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By Will Johnson
The Haitian poet Roumain once wrote, ' I have kept your memory, Africa. You are in me'.
I guess the same goes for me when it comes to Spain. Among my ancestors was the Correa family who were among those expelled from Spain after the great Christian conquest of the Moors in 1492.
Of this conquest Colombus wrote to the Sovereigns of Spain as a prologue to his report on the discovery of the Indies:
" Most Christian and most exalted and most excellent and most mighty princes, King and Queen of the Spains and of the islands of the sea, our Sovereigns: Forasmuch as, in this present year of 1492, after that Your Highnesses had made an end of the war with the Moors who reigned in Europe, and had brought that war to a conclusion in the very great city of Granada, where, in this same year, on the second day of the month of January, I saw the royal banners of Your Highnesses placed by force of arms on the towers of the Alhambra, which is the citadel of the city, and I saw the Moorish King come out of the gates of the city and kiss the royal hands of Your Highnesses etc."
Well here I am in the Qu Qu tapas bar, not far from my hotel the Avenida Palace, having crashed eggs and tapas.
The English translation on the menu was noteworthy. Of course crashed eggs turned out to be something familiar to us, namely scrambled eggs.
Proverbs reminds us that; "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." I thought that it would be useful to my readers to report on my trip.
When I arrived at my hotel the first thing I saw when checking in was a painting behind the counter depicting on one side Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and on the other side Christopher Columbus returning from the West Indies. Two notable moments in the history of the city of Barcelona. A city, the history of which goes back thousands of years. It belonged to the Romans, the Visigoths and the Moors among others.
I had come to Barcelona from Holland where I had been attending the BES week meetings. When I would mention to the Dutch partners in the meeting that I had come to Holland on a one way ticket I could see the shock in their faces. I could imagine them thinking;" My God with all the problems we already have with 'Antilleans', now we also have this cantankerous Will Johnson to deal with." I could see relief on their faces when I told them that I was going to Barcelona to take a boat back home following the route of Columbus.
Many things I will always remember of Barcelona. The long skinny bread with the hard crust called "Flauta" or flute. Bread so delicious that it could be a cause for a war of some kind if it was no longer available.
Talking about food. I loved the public market "La Boqueria" where Andrew Zimmern of the "Travel Channel" went in search of mountain oysters. Since at the time of this writing it is less than a month away from Christmas I would like to confess that:
On my first day to La Boqueria I bought me two bulls' testicles dressed and ready to serve. (Not me. Just kidding! They were there in their numbers though for those who want them).
On my second day to La Boqueria I bought me a pair of bulls-feet, two pigs' ears, one expensive ham and a whole mess of liver, lungs and lights.
On my third day to La Boqueria I bought me a pound of tripe, two pounds of ox-tongue and one oxtail.
On my fourth day to La Boqueria I bought me a pheasant hanging in its feathers, two rabbits dressed in their skins, one shiny octopus and so on and so forth.
Anything which grows, swims, crawls, creeps, walks or flies on this earth is slaughtered dressed and offered for sale in La Boqueria. If a market like that existed in the islands it would be the death of the people with the high cholesterol food available all around you.
If I have forgotten to mention anything, as they say in Ancient Greek, someone else will have to visit there and do the "Parerga and Paralipomena," (additions and omissions).
The first day of touring the old city, I came across the 'Plaza de Los Reyes" (Square of the Kings). I walked up the steps where Queen Isabella II of Castilia and King Ferdinand of Aragon, had received Christopher Columbus and his entourage on his return from the West Indies. I would be bragging if I claimed that my back yard is as big as that famous square, or that the steps leading up to my back door can be compared. However for a place which was witness to the culmination of one of the greatest voyages of discovery from Europe since Marco Polo of Venice, I had expected more.
On my second visit however I toured the museum and came to the steps from the direction the "Kings" came. I imagined myself to be a servant boy to the two Kings. They were called "Los Reyes" even though Isabella was a Queen. I fancied I could hear King Ferdinand telling her now "Let's go outside and hear what this lying Italian has to tell us."
I guess if his story had not been a good one orders would have been given to throw him down the steps to his death.
Can you imagine if Columbus had known what he had found? A land area of 16.225.000 square miles compared to Spain's 192.000 square miles or 84 times the size of Spain. To the Spaniards and the Moors the Iberian Peninsula seemed to be an immense land, at a time when one could only travel by horse at best. If he had known and informed them of these facts they would have indeed considered him a lunatic and surely would have given orders to pitch him down the steps.
The year 1492 was a significant year in the history of Spain. It was the year which ended 800 years of Muslim rule. In the year that Columbus discovered a new world for Spain to conquer, the troops of their Majesties as was mentioned earlier stood before the gates of the city of Granada the beloved city of the sultan Baobdil. He wanted to avoid a bloody battle and negotiated an honourable retreat. Legend has it that in the last mountain pass which allowed a view of the beautiful Moorish city of Granada, on the old road to the costal city of Motril, the sultan turned around to take one last view of his beloved city. That place was formerly called "Puerto del suspiro del Moro." (Port of the sigh of the Moor).
