From: "Dave Coull" <coull2-AT-btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: moorish temple
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2002 22:52:54 +0100


Maldoror wrote about his


> better half who is arab


and said that Arabs would


> equate moor as being equivalent to nigger


I can believe that "Moor" is often used in a derogatory
way. For instance, the (Marxist) Spanish Civil War
song "Viva La Quince Brigada" (Long Live the Fifteenth
Brigade, about the Communist-Party-dominated 
International Brigade) has a line about them turning
their guns "contra Los Moros"    -    against the Moors,
the colonial troops from Spanish Morrocco who were
(perhaps very reluctantly) fighting on Franco's side. 
However, although it seems to me that the suggestion 
in the song was that it was virtuous for one lot of 
(mostly white) foreigners to turn their guns on another 
lot of foreigners in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, 
nevertheless, it was a fact that the troops referred to 
were indeed from Morrocco. What I want to know 
is this    -    accepting as a fact that "Moor" has often 
been used in a derogatory way, I thought that, nevertheless, 
it did have a specific meaning which was not intrinsically 
derogatory, namely, somebody from Morrocco. 
I thought that was the literal meaning of "Moor".
Was I mistaken in thinking this? If I   _WAS_
mistaken, how come the Spanish word "Moro"
sounds so much like "Morocco"? 

There are many, many instances of national/ethnic
words being used in a derogatory way in the English
language. Let's take just two that I am  _very_  familiar
with. "Welsh" and "Scot". The meaning of the word
"Welsh" in its original anglo-saxon is simply "foreigner".
The Welsh themselves didn't originally call themselves
"Welsh". They were the Cymru, the "Comrades".
As for "Scot", this was originally the Cymric word
for "pirate" or "sea raider". As for the expressions 
to "welsh" on a deal, and to get off "scot-free"....
The origins of the first of these terms is that the English 
ruling class spread the story that their conquered Welsh 
subjects were untrustworthy (when the reverse was 
nearer the truth). The origin of the second of these terms
is that some members of the English ruling class thought
that Scottish "criminals", "outlaws", and "rebels" (or
"freedom fighters", depending on your point of view)
had been too leniently dealt with. Both of these expressions 
are derogatory. Yet Welsh people do not object to being 
called Welsh, and we Scots are very proud of being Scots. 
I thought it would be the same with the people who inhabit
Morrocco. I thought that they would be quite _proud_ 
to be Moors. So, was I totally wrong about that?


Dave Coull