I also want to add that the passionate unanimity on how the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 was a terrible tragedy has been substituted with a passionate unanimity that it was a wonderful miracle. At yesterday’s debate, both speakers differed as to the degree of the miraculous wonderfulness, with each claiming it was more wonderful than the opponent was saying.
I find both attitudes to be painfully boring. How about we stop looking for good guys and bad guys in history and accept that, like that Facebook status says, “it’s complicated.” I understand being emotionally invested into recent history. But this was 1,300 years ago. There’s really no need to cheer on the participants.
Clarissa's Blog 
Isn’t “taking sides” the very BASIS of any kind of bigotry and prejudice?
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The Muslim invasion (there were also non-Arab tribesmen among the troops) was a tragedy on so many levels that the architectural, linguistic and otherwise cultural heritage it left to the people of the Iberian peninsula cannot in any way redeem. References: Serafín Fanjul, La quimera de Al-Andalus and Darío Fernández-Morera, El mito del paraíso andalusí, available in English as The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise.
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I assign an excerpt from Fanjul every once in a while, and the students react like they can’t believe what’s happening. The only students who can discuss the reading normally and without needing to disavow the ideas in the text every 2 minutes are Mexican students.
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