The Moors who left Spain after eight hundred years were no more a Moor than I am a Greek. They were being exiled from a land which they had taken over from the barbarian Visigoths in 711 and had built up to a haven of peace not only for Muslims, but also for Jews and Christians. When intellectuals in the rest of Europe ran into trouble with their King or their church they fled to places like Cordoba, Granada, Seville, all Muslim cities where a tolerant sultan welcomed them all. He even allowed graven images to be produced. These are forbidden by the Holy Koran but were allowed in Muslim Spain.
The whole of North Africa, separated by the natural barrier the Sahara from the rest of Africa was for thousands of years Berber territory, then colonized by the Phoenicians, then the Romans, the Visigoths and the Vandals, then France and Spain.
The Magreb (North Africa) not only produced the Phoenician general Hannibal, but also seven Roman Emperors, St. Augustine, a couple of popes and scores of other people important to the history of Europe. The Moors who went to Morocco still have sections of cities in what is called the Spanish style. On the other hand in the Iberian Peninsula and throughout Latin America much of the unique architecture we admire is in the Moorish style.
On the night after I visited the city of Granada and the Alhambra, we passed through the straits of Gibraltar. On the African side one could see clearly the city of Cueta, a Spanish city, as well as several Moroccan towns. Later on in the distance I could see the lights of the city of Tangier. For my readers, Africa is separated at that point from Europe in the same width as the channel between Anguilla and French St. Martin.
If, I may go back to Barcelona. The places which I visited which impressed me most were the monastery of Montserrat situated in a cliff high up in the mountain; the town of Sitges, down the coast from Barcelona which has a Bonaire street, and the church of the Familia Sagrado designed by Antoni Gaudi.
It should be completed in 2026. If I am not around and if any of my children or grandchildren want to find me then they can visit this cathedral. I will request St.Peter to let me do my time in Purgatory with my soul inhabiting the ceiling of this grand cathedral. I can then admire the stained glass windows, the unique architecture and the crowds which it will continue to draw. It is one of the greatest monuments to religion since the Haga Sophia was built in Constantinople 1500 years ago. And as a monument to love, when completed, it will rival the Taj Mahal. For those who do not believe, at least they have to admit that great works of art for all mankind to admire have resulted from those who did believe. The Moors expressed this in great works of art such as the Grand Mosque in Cordoba and the Alhambra in Granada as well as in the Holy cities of Makkak and Medina. To balance out my admiration for great religious monuments, on this trip I took with me several books on philosophy.
I learned from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) that the empirical world was without meaning or purpose, and was ultimately, in itself, nothing at all. Because it was all subject-dependent, and yet we have this built in tendency to think of it as existing independently of ourselves, there was a sense in which it was all illusion. He believed that we should not be taken in by it, that we should hold it of no concern, and not let ourselves become involved in its ways - that we should repudiate it. He called this the turning away of the human will from the world, and he saw it as the end result of philosophical understanding.
Kant and Schopenhauer had been working within the central tradition of Western philosophy, going back to the ancient Greeks. They had studied Plato and Aristotle, and were familiar with the Western philosophy since that time. In particular they felt themselves engaged in an enterprise that had been launched by Locke and developed by Hume, an enquiry into what the limits were of the ability of human beings to get to know and understand the human situation. Most of the outstanding figures in this tradition, from Plato onward, had believed that a mathematically based physics was the key to understanding the empirical world, but had not believed the empirical world was all there is. However they had kept their religion, if they had one, out of their philosophy, and tried to pursue their philosophical investigations on the basis of rational argument alone.
Eastern philosophy, as Schopenhauer discovered, was unlike this. It was not science-based but religious-based - so much so that religion dominated philosophy. Yet in this entirely different intellectual context, and in societies completely different from Europe's, with different languages and cultures altogether - and in different historical ages, sometimes thousands of years apart - serious thinkers had arrived at many of the same conclusions as the most advanced and recent Western philosophers.
Frederick Nietzsche said;" If one lives one's life to the full it brings one in conflict with others, yet Nietzsche believed that the thrill of conflict stretches leaders and helps them to develop their abilities.
Nietzsche further states that the central values we should embrace are those of life-assertion. Each one of us should be himself to the full, and live his life to the full, say yes to life, live all out, to the very top of his bent. "Dare to become what you are" is his first commandment. This is how all living creatures behave spontaneously in nature after all. Of course it will bring us into conflict with one another but what is wrong with that? The bold and adventurous find conflict exciting, they relish it, and it helps to stretch them to their utmost, which they also enjoy, and which develops their abilities. Of course the weak will go under, but that is to be welcomed. To want to abolish strife, suffering and defeat is just as uncomprehending and futile as it would be to want to abolish bad weather.
We made a stop at the beautiful island of Madeira and three stops in the Canary Islands.
Usually on cruises in the Caribbean any number of people will recognize me. I did not expect anyone to recognize me on this trip. However in the Canary islands when I was going to lunch on board the ship I heard someone call out to me: "Will, Will is it really you?" When I looked it was Mrs. Mary Gonsalves. She and her sisters were on the ship and visiting their lovely ancestral homeland of Madeira. We all got off at St.Maarten where the taxi drivers gave me a hero's welcome. They were telling the tourists that they had to get me organized first as I was one of the National Heroes of this country. It was nice to be home again.
I always tell people that the knowledge of history has served me well in my political career. In his political testament (April 1821), Napoleon the Great, wrote.
"My son should read much history and meditate upon it; it is the only true philosophy."
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