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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:32PM (#187255)

    Finally, someone who gets it!
    Thanks man, I couldn't have done it without you!

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:45PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:45PM (#187266)

    Thanks man, I couldn't have done it without you!

    No problem, I'm just glad I didn't have to unleash one of my world famous automobile analogies. Its kinda like when the fuel injectors decide to move in, suddenly the carburetor is permanently unemployed and we have to install systemd on the engine computer to make the injectors happy or they'll riot and burn down the engine compartment because injectors use vi and the car used to be a pure church of emacs, and they refuse to learn the local editor to fit in. Or something like that.

    In light of the usual social stress involving semi-controversial topics, it might be fun to come up with the worst imaginable analogy involving cars and systemd and all the greats from the past.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:59PM (#187280)

      Hahah! You are so clever and smart.
      You grace us with your unique insight and wit!