Angela Merkel: "Multiculturalism has failed."

I'm not in total agreement but I do agree that if you are moving to a country you should at least attempt to learn the language.

Western expats living abroad are far less likely to learn the native language of the country they reside in, yet there is no outrage.

And that to is wrong, I was refering to anyone moving.

I lived in a number of countries when I was younger and I don't recall a single one that made it obligatory to speak the native tongue. In truth there was little need as most people (including the poorest) could speak two or more languages.

It's the same in Britain. When we're not railing against "foreigners stealing all our jobs" (a.k.a. taking the jobs we refuse to) we're demanding that they enter the country minus their cultural baggage.

"But, but ... we don't mind them speaking foreign when they're among their own kind"

Unfortunately there's a wealth of evidence to suggest that when you force people to speak English their descendants steadily drift away from their native tongue (and other cultural accoutrements) to the point where they can utter little or no words at all.

Leaving us with a dreary monoculture, which is kind of representative of [Trumpet Roar]Western Civilisation[/Trumpet Roar], I suppose.

It's not really surprising to hear it from a conservative government leader.

Well I think that most people in the West really think "Multiculturalism" consists of another country's music, clothing style and cuisine. When it comes to, say, the traditional role of women in some countries, suddenly it's Western Mores or nothing.

I think this business of "OMG them Foreigners won't assimilate!" is bullshit. Some people find it hard to learn a new language, and if you are an adult moving into a new , strange culture (and maybe experiencing a new land for the first time) it's even more difficult.

Whilst Merkel is the German leader she doesn't possess anywhere near the sweeping dictatorial powers that Bush & Blair did. In elections her party didn't get enough votes to claim outright victory so she often has to kowtow to the smaller parties (some of which are usually the loonier types) to get policies through.

The vast majority of immigrants know the language of the country they live in. I don't know about every country, but in the UK a poll showed 84% British muslims think of themselves as British first and then Muslim. So I don't believe immigrants are unwilling to integrate. If anything they are not being welcomed. Discrimination and racism are the true obstacles to multiculturalism. Although, in the UK they do have good anti discrimination laws, unlike Germany and France. But like Geof said, in the Uk they have the same calls for immigrants to drop their cultural baggage, especially immigrants from certain countries.

The change is that has happened is all over Europe, countries are becoming hostile to immigrants, and Islam mainly. Politicians are using immigrants as a scapegoat, and some are riding the Islamophobia wave.

A couple of things:

Can we specifically call out European multi-culturism as particularly problematic? I know tribalism is endemic across the globe, but I'd like to think that, historically anyways, Americans have treated immigrants slightly better than Europeans. Although this round of anti-Mexican sentiment in this country is admittedly virulent. We used to have political leaders who at least tried to speak to our better angels instead of strictly pandering to our "devils".

Second, (and I know this is a bit more of a squishy part of the debate,) but the Trekkie in me refuses to believe that the experiment known as multiculturalism is over to the point where we can say it as "failed" or "succeeded."

One of the biggest mistake expat Muslims with extremists tendencies did is trying to impose Charia. Best way to make people hates you guts, no matter where you are (beside an Islamic State).

Nothing has happened specifically to say the experiment has failed or succeeded. What people don't like is the fact Muslim populations are increasing in some parts of Europe, and this is freaking out the racists. Pure and simple.

The racists in the UK never care about the flood of Polish and Bulgarians the E.U. allowed into the country. Its those brown ppl with their Religon we hate.

The US has a small population of Muslims yet its also having its own Islamophobia hissy fit. I think the US is just as capable of racism and discrimination. Although, theres no doubt, countries like Germany and France are more racist in general and its institutionalised. Interestingly the Tea Party and the English Defense League have linked up.

Martin its insane and retarded to suggest Sharia law is somehow a threat to replace the legal systems of the west. Its a tactic to raise fear.

As far as I am aware, Sharia Law (which is mentioned in neither the Koran nor the Hadith) has only ever taken serious hold in countries that have either been blasted into the next geologic age, garotted economically or crushed beneath a tyrant's boot heel.

Which suggests to me that Sharia is closer to a mode of survival than a religion.

