Interventions

International Journal of Postcolonial Studies

ISSN: 1369-801X (Print) 1469-929X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riij20

Disoriented Postcolonialities: With Edward Said in

(the Labyrinth of) Al-Andalus

Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla

To cite this article: Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla (2018) Disoriented Postcolonialities:

With Edward Said in (the Labyrinth of) Al-Andalus, Interventions, 20:2, 229-242, DOI:
10.1080/1369801X.2017.1403347

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2017.1403347

Published online: 07 Feb 2018.

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 DISORIENTED POSTCOLONIALITIES: WITH
EDWARD SAID IN (THE LABYRINTH OF)
† This essay is part of AL-ANDALUS†
the broader research
project “Islam 2.0:
Cultural Markers and
Religious Markers in
Mediterranean
Societies in
Transformation”
(FFI2014-54667-R).

Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

..................This essay explores the relation between postcolonial theory and modern
Arabic literature from a Spanish perspective. Both postcolonial studies and
Al-Andalus
Arabic and Islamic studies present in Spain rather exceptional histories.
Hispanophone Somehow dissociated from its original formulation, postcolonial studies
literatures were received in Spain more as a way of dealing with new “English”
Morocco
literatures than as a critical tool. On the other hand, the singularity of
Spanish history ended up establishing Al-Andalus as a “domestic Orient”.
Edward Said However, the Spanish case is also unique because of Spanish colonialism in
the North of Morocco and the Western Sahara. This other “Orient”, this
Spanish
colonialism time colonized, did not match Edward Said’s formulation for imperialism
as “a dominant metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory”. Both North
Spanish Africa and Al-Andalus were too embedded, historically and geographically,
orientalism within “Spain”. This unique position of Spain, as a place that was
................. orientalizing (and colonizing) at the same time it was orientalized is a
complex and ambivalent situation that created (and still creates) many
disorientations. On top of that, postcolonial Hispanophone literatures have
been absent both from the postcolonial debates that have privileged texts
written in English and French, and from the history of Spanish literature.

.......................................................................................................
interventions, 2018
Vol. 20, No. 2, 229–242, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2017.1403347
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
in ter v enti ons – 2 0 :2 230
............................

Postcolonial theory was developed tightly bound to a language (English), to a

concrete corpus of texts (written in English), and to a location (Anglophone
universities). I want to explore if this “predominant focus on Anglophone,
and to a lesser extent to Francophone texts and contexts” (Boehmer and De
Mul 2014, 68) might have affected the development of the field of postcolo-
nial studies elsewhere, and more specifically in the Hispanic realm. There
are indeed clues that suggest this hegemony might have hampered the expor-
tation of the ideas – the travelling of the theory – into other languages. In Post-
coloniality. The French Dimension (2007), Majumdar explores the
indifference towards postcolonial theory in France, despite the pioneering
contributions of Francophone thinkers such as Frantz Fanon. Well known
also is the problematic and contradictory reception of Edward Said’s founda-
tional text, Orientalism (Young 2001, 383), especially in the Arab world,
where it was in many ways misread (Hafez 2004). Critics such as Mellino
wondered if the postcolonial field had become “Anglo(Euro)centric” (2008,
17; see also Aboul-Ela 2010, 733). Hassan suggested it might have created
“a mimic canon … that reinforces neocolonial hegemony” (2003, 18). In
the same vein, Damrosch wondered if postcolonial studies might have
ended up “reproducing the hypercanonical bias of the older Europe-based
fields” of high theory (2006, 49). I argue that if there is such a thing as a post-
colonial predicament, it revolves around this linguistic (meta)theoretical
imperialism, that is to say the hegemony of theory in English.
This complex and ambiguous exportation seems to apply to the Hispanic
context. If we Google Poscoloniamismo, the generic way to refer to the
field in Spanish, we will immediately come across the Wikipedia page in
Spanish. Its contents are illustrative of the reception of this body of writing
in the Hispanophone world. To begin with, Poscolonialismo is defined as a
theoretical corpus bound to French and British colonization in the nineteenth
century, dealing with the literature of the former colonies. In a second defi-
nition, it is also related to Spanish and Portuguese colonization, but limited
this time to the period stretching from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centu-
ries. Furthermore, the bibliography reveals a much wider development of
the theory in Latin America (not a single mention of Spanish works),
mostly related to Spanish imperialism in the Americas and to the imperial atti-
tudes of the United States in the continent. Due to the historical particularities
of the region, the reception of postcolonialism in Latin America has also been
somehow complicated. Nonetheless, the continent has contributed to theoreti-
cal developments such as the so-called decolonial turn, which reconsiders the
colonial parameters and history of the region, with outstanding thinkers such
as Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo and Ramón Grosfoguel.
In Spain, as in other non-Anglophone countries, there has also been a late
and sparse development of postcolonial studies. The reception of the
 231
DISORIENTED POSTCOLONIALITIES
Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla
............................

