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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, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:54PM
The frustration feels much like arguing with drug addicts... You, uh, know that the solution to your problems isn't at the bottom of that liquor bottle, right? You, uh, know that intentionally creating a small separated isolated sub-culture adjacent to the wealthier main culture leads to permanent socioeconomic inferiority and eventually somebodies neighborhood burning down, and it ain't gonna be the rich guys houses doing the burning, right?
Drug addict is right. You are tripping on the drug of power if you think the people with the least amount of social capital are the ones creating those isolated communities. People don't choose to live in a ghetto, they are left with no other choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 25 2015, @08:59PM
Indeed. While VLM makes a lot of sense, he might also wish to consider that those ghettos do not belong to the inhabitants. It is a lot easier to burn the place down when you don't feel that you have much stake in keeping it protected. Currently I live in an apartment. In the unlikely event that I knew a race riot was about to break out in the neighborhood, I would probably load up my car with the things in that apartment that were most valuable (and easily transportable) and head for some place safe. I sure as hell wouldn't risk my life to try to save someone else's property.