In 711 the armies of Islam crossed into Spain under Tariq ibn Ziyad and smashed the Visigothic kingdom at Guadalete. Toledo, capital of Christian Hispania, fell soon after.
The Spaniards who survived and stayed became dhimmis under Sharia. They paid the jizya to be allowed to live, could not build new churches, could not ring bells freely, and their testimony against a Muslim carried no weight. Churches were turned into mosques. Public Christian practice was restricted and any open defiance of Islam was punished by death. Submission was the price of survival.
When the people of Toledo rebelled against their tyrants, the response was slaughter. In the mid-9th century Emir Muhammad I drew the Christians into a trap at the Guadacelete. Thousands were cut down.
The Muslims beheaded 8.000 Christians !
8.000 heads piled up and displayed in Cordoba as a warning and to terrorize the remaining Christians to stay subjects for ever.
But the Toledans kept rising anyway.
It took the Spaniards almost 4 centuries to take Toledo back in 1085 and centuries more to drive Islam out of the peninsula. The myth of peaceful "convivencia" is modern propaganda. The reality was conquest by the sword, permanent legal inferiority, and periodic massacres of those who refused to bow.
Western civilization was built by men who refused to submit. The Spaniards fought for their land, their faith, and their ancestors. That is the only reason Spain is Spanish today.
Do you have the stomach for the things you need to do to take your countries back? How far would you go for your people?
That's the real question.
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- Homer Pavlos