postcolonial has been cold, not many translations having been published, and
there has been no local development of the theory (Omar 2008, 221).
Somehow decontextualized, dissociated from its original formulation, postco-
lonial studies were received more as a way of dealing with “new literatures in
English” than as a critical tool. When Spanish scholars engaged postcolonial
theory, they generally passed over the Spanish experience of colonization, as if
it had nothing to do with Spain or colonialism. Such is the case of Imperios de
papel. Introducción a la crítica postcolonial (2003) by María José Vega, prob-
ably the best account of postcolonial theory in Spanish. Vega deals with post-
colonial studies either as a corpus of literary texts (mostly in English and
French) or as a body of thought, assuming to some extent that Spain’s
modern colonial ventures are not relevant to postcolonial critique (20).
On the other hand, if addressed within the scope of postcolonial studies, as
in comprehensive works such as A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Lit-
eratures: Continental Europe and its Empires (Poddar, Patke, and Jensen
2008), to give one among many examples, Spain appears only as the colonizer
of Latin America and the Philippines, with hardly a mention of the modern
colonies. However, besides the well-known Spanish imperialism in the Amer-
icas, Spain also participated as a belated colonial power in Africa, first in
Equatorial Guinea and later in North Africa (Western Sahara and Morocco).
Nonetheless, even if postcolonial criticism has not really prospered in Spain,
the field of “the postcolonial” has benefitted from valuable contributions,
though it was never developed systematically. In Los estudios post-coloniales.
Una introducción crítica (2008), Sidi Omar argues that, given Spain’s long
colonial history, the absence of postcolonial theory in Spain is strange, as is
the lack of connections with that very colonial history (19). Although Omar
points at this crucial issue, he does not really develop the idea in his book;
there is no intervention, no real political or academic inquiry, beyond present-
ing the main ideas and leading figures of postcolonial theory into Spanish.
Given the relative absence of diasporic writers in Spain, it is no coincidence
that Omar, whom we might consider a first Hispanophone “postcolonial
intellectual” (Forsdick and Murphy 2009), is of Saharawi background. In
so doing, Omar leaves behind decades of being object (and indigenous) in
the colonial discourse to become subject in the debates of the legacy of
colonialism.
I should also mention the pioneering contribution of Ovidi Carbonell i
Cortés, Traducir al otro. Traducción, exotismo, poscolonialismo (1997), an
early thorough presentation of postcolonial critique and its possibilities,
including some of the first considerations on the history of translation of
Arabic literature into Spanish, without, however, making the connection
with the modern Spanish colonial past. With the above-mentioned exception,
it seems that in Spain postcolonial studies has not called attention to modern
Arabic literature either. It also seems that, despite the recent taking off of a
in ter v enti ons – 2 0 :2 232
............................
trend of critical studies, the modern Spanish colonial question has not been
addressed in this type of approach to postcolonial critique.
I argue this silence of postcolonial studies on the subject of Spanish coloni-
alism in Africa has to do, first, with the particularities of Spanish history, and
second, with the peculiar Spanish postcolonial condition, but it might also be
related to the above-mentioned postcolonial quandary. Using a central idea
borrowed from Martin-Márquez’s Disorientations: Spanish Colonialism in
Africa and the Performance of Identity (2008), I want to refer to different
1 See as well Khatibi, and convergent disorientations that I think have contributed to this situation.1
1983. Martin-Márquez has used the term disorientation as a way to frame the many
exceptionalities and entanglements of the Spanish case. In this essay I will
build on Martin-Márquez’s formulation in order to offer a new reading of
Spain’s position within the field of postcolonial studies. In the first place,
we should take into account the aforementioned limited reception of postco-
lonial theory in Spain and the Hispanic realm, mostly related to the coloniza-
tion of the Americas. On the other hand, with disorientation I also refer to the
marginality and invisibility of modern Spanish colonialism and Hispano-
phone postcolonial literatures within the field of postcolonial studies. I
derive a third dimension of the term from the work of Edward Said, a founda-
tional thinker in the field of postcolonial studies. Said hardly referred to
Spanish Orientalism, however; when he related to Spain/Al-Andalus he did
it in nostalgic, and therefore problematic, terms. And there is a fourth disor-
ientation in the way Spanish Orientalism has related to Al-Andalus and to
colonialism, conflictual episodes that have conditioned the development of
the field in Spain.

