Multiculturalism is dead

[Louis VI the Fat]

Immigration is a welcome and classic topic for the CDU/CSU to turn to when the hits the fan. Not surprising at all that they try to utilize the current rochus after Sarrazin published his book to gain a couple of percentage points.

Nevertheless, the current discussion in Germany is too much about trying to get some easy points in the polls that about actually doing something constructive and tangible - hopefully this will change again.

The shift to hardright ideas transcends current German political events. The shift is structural and pan-European, therefore anything temporary or specifically German falls short as an explanation.

The Sarrazin debate served as a catalyst. The dam was going to break sooner or later. Like elsewhere in Europe, the hardright has managed to become mainstream. Things are now said openly for which one would've been ostrasiced fifteen years ago. For reasons of historical legacy, 'decent' German society kept the lid on for longer than all of its neighbours. Not anymore. Germany has followed Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands.



As for Merkel, maybe like the overwhelming majority of Ossies she's just not so into anything brown. There is still an iron curtain in Europe, running midway through Germany. To the west, societies are open, mixed, there are foreigners on the streets, gays too. To the east, societies are closed, violent, and bare chested skinheads patrol the streets. Yikes....

A third of Germans say they want foreigners repatriated, and 10 percent of Germans would prefer to have a “führer”

The Muslim community was particularly singled out by respondents. Over 55 percent of respondents said Arabs were not pleasant people, compared with 44 percent in the foundation’s 2003 report. As to whether Muslims should face restrictions in practicing their religion, 58 percent agreed. It was 75 percent in the Eastern Germany.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/wo...many.html?_r=2

[gaelic cowboy]

10 percent of Germans would prefer to have a “führer”

Thats gotta be what 7 maybe 8 million people you sure about that stat

[Megas Methuselah]

Thats gotta be what 7 maybe 8 million people you sure about that stat

We're talking about Germans here. Not Cree. Not Saulteaux. Not Blackfoot. Hell, not even Metis.

GERMANS. Roll with it, bro.

[Husar]

Yeah, I wish we had a Führer like Kemal Atatürk or so.

[Fragony]

Forgetting a neighbour huh Luigi, the populist party's of the countries you mention are nothing compared to your own Front National, they are scum. It's good that the -moderate- right is on the rise, bye makeble hellow pragmatic

[a completely inoffensive name]

I always found it funny how countries with an actual rich history to protect were until recently so accepting of having their immigrants not merge with the mainstream while the country born from groups of different cultures living together has been so culturally hostile to foreigners since it's beginning.

Europe should protect their cultures imo or at least not concede so much to radicals who want to change the culture to their liking.

[Louis VI the Fat]

We're talking about Germans here. Not Cree. Not Saulteaux. Not Blackfoot. Hell, not even Metis.

GERMANS. Roll with it, bro.

'Unlike all X, I never generalise'


The Germans are the most anti-fascist people in Europe. The people are more attached to democracy, and the state has done more to ensure democracy in Europe, than any other.

On the internets, all political-sociological-historical knowledge is reduced to war history, this war history is limited to the last war, in a simplified form, and from this pityful substrate everything one needs to know about the world is then extrapolated.
However, German history is slightly more complex than 'they are racist orcs'.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Forgetting a neighbour huh Luigi, the populist party's of the countries you mention are nothing compared to your own Front National

Ah, but two things:

Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands have hard/extreme rightwing parties as part of their government, or allied with the government. That's why I named them. Things that were a grave social taboo fifteen years ago are now government policy.

What happened in Germany is more comparable to France, Switzerland, Belgium: the mainstream rightwing adopting elements of the policies and language of the hardright. Sarkozy, not the FN is the proper comparison.



I notice this shift in myself too. I am a peculiar brew of anti-fascist instincts combined with bizarre rightwing ideas. Part of me is firmly to the right of PJ and Hitler.
Am I being consumed by the Dark Side? I do not know. It unsettles me and is cause for some soul searching.

[Fragony]

That 10% was probably never gone, there is an enomous gap between the ultra-nationalists and the centre and it's getting filled. I don't think Germany got more rightwing, all stable in the leftist front.

[Strike For The South]

Wait, you're telling me during times of economic hardship easily recognizable minorty groups are being singled out and deomnized?

