecture in evidence, it's a quick-fix exaggeration to say it predominates the scene. Not to mention the fact that Islamic culture is not what it was a few hundred years ago.

Alas, you're no Bruce Chatwin, and not a hundred years of reading will correct that.

Victorine.

is limp-wristed good or bad?

my ex-girlfriend's father would always laugh and shake his head saying I was limp-writsted... I thought it meant I was a real gentlman around his daughter.

you think Momus was being to gentlemanly with this post, he should have really given it to those dirty A-rabs... ??? Give them the good ol' American one finger salute?

Tile tiles tiles but can anyone say what is intrinsically good, unique and useful about Islam that stops it being a “retro necro” relic? Having stamped out as much diversity as Christianity? Persian architecture was beautiful before Abrahamic fads. In North Africa the bright Berber culture is actually sunnier than those endless dull old tiles.

Pepsi is an underdog when you compare it to Coke, and Islam has kind of lived off this ‘underdog’ runner-up status for a long time, both in its external dealings and as a hothouse for believers. Like Apple vs Microsoft, the 'underdog' hothouse can actually be a stricter, weirder, more self-deceiving place than the Number One spot.

As an educated mind I say Number Twos stink as much as Number Ones!

Along with Islam and Apple, the other 'underbully' to claim status recently was News Corporation. Plucky James Murdoch has been defending himself from the attacks of the marauding Goliath that is the BBC. By giving away its news for free, the BBC is "fundamentally wrong". In other words no-one will pay Murdoch to read Jeremy Clarkson.

It's not the status that counts its the quality of what is being offered. If you are an underdog for more than two generations you are either a slow adopter of a better process, or using it to your advantage, to bully a third party!

The Spanish aren't overly fond of the Arabs, and even less so now that the Spanish economy has tanked. But really, I'm not sure they're so different in that respect to anywhere else in Europe. Trouble is, Momus, that in Berlin you live in your little Neukölln/Kreuzberg bubble. But if you ever ventured a bit further afield you'd find plenty of working class Berliners who are none too enamoured of immigrant communities, in particular the North Africans.

I wish Momus would stop trying to unmask people as secret racists when they're just tired of the same old retro necro Abrahamic mucsle-flex going round and round for centuries. It's nearly 2010! But it might as well be 1010.

Um...what? Unlike, say, Paris or Brussels or Amsterdam, Berlin actually has a very small North African population, about 6000 at last count (I refer you to page 16 of this document: http://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de/Publikationen/Stat_Berichte/2009/SB_A1-6_hj2-08_BE.pdf). That means "working class Berliners" (and by the way, wouldn't that also include many immigrants? or is this just code for "white Germans"?) are burning with resentment at 0.175% of the city's population. And much of that population is based in that "Neukölln/Kreuzberg bubble", so those "working class Berliners" would really have to go out their way to find North Africans to feel aggrieved about. No-one is suggesting that Germany's approach to immigration and integration has been entirely successful and without friction, but your theory has no basis in facts.

Is it true you recorded everything after Voyager up until Folktronic on a single Roland Workstation?

Yep, those greasy-haired Spanish dagos with their useless wi-fi are a bunch of racists...

I thought your line was that it was rude to criticise the host country, Momus? Or does that only apply when Japan is the host country?

There is a lot of mongering present everywhere!

Momus might like to post a link to his post about this.

You wouldn't be Nic's Mummy?

Lack or Prosperity? Making a Powerful Shift...‏

It's gonna happen, whatever!

Demolition of Muslim demographics video (http://imomus.livejournal.com/479114.html).

I think this post is pretty even measured and nothing more then a few 'notes' (as its title hints at)... from his travels. I'm guessing he didnt spend a lot of time preparing to write this nor had an army of fact checkers and team of collaborators to throw around the basic ideas and finer points... its a F*ing quick blog post about his rather short stay in a foreign country...
its sounds to me like personal notes... as its title hints at, written in a way, thats easy to understand and enjoy... if given the chance.

for someone like myself, who hasnt been to spain, it serves as a nice short run down as to one man's observations... anything else people are reading into this... you all are working too hard.

They just built a mosque in my neighborhood about six years ago. If you step out across the gate of my friend's yard, look across the open field, you'll see people there at all times day and night.

Since then, neighbors have been fleeing. People can't get out or sell their houses fast enough.

But again, this is America.

xian churches in america have plenty of hateful and dangerous people around them, as well.

wow, so much racist hostlity and Islamophobia in these comments. Toledo sounds beautiful. hope you managed to take some photos Momus.

gary

Regarding to Andalousi medieval music, the work of Eduardo Paniagua and his band Ibn Báya is a good reference. He has released several titles under his own label PNEUMA and also under SONY Classical Hispanica collection. The music of Luis Delgado has some points in common, though not so focused in arab-andalusi and incorporating also sephardic influences coming from the age of "the three cultures" (arabic-christian-sephardic) coexisting in the ancient Alandalus.