Al-Andalus, a domestic orient

As rightfully pointed out by James Monroe (1970), as a result of Spain’s par-

ticular history, Spanish Orientalism has been a practice almost limited to
Arabic studies. There is indeed a long tradition of Arabic studies that can
be traced as far back as the seventeenth century (García-Arenal and Rodríguez
Mediano 2010), but as underlined by Monroe, the origins were not “strictly
speaking ‘Arabism’ as an intellectual discipline, but rather an anti-Islamic pro-
pagandistic and crusading movement closely related to Spanish Reconquista”
(ix). In fact, the course of the scholarly field of Arabic and Islamic studies has
been marked and conditioned in Spain by this major historical event of Al-
Andalus. Moreover, it is impossible to understand the history of Spain
without the Arab Muslim counterpoint, and without its conflictual presence
or absence (Arigita 2009, 226; Marín 2009). This key historical entanglement
has caused tendencies in Spanish historiography and the field of Arabic studies
that went from eliminating “todos los vestigios de la influencia islámica y
 233
DISORIENTED POSTCOLONIALITIES
Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla
............................

Africana” (all traces of the Islamic and African influence) (Martin-Márquez

2011, 17) to embrace the myth of a unique legacy (González Alcantud 2004).
Up until the mid-twentieth century, Arabic studies in Spain were almost
exclusively devoted to Al-Andalus. According to historian Eduardo
Manzano, among the peculiarities of nineteenth-century Spanish Arabism
are that it dedicated its efforts to the study of the philosophy, literature,
science and religion of Al-Andalus (i.e. the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic
rule) in an attempt to highlight the singularities of a “Islam español”
(Spanish Islam) (2000, 28). By his account, modern Arabism was born as a
historical discipline with the fundamental aim of explaining that unique
episode of Al-Andalus, at a time in the nineteenth century when academic
disciplines were trying to establish the national history of Spain (24).
The imperative study of Al-Andalus, undoubtedly a disruption for estab-
lishing the national history of Spain, became something of a paradox: it
was not undertaken to explore an Islamic society, but rather a Spanish
phenomenon, as if it had been a deeply Hispanic society incarnated
again in a culture and a religion apparently different, but highly coincident
(Paradela Alonso 2000, 221). Indeed, as underlined by Tofiño-Quesada,
“manipulation of the past is located at the core of Spanish Orientalism”
(2003, 146).
Consequently, this essentialist Al-Andalus was converted into Spain’s
“domestic Orient”, and this primary focus led to what has been termed as
ensimismamiento andalusí (Andalusi self-absorption) of the field (López
García 1997, 19). This trend of Spanish Orientalism, usually termed as “tra-
ditional”, was mainly devoted to the translation of historical sources and lit-
erary texts as a way of throwing light on what had to be assumed (or rejected)
as part of Spain’s national history. As for the place of Arabic literature in this
context, it was generally used as a tool to illustrate and demonstrate that
exceptional period of Spain’s history (Carbonell i Cortés 1997, 97). The
most important journal of this traditional Arabism, supposedly detached
2 In a way, this from the colonial enterprise but not really, was called Al-Andalus (1933–
journal had 78).2 It was founded in the framework of the Escuela de Estudios Árabes,
continuity in al-
Qantara, founded in
established in 1932 during the Second Republic to accomplish research
1980 within the focused on the so-called Hispano-Arabic civilization. Both the Escuela and
Consejo Superior de the journal were first directed by Emilio García Gómez, to become the most
Investigaciones
Científicas and still
prominent Arabist of the twentieth century. In fact, it was García Gómez,
published: http:// along with Asín Palacios, who fostered the idea of a “domestic Orient”
www.al-qantara. from the very first issue of the journal Al-Andalus (López García 1990, 40).
revistas.csic.es/.
However, García Gómez gave special attention to literature and translation.
He was the translator of the very influential anthology Poemas arabigoanda-
luces (1930), which had a deep impact on the Spanish literary scene, inspiring
the casidas of Federico García Lorcas’s Diván de Tamarit. He also translated
another exceptional and very influential work, Ibn Hazm’s El collar de la
in ter v enti ons – 2 0 :2 234
............................
Paloma (1952) (Dove’s Neck Ring), with a long preface to the Spanish trans-
lation by the very well-known philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset, who con-
sidered this translation of the “árabe español” (Spanish Arab) author a
3 “Árabes españoles” must for Spaniards.3
and “hispanoárabes” This dynamic of simultaneous exclusion and inclusion in the way Spain
is also the
terminology used by
relates to its Islamic history – and in the way Spain was/is perceived from
Juan Vernet (1999). outside – is rather exceptional; in fact, as unique and ubiquitous as might
be its colonial history.

