Andalusia and Recovering the Spirit Of ‘Convivencia'

As I write these words in the garden of the Cordoba Mosque in Spain, the centuries-old memory of Andalusia goes through my mind. Andalusia was the scene of the remarkable experience that medieval Spanish scholars called “convivencia,” or coexistence. Embracing diversity as a constructive challenge of fulfillment was the hallmark of Islamic Spain and the Andalusian culture embodied this spirit in the widest sense of the term.

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Iraq, Syria and the Baathist spirit

The al-Maliki government, particularly in the past year, has employed the most ordinary Baathist strategies.

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