The latest spanish republican elections:
Conservatives: 19%
Liberals: 8%
Labourism: 21%
Comunism: 26%

Of course, there´s nothing wrong with being Moorish, excepting the fact that they do not longer exist. We call Moorish (or Mudejars) those muslims living in Christian territory during Medieval and Early Modern Age in the Iberian peninsula. Christians living in Muslim territories were called Mozarabic. Jews were called many things (few of them nice) in both fields, with an ever changing and permeable frontier that separated two civilizations for nearly eight centuries. Moorish were expulsed from Spain by king Philip III in 1615. Most of them settled in Northern Africa.

Regarding to our common friend Basque-Spaniard, I am not implying that he is racist at all, not having the pleasure of his acquaintance. But it was his jumping (erroneous as it turned out) at the possibility of being mistaken for a Moor what prompted my comment. But look, he first defined his religion, then his racial traits.

I myself do not feel pride or shame for my mixed origins. My mother was from Northern Castile (near the Basque Country), my father from Murcia, in Southeasthern Spain, a region conquered first by the Aragonese then by the Castilians in XIIIth century. I cannot trace back my origins more than four or five generations, and I don´t really care. I´ve been raised Catholic, as most people in this country for the last 500 years, and am currently an atheist (but cannot forsake the Holy Mother Church, there is no approved procedure ;-), apparently).

Religion is more important an issue regarding to our nation self-perception than race. Being \clean-blooded\ or of \Old Christian stock\ in opposition to \New Christians\ (that is descended from Muslim or, even worse, Jewish converts) was very important in Renaissance Spain. It supposed a different legal standing, as many institutions enforced from the Late Middle Ages what were called \blood-cleansing statutes\, strikingly similar to those later established in Nazi Germany for access to the SS or to the Nazi Party. First of all these legal compulsions was one approved by Toledo Cathedral Council in 1436, if memory serves me well. Moreover the Inquisition kept a watchful eye on those with insufficient credentials in terms of Christianity. Ironically, many inquisitors themselves were New Christians.

Concerning Celts and Gauls, these are rather vague terms inherited from Roman ethnologists, many of which were also generals and conquerors, like Julius Caesar. When the Romans came to the Iberian peninsula during the Second Punic War (IIIth Century BCE) they found a conglomerate of tribes, slightly less developed than them, with just a few cities, mostly in what is know Andalusia and the Mediterranean façade, and some Greek and Carthaginian foundations. Those peoples closer to them they called Iberians, from the Iberus river (today Ebro) which was settled as a kind of demarcation line splitting Roman and Cathaginian zones of influence. This area formed later the Roman province of Hispania Citerior (in Latin literally: \the Spain closer to us\). The Iberians probably spoke very dialectalized non Indoeuropean languages and some linguists suppose they are the ancestors of today's Basque (or Euskera), which some relate with North African Berberian (which is different from the common Maghreb Arabic). Northwestern Spain was the land of the Celts, subdivided in multiple tribes and even less developed than the Iberians. They were related linguistically with Gauls from what today is France and even the northern part of the Italian Peninsula (those tribes that periodically migrated South and sometimes even defeated Roman armies). There was a moving stripe, several hundred miles wide, where Celts and Iberians mixed, and the term Celtiberian came to be used by archaelogists to define their few findings, or rather to conceal their ignorance. The Romans created a province called Hispania Ulterior (\the Spain further from us\) encompassing these lands, before the final subduing of the whole Peninsula by Augustus in the Ist century CE. He also redistributed the territories in three provinces of Imperial rank, Tarraconensis (capital city Tarraco, today Tarragona, southern Catalonia); Lusitania (capital city Emerita Augusta, today Mérida, in Extremadura) & Baetica (capital city Corduba, nowadays Córdoba in Andalusia).

In a way we Spaniards never have ceased to be an uneasy badly-molten bunch of tribes, so bear with us. Some other day we may talk about that island of yours \like a little body with a mighty heart\.

Lo de "moron" no significa moro, sino gilipollas; iba dedicado, por lo que puedo colegir, al tal juliani eskobar ese.

Dear all the rest:

There seems to be a funny confusion here. Basque-Spaniard has thought that "moron" adressed to him, and misinterpreted it for the Spanish word for "Moorish". Basques, in my experience, are quite touchy in terms of race and religion. Anyway, let´s keep it cool, OK? No need to abuse anyone – not even juliani.

Secondly, I´m not moron I proud catholic with White skin, blonde hair and green eyes.