Colonial singularity: Morocco, outside and inside of Spain

Besides having such a thing as a domestic Orient, the Spanish case is suppo-
sedly also unique because of Spanish colonialism in the North of Morocco
and the Western Sahara. If Spanish history was singular, then so too was
the history of Spanish colonialism in North Africa. To begin with, the colonial
relation of Spain and Morocco differs in many ways from other colonial con-
texts, starting with the long historical interaction between the Iberian Penin-
sula and North Africa. After the so-called War of Africa (“Guerra de África”,
1859–60), the first serious colonial encounter with Morocco, colonization
became a second decisive factor in the development of Spanish Orientalism.
Moreover, these two major historical events, Al-Andalus and colonization,
gave birth to two different schools of Spanish Orientalism: the academic,
known as Arabismo, mainly devoted to Al-Andalus; and another one,
closely related to the colonial venture and institutions, known as Africanismo.
Africanismo also named multifarious political, economic, missionary and
military movements that at the end of the nineteenth century encouraged
the occupation of Africa, mainly Morocco (Morales Lezcano 1990, 19),
though its ideology can be traced back to Queen Isabel and the expansionism
expressed in her testament. It was in this context that many institutions, such
as Sociedad Histórica y Filológica de Amigos del Oriente (1860), Asociación
Española para la Exploración de África (1877) and Sociedad Española de
Africanistas y Colonialistas (1883), were founded. If, as underlined by
Monroe, Spanish Orientalism was in fact mainly Arabism as a discipline,
Morales Lezcano (1989) has highlighted how Africanism was almost exclu-
sively devoted to Morocco. Besides their degree of implication with the colo-
nial project, another of the main differences between the two schools of
Spanish Orientalism – academic Arabism and colonial Africanism – had to
do with language. For the first, there was only the classical Arabic that gave
access to the texts of Al-Andalus, while the second focused mainly on the
study and teaching of Moroccan Arabic and Berber that gave access to the
colonized subjects (Arias Torres, Feria García, and Peña 2004, 13).
However, the colonial enterprise counted, at different times and in various
 235
DISORIENTED POSTCOLONIALITIES
Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla
............................

