Posted on 02/17/2011 5:23:30 AM PST by Kaslin
Now the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has joined the chorus. The other day, he said, "My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure." The "it" was multiculturalism, and he was on French national television. In pronouncing multiculturalism defunct, the French president joins German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Australia's former prime minister John Howard, Spain's former premier Jose Maria Aznar and, most recently, British Prime Minister David Cameron in heaving a failed policy into history's dustbin. The question is, What will replace it? Or actually another question, How did multiculturalism ever become a policy of these European countries, anyway?
"If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France," Sarkozy said. "Of course," he explained, "we must all respect differences, but we do not want ... a society where communities coexist side by side." Actually, they have not existed side by side in recent years. Certain cultures were deferred to by the Europeans, namely Islamic culture. Others were not. If your culture entertained cannibalism, you could not sit down to a nice leg of neighbor. Yet if your culture was Islamic and you wanted to arrange a marriage for your daughter, authorities looked the other way. If you were the village atheist, you could not say God is a monstrosity and Allah is an impossibility. That would be a "hate crime," and you would be in hot water. On the other hand, you could say "Allahu akbar," and no one was offended other than the village atheist.
Now the European leaders are giving this sort of tolerance of intolerance a second look. Prime Minister Cameron has called for a "more active, muscular liberalism," one that requires the active promotion of democratic values, the rule of law, freedom of speech and equal rights. In a recent speech in Munich, he argued that "under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream." The result is alienation and occasionally jihadism.
So how did the Europeans end up with multiculturalism, a multiculturalism that seems to favor Islamic culture over other cultures? The Germans have outlawed Nazi culture. The Italians are not particularly hospitable to fascism, and as I already have pointed out, the French are appalled at cannibalism and do not even have a good word for McDonald's or KFC. I think it started with the way they teach their history. Militarism, colonialism and racism are all prominent ingredients of European history books, particularly British history. For that matter, American history stresses these ingredients also. I have been reading American college history texts, and they present an alarmingly ugly view of the Western past.
By presenting the West as repugnant and the other civilizations as our prey, particularly during colonial days but also in modern times, we encourage such social pathologies as jihadism. President Sarkozy says he is not going to tolerate the kind of fundamentalism in France that leads ultimately to jihadism. How is he going to achieve this without calling for a fundamental reform in how French history is taught?
Then there is another matter. All the aforementioned statesmen are democrats and espouse democratic values, but there are fashions of thought in the West that do not like democratic values. For want of a better term, they are fashions of thought that follow political correctness. The politically correct do not like free speech. For that matter, the adherents to political correctness do not like many of the values of the West. What are Sarkozy and Cameron going to do about them? They are going to be even trickier to deal with than the practitioners of jihad.
So European leaders all agree multiculturalism has failed. What will they do about it?
Join the culture of TROP, of course.
Multiculturalism has failed, just as we predicted when the liberals started handing out stupid little quilts to explain it as a replacement metaphor for the melting pot.
What a disaster this social experiment has been.
And fatal.
Multiculturalism, global warming and political correctness are scams and failures. But they are here to stay.
Europe is not dead yet. I’ll admit it’s resting, perhaps even stunned, but there is hope. They need to take their kids to church, teach their kids why God’s word and their country’s history are something to be proud of, and then protect their borders. The end of Europe is a choice that this generation can make, just as the end of American freedom is a choice that Obama voters can make in 2012, but neither choice is final. Yet.
In Europe, a particularly pervasive pro-multiculturalism has come from those relatively anonymous bureaucrats of the European Union (EU). While there is a European Parliament that is supposed to lead these office dwellers, in the history of this effort to weld countries from Norway to Malta into a “United States of Europe”, it has been the bureaucrats who have mostly led the way using devolved and assumed powers.
With the goal of unity, is it any wonder that nationalism, cultural identity and other such relics of the “bad old days” are anathema to these efforts? Indeed, such efforts as selling food in pounds and ounces has brought severe fines to some british retailers. EU government calendars have been printed and distributed showing Islamic, Hindu and other religious holidays while notably leaving absent Christian Holidays.
This is a prime example of over-riding governmental intrusion and, for me, an equally prime example of why big government equals intrusive government. When you combine this with such truisms as “Fighting City Hall” you get a government that would be abhorrent to our Founders and to me!
You have no idea how many cushy, do-nothing, overpaid positions exist in academia alone for individuals who head up ‘multicultural’ programs.
Yeah, that'll work. /s
Yes it failed. And what will they do about it?
Think Spanish Inquisition. Declare the fact these countries (France, Britain, Germany AND the U.S.) are Christian nations. Maybe citizenship classes to be a U.S. citizen should now include the fact that freedom of religion does not permit imposing non Christian values in this country, and to do so means seizing all the assets of said transgressors, and instant deportation if they persist in arranged marriages, honor killings, jihad, terrorism, etc. Naturalized citizens should NOT receive all the benefits of the natural born...and I say so being a naturalized citizen myself. And someone should say it to Obummer!
FYI
Talk about ‘diversity’...
Latino Arab American Advisory Committee civil rights training, on Feb. 19
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2674877/posts
Multiculturalism has failed/ Who will tell the American people?
Ethnic diversity is O. K. but cultural diversity is bad!
All must learn American values and traditions.
No, we don't accept men killing their daughters because of their 'honor'.
We don't accept Daddy finding a husband for his ten year old child.
We will never accept female children being locked in a school that's on fire because some of them don't have the means to cover their faces. We don't believe those girls should be burned to death rather than have their faces seen.
And NEVER WILL.
Stupid evil liberals might accept all of the above - and accept 200 men assaulting a female reporter, but conservatives will not accept it ...not now, not ever.
seems they left America out of the article.
d:-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.