I'd have to agree, I think a shared common language (like Latin back in the day) is important to a sense of cultural identity that can help prevent ghettoization and disenfranchisement. Any citizen of a given country should be able to walk up to any other citizen and engage them in conversation

EDIT And my tolerant liberal attitude does not extend towards tolerating the intolerances of others. If hatred of women is part of your culture, get ready to abandon that when you move to the west

In no way did Martin suggest that, what he said is:

He's right too. Trying to wedge Sharia into a liberal democratic judicial system will turn off a lot of liberal democratic people who would otherwise be on the side of immigrant rights and religious tolerance.

Let's save the strawmen for the cornfields and the insults for the Juggalos.

I've seen no evidence whatsoever to suggest that there has ever been a mandate to wedge Sharia Law into any Western democracy.

On the other hand there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the media has devoted an unethically disproportionate level of coverage to the inflammatory words of a few marginalised extremists.

I suppose it keeps people from asking awkward questions about the really important issues such as the economy, jobs, education, medical care, aid for the poor etc.

Learn to read, smartass.

Islamic extremists tried to push for a law allowing a side justice system based on Sharia in Ontario a couple of years back. It was evidently ignored, but it created tensions that foster anti-Islamic sentiments. It's like playing with the Constitution in the States. but the average US citizen doesn't need that to fear the Muslims.

Wrong

The reason multiculturalism is such an issue for many western democracies is that for it to truly work the dominant (usually white) culture has to actually change along with the culture that's joining its society.

Sure we don't mind you coming here if you learn to talk like us, act like us and be good little copies of us, but no way are we going to meet you in the middle culturally and see what our differing ideas of society can maybe learn from each other.

Most people seem to confuse 'multiculturalism' with 'assimilation'. They're not the same thing. At all.

WHO is lobbying for Sharia Law - the majority of Canadian Muslims (a mandate) or a bunch of fringe hardliners (a non-story)?

Governments are lobbied by all manner of dingbats and treebees each week (never covered by the media). I bet there are more people demanding the recognition of the Master Chief as a deity.

Didn't I say it was a small group of hardliners before?

And the thing is that, as I said before in my previous posts, it's all about public perception. Yes the media talk about it, and that's exactly why I say it's a small group that once again will makes life miserable for it's majority. Same as one local Hasidim Jews group who operate a non-sanction religious school and got shat on. Not all Jews, or Hasidim Jews are in the same boat, but when the story comes out, everyone is on the lookout for juicy Hasidim Jews story.

I don't think anyone makes that mistake. At all.

Multiculturalism is antithetical to the ideal of the melting pot. Western multiculturalism is a by-product of leftist politics that began to mature in the eighties as hippies began to grow up and their white guilt began to form policy.

Segregation is bad government policy but self-segregation occurs naturally as people want to live near their own kind. Multiculturalism is deliberately setting the fire under the pots of countries to a simmer instead of a roiling boil; it is the segregation policies of the left. They are however, like many leftist policies, full of so-called "unintended" consequences.

Multiculturalism fragments societies much like segregation did, it does not unify them.

...but surely the problem there is a media only too willing to overstate minority nonsense like this in order to whip up hysteria and sell papers and a general public looking for any reason to blame an entire culture for the words and actions of a fringe minority - incidentally the type of generalisation they themselves would be up in arms about if that same logic was applied to their own community.

A media that covers a crackpot pastor of a flock of 35+ in Florida who threatens to burn a Koran and in the process makes most of the average protestants look insane? The problem comes when the majority of a group refuses to police its own fringe. Evangelical leaders should have pointed to that guy, had a laugh on national television, and said 'Man, is that guy just nuts. While we disagree with Islam over religion...'

The same needs to happen with other groups. When the fringe stands up and shouts crazy, the majority need to stand up and go 'Whoa, hoss. These guys don't represent the rest of us.'

Gotta disagree, every group, culture and society will have nutters, it's not like the rest of Americas protestants are being held to task for Terry Jones insane fame-whore ramblings and conversely neither should muslims be held to task for the utterances of their own fuckwit fringe elements.

Thats kinda my point. Why bring it up if you don't consider it a threat? Its a non issue. Martin probably doesn't believe it would happen, just like all the in vogue Islamophobic protestors, yet they still bring up such a non issue. Ppl just like using the fear of Sharia law, whether or not they believe it's a legitimate fear. It justifies their racist leanings.

They are being held in comparison to Terry Jones. Just not in the US. The thing with multiculturalism is that the negative perception about the group is never in the country where the group is majority.