ways, on academic complicity, as highlighted by López García (2011), in the

best account to date of the complex relations between colonization, military,
politics and academia.
Africanists and Arabists often resorted to Al-Andalus, to the “glorioso
Islam español” (glorious Spanish Islam), in order to justify colonization
(Mateo Dieste 2003, 226). Martin-Márquez has shown how the Spanish colo-
nial venture in Morocco perfectly fits in time and spirit with the rediscovery
and “reconocimiento del legado andalusí en España” (recognition of the
Andalusi legacy in Spain) (2011, 18). If, for centuries, Muslims had been per-
ceived as enemies and fanatics, on the basis of geography and racial simi-
larities between the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb,
Africanists changed this trend and fostered the idea of a Hispano-Moroccan
brotherhood based also on the shared past of Al-Andalus (Martin-Márquez
2011, 69). Within this general “rhetoric of proximity”, Spanish colonial dis-
course also claimed that Spaniards were better placed than other colonial
agents to understand the “el alma del indígena” (the soul of the indigenous
people) defined with peculiar softened racialized categories, such as “herma-
nos inferiores” (inferior brothers) (Mateo Dieste 2003, 224). Consequently,
as underlined by Campoy-Cubillo, Spaniards presented their affinities – and
certainly their atypical “fraternal relation” in the context of European coloni-
alism – as the main reason why they, and not others, should develop the colo-
nial project in the region (2012, 9). Even more, the failures of the Spanish
precarious colonial enterprise also contributed to develop the idea that the
reason behind those failures was that Spain respected the colonial subjects
4 See the more than other colonial powers.4 Even if Spanish colonialism was as pitiless
documentaries on the and brutal as others, the myth of an atypical colonialism is still alive, and pro-
topic “España en
Marruecos. El
moted in institutional publications such as El protectorado español en Mar-
fracaso de un sueño ruecos: la historia trascendida (2013).5
colonial” by Víctor Not did this other “Orient”, this time colonized, match with Edward Said’s
Morales Lezcano:
http://www.canal.
formulation of imperialism as “the practice, theory and attitude of a dominant
uned.es/serial/index/ metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory” (1994, 9). Like Al-Andalus –
id/436/. intertwined as well in Moroccan history – Morocco was too entangled, geo-
5 See the idea of the graphically and historically, with Spain. Among others, further entanglements
atypical colonialism
of Italy in Mellino include key episodes like the Spanish Civil War, started by Franco and the
(2006, 465). As for military Africanists from the Protectorate, relying on the participation of
the brutality of Moroccan troops and undertaken as a Crusade; or the personal guard of
Spanish colonialism,
it is enough to
Moroccan soldiers created by the dictator called the Guardia Mora. In her
mention the research illuminating works, such as Los moros que trajo Franco (2002), María
of historians such as Rosa de Madariaga delves deeply into the tragic and enduring implications
de Madariaga (2005).
of those episodes.6 Together with the rediscovery of the Arab-Islamic past
6 Balfour (2002) also
delves into the of the Iberian Peninsula, this colonial condition and its many consequences
brutality of some of (including the Civil War) have played a decisive role in defining and redefining
these key episodes. Spanish national identity.
in ter v enti ons – 2 0 :2 236
............................
The Al-Andalus effect: modern Arabic literature in Spain