Tarik al Banzi in Tanger is doing beautiful andalousi music, you should check him out!

Islam isn't a race.

Clear-headed atheism doesn't have time to be deflected by cries of "Islamophobia". No offence, Gary. The Abrahamics have the nukes.

Is this bus "Islamophobic"?

Richard Dawkins!! Polly Toynbee!! UGH!!! these "clear-headed" atheists are even creepier than born-again cretins! Like, no offence, Anon.

BTW: that "Stop worrying and enjoy your life" sounds suspiciously like an ORDER to me. God help us if Dawkins & Co get their hands on nukes; they'll bomb believers - or those who simply refuse to enjoy life - into submission.

gary

But is Toynbee being 'racist' for suggesting that the world would be a better place if Islam comes to an end?

I've got Momus here with me now if you'd like to lick his arse a little more lovingly...

If you think these comments are 'racist hostility' then I'm sure you're the guy I saw walking near Regent's Park this afternoon, the guy with a sodden floorcloth draped over his head.

I am Muslim you ninny.

Jibril.

i believe the confusion might be due to the fact that arabo-andalusian music is in fact associated more with north africa than with the contemporary region of andalusia.. more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/andalusian_classical_music

momus, did you read this?

fanatical militant atheists and fanatical right-wing Christian fundamentalist freaks (ie the morons who made the "Muslem Demographics" video above)...such strange bedfellows...or maybe not, come to think of it...

Bedfellows? Like when Russia and the US fought Nazism? By definition, I don't think an atheist would be a good bedfellow for any kind of Christian, even a fraudster. But if it stops more 6th century Buddhist statues being blown up for being "un-Islamic" - then great! Maybe they'll replace them with Momus' favourite tiles!

neighborhood sabotage is very common in spain. Also neighborhood hacking.

Just been reading about Toleda, where San Juan de la Cruz was imprisoned, and where Roy Campell later stayed before translating some of the former's poetry.

Toledo! Damned typo.

I'm often critical of social life and the media here in the US, but when I read stories like yours I am reminded that such a story would be in very poor taste here in the US. Of course I live in a very large and diverse metropolitan area.

Momus, have you actually ever been to Morocco - or indeed any Arab country? Moroccan cities look nothing like Toledo or any of the Spanish cities with Moorish influence. The only riyads with tiled walls and courtyards with fountains you'll find in Morocco are for tourists.

Momus does not need to go to Morocco. He has gleaned all he needs to know about Arab cities from contemporary sources such as 1001 Arabian Nights.

Momus's nomadism is strictly commercial. I doubt he'll ever be invited to perform in an Arab country, so I doubt he'll ever go to one. I don't recall Momus ever stepping outside the developed world.

"Who has the nicest tiles? I vote for them."

I guess admiring Moorish imperial architecture in Spain is like admiring the Palace Of Culture in Warsaw, or Lutyens New Delhi. It is possible to love imperial architecture without loving the imperial system which creates it.

What do you think of this, for instance?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Shimla_India_Ridge.JPG

FLAC files:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5097138/Atrium_Musicae_de_Madrid__Arabo-Andalusian_Music__24-bit

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5097145/Atrium_Musicae_de_Madrid__Tarantule-Tarentelle__24-bit

I think it's kinda unfortunate that that particular news story was in the paper at the time you visited Spain, because, while I don't debate the accuracy of the story, I think seen in isolation it probably gives a skewed idea of Spanish opinions to Islam and North African communities.

I think first it's important to remember that Spain is effectively a federation of regions with very different history, culture, opinion and even in some cases language. Certainly here in Valencia I see far less racism and/or Islamophobia than I do anywhere in Northern Europe - and there are still very visible and large Islamic/North African communities here. Maybe that's why.

It's probably also worth mentioning that Spain is still an ostensibly Catholic country, which may also play a part when considering attitudes to major centres of worship for other Abrahamic faiths that are not seen in modern secularly governed countries.

Maybe the truth can be seen in the results for the recent European elections... while pretty much the whole of northern Europe swung heavily to the right seeing unprecedented growth for anti-immigration, nationalistic and racist parties, Spain simply consolidated in the liberal progressive centre. That is the voice of the nation, far more so than a bunch of selfish householders, more concerned with not losing property value than higher principles like freedom of worship for a faith they do not believe in.

Yes, I think it was in a way bad timing. Or rather, I put a story I read in Atocha station together with the trip to Toledo I made right after it, producing an interesting semantic juxtaposition, but certainly not a considered summing-up of the whole Spanish Zeitgeist.

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Notes from Toledo

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arabic-andalusian fusion music

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The station is a COPY moorish fantaisa. Open your eyes.

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Why I Hate Underdogs

Stinky Number Twos

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In my neighbourhood !

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give anti-morrissey a chance here guys...

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arabo-andalusian classical music

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More Cocteau than Sartre

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Atrium Musicae de Madrid, Arabo-Andalusian Music

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