What would it take for Spain—or any society, for that matter—to reassess the scale at which it welcomes immigrants from Muslim-majority countries? Not that such a reassessment would necessarily make a practical difference, since most such immigrants (primarily from neighboring Morocco in Spain’s case) file asylum claims underwritten by EU protocols over which the member states have entirely given up their sovereignty. Though such claims are often long shots, the mere act of filing one immediately shields the applicant from deportation pending a judge’s ruling on whether to grant or deny it. Those immigrants who come in a plainly illegal manner, meanwhile, or those who overstay the denial of their claim, are admittedly a population which, if public opinion supported such a move, the state could more swiftly deport than it currently is.
If last week’s attack isn’t the catalyst for a move in public opinion, it’s hard to fathom what could be. On Wednesday in Spain’s southernmost most outpost of Algeciras (a mere 30-minute boat ride from Morocco across the Mediterranean’s narrowest strip of water), 25-year-old Moroccan national Yassine Kanjaa left the squalid apartment where he had been illegally squatting since first arriving to the city in 2019 and headed towards the church-filled old-town. In one parish, he vandalized paintings and religious artifacts; imprecated parishioners mid-prayer, yelling their faith was “not the authentic one”; and attacked a priest, who has since recovered and is in stable condition. Later at a nearby church, Kanjaa vandalized again, fought with a sexton, chased him down to a nearby square, and slit his throat amidst cries of “Allah Akbar,” all videotaped by shocked onlookers. This attack was as gruesome as the murder of Samuel Paty, a French school teacher who was beheaded by an Islamist in 2020.
Granted, Spain has known far deadlier attacks. 193 people died at Al-Qaeda’s bombing of Madrid’s Atocha train station in March 2004, injuring many more. 13 died at the more recent series of car-ramming attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils in 2017. Yet this latest attack is far better placed than any other previous one to trigger a long-overdue national debate on illegal immigration. The Spanish people have to ask themselves if any amount of illegal immigration is tolerable? And what means can be employed to end it? Whilst the 2004 and 2017 culprits were all legally residing in Spain, Kanjaa was not an asylum-seeker but simply an illegal immigrant who had a deportation order issued against him in June 2022. In thrall to express radicalization (he’d begun consuming ISIS propaganda a few weeks before), the police’s failure to prevent Kanjaa from doing harm is a worrying sign that Spanish intelligence is not up to the task of protecting innocents from would-be terrorists.
And yet, fully one week on, no such debate is happening beyond the confines of VOX, Spain’s right-wing, immigration-skeptic party. Even the right-of-center Partido Popular, with whom VOX is rumored to be mulling a coalition come the next race in December, has taken to refuting any possible association between the attack and Islam, or with immigration from Muslim-majority countries. You would think the Left, meanwhile, would have softened their views since rising to power in June 2018 in a coalition between the socialists and Podemos. Yet the Left has turned more—not less—pro-migration since, denouncing VOX’’s pronouncements on the matter as “xenophobic.” This shows that a substantial segment of Spanish society remains hopelessly wedded to multiculturalism, thus denying the rest of Spaniards the chance to debate on how to change policies in order to prevent attacks from happening in the future.
The Spanish Samuel Paty
What would it take for Spain—or any society, for that matter—to reassess the scale at which it welcomes immigrants from Muslim-majority countries? Not that such a reassessment would necessarily make a practical difference, since most such immigrants (primarily from neighboring Morocco in Spain’s case) file asylum claims underwritten by EU protocols over which the member states have entirely given up their sovereignty. Though such claims are often long shots, the mere act of filing one immediately shields the applicant from deportation pending a judge’s ruling on whether to grant or deny it. Those immigrants who come in a plainly illegal manner, meanwhile, or those who overstay the denial of their claim, are admittedly a population which, if public opinion supported such a move, the state could more swiftly deport than it currently is.
If last week’s attack isn’t the catalyst for a move in public opinion, it’s hard to fathom what could be. On Wednesday in Spain’s southernmost most outpost of Algeciras (a mere 30-minute boat ride from Morocco across the Mediterranean’s narrowest strip of water), 25-year-old Moroccan national Yassine Kanjaa left the squalid apartment where he had been illegally squatting since first arriving to the city in 2019 and headed towards the church-filled old-town. In one parish, he vandalized paintings and religious artifacts; imprecated parishioners mid-prayer, yelling their faith was “not the authentic one”; and attacked a priest, who has since recovered and is in stable condition. Later at a nearby church, Kanjaa vandalized again, fought with a sexton, chased him down to a nearby square, and slit his throat amidst cries of “Allah Akbar,” all videotaped by shocked onlookers. This attack was as gruesome as the murder of Samuel Paty, a French school teacher who was beheaded by an Islamist in 2020.
Granted, Spain has known far deadlier attacks. 193 people died at Al-Qaeda’s bombing of Madrid’s Atocha train station in March 2004, injuring many more. 13 died at the more recent series of car-ramming attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils in 2017. Yet this latest attack is far better placed than any other previous one to trigger a long-overdue national debate on illegal immigration. The Spanish people have to ask themselves if any amount of illegal immigration is tolerable? And what means can be employed to end it? Whilst the 2004 and 2017 culprits were all legally residing in Spain, Kanjaa was not an asylum-seeker but simply an illegal immigrant who had a deportation order issued against him in June 2022. In thrall to express radicalization (he’d begun consuming ISIS propaganda a few weeks before), the police’s failure to prevent Kanjaa from doing harm is a worrying sign that Spanish intelligence is not up to the task of protecting innocents from would-be terrorists.
And yet, fully one week on, no such debate is happening beyond the confines of VOX, Spain’s right-wing, immigration-skeptic party. Even the right-of-center Partido Popular, with whom VOX is rumored to be mulling a coalition come the next race in December, has taken to refuting any possible association between the attack and Islam, or with immigration from Muslim-majority countries. You would think the Left, meanwhile, would have softened their views since rising to power in June 2018 in a coalition between the socialists and Podemos. Yet the Left has turned more—not less—pro-migration since, denouncing VOX’’s pronouncements on the matter as “xenophobic.” This shows that a substantial segment of Spanish society remains hopelessly wedded to multiculturalism, thus denying the rest of Spaniards the chance to debate on how to change policies in order to prevent attacks from happening in the future.
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