pinkharrier wrote:It seems that multiculturalism will succeed everywhere if the reaction by those there to begin with is "Kipling crap". Somebody mentioned a small village in Ireland where 77 refugees are about to arrive.

No, they didn't.

Scot mentioned 'a small town', and it seems highly likely that had it been a village, let alone a small village, he would have said so.

tolman wrote:

pinkharrier wrote:It seems that multiculturalism will succeed everywhere if the reaction by those there to begin with is "Kipling crap". Somebody mentioned a small village in Ireland where 77 refugees are about to arrive.

No, they didn't.

Scot mentioned 'a small town', and it seems highly likely that had it been a village, let alone a small village, he would have said so.

It is a small market town in Limerick County by the name of Newcastle West. Population around 5500.

Gotta love the bigots that get their Kipling era panties in a twist when their pet meme is threatened by reality.
PH....nothing to contribute that is cogent...- door is over there.

At least Scot can point to issues in Holland that are relevant to the topic. Multi-culturalism will only succeed if most work towards it's success and the underlying laws are applied evenly. There will always be a few Kipling holdouts lugging their burdens around like a bag of odiferous rotted fish. The smell tends to linger.

••••

Canada's least successful national attempt revolves around first nation issues....in general, the indigenous community has been patient with stupid Kipling types.

A few holdouts? Meaning most embrace vibrant diversity? Sure..

Successful MC is a lie rather like successful communism. The bullying and scornful edge to its advocates rhetoric gives the game away.

I'm an advocate for multiculturalism, but I don't think that I'm bullying or scornful about it.

On the other hand, as usual on Australia Day, the holdouts against multiculturalism are giving it the full "If you don't like here you can leave" bullshit.

Opposition to multiculturalism often goes hand in hand with nationalism, and you'd be hard pushed to argue that nationalism isn't historically correlated with bullying attitudes.

Progress on Barbie at a time

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Hey, redneck is a culture, right?

This discussion on successful MC in Canada seems to be predicated on the idea that those effected by it are those old Kipling types (not my description). But what would be the reaction of indigenous communities if MC entered their areas? Has it happened and, if so, to what extent?

It's a weird discussion.

What places aren't multicultural? I think multicultural is the norm. The exceptions are perhaps a few places like North Korea, Japan, Bhutan or Qatar. Everything else is multicultural.

There is succesful multiculturalism, and unsuccesful. Obviously some cultural traits are incompatible, and some shouldn't be accepted.

Japan is almost entirely mono-culture ....it works because there is no immigration but that is causing a myriad of issues.

There is a difference between multiculuturalism as an artifact and as a policy.

I maintain it works relatively well here because it is guided by policy and legislation and that is needed to make an ongoing success.

You can take the opposite case say in apartheid where leigislation and policy set one culture over another - suppression.....often in the past associated with state religions ( Northern Ireland and elesewhere ).

The first step is to acknowledge the "melting pot" idea is flawed.....cultures are persistent...so rather than supress them, celebrate the difference under a single law that treats people equally and keeps one culture from dominating another .... a fight India and its caste system has a horrendous challenge to overcome.

Tribes, street gangs, cops, unions, priests corporations, banks....any group you care to mention WILL prey on others if allowed to or in some cases by being given advantage through legislation ( tax exemption of religions for instance ).

Oversite with teeth is needed all the time to combat this.

Oversite with teeth? Great. Sounds like living on the Gaza Strip. They don,t celebrate diversity as much as they should.

I'm an advocate for multiculturalism, but I don't think that I'm bullying or scornful about it.

I suggest an experiment. Print out a huge picture of your avatar and walk around in Australia. Ask every Muslim you meet what would they think of a person who has that kind of avatar and would they consider it scornful and bullying against them. One might just wonder what kind of results you would get. Or injuries.

OlivierK wrote:I'm an advocate for multiculturalism, but I don't think that I'm bullying or scornful about it.

In parallel with you OliverK, I don’t think that, despite some misgivings about the ideology of some versions of multi-culturalism, I wouldn’t see myself as a purveyor of ‘Kipling Crap.’
My misgivings about some aspects of multi-culturalism are based on the danger (as I see it) of somehow essentializing people according to their ‘identity’ (singular).
In fact, the relevant academic literature in such fields as ethnomethodology and conversation analysis shows that people have (or more properly, have the ability to orient to) multiple identities (plural) and they invoke these identities as is contextually relevant and disattend to other identities when they are not contextually relevant.
The focus on ethnic and or religious/cultural identities as somehow fixed, permanent and defining is not a good thing, in my opinion.
I’ll explain by reference to personal anecdote, conceding that this does not constitute data, but may serve as an illustration of what I’m getting at.
(Anecdote alert!)
One of my closest friends is from the Pakistani community in Bradford. He has been forthright about the abuse and discrimination he suffered from white Britons during his early life. (Somewhat similar to the incidents that Saim has reported on these boards.) However, he married outside his community, religion ethnicity etc. (His wife is a Japanese and is Buddhist.) He (and especially his daughters) have suffered some pretty harsh treatment from that self same Bradford Pakistani community. (He has distanced himself from it in large measure now.)
(End of anecdote)

