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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.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Sunday May 24 2015, @05:59PM
If there is a solution to the problem, it lies in addressing why those monocultural enclaves are forming in the first place - allowing for that fact that communities that are heavily biased towards one culture are going to happen because people who share things in common *will* tend to gather together. That's going to be a tough challenge; it doesn't just mean deterring those immigrants who are migrating with that monocultural goal in mind, but also the fear amongst the existing residents that is driving those who might have had a more open mind into those monocultural communities out of fear and a general sense of not being wanted, no matter how much they have to offer.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:52PM
it lies in addressing why those monocultural enclaves are forming in the first place
The .gov and the establishment always support that as an intentional strategy of "divide and conqueror". It sucks for everyone but the establishment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @07:19PM
> If there is a solution to the problem, it lies in addressing why those monocultural enclaves are forming in the first place
If you read the Foreign Affairs article, you'll see that the rise of these enclaves is due primarily to government action - in both countries like the UK and Germany where policies encourage cultural isolation and in France where official policy is to treat everyone equally but also ends up enabling the dominant culture to exclude minorities (such as denying native born children citizenship).