"Andalusia Spring"
Reclaiming "Occupied" Spain for Islam
by Soeren Kern
Controversies over Islam dominated the Christmas and New Year holidays in Spain this year.
These conflicts reflect the growing influence of Islam in Spain after mass immigration from Muslim countries. They are a harbinger of things to come, especially as the Muslim population in Spain is predicted to double within the next fifteen years.
Demography, not surprisingly, is a major topic of debate in Spain. Spanish newspapers, for example, reported that the first child born in Spain in 2012 was Fatima, whose parents are Muslim. According to one estimate, a whopping 75% of all the babies born in Spain on January 1, 2012 were born to immigrant parents, primarily from Morocco.
This trend is not a new: the first babies born in Spain in 2005, 2009 and 2011 were all born to Muslim parents. Since 1990, the Muslim population in Spain has risen from just 100,000 to an estimated 1.3 million in 2011. At the same time, native Spaniards are leaving Spain in droves. The economic crisis in Spain – nearly one in four Spaniards (five million in all) are unemployed – is spurring a mass exodus of native Spaniards, who are looking for work in other countries, such as Britain, Germany and the United States.
Demographers estimate that more than 150,000 native Spaniards left Spain in 2011, on top of 128,655 who left in 2010 and 102,432 who left in 2009. A total of 1.7 million Spaniards are now living abroad. With the economic turmoil set to intensify in 2012, emigration from Spain is expected to increase even further.
Islamists are also stepping up calls for an "Andalusia Spring" to reclaim "occupied" Spain for Islam, in the same way they believe they have the right to reclaim all of present day Israel, which had once been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
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