The lineage and fate of modern Arabic literature in Spain are inseparable from
all these contexts. Los días (Al-Ayyam), by prominent Egyptian author Taha
Hussein, translated by Emilio García Gómez in 1954, is usually considered the
starting point of the interest in modern Arabic literature from the Nahda
onwards. The following year, 1955, the same translator rendered into
Spanish Yawmiyyat na’ib fi-l-aryaf (Diario de un fiscal rural) by the Egyptian
Tawfiq al-Hakim. This translation was also the beginning of the first pub-
lished series devoted to modern Arabic literature, Autores Árabes Contempor-
áneos (Contemporary Arab Authors), within the brand new Instituto
Hispano-Árabe de Cultura (Hispano-Arabic Institute of Culture), a cultural
and diplomatic institution created in 1954 to foster the so-called Arab
policy by the isolated Francoist dictatorship, and whose first director was,
again, García Gómez (Hernando de Larramendi, González, and López
García 2015).
Though less known, the beginning of Spanish Arabism’s interest in modern
Arabic literature is also bound to the colonial context in Morocco. Under the
umbrella of the Spanish colonial venture in the North of Morocco, curious
initiatives were undertaken in the cultural realm. Literary journals such as
Ketama and Al-Motamid were founded in the Spanish protectorate with the
support of the colonial institutions. Their pages saw the first attempts to trans-
late modern Arabic literature. Interestingly enough, these journals defined
themselves as hispano-árabes (Hispano-Arabic). Al-Motamid, directed by
Trina Mercader and published in Larache between 1947 and 1952 and in
Tetouan (1953–5), aimed principally to make modern Arabic poetry known
to Spanish readers. Ketama, literary supplement of Tamuda, was edited
between 1953 and 1959 by the Delegación de Educación y Cultura de la
Alta Comisaría (Delegation of Education and Culture of the High Commis-
sion) in Tetouan, capital of the Spanish protectorate. Directed by the poet
Jacinto López Gorjé, it mainly published translations of Spanish, Moroccan
and Arab authors into Arabic and Spanish.
Some of the young Arabists who would become key professors in Spanish
academia in the second half of the twentieth century, such as Fernando de la
Granja, Pedro Martínez Montávez and Leonor Martínez Martín, spent time
in Tetouan in the 1950s as grantees in Spanish colonial institutions. They
were responsible for translations (often together with Moroccan colleagues)
of contemporary Arab poets into Spanish. Pedro Martínez Montávez pub-
lished in Tetouan in 1956 an anthology of poets from the Arab Mahjar in
Latin America, La escuela siro-americana. Later on, in 1974, Martínez Mon-
távez published a pioneering comprehensive history of modern Arabic litera-
ture, Introducción a la literature árabe moderna. Leonor Martínez Martín
published several translations of modern Moroccan and Lebanese authors
 237
DISORIENTED POSTCOLONIALITIES
Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla
............................

in the bilingual magazines of the Spanish protectorate and the anthology of

poems La luna y yo (1956) by Tetouani poet Muhammad Sabbag, and
later on the influential anthology, Antología de poesía árabe contemporánea
(1972).
However, the real start of the contemporary trend of Arabism would not
arrive until 1975, when a new programme of studies entirely devoted to the
contemporary Arab and Islamic worlds was established at the new Depart-
ment of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de
Madrid, which had been founded in 1968. This new trend of contemporary
Arabism was not very well received by traditional Arabists, such as Emilio
García Gómez, who insisted that their professional duty was to deal with
issues before 1492 (Paradela Alonso 2000, 222).
In general, the first translations – mainly anthologies published by insti-
tutions like the Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura – primarily had an edu-
cational objective, namely, to acquaint students with the “idiosyncrasies” of
Arab and Islamic societies (Fernández Parrilla 2013, 92). Translation
became “una de las principales actividades de los arabistas” (one of the
main activities of Arabists) (Arias Torres, Feria García, and Peña 2004,
10), and the awarding of the Nobel prize to Naguib Mahfouz in 1988
motivated the most important flow of translation from Arabic into
Spanish, together with the Koran and the Thousand and One Nights
(Peña 1997, 122).
The Palestinian cause also had a deep impact on the development of studies
about the contemporary Arab world, and it contributed at the same time to
the creation of a powerful link between literature and politics. Soon, antholo-
gies appeared, such as Poetas palestinos de resistencia (1969), by Pedro Mar-
tínez Montávez, which enhanced this view. This militant approach, which
highlighted the ideological aspects and engagement of literary works, was
to become the most common way of reading Arabic literature. It is worth
mentioning also that in modern Arabic literature the loss of Palestine came
to be linked to that of Al-Andalus, turned into a prolific chronotope
gaining larger symbolic and political dimensions (Granara 2005; Aidi 2006).
Together with Palestine, contemporary Spanish scholars devoted particular
attention to themes related to Al-Andalus and Spain in modern Arabic litera-
ture, a reference model of this trend being Martínez Montávez’s books,
Nuevos cantos árabes a Granada (1979) and specially Al-Andalus, España
en la literatura árabe contemporánea: la casa del pasado (1992). As with
the historical Al-Andalus, paying special attention to Al-Andalus/Spain as a
theme in modern Arabic literature became a kind of duty for contemporary
Arabism. The presence of poets such as Nizar Qabbani and Abd al-
Wahhab al-Bayyati as diplomats in Madrid might be another factor to take
into account for such developments. It is also worth mentioning the
strong symbolic link of Al-Andalus with the Mahjar, described as a “nuevo
in ter v enti ons – 2 0 :2 238
............................
7 The São Paulo Al-Andalus” (new Al-Andalus) by Martínez Montávez (1992, 69).7 This is
Mahjar school called also probably the reason behind the special attention devoted by some scho-
itself “Al-‘Uṣba al-
andalusiyya” (The
lars to the Latin American Mahjar. However, if the pressing attention to Al-
Andalusi Group). Andalus and Palestine might be seen as natural to some extent, it might
have also contributed to distorting modern Arabic literature in Spain, and
to the marginality of Spanish Orientalism (López García 2011, 10).
The approach to modern Arabic literature was then mainly geared around
thematic and biographic elements. More generally, it could also be argued
there was a certain aversion to theory in the field (Paradela Alonso 2000,
233). In a process parallel to what happened with historical Al-Andalus in
Spanish academia (and even with Spanish colonialism), contemporary
Spanish Arabists firmly believed they were better placed than other European
Orientalists to understand the manners and customs of modern Arabs, more
specifically in relation to modern Arabic literature and to Palestine.