This is amazing and unprecedented.

Has someone told the Germans Irish Jews Italians Poles Asians Mexicans?

[Fragony]

Nobody is being demonised where did you read that, and probably more interestingly, how. It just isn't there. Merkel just admits that mistakes have been made.

[al Roumi]

Wait, you're telling me during times of economic hardship easily recognizable minorty groups are being singled out and deomnized?

This is amazing and unprecedented.

Has someone told the Germans Irish Jews Italians Poles Asians Mexicans?

[al Roumi]

For my part, as a self-confessed multiculturalist, I think the main failing of the policy is precisely that it doesn't actually stimulate or rather neccessitate broad cross cultural interaction. What I like about the policy is that it allows such exchange and (at its best) values diversity, I am saddened to see ghettoisation or complete non-integration -for whatever reason.

As has been alluded to by others already, the reason some immigrants do not learn the native language is ultimately because they don't have to. There are often large enough communities from the same background (due to the natural tendency for people to huddle around what is familiar in an unfamiliar world/country) that it is possible for a given individual to deal almost entirely with people speaking their mother-tongue, never mind go about the same daily business/lifestyle as in their homeland.

I admit this seems a bit strange to people of the "host" country, and as I said above, I think it's a shame. However, the reason people emmigrate is perhaps different to what some immagine, in that it is surely based on (usually short term, even if 10-20 years) economic incentive rather than accession to a different culture -it should therefore be (depressingly) unsurprising that some have no interest in integration to the host country and its culture.

Personaly, I think it would be fair for those seeking residency to pass a basic level of English (Edit: perhaps with subsidised classes), although this should not be expected for those seeking asylum -which is a whole other kettle of fish.

[Fragony]

I also enjoy life in my multicultural town and the multicuisine and of course I like black women, not the point, multiculturalism is a dangerous form of social-enginering. There is an idea behind it, it's an ambitious pacifist ideoligy to combat nationalism, by transforming the cultural landscape.

[al Roumi]

I also enjoy life in my multicultural town and the multicuisine and of course I like black women, not the point, multiculturalism is a dangerous form of social-enginering. There is an idea behind it, it's an ambitious pacifist ideoligy to combat nationalism, by transforming the cultural landscape.

There was me thinking it was one way (of a few) to accomodate the modern world's economic migrants into their host nations.

[Fragony]

There was me thinking it was one way (of a few) to accomodate the modern world's economic migrants into their host nations.

In it's philosophical roots they aren't supposed to integrate, if people have no affinity with their own culture they are less likely to pick up arms to defend it. It's a political theory, a dangerous one.

[Strike For The South]

I also enjoy life in my multicultural town and the multicuisine and of course I like black women, not the point, multiculturalism is a dangerous form of social-enginering. There is an idea behind it, it's an ambitious pacifist ideoligy to combat nationalism, by transforming the cultural landscape.

So your family has been occupying the same swap drained land for eons and eons?

"Multicultralism" is an unfortunate by product of the 24 hrs news cycle and modern post industrial socitey. Humans have been transversing the continents for years intermingling and yes even settling in new places. Such movement is intertwined with the human condition and can not be stopped. Soon after the modern state was created the torch of hating diffetent people was passed for the church to the government.

Both institutions had a vested interest in keeping a scapegoat. Immagration and the movement of peoples is unstoppable and to assume that somehow the Germans can put up a sign that says no vacancy is even more impossible. Times are tough for allot of reasons. The least of which being because the Turk down the street can't say Guten Tag and wont take the meat off the kebab.

Now this is not a wholesale endorsement of unlimited immagration OR the culture that some bring. Of course my veiw on immigration is closely related to economics and as such is outside the purview of this thread.

Things such as honor killings and repression of women have no place in a civllized socitey (no matter what the ethnic group) As more immigrants and there children rise to the middle class such stigmas will fade.

It always has been about money and power, the rest is just white noise meant to distract and demonize.

[Fragony]

Times aren't tough, crisis is non-existant for the average German, no scapegoat needed. It's something else, people are tired of politicians blaming the weatherman for the existance of rain. Good. Bad part of it is that problems that used to be downplayed are now exegarated, it will pass. Europe is just recovering from the latest insanity.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Times aren't tough, crisis is non-existant for the average German, no scapegoat needed.

