Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
The Bagnios of Argel, by Cervantes

The music is Morisco music, found on Iberian Garden, Vol. 1 by Altramar. The piece is Muwashshah: Mā li-l-muwallah, 1113-1198.

This music takes place at the beautiful gardens along the Guadalquiver, near Cordoba. This is during the "convivencia" under Alfonso X (El Sabio - The Wise), the time before Granda fell: when Christians, Moslems and Jews lived at peace with each other. Muwashshah are songs in poetic form, with instrumental interludes in the form of Ibn Bājja (Avempace): 1470-1520. This is Morisco art.
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Ottoman soldiers
"The Bagnios of Argel (Algiers)"
by Miguel de Cervantes
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This play in three acts by Cervantes is very simple. The story line is basically that European captives (including "pícaros" or thugs, pimps or vagabounds, a Spanish slang term) are inherently culturally superior to their captors, "Turquescos" (Ottoman/Moslems) of North Africa. There are North African women, secretly nazarenes, that are enamoured of European Spanish captives, that make off with the women, humiliating the Moslem men, thus providing jingoistic, rascist evidence that Christians are superiotr beings. However, throughout the play, Cervantes shows his obvious and extreme racial prejudices.

However, is this only "racism", or perhaps more? We must keep in mind the racism and Colonialism clearly expressed in England at around this time, as expressed in the poetry of Shakespear, Sidney, Walter Raleigh, Spenser, John Donne, etc. While the Spanish monarchs were murdering, raping and enslaving the Moriscos, Huguenotes, Jews, etc. was this only because they were too busy seeking religous unity, or was this a part of their expressions of Colonialism, first in Scotland/Ireland, then in the New World?

Act 1
Not too much expressed: setting the scene.

Act 2
Several unpleasant views expressed:
  1. Gipseys: Tricksters (dishonest), p. 38
  2. Turcs: Turcos de nación (nationality) vs Turcos de profesión (renegades): a racist distinction, p. 41
    Turks as sodomists (garzons, meaning ganymedes or catemites). Obvious slander intended to view Turcs as effeminate, as if some of the Spanish were not also ganymeads, p. 44
    Very little to differentiate Moslems from other peoples such as Catholics: Moslem rosaries ue decades of small beads (representing "Hail Marys"), vs a single large bead (representing "Our Father"), later in Act 3, a cross intermixed with the beads), vs Moslem rosaries with 99 beads to express the names of Allah.
  3. Jews: identified by Jewish hair-style stereotypes. Degrading references, such as "Hey Jew", "Jewish dog", an "effeminate people", "vile", "worthless", sinful, eternally cursed, etc., pp. 43,44
    Attempts to force Jews to break Jewish beliefs (food, work on sabath, etc.), pp. 55
It should be pointed out that what distinguishes Christians from Moslems and Jews is the expression of four prayers, p. 62
  1. "Hail Mary"
  2. "Our Father"
  3. "The Credo"
  4. "The Salve Regina"
At no point is it made clear that to both Moslems and Jews, the Christians are viewed as believing in idolotry in graven images (cross bearing Jesus, statues of Mary, statues of saints such as St. Frances, etc.), use of force to convert non-Christians, theft by prelates and friars, etc.

Act 3
  1. Pagan beliefs by the Moslem Warden and Christians that cloud formations with suggestive images are miracles that as "omens" are signs of the future. pp. 75, 76
  2. Use by the Cadi (quaddi) to force circumcision upon Christians as a kind of "torture" or punishment, to murder a young boy. I think most human beings would doubt that a mentally normal person would do this. This raises a question: "Did Cervantes really observe this in the banio ?", p. 76
  3. Moslem King and Christians really believe in the miracle of cloud-images? p. 79
  4. Belief that Jews practice sodomy, in spite of sodomy being proscribed in the Jewish bible., p. 82
  5. Famous Moors know languages such as Turkish, Spanish, German, Italian, and French, and follow European practices such as sleeping on a raised bed, eating at a table, and sitting Christian (not cross-legged on a cushion), p. 84
  6. Differences in how wealth is used, p. 84:
    1. Jew: (religious) holidays
    2. Moor: weddings
    3. Christian: Not on pleasure (yet many say otherwise)
  7. Christians feel theft is justified, pp. 86, 89, 90

Assuming that Cervantes represented the view typical of Christians in Spain at the time Cevantes was alive, then it is very difficult to see how we can avoid the view that Cervantes was profoundly racist in his views not only of Moriscos, but of Ottomans, Turks, Jews, Lutherans, Erasmian humanists, etc.

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