Edward Said in the labyrinth

Brennan has argued Said’s Orientalism did not travel well, at times even
serving “antagonistic purposes” (2000, 577). Indeed, Spanish academia did
not pay much attention to Orientalism (or to postcolonial theory or colonial
history). Among the possible reasons is that Orientalism does not address the
Spanish case. This cold reception, hostile at times in the field of Arabic and
Islamic studies (Puig Montada 2009), probably also had to do with the wide-
spread dislike in Spanish academia for the label “Orientalist” (and “Africa-
nist”), in favour of “Arabist”, relying on the argument of Spain’s unique
relation with the Arab world (Gil Bardají 2009, 69; López García 2011, 415).
In 2002, in the special introduction to the second Spanish edition of Orien-
talismo, Said stated the relation between “España y el Islam” (Spain and
Islam) was not simply an imperial relation, since Spain is “una notable excep-
8 I have not been able
ción” (a notable exception) (2002b, 9).8 In that very introduction Said justifies
to find the English
original of Said’s the absence of Spanish and other Orientalisms by affirming that he did not
introduction, and I pretend to write a comprehensive history of Oriental studies, but rather to
think it might not pay attention to meaningful cases, such as the British and French ones, to
have been published
in English. The first reveal the key issue of the connection between Empire and Orientalism. Fol-
edition of the book lowing indeed the arguments of traditional Arabism, Said defends the idea of a
appeared in 1990, special “simbiosis” (symbiosis) in the “tan diferente experiencia española” (so
fostered by key
Spanish intellectual
different Spanish experience) (10), where “el Islam y la cultura española se
Juan Goytisolo. habitan mutuamente en lugar de confrontarse con beligerancia” (instead of
confronting each other with belligerence, Islam and Spanish culture inhabit
each other) (10).
Said developed similar arguments when, together with Daniel Barenboim,
he received the prestigious Spanish Prince of Asturias Award for Concord
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Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla
............................

in 2002 for the controversial (in the Arab world) initiative West–Eastern
Diwan Orchestra (Beckles Willson 2009). It is worth mentioning that in
this project, Spain/Al-Andalus was also directly related to Palestine. In his
acceptance speech, Said resorted again to the peculiarities of “Spanish iden-
tity” and history, claiming Al-Andalus as “a model for the coexistence of tra-
ditions and beliefs”. The same arguments were developed by Said in the
documentary Selves and Others (2004) and in his “Andalusia’s Journey”
(2002a), a brief account of his trips to Andalusia that has been characterized
by Linhard as

haunted by the fantasies of what Andalusia was once imagined to be, including both
the vision of the coexistence of Arabs, Jews and Christians as an idealized form of
multiculturalism, and the orientalized vision of Andalusia as an exotic and sensuous
locale. (2011, 171)

Very often represented nostalgically as a “paradise of tolerant coexistence”

(Filios 2008, 91), the mythification of Al-Andalus has undoubtedly a special
significance from an Arab perspective (Paradela Alonso 2005, xv). Further-
more, Al-Andalus was turned into a poetic homeland by many Arab
writers, as wonderfully exemplified by Mahmud Darwish in Eleven Planets:

