Seville Shows that Personal Experience with Multiculturalism can Actually Create More Discomfort with It

The Flamenco Museum in Seville provided an unequivocal description of the dance as an output of multicultural integration. The southern Spanish city, the description read, was able to give birth to this unique dance style because of an infusion of religious, musical, and cultural influences from Catholic, Muslim, gypsy, Amerindian, and African sources. Those influences congregated so thoroughly in this city only because of its status in the past as the capital of Moorish Spanish rule and the headquarters of the country's exploratory voyages to the New World.

Yet, for all the talks of the city's multicultural heritage, modern-day Seville is surprisingly devoid of an international flair. Sure, there are plenty of international tourists checking about the architectural gems of the city center and sampling tapas in its many streetside bars. But among the city's residents, there are few African and Asian faces. Immigrants from South America, who have powered Spain's population growth in recent years, also remain rare. Muslims, so prominent in the city centuries ago, are nowhere to be seen on the city's streets. 

That nearly homogenous reality of today almost makes it hypocritical, or at least anachronistic, for the city to talk about its worldliness from centuries ago. The city's many palaces bear the strikingly geometric patterns and decorated archways typical of the Muslim world. That shared architectural heritage with the likes of Morocco and Uzbekistan, however, never really goes beyond architecture. Where modern-day diversity does exist, they are pushed to the outskirts of the city where those who are curious need to effortfully seek out, like the massive hotpot restaurant that I found amidst a nondescript industrial park.

Of course, like anywhere else, the locals can be curious about what diversity that does exist in Seville, whether they are from centuries ago or the last decade. Plenty of young couples from the city visit the Moorish Real Alcazar, where they mingle with international tourists in trying to understand the city's glorious history. And the massive hotpot restaurant was dominated by a local (i.e. non-Chinese) clientele, who helped to push the newly established restaurant to collect more than 13,000 Instagram followers, despite having no foreign tourist crowd whatsoever.

But sadly, the local interest in diversity stems not from a desire to live with it, but to see it at a distance, whether chronologically or geographically. It is an attitude that is so reflective of the general European feeling toward the presence of foreigners on the continent today. Whereas eastern European states like Hungary long touted its credentials to be a savior for white Christian civilization, the same voices are increasingly influential in the ballot box even among the larger, more welcoming countries. The success of the hard-right AfD in the recent German elections follows the similar ascent of RN in France not long ago.

Frankly, I expected things to be at least a little different for this slice of Spain. Centuries of Muslim rule in Andalusia, where Seville is the capital and the largest city, should have least a mixed ethnic and cultural imprint that lasts today, just as flamenco claims to have originated from the same. Being so close to Portugal and Morocco should bring an easy way to experience foreign culture for local residents, as is interactions with the many foreign tourists. The proficiency of many people in English, at least in the tourist-facing hotels and restaurants, attests to the everyday reality of international communications.

Yet, it is also understandable why Andalusia may be even more skeptical of the foreign presence than elsewhere in Spain and Europe. It remains the poorest by per capita GDP while the largest in population among all regions in Spain. In a country that has been struggling with high youth unemployment for decades, the issue must be particularly acute here. Worse yet, the recent service-oriented economic boom has largely taken place in the country's north, saddling the likes of Seville with higher costs without the direct benefits of growth.

Being on borderlands of EU can harden attitudes toward the foreign "other" even more. The prospect of illegal immigration from north Africa, for the locals, is not some distant issue being discussed by politicians. Whether real or imagined, the growth of foreign residents can create a very real sense that the local culture, however it is defined, may be pushed out and marginalized. With a history of the Catholic-Muslim struggle in the region, many may come to the conclusion that the pendulum is once again swinging back in the Muslims' favor after Catholics pushed them out during the Reconquista.