Despite these observations also made by Marcais and Andre Julien, both historian specialists of North Africa, these official historians have preferred to write about the amazing fable of the Arab presence in the Mediterranean basin rather than leaving the history book with blank pages.

In his recently published book “Historia general de Al Ándalus”, published by Almuzara, Emilio González Ferrín denies that there was an Islamic invasion in 711. “There was no Islamic invasion in the Iberian Peninsula, and in 711, neither the Quran nor any Islamic tradition were codified,” says González Ferrín, who heads the Department of Integrated Philology at the University of Seville. “The Arabic language was 100 years short of being an international language, and anyone who entered the Iberian Peninsula was neither Muslim nor spoke Arabic,” the author summarizes. González Ferrín penned this book, more than 600 pages long, because “it was a matter of justice”. “So much rubbish persists around the conventional interpretation of the Arab language” says the author, who has been a visiting professor at the universities of Cairo, Amman and Damascus.

“The years 711 to 756 are of civil war. There was a division of the peninsula: The north leaned toward one side, Levante the other, Portugal another way yet. Spain suffered a famine and a generalized civil war that incorporated troops from North Africa that were not Arabs or Berbers, but Punic, Visigoths, Vandals and Byzantines,” says the author. “In this civil war, grosso modo, the contenders were the supporters of Witiza and Rodrigo. Witiza’s sons maintained control in the cities,” explains González Ferrín.

His book denies the Islamic invasion, and also the Reconquista. “Ortega of Gasset was already saying that a Reconquista spanning 800 years is too long to be called a Reconquista.” History does not advance in the blink of an eye: If there was no conquest, where is Al-Andalus? Al-Ándalus is a premier European renaissance, it is a genuinely European product. In the thirteenth century, the works of famed philosopher Averroes is banned at the Sorbonne, in Paris, not in Cairo, where it was not read. All we call Andalusian Jews wrote in Arabic,” González Ferrín adds.

“Al-Ándalus is filtered and this filtering produces essential elements for the Spanish Renaissance. Spanish Erasmism heralds from Al-Andalus, calling for less liturgical formality and more content,” he says.

“There is a contemporary reading. We have a complex: Being Spanish. This denial of Al-Ándalus is another component of this very complex,” says the Arabist. “Beginning in the year 1000, with the Book of the Apocalypse of Beato de Liébana and the discovery of the supposed remains of Santiago, an ideology of religion assumes its shape. The peninsula breaks in two, like shards of a mirror: the East assumes the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the West the pilgrimage to Santiago. Religion becomes an ideology,” says González Ferrín.

“The book follows Américo Castro in the sense that we have to achieve a complete understanding of our history: Al-Ándalus cannot be understood without first understanding Valencia, Zaragoza and Toledo.” “Al-Ándalus is a premier European renaissance, but as it is written in Arabic, Europeans do not they recognize it as such,” he adds.

González Ferrín praises the fruits of the debate between the historians Sánchez Albornoz and Américo Castro. “Juan Goytisolo said that we Spaniards are Europeans as we carry Al-Ándalus in our veins. The qualification I make to Américo Castro is that there was not a Spain of three cultures, but that there was a Spain of a single culture with three religions, and that Andalusian culture was the pinnacle of Europe “, says the author.

“Al-Andalus hails from the Greek Atlantis. Plato placed Atlantis here, just as Sepharad comes from the Garden of the Hesperides. Al-Andalus and Sepharad are the lost paradises of Greco-Roman culture, not of Bedouin or Arab myths. The Medieval times inherit Rome – it does not replace it, but inherits it”, concludes González Ferrín.

One of the biggest and most harmful lies in the history written by the French (the Franks), in addition to that of the history of Islam and the creation of an Arab people, is that of the so-called barbaric vandal  who destroyed the Roman civilization, while simultaneously invading North Africa.
The vandals and the other Germanic tribes were not armed tribes breaking on Rome at the speed of the hatchet – far from it.
The alleged vandals and their allies were refugees, alike in misery to refugees we see today from Africa and Asia, whom Europe will somehow use to preserve the benefits of the empowered. These people are without weapons or luggage, unable to attack even the weakest armies.
These Germanic tribes were no bitter enemies of Rome. In fact the romans, they saw the possibility of saving the then-decadent Rome by using barbarians as gendarmes of the empire. They became so well integrated with the Roman empire that Rome made them the military elite of the empire. Contrary to what history says,It was in converting to Arianism that the vandals had invaded North Africa and restored or imposed this branch of Christianity on the Catholic populations of Berber.

It was from this lie that another so-called Arab invasion of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula was later built. The reason remains to be found in the rubble of these stories.
These stories of vandal and then Arab invasions must be completely rewritten, that we may understand the evolution of humanity and be ready to prevent these mistakes that once cost us dearly in the past.

Kabyle men before french invasion

Since time immemorial, Kabylia is the continent of protest. When it is not corrupt, the Kabyle soul can not bear injustice and indignity. This is mainly in Kabylia that Firmus fought for years against the Roman colonialism. Sold by his own, Firmus committed suicide in the year 375, to not suffer the Roman humiliation.

Other colonialism attempted thereafter to submit Kabylia. Mission impossible, the Kabyle land is rebellious for eternity. After having largely contributed to overthrow French colonialism, Kabylia was faced with another colonialism, the Algerian regime of “the independence.” Here things get complicated, a part of the Kabyle elite is involved in this desire to erase Kabyle values. Kabyle himself, Colonel Mohamed Boukharouba established a dictatorship that wanted to even arabize olive trees.

The 1980 Berber Spring Opens a resistance era to authoritarianism. The huge revolt of the extraordinary citizens’ movement in Kabylia the years 2001-2003 shows the gap that there is between Kabylia and the rest of Algeria: outside Kabylia, one prefer to walk to support Palestine, children who die in Kabylia, killed by Algerian gendarmes exploding bullets do not move anybody.

Not knowing hatred, Kabylia has continued to bear the atrocities of the Algerian regime. Not knowing hatred, Kabylia lived mourning alone tens of martyrs, in the dignity and the hope of a new era. An era of hope. But hope is hard to find in a country where all elections are rigged, where religiosity is spreading at a staggering speed, where all human values ​​flicker, where corruption is a national sport, where there has never been a political change since “independence” of the country.

The enthusiasm with which some of Kabyle youth recently raised the Kabyle flag, here and there, comes to mean Kabylia’s fierce desire to exist outside of the Algerian dictatorship. The 35th anniversary of the Berber Spring sign a new deal in Kabylia: now many Kabyle expect nothing from the system in place. For once, they really know what they want. But more than ever, they will need vigilance facing a formidable opponent, a specialist in manipulation and violence.

But it will take the union of all Kabyle forces that can exist outside the system in place, in Kabylia or in the Kabyle diaspora, to curb the biggest stumbling block that stands before them: international geostrategy. Those who are really fighting for their Kabyle land have no hatred towards anyone; this is Taqvaylit (Kabylity), these Kabyle values ​​consist of, among others, tolerance, secularism, social justice, democracy, generosity, solidarity, humanism and pure love.

Youcef Zirem

Translated from: http://youcefzirem.over-blog.com/2015/05/le-continent-de-la-contestation.html