… ‫َﻫ ْﻞ ﻛﺎﻧ ِﺖ ﺍﻷ ْﻧ َﺪﻟُ ْﺲ‬

‫ﺽ … ﺃﻡ ﻓﻲ ﺍ ْﻟ َﻘﺼﻴ َﺪﺓ؟‬ ِ ‫َﻫ ْﻞ ﻛﺎﻧ ِﺖ ﺍﻷ ْﻧ َﺪﻟُ ْﺲ َﻫ ُﻬ َﻨﺎ ﺃ ْﻡ ُﻫ َﻨﺎ َﻙ؟ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻷ ْﺭ‬

(… Was Al-Andalus here or there? / On the earth … or in the poem?). I think

Said’s Al-Andalus/Andalusia/Spain must also be inscribed within a rhetoric of
loss that reaches further, since there is a strong interference of Palestine in his
vision of an idyllic Al-Andalus as “lost paradise” of convivencia (Stearns
2009, 356).

Postcolonial Hispanophonies and beyond

As pointed out quite early on by Hassan (2002), postcolonial approaches have

generally disregarded texts in Arabic. Aboul-Ela also developed the idea that
postcolonial studies have overlooked modern Arabic letters (2010, 735). Such
is the case in Spain, where Arabic literature was used first as a historical
resource to elucidate that unique period of Spanish history. Afterwards,
modern Arabic literature received consideration, but could not sustain itself
without the support of public institutions. Either that or it became a distorted
militant literature. Finally, the awarding of the Nobel prize to Mahfouz
created a surge of interest among mainstream publishers. For the first time
ever, beyond thematics, beyond the interferences of Al-Andalus and Palestine,
“Arabic literature” became literature first, and then Arabic.
in ter v enti ons – 2 0 :2 240
............................
On the other hand, postcolonial literatures in Spanish have been absent
both from the postcolonial debates that have privileged texts written in
English and French, and from the history of Spanish literature (Álvarez
Méndez 2010, 9). Nonetheless, mostly as a consequence of diaspora to the
metropolis, subjects from the territories colonized by Spain in Africa have
also developed literatures in Spanish (the most important authors up to
now are from the ex-colony of Equatorial Guinea). Disregarded until very
recently, the institutional space for these Hispanophone/Hispano-African lit-
eratures is still relatively marginal and insignificant (Díaz Narbona 2015).
Even worse, when these new literatures in Spanish are addressed by critics,
they are often “tackled from conciliatory or even patronizing perspectives”
(Casielles and Fernández Parrilla 2017, 665).
As for Maghribi authors, together with Moroccans writing in Spanish
(Ricci 2014), the people of the Western Sahara have become a special case,
again involving a very particular colonization and an even more complex
process of unresolved decolonization. Some Saharawi writers and critics in
Spanish now claim a relation with Spain as a colonized people (Campoy-
Cubillo 2012, 159), even “un lien affectif positif avec la langue espagnole”
(a positive affective link with the Spanish language) (Casielles 2017, 162).
As a result of the ideological affinities of the Polisario Front – the liberation
movement established first to fight Spanish colonization and later Moroccan
occupation – and Algeria, the Saharawi diaspora outside the metropolis
(Spain) concentrated mainly in Cuba, giving rise to a new identity category,
the so called Cubarauis (San Martín 2009).
As I have argued, relying on Martin-Márquez, the ubiquity of Spain/Al-
Andalus has created and still creates many disorientations. As I have tried
to show, Spain has often been simultaneously in and out of Orientalist dis-
course, orientalizing (and colonizing) at the same time that it was orientalized
by Europeans and Americans (even by Spaniards, and even by Spanish Arab-
ists). However, it seems that the postcolonial turn has arrived, not only
because of the increasing relevance of Hispanophone literatures and criticism,
or the existence of Hispanophone postcolonial critics such as M. Sidi Omar,
but also because the political and historical entanglements of colonization and
its cultural legacies and interferences (Al-Andalus included) are being tackled
9 Eric Calderwood is and undone from “postcolonial” (i.e. critical) perspectives.9
working on the topic
in a book entitled
Colonial Al-Andalus.

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