Who is? Where? The media bent over backwards to point out that Jones group was a tiny 35-people strong whereas every muslim in America seemingly has to defend terror mosques at ground zero or whatever new ridiculous claim gets made and aired in the mainstream news press.

American protestants are being compared to Terry Jones. In other countries. There were riots and protests and a view that America=Terry Jones. But that is where the other part of my post comes in. Here, the fringe of a minority represents the minority to the majority. We don't hear about the 99 percent of the Muslim population in the US because they are living their lives just like everyone else. Perception though is that when we hear about the 1 percent, because we have heard nothing else about the 99, the average brain makes that the one fact they know about the minority.

I am not saying it is right, not by any stretch. I agree with you, it is a product of a media that will report the crazies and a populace that never investigate the truth of the matter. But if a community doesn't want to be viewed as extremists and is relying on the media or other people to do the job for them, good luck. You do have to speak out.

Sure, but in an environment where the media you would use to communicate that message isn't interested in words of rationality or placation and the community you wish to get your message out to isn't interested in same, how exactly does one do that effectively?

I think there are two issues here that have not been highlighted, and in my opinion are at the heart of the matter.

1. The belief that the immigrants (whoever they are) culture is being respected over the home nations one. For example; when local councils stop people from putting up Christmas trees because it might offend other religions. (This is happening more and more).


2. The simple fact is that any culture based on faith is going to have a hard time integrating in one that does not believe in said faith. Religion is a strong motivator, right or wrong if people think that something is going against that faith they will push back. And we, as a western culture have moved away from faith as the dominating part of our society, whereas others have not.

No. We've paid lip service to moving away from faith, but how many atheists or even non-Christians have made it to the top jobs in the UK or America?

Here's the thing: if we as a nation have indeed moved away from faith as a dominant force, government buildings shouldn't put up religious displays unless they're going to put forth the same effort and expense for Ramadan, Divali and so on. You can't proclaim us a government free of religion in one breath then defend Christianity's position as top traditional dog in the next.

If by top jobs you mean Prime Minister or President I can sort of see your point. But mine still stands; any society with religion at its core will put those beliefs over the rights and opinions of another. It's sort of the whole point of religion, Gods word (whichever God you belive in) overules man's.

So when you get two faiths with opposing views, or even one strong faith and more like the UK's there are going to be clashes.

I'm not defending Christianity at all, in fact I would argue Christmas is less about religion these days and more about spending time with family and friends (but that is a different argument.) In fact most of what we call Christmas is Pagan in origin anyway.

What I am saying is that it is a tradition in this country and people get upset when tradition gets trampled on.

Again I'm not saying that is right, just how most people feel.

So, essentially multiculturalism has failed because the natives won't budge on anything. Cylon Baby's right - it's not multiculturalism at all, it's assimilation.

I think that about sums it up yes.

And if you look at my last post I'm not saying this is the right viewpoint just how many people seem too feel.

Exactly, multiculturalism is a great idea that's barely been tried, if at all.

"Self-segregation occurs naturally as people want to live near their own kind"? That might be true in isolated instances, but it has very little to do with how day-to-day life moves in most cities. A kid growing up in Hamburg will have met people from Turkey, Poland, Greece, Italy and Vietnam by the time he's in kindergarten; it wouldn't occur to anyone to claim that people you went to school with for ages are "not your kind". I know people like to imagine that all interracial mingling is just some liberal PSA fantasy, and that whenever people of different cultures and ethncities live near each other the inevitable result is rioting in the streets, but in real life this just doesn't pan out that way.

Furthermore, little can fragment socities better than segregation - self or otherwise. Who's more receptive to fundamentalist propaganda, the kid who interacts with non-muslims everyday, has them as teachers, classmates, friends etc or the kid who barely even knows any non-muslims because he never leaves his block where he's "near his own kind"?

God. I am so sick of this smoke screen discussion.

So allow me to add some local context to that quotes. The majority of this post is not intended to go into a detail about integration and “Multikulti” but rather to highlight the social atmosphere reigning over here right now. So sorry in advance for some longwinded rambling. But here we go.

Let´s start with Thilo Sarrazin, who kicked of this “debate”. Sarrazin used to be senator for finances in the federal state of Berlin around the year 2000. In this position he already stirred debate and emotions with agitating interviews where he made weird calculations on how social security benefactors (ALG 2 or better known as Hartz 4) could eat for substantively less money than they are legally entitled to and that they should wear more pullovers instead of using the heating since this was deemed too expensive. While this is all debatable in the details, I mention this to shed a bit of light on his mindset. After he resigned in 2009 he joined the executive board of the Deutsche Bank while continuing to argue his point, but now adding Islam into the mix, claiming that Islamic citizens are most criminal, most welfare benefitting and generally less educated than your average citizen.