Multi-culturalism’s implicit assumptions that cultural identity is valuable (which I am not so sure about) and cannot be forcibly taken away from people (which I agree with) may not account for the fact that (one’s own inherited) cultural/religious identity may not be held as so valuable by any given person, and may be dispensed with by them relatively easily.
The desire to assimilate is a powerful force, maybe just as powerful as the desire to hold on to aspects of one’s culture, and just as no one should be forced to assimilate, no one should be prevented, either directly or tacitly, from assimilating.
(I’ve taken the path of trying to fit in as much as possible here.)

I guess that what I really mean is that I don’t like some of the fetishization of identity that occurs, and prefer it when people bear their identities lightly, even to the point of invisibility and orient to others (and themselves) as humans first and black, Chinese, white, Muslim, gay or whetever a distant second, if at all.

I just object to it being enforced on communities as is happening in a few small German towns as we type. I was watching people in a 700pop town 130km north of Hamburg. The disused army facility suddenly has 1000 refugees, mainly young men, with more to come. The local women seem the most upset which makes me think that when feminism comes up against multiculturalism, the latter wins. Apparently they aren,t always allied philosophies.

I,ll do a search but I believe african and local aboriginal have already clashed here in Australia.

pinkharrier wrote: The local women seem the most upset which makes me think that when feminism comes up against multiculturalism, the latter wins.

Why assume that they are feminists just because they are women?

Exstinctum wrote:

I'm an advocate for multiculturalism, but I don't think that I'm bullying or scornful about it.

I suggest an experiment. Print out a huge picture of your avatar and walk around in Australia. Ask every Muslim you meet what would they think of a person who has that kind of avatar and would they consider it scornful and bullying against them. One might just wonder what kind of results you would get. Or injuries.

Hah, it took me a while to get what you meant, because for years my avatar was Withnail. But yeah, it might upset a few Muslims who didn't understand it. Around where I live, it would probably upset more white atheist redneck homophobes who wouldn't understand it than Muslims. I'd reckon any negative reactions to it had more to do with being an idiot than religion, but your mileage may vary.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:It's a weird discussion.

What places aren't multicultural? I think multicultural is the norm. The exceptions are perhaps a few places like North Korea, Japan, Bhutan or Qatar. Everything else is multicultural.

There is succesful multiculturalism, and unsuccesful. Obviously some cultural traits are incompatible, and some shouldn't be accepted.

Yes, it baffles me. I just came home on the bus in London, and as usual, the bus is full of different languages being spoken, different nationalities, and so on. Am I supposed to be disturbed by this, and start ranting about the whites being submerged? Yawn. 'kin' hell, I've got a life to get on with.

I think the key to success, as macdoc pointed out, is a common legal system. If an immigrant group wants to retain their cultural identity, even to the point of voluntarily segregating themselves from the larger society, what business is it of anyone else? As long as they obey the common law and do not force their culture and beliefs on anyone else then no one has reason to complain. You might not like it, but too fucking bad, they might not like your lifeestyle.

The problem comes in when Group A decides that Group B should adhere to Group A's culture, because Group A is "right", or because they find Group B's culture objectionable. An example I've used before is the kerfuffle over a M&S billboard in West Yorkshire. It showed a model in a bra, which inflamed the local Imam and his flock. They bitched and moaned till M&S took it down. To me that's a Tough Shit moment. Another would be the constant attempts by fundys in the U.S. to teach creationism or say prayers at publicly supported events.

OlivierK wrote:

Exstinctum wrote:

I'm an advocate for multiculturalism, but I don't think that I'm bullying or scornful about it.

I suggest an experiment. Print out a huge picture of your avatar and walk around in Australia. Ask every Muslim you meet what would they think of a person who has that kind of avatar and would they consider it scornful and bullying against them. One might just wonder what kind of results you would get. Or injuries.

Hah, it took me a while to get what you meant, because for years my avatar was Withnail. But yeah, it might upset a few Muslims who didn't understand it. Around where I live, it would probably upset more white atheist redneck homophobes who wouldn't understand it than Muslims. I'd reckon any negative reactions to it had more to do with being an idiot than religion, but your mileage may vary.

That wasn't actually my underlying point. In order for true multiculturalism to exist, it has to go both ways. You're not a bigot, that's good, not deserving of any medals, but still. 'But shouldn't it be equally asked of all the other cultures in this multicultural universe to understand that some cultures embrace satire and dark humor. Even when meant as insulting jokes, those are still jokes. Of course, your avatar is nothing of the like. How many times do people who appreciate satire have to explain themselves for it before it's accepted by the people who just want to see insults everywhere? You can't have it both ways - demand people to accept alien ideas and ways to them and then bang them on the head every time they exercise their own.

Accidental double post.