Real World Event Discussions

Merkel says German multiculturalism has 'failed'.

POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 1, 2026 16:59
VIEWED: 4487
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KPO

Saturday, October 16, 2010 8:33 PM

Strong words. Or clear words, at least.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11559451

It's not personal. It's just war.

AGENTROUKA

Saturday, October 16, 2010 9:56 PM

I think they misrepresent the saliently quoted parts of her speech.

What she declares as having failed is a sort of lazy approach of letting completely different immigrant cultures just live alongside (in a separate sense) the German culture without any interference at all. Like mandatory language classes so parents and children can participate in society, work and school, etc.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds, is what I mean. She's not out to assimilate people by force. It's a big on-going debate in Germany that has heated up this summer for various reasons.

NIKI2

Sunday, October 17, 2010 7:33 PM

I agree about the actual kernel of her speech, Agent, and I think it IS overlooked for the most part.

We're seeing the same thing here with Hispanics. Can't remember who said it, but last night someone on TV said "When things are okay, we're more focused onour own lives and less interested in what others are doing; when things are tough economically and people are afraid oflosing their jobs, their homes, etc., the tendency is to look outside ourselves and at what others are doing." I think that's quite on point, albeit sad.

Immigrants have become, from what I've read, a sore point in every country where they have any numbers. I think that DOES reuire a serious effort to integrate...not to do away with their own cultures, but to make them able to function within the culture of the country where they live. Printing ballots in multiple languages, having to push "1" to get English, these things bother me. I odn't care what you do in your private life, but in interaction with the citizens, one should be able to preform effectively without demanding special treatment.

As I've said before, I find it personally offensive when I'm in Sears and step up to the counter to pay for something, and the sales clerk say ssomething to another store employee as they pass and then engages them in a back-and-forth in Spanish. It both makes me feel isolated in my own country and wondering if they're saying something about me or for some other reason want to exclude me from hearing.

Maybe that's a blind prejudice, I can't say, Ijust know it's how I feel.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

JAYNEZTOWN

Friday, January 6, 2017 7:23 AM

the Aussies have spoke

Foolish for Australians to deny what makes Western civilisation powerful
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/foolish-for-australians-to-de
ny-what-makes-western-civilisation-powerful/news-story/

and another

History doesn’t look kindly on multiculturalism
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/letters/history-doesnt-look-ki
ndly-on-multiculturalism/news-story/310667ae849a599ce595f2506ae2c12e

JAYNEZTOWN

Friday, January 6, 2017 12:18 PM

Snowflake vid, give it time

Trudeau family sound like "cult members" praising Fidel Castro

Respected muslim scholar warns Canadian Senator, Liberal Muslim confronts the Canadian Senate. Tarek Fatah explains how liberal governments are enabling sharia fundamentalism and political Islamism

SIGNYM

Friday, January 6, 2017 3:50 PM

Quote:
When visiting a mosque or temple you follow their rules. - BRENDA

And when living on OUR country, you follow OUR rules.

Multiculturalism means more than just having fun with new foods and interesting music. Each culture has it's own views of society: what's right and wrong and how society should be structured. It's embedded in a culture's religion and philosophy and stories and even in a culture's language: What does it say about the role of individualism if the English language capitalizes the letter "I" but the Hungarian language doesn't even have an equivalent?

I assume that a great deal of "grey area" is built into our interactions, but there will inevitably be conflicts between cultures on some extremely fundamental issues, such as the role of women or the importance of individual happiness or the importance of competition in society.

IF there's enough physical space between cultures then they can interact in arms-length distance, but if everyone is crammed together then they MUST decide on how to live together, and most everyone needs to agree. There should be no sub-populations who think that Sharia should be the law of the land, or who attempt to set up an alternate power structure.

I guess the most successful (or at least the most morally-consistent) culture-in-a-culture is the Amish and some native nations, who manage both an economic and cultural separation from the surrounding nation.

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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake

"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

SIGNYM

Friday, January 6, 2017 9:39 PM

Again, BRENDA, it depends on what you mean by "multiculturalism".

If you mean that people continue to eat their cultural foods, go to their accustomed places of prayer, and speak their native language at home, that's well within the limits that most cultures would accept. OTOH, if it means that young men kidnap their brides-to-be, or families continue to practice genital mutilation, or that entire neighborhoods refuse to integrate into the larger culture and reject outside agencies like schools and police, that's another story. That level of "multiculturalism" can't be tolerated without disrupting the host society.

One serious problem is when large groups of people refuse to learn the host language. I point to Quebec as an example of the difficulty of not having a common language: There are no small number of Quebecois separatists who maintain language purity and who desire independence from the rest of Canada, whose national identity is NOT "Canadian". Just as there are Basques who want to separate from Spain, and Tamils who want to separate from the rest of Sri Lanka.

A nation CANNOT tolerate large numbers of immigrants who flout language, societal, and economic norms because the culture and economy which created the host nation will be disrupted. People who flee from one nation to another because the destination nation is so much better than where they came from, but who then refuse to integrate would seem to be re-creating their old societal problems in a new place, killing to goose that laid the golden egg, as it were.

For example, Germany is (still) an economic powerhouse, and it remains so because it has a culture of working and saving, of education, and cooperation within the society. A large influx of people who don't participate in the worker unions, banks, and schools .... but who are granted living quarters and sustenance ... means that Germany's economy becomes less productive, and its citizens reap fewer of the rewards which are part of the social contract that Germany has with its people. Once the social contract is violated by the state, citizens feel free to ignore it at their end, too.

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake

"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

JAYNEZTOWN

Sunday, January 8, 2017 9:09 AM

I wonder if Le Pen will win?

SIGNYM

Monday, January 9, 2017 1:53 AM

YOU may feel that Quebec is Canadian, but do the Quebecois?

A culture, and a nation, has to decide what is essential to its common identity. Conforming in all aspects of outlook and behavior isn't necessary and it's certainly not possible, but there are SOME things that (almost) everyone has to agree on which make the society function. Does the society believe in hard work? Does it believe in individualism, or the family, or the state as a binding function? Does it have a basic religious outlook or is it secular? Does it value politeness? Is it a meritocracy? Once a large number of people fall outside of those boundaries, they go from being "deviants" and "criminals" to be a potential threat to society.

Quote:
She [Merkel] said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that true multiculturalism will never work. In order for social processes to work, people need to agree on certain basic things, from what is "right" and "wrong" to which side of the road to drive on ... or whether you're going to use a donkey and keep it in your apartment courtyard. To have to negotiate basic tenets and interactions every day is simply unworkable. Also, as an aside, one of the problems (in the EU anyway) of refugees and migrants not learning the host language is that they often become prey to criminal gangs who will "negotiate" the larger society for the migrants.

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake

"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, January 9, 2017 9:41 AM

German elections are still about 10 months away. I'm quite certain that Merkel will be hated even more by then.

Do Right, Be Right. :)