MADRID: Spanish Muslims business owners have experienced compressed by New Zoning suggestions. Spain’s Mediterranean coast is home to the country’s biggest Muslim community and in one town there, local politicians have proposed new zoning laws that have people pondering what it means to be Spanish, or Muslim, or both.
Ruling conservatives in the town of Tarragona want to limit the number of kebab shops and Internet cafes in the town center, keeping them 500 yards apart to “protect traditional Spanish businesses” and prevent what they call ghettos.
“My business is legal. I pay my taxes. I don’t sell contraband. So what are they so worried about? This is called discrimination.” “You tell me! My tomatoes are Spanish, and so are the potatoes I sell,” says Nouari Benzawi, an Algerian immigrant who runs a kebab shop and halal grocery store. “Please explain this to me!” he exclaims, stomping around his shop, pointing out Spanish products. “Do I need to sell pork to be a traditional Spanish business? Do I need to sell wine?”
“Politicians say they want to preserve the aesthetic of the city,” he says. “But they’re doing it at the expense of its newest citizens.” Tarkou mentions another problem. Spain recently announced that it is investigating hundreds of Muslim-owned businesses, including some in Tarragona, for allegedly funneling money to the self-declared Islamic State, or ISIS, in Iraq and Syria. The vendors are accused of doing so through hawala — an informal money transfer system used predominantly by immigrants, for whom Western Union or other bank transfer schemes may be too expensive. Tarkou says local Muslims rely on the hawala system to send remittances and support relatives back home in other countries. He worries the investigation will only cast more suspicion on his already struggling community.
“Whenever there’s a crisis, they always blame the weakest ones — the immigrants,” Tarkou says. The irony is that for much of the 20th century, Spaniards themselves were immigrants, fleeing their country’s civil war in the 1930s, and the poverty and military dictatorship that followed. But for the past couple of decades, immigrants have been coming to Spain, bringing rich diversity. Unlike many countries in northern Europe, Spain has no far-right, anti-immigrant political movement — so far. But after the January Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, fears about Islam are spreading across Europe, and Muslims in Spain worry that policies like the ones in Tarragona could become more prevalent across the country.
