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posted by n1 on Sunday May 24 2015, @04:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the RTFA dept.

When we hear the word "multiculturalism," some imagine people of all races and creeds holding hands, others imagine a clash of disparate cultures that cannot co-exist. There are many more nuanced definitions in between.

In the world of mainstream politics, there is now widespread acknowledgment that the failure of immigrants to properly integrate into the culture of their host nations is causing a lot more harm that good. The backlash against multiculturalism has begun to manifest itself as a rise of nationalist parties such as England's UKIP and France's National Front gaining more support from disillusioned countrymen.

In 2010 German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that,

" This [multicultural] approach has failed, utterly failed," Merkel told the meeting in Potsdam, west of Berlin, yesterday. "

Merkel also suggested that the onus was on immigrants to do more to integrate into German society, and late last year the European Court of Justice ruled that EU citizens who move to another member state "solely in order to obtain social assistance" may be excluded from receiving that assistance, an acknowledgement that multiculturalism's side effects are causing more harm than good.

Those interested in this topic should read Foreign Affairs' excellent article The Failure of Multiculturalism.

As a political tool, multiculturalism has functioned as not merely a response to diversity but also a means of constraining it. And that insight reveals a paradox. Multicultural policies accept as a given that societies are diverse, yet they implicitly assume that such diversity ends at the edges of minority communities. They seek to institutionalize diversity by putting people into ethnic and cultural boxes—into a singular, homogeneous Muslim community, for example—and defining their needs and rights accordingly. Such policies, in other words, have helped create the very divisions they were meant to manage.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 24 2015, @05:48PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 24 2015, @05:48PM (#187214) Journal

    If you're the outsider, and you want to plant roots in that new place - yes, you accept whatever is there. End of story.

    If you don't like conditions where you are going, then just don't go there. Find another place to put down roots. THAT MUCH is a fucking no-brainer!

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:09PM (#187230)

    You and I had nothing to do with the greatness or economic success (or lack thereof) of our native countries we were born into.

    We have one life to do something with. Not one life to be passive and accept our lot, and then another life where we might be better positioned.

    You seem to be like the Wal-Mart heirs who were born in the middle of a baseball game with the home team leading, 12-1, and thinking that they were the ones that ran up the score. No, they didn't do squat.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 25 2015, @09:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 25 2015, @09:35PM (#187740)

      You seem to be like the Wal-Mart heirs who were born in the middle of a baseball game with the home team leading, 12-1, and thinking that they were the ones that ran up the score. No, they didn't do squat.

      I prefer the way Barry Switzer put it: "Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple." [wikiquote.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:25PM (#187250)

    My favorite bumper-sticker: "America, Love it or Give It Back." Loyalists and the UKIP making common racist cause? Sounds like Treason to me!