An elderly man from the town of Torre Pacheco (Murcia, Spain) was beaten by a group of three young people on July 9, 2025. The attackers were speaking Arabic. The image of the victim, with his face swollen, bruised and with a bloodshot eye, circulated widely on social media. The reactions were immediate, especially on platforms like X, TikTok, and Instagram. A few days later, residents held a demonstration demanding greater police security. However, orchestrated through digital forums, far-right and neo-Nazi groups also showed up with the intention of sowing chaos.

During the protest, a 14-year-old boy, with a Spanish mother and a Moroccan father, was assaulted while taking part in the demonstration that sought to defend the attacked man, demanding justice and greater security. Allegedly attacked for looking Arab, for being perceived as an intruder. What followed was four days of conflict. Organized far-right groups from across Spain gathered in this small town to "hunt migrants." In response, other groups, migrants and those of migrant descent, mobilized and clashed with them, turning Torre Pacheco into a battleground.

Phrases like "Spain is a powder keg," "it’s too late for deportation, now we want the final solution" (echoing the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish population), and "time to begin the new Reconquista" gained significant traction on social media, particularly on Twitter. It is here, in this new digital environment, where the intellectual framework of Islamophobia, racism, and anti-immigration rhetoric in Spain and across Europe is being articulated. A transnational phenomenon, adapted to different national and political contexts. One mistake would be to attribute the anti-immigrant, racist, and Islamophobic discourse solely to the far right. Day by day, it gains more social acceptance. You hear it in bars, at work, and even in schools.

Over the past few months, I have immersed myself in the online spaces where these narratives come to life, particularly those shaped by a Christian nationalist discourse, understood as a cultural-religious framework that promotes an identity-based and exclusionary vision of Christianity (Smith & Adler, 2022). This discourse intertwines religion and civic life through a myriad of national myths and historical references (Whitehead & Perry, 2020). Always with an “other” at the center. An enemy of the nation, usually Muslims,  racialized immigrants and religious minorities.

In Spain, the Reconquista, the medieval centuries-long conflict between Christians and Muslims, lies at the core of Christian nationalism, embedding it within a sacred tradition. The Muslim is framed as the eternal enemy, caught in a cosmic war between good and evil, civilization and barbarism (García Sanjuan, 2020). 

Domino’s Pizza UK’s official Twitter account posts: “Start with R and we all love it.”

An anonymous profile replies: “Reconquista!”

Alongside the reply, a video plays. It shows a historical map of the Iberian Peninsula, charting the timeline of the medieval conflict. Over it, three doodle-like figures appear. A Portuguese and a Spaniard are shown hugging, and a Black man is depicted hanging from a noose, wearing a t-shirt that says “I love Allah.” Behind the mask of humor, these profiles camouflage propagandistic and hate-speech messages, blending Christian identity politics with attacks on ethnic minorities, women, and queer people, wrapped in a rhetoric promoting hegemonic, heterosexual, white masculinity.

These posts do not come without a hidden intention as they aim to solidify the “us vs. them” binary and construct identity through national and religious myths. The formats vary: some use epic music and historical images to glorify the Reconquista, while others share AI-generated content or memes that borrow the same hashtags, imagery, and visual language as the Incel subculture. Drawings are at the center. White Christian knights are shown with chiseled jaws and bulging muscles. By contrast, their enemies, usually Muslims, leftists, or the LGBTQ+ community, are portrayed grotesquely, dehumanized, and racialized. 

These representations construct an ideal of masculinity to strive for; and the path to that ideal is marked by the (violent) defense of traditional values. In my digital ethnography, I observed posts about the Reconquista using hashtags that do not even mention Christianity or Spain. Instead, they use #selfmotivation, #boysmeme, #selfdiscipline. In other words, young users, stumbling into these spaces while looking for motivational content, are also being exposed to Islamophobic, Christian nationalist, and misogynist material.

Similar movements blending Christianity and nationalism are emerging around the world. The assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, left behind images of wooden crosses, gallows, Confederate flags, and Christian banners. This movement, often called White Christian Nationalism, is grounded in the belief that the United States was founded on Christian principles and in American exceptionalism (Groski & Perry, 2022) . The idea is that Americans are God’s chosen people and their land the new Israel (Whitehead & Perry, 2020). Whether in the United States, Spain, Sweden, or Brazil, Christian nationalist sentiment follows a similar structure. It targets a specific religious group. In the first three countries, it is Islam. In Brazil, under Bolsonaro, it is Afro-Brazilian religions. This construction of the religious “other” shapes national identity, built on an exclusive, racist, Christian foundation. Put differently, a shared underlying framework emerges, dressed differently depending on the historical and sociopolitical context.

In Spain, Christian nationalism is localized through the medieval Reconquista, the notion of Spain as the defender of Christianity and European identity, and the legacy of Francoist National Catholicism, the political-religious system that defined Franco’s dictatorship. Furthermore, symbols like Don Pelayo, the 8th-century knight credited with halting the Muslim advance, and the Catholic Monarchs, who completed the Reconquista in 1492 and unified Spain around Catholicism, are central to this narrative. 

My study is an analysis of this discourse on social media. Many of these posts have tens of thousands of likes and interactions. Still, the complexity of today’s digital landscape demands caution when making generalizations. In this vein, one question arises: Are all users who interact with this content Christian nationalists? No, nor are all the profiles sharing Reconquista-themed posts necessarily doing so to spread Islamophobia. But one thing is clear. By zooming in on the messages, videos, and images, it becomes evident that they are posted and shared by individuals of all ages, from adolescents to older adults. These narratives are present and powerful, increasingly extending beyond the digital realm and manifesting in real-world incidents. 

Reference List 

García Sanjuán, A. (2020). Weaponizing historical knowledge: The notion of Reconquista in 

Spanish nationalism. Imago temporis: Medium Aevum: 14, 2020, 133-162

Gorski, P. S., & Perry, S. L. (2022). The flag and the cross: White Christian nationalism and the threat to American democracy. Oxford University Press.

Smith, J., & Adler Jr, G. J. (2022). What isn’t Christian nationalism? A call for conceptual and empirical splitting. Socius, 8, 23780231221124492.

Whitehead, A. L., & Perry, S. L. (2020). Taking America back for god: Christian nationalism in the United States. Oxford University Press.