In this capacity he wrote a book which is called “Germany abolishes itself”, ultimately the “casus belli” of this debate. Important to note in this respect is the fact, that excerpts from this book was pre-published by “Spiegel” and “Bild”, two of Germanys most powerful and influential print media outlets, where the core thesis was published in rather poignant fashion. At this point in time, the book not being published yet, this was reduced to catchy buzz words basically. In short he claimed that Persons that are believers of Islam are more welfare “addicted” that your average German. That these persons are genetically predisposed to have lower average intelligence which will be inherited by the next Generation, which will turn out even less intelligence (He even claimed that there is a “Jew Gene” as there is a “Basque Gene” to highlight this point). That these persons are having way more children than German persons and therefore Germany will be overwhelmed by less intelligent, more welfare dependent and criminal Islamic persons in the forseeable future and Germans will be a minority in their own country. He basically came to this conclusions by using statistics, claiming that this was an objective approach which should be above the criticism of racism or such. Again, these where the buzz words that dominated public discourse for a week before the book and the details of his arguments where even published.

However, soon after the publication, most of the book was torn apart by sociologists, scientists and even statistical experts, showing clearly that the book was methodical unsound, not on par with modern science and very manipulative by selective use of statistics and methods.

But the demon was out of the bottle already. The overwhelming positive response by the public was fired up by the media as well. Suddenly this issue was heightened to the point where Sarrazin was sold as an upright citizen telling “forbidden truths” that where surpressed by the “opinion cartel of the “Gutmenschen” (which very roughly translates into a slanderous do-goody-goody-naivetists”). And that’s where the focus completely changed. This debate was not about some uncomfortable truths this country has to face, but patriots being heroes for standing up for the truth and defending “freedom of speech” against the dictatorship of PC. The media campaign even had headlines that said stuff like “What one has to be allowed to say!: deport criminal foreigners! I am proud to be a German! Islam is Terror!”. Which obviously is low level as it gets and completely misses the point of freedom of speech. But I disgress. In short this debate led to the point where it led to the acceptance of one dimensional, easy answers that are tending to be rather very right for this political culture into the mainstream of politics. And since then this is one of the main issues in public discourse that overshadowed many more pressing and controversial debates that needed to be held.

And I am personally convinced that this was an concentrated and orchestrated effort to push the CDU (Angela Merkels party) more to the right again and lead the public discourse away from the complex economical and social problems we are facing (More on that later), into scapegoat territory, which ultimately is the perfect smokescreen tactic.

Which leads me to the second part of the original post, Merkels reaction. First, she also said in the very same speech that Islam is indeed a part of Germany and everyone disputing this claim is lying to himself. The whole speech is an interesting animal since it does have the nice soundbites (“Multikulti is dead”), some very layered and complex remarks about the reality of the country, and outright rejection of centerpieces of Sarrazins thesis. As the head of the party she seems to be trying to balance to appeal to the supporters of Sarrazin while not letting the party drift to the right at the same time. The art of politics.

This is where it is getting (even more) depressing as a German citizen. As most other countries we had to bail out many banks and socialize the losses of the private banking sector leading to huge deficits. Obviously, the same debate as everywhere erupted about where to save money to get rid of the deficit. And at this point Merkels coalition with the FDP (the smaller neo-liberal party) came into power. And what a corrupt and clientle driven government it has been in the last year. We have seen such a blatant distribution of wealth from the bottom to the top that has never been done in such a blatant and insulting way. The “Sparpaket” (the legislation that should help to balance the budget) slashed welfare, pensions, public health care – you name it – while giving tax breaks to hotels (important clients of FDP), sabotaging renewable energies by extending the running time of atomic power plants for decades (thereby giving the 4 oligarch companies running the energy sector literally billions on the expense of the budget itself and renewable energies in general), destroying the work laws and implementing even more low paid jobs for hire and fire jobs without social safety net, pushing through gigantic building projects against the will of the population and so on and so forth. Even though our constitutional court judged that we have to reform social welfare to better look out for minors, this government – in blatant violation and despise of this ruling – used statistics and unsound methods to effectively implements cuts here as well.