Win.

[miotas]

People are getting worked up over nothing. Even if the people who move there don't want to learn the local lingo, their kids will. Unless you want to chuck a North Korea, multicultural societies and integration are both unavoidable.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

"valuing diversity"

Some immigrant groups have nothing but admirable qualities. They should be admired for their admirable qualities. We should say "they are objectively good people". But when you 'value diversity" you aren't doing that. And the flipside is that when they aren't admirable, you are still "valuing diversity". It's wrong both ways. It's a phrase that's terribly weak in praise, and lacks the capacity for criticism.

If I was a composer, I'd want people to value my music because they liked the music itself, not because they valued diversity. That's a kind of parent/child "aw you did real good sweety" dynamic.

[al Roumi]

"valuing diversity"

Some immigrant groups have nothing but admirable qualities. They should be admired for their admirable qualities. We should say "they are objectively good people". But when you 'value diversity" you aren't doing that. And the flipside is that when they aren't admirable, you are still "valuing diversity". It's wrong both ways. It's a phrase that's terribly weak in praise, and lacks the capacity for criticism.

If I was a composer, I'd want people to value my music because they liked the music itself, not because they valued diversity. That's a kind of parent/child "aw you did real good sweety" dynamic.

Do you do anything other than complain about semantics?

[Vladimir]

Do you do anything other than complain about semantics?

I've never seen him make an anti-Jewish comment here.

[Rhyfelwyr]

"valuing diversity"

Diversity can be a virtue in and of itself. For example, if you go on a holiday, you don't just visit your favourite place everyday, most poeple would rather do a mix of things. When compared with their favourite place/activity, they would never choose these other places/activities over it given a one-off choice to do one of them. But for the sake of some diversity/variety, they do the different activities which are on their own merits not as good as their favourite one.

Gah! Why do you have to make things so complicated? It is always you Sasaki!

[Husar]

It's pretty simple, because it's not.
A lot of the political discussion so far was either one of the two extremes, you're either pro or con, like the US two-party system, it's flawed and both options are bad.
There should be more options than "throw them all out" and "leave them all alone you naughty person", that is what we are seeing now I guess, there are bad people among immigrants, shock, horror and we don't want to import bad guys or people who only come to leech money, how surprising.
The other really, totally surprising thing is that this small shift is an atrocity for the one lunatic fringe and a big victory for the other lunatic fringe, who represent the extremes we had all the time and would like to keep/get their extreme. Now whether the government does anything and why is not as important as long as they finally do what a center lunatic like me thinks is right.

[Louis VI the Fat]

35% of Germans wish to expell all black ducks but they won't allow us oh no sirree they wont allow us we're stuck with those black anatidae in our midst forever

[gaelic cowboy]

I must protest to the Mods many of the people on the org may suffer from Anatidaephobia

[Fragony]

Do you do anything other than complain about semantics?

Yeah language means nothing, some of my best friends are . Saki is right imho it's patronising, preaching diversity is being the loving caretaker of one's private zoo.

[PanzerJaeger]

I have always hoped that Germany would return to a more normal stance regarding culture and integration before serious damage was done. The country has one of the richest - and most productive - cultures in the world; a culture that has produced many - dare I say, most - of the advancements in science, industry, art, and technology that occurred during the 19th and 20th centuries. 12 years of Nazism shouldn't erase that. It is perfectly acceptable for Germans to expect immigrants to learn the language and the cultural standards. Whether Merkel brought it up for political reasons or not, it is good for Germany that she broached the subject.

[Tuuvi]

People are getting worked up over nothing. Even if the people who move there don't want to learn the local lingo, their kids will. Unless you want to chuck a North Korea, multicultural societies and integration are both unavoidable.

I agree. At my work I deal with Hispanic immigrants all the time. Sometimes the adults don't speak any English, but their kids almost always do. The kids not only translate for their parents but they chat with their siblings in English. I think that assimilation happens naturally, it just takes some time. In my opinion, the best way a government could help facilitate the assimilation of an immigration populace would be through bi-lingual education. Teach the immigrant children in their own language, so they don't fall behind, but also teach them in the native language so they can learn to speak it.