Posted on 10/18/2010 9:17:26 AM PDT by phobia-dude
Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism in Germany had been a total failure. She said the concept of multiculturalism, long championed by the German left had been discredited. She also said the notion that we would become multiculti, that we would live next to one another and be happy about one another, failed.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
The historical observation is that the small minority of immigrants typically learn the language of their new adopted country and try so hard to let the majority around them accept them by attempting to emulate them. Dressing in the local fashion, learning the local culture, and so on.
It is common that the minority immigrants having slightly different taste in cloth, in food, or different accent will typically set them apart from the natives, and accordingly may attract a look of superiority from the natives, and a feeling of inferiority from the immigrants. That is life. Nevertheless, the immigrant children so eager to fit with the other kids, erase that obvious difference that their parents encountered. The experience of trying hard to fit in the new adopted country is so fresh in my mind even after 42 years in the USA. I remember the initial struggle with the English language, and the typical American expressions (After I got my first car, and was looking for an address, was surprised to read a street sign that said "dead end" meaning that at the end of the street I will fall off the cliff?) Just one of the many things that outsiders need to learn about the local expressions?. As a matter of fact my slight accent still betrays me after all these years, and I find it very uncomfortable when people insist on where I was born? The reason I try so hard to hide where I was born is simply because I am not proud of that third world country backward culture. I left it to become an American, I make fun of the old uncivilized traditions of the country that I grew up in.
Well enough about myself, the experiment of multiculturalism is a failure because you cannot have a society cohesiveness if you have a bunch of Arabs who feel that they are superior to the infidels. They want to dress in hijab, and impose their tradition/religion on the rest of us. The basic problem with assimilation in the past 25 years or so is CABLE TV, SATELLITE, COMPUTER, CELL PHONES! Historically, a family from Poland immigrated to Iowa, and finds no one who speaks polish, or learn about the news in their old country, so they are effectively forced to cut the cord, and become part of the larger culture. Now all the hundreds of different cultures are available to all immigrants 24x7 so why would they assimilate?
Since we cannot turn the clock back and force all immigrants to cut the cord and become part of us, the next best thing is to close our doors to any workers, or immigrants who come from cultures that hate us. You may say that is discrimination? I say if we have the most desirable destination and quality of life on earth, we also have the right to allow only people who don’t hate us to become part of us. You say how are we going to do that? I say it is easily done, just exclude the ACLU from having any input on how to evaluate petitions of new comers.
Isn't it about damned time? And isn't it, perhaps, just too damned late?
Multiculturalism = legalized ethnic cleansing
Which is worse? Multicultural Germany or Hitler’s Germany where those of non-German ancestry were shown the door, or worse?
It is only “Too late” as far as our politicians are concerned. They have no idea what the American people really want. I agree with closing the borders to immigrants. Close them for five years. At least give the American people a chance to step back and decide what they really want for this country. We have over 300 million people in the US. They can’t tell me that we don’t have enough people to run the country. It is said that we need immigrants because they are better educated. If this is true, then we need to look at our education system. Close the borders and industry will be forced to look at how our people are educated. I worked for a major corporation that had its own schools and they educated their people the way they wanted. They were highly successful. We need to get back to American basics.
Multiculturalism is a leftwing phenomenon in which the government says "Some people are better than others and deserve more rights."
If Multiculturalism doesn't quite look as bad, it's only because it has not had enough time to do the damage.
Hitler was ‘solving’ his social problems by building furnaces..... THAT’S a far cry from EXPECTING immigrants, who live on the dole, to assimilate
That is NOT what a significant number of Muslims want (although I certainly know American Muslims who DO want to assimilate).
Actually I was thinking a bit deeper than that. Hitler’s Germany embodied an extreme form of nationalism/racism that went well beyond the holocaust. Americans and English especially were believed to be inferior on every level.
The very word, assimilate, seems to mean one thing from speaker to speaker in 21st century America. To some it’s little more than learning the language, to others it’s seen as an impetus to completely and totally anglicize.
Ah, it’s a matter of definition I suppose. I see multiculturalism as a hodge-podge of different cultures living side by side. Nothing more.
A certain level of ‘Nationalism’ is necessary and even wholesome for citizens of every country.
However, Fascist Germany developed a kind of ‘nationalism’ that was deformed. German nationalism had a definite racial spin and was in no way wholesome.
Wherever this has appeared historically, you can document that one group was singled out and oppressed (or worse... as you observed) so that everyone ‘else’ people may feel or appear unified. Ugly business.
Since when do we only have 2 choices?
But we now have areas where you can't say "Merry Christmas" but can celebrate a Muslim holiday. There are phonebanks where, if you want English, you have to press "1". Sections of Arizona have been surrendered to Mexico.
There is no assimilation. We are being Balkanized. Multiculturalism does not respect the western culture of dead white males, nor Judaism or Christianity. Multiculturalism is about replacing those tired old ideas with somethng "fresher", something from Zimbabwe or Guatamala. Something more "real".
They think they bring good things to the table (and maybe they do) but they want to sweep everything off the table first, to make room for what they bring.
You think she wants a loyalty test?
“Ah, it’s a matter of definition I suppose. I see multiculturalism as a hodge-podge of different cultures living side by side. Nothing more.”
The American Northeast was and still is to a lesser degree a ghetto culture. It wasn’t until WWII, and its aftermath of rising standards of living that ghetto culture of the NE started to break down. You saw this first with intermarriage between Poles, Italians, Jews, Ukranians, and Irish, etc. This pattern of behavior was very rare until the 1950s. It is because of the ghetto NE experience, that the NE has no identifiable culture.
I agree. Only people who love America should be allowed to be part of America! We went so soft to thew extent that we elected a guy who hates America.
Thanks for your replies. It’s refreshing to find a couple of people on this planet who understand the problem. Very incisive commentary.
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