So we have had a disastrous government with laughable low polling numbers, demonstrations on the rise that used the biggest economical crisis to further the privatization of public institutions and belongings, serving the big players with horrible legislative acts (most of which will definitely not pass the constitutional court), firing up the dependence on exports in macroeconomic terms – thereby counteracting any European economic approach while ignoring the buying capacity of the citizens for the internal market – and destroying the very foundation of the German model of the social state.

This society is (willfully in my eyes) getting torn apart to further what would be at best described neoliberal policies that affect most citizens in a very negative way.

And here the smokescreen comes into play again. Given the poisoned climate that has been created by Sarrazin and the media, you have a perfect scapegoat to punch in “the migrants”. It is scary to see how easy and effective it has been to pitch scared people from the middle of society that are facing hard times and broken careers, people depending already on welfare against a perceived threat of “Islamic criminals coming to conquer us by birthing many stupid kids while misusing our social system”. Suddendly you have a wolfish atmosphere where the lower parts of society are pitched against each other, played on the fear trumpet all the while many of these people are the ones that have to lose the most under this government. And it is interesting to see that while we are living in the EU – which is the definition of a successful multicultural project – suddenly this word has been propagandized and screwed into some form of naïve meaning – but ultimately only a thinly veiled code word for “The Islamic hordes”.

And the real danger in long term that I see is the scary reduction of human beings into categories of “economical useful” and “economical waste”. From here on it is only a short way to “unwertes Leben”. This reduction of a society and its citizens to economic entities does scare the shit out of me.

We ought to be better than this.

So much to the state of the union.

This is not entirely correct. Having a coalition between two parties in the government has been reality since Adenauer. Given the current climate and the situation that we now have five parties in parliament instead of four this situation will likely not change but only get more difficult to form a government.

Since we have a hurdle of 5% to enter parliament it is rather less likely to have “loonier types” in parliament – at least for local views. And the current government of CDU and FDP (So no kowtow to parties)are pretty much the combination that was longed for by many citizens before the election, since these two parties are viewed as kind of natural partners in terms of politics

I will not cease to argue that the European Union is a bold try at exactly that.

Surely tho Jan, the EU is an economic experiment long before it's a cultural one - multi or otherwise?

It most definitely is. But the slow competence creep of th EU does have such profound effects on everyday life that, even though not in a legal sense, it is factually gradually evolving into a cultural dimension.

The fact that I share my office with a French lady, a Dutch and a Belgian colleague does bring this impression home for me every day in small details.

...are any of them muslim?

I do hear you Jan, and your optimism is noble but the very fact that we're even needing to have this conversation, that Merkels made these comments and that these comments have had so much traction not just in Germany, but throughout the west - even as far away as here in Australia - means there's a long long way to go yet.

As I have stated in that long winded post before, I am convinced that the use of “multikulti” in this debate as used by Merkel, is a thinly veiled attempt to hide the focus on Islam(phobia) under this umbrella. No one is arguing that we are threatened by French or Czech workers. This whole debate is focused on Islam and Islam only at the end of the day. There is not a real debate about the prospect of Croatia or Island maybe joining the Union soon. But the whole issue is completely different when it comes to Turkey.
But I agree that while we have come a long way, there is still a long and winding road ahead of us.

ETA: And no, none of my colleagues is a muslim. But I promise I have a lot of Muslim friends....

Yup. It's not about multiculturalism at all. It's used as a codeword in this case.

And with the EU being an experiment of such unprecedented scale and implications we're lucky that even more clashes aren't breaking out all over the place. The US had to go through a civil war before actually becoming a country able to put its power behind a single purpose.

Anyway, there are a lot of things I want to say on the subject but this is not an EU thread.

I don't know about Greece, but in this Country the anti immigration sentiment is squarely leveled at the non european immigrants. The problem these Euro countries have is that they need immigration to stop their economies from contracting, so they don't really have a choice. Immigration is also needed to battle the negative population growth rates, which also feeds into the shrinking economies of Europe.

Anyway, the EU isn't really an attempt to create a multicultural experiment, its a legal and most importantly an economic framework.

I think its also important to mention that the US and UK are generally a very open and safe place for Muslims. Of course, recent events, nutso protestors & mosque burnings, are putting this into question. But the medias strange brand of reporting obscures the true picture so its difficult to say with any certainty.