Posted: Jul 25, 2013 11:03 am
My personal hobby-horse has been for a while that multiculturalism isn't so much a question of differing cultural norms, but of social class.
Of course, I can only speak for my part of the world, but here, few people have problems with Iranian doctors, Iraqui engineers, Russian nurses, Italian shopkeepers and Turkish teachers or politicians. And those who have are usually far right in their political inclinations.
The Syrian doctor will in all likelihood not attempt to slaughter a lamb on his balcony and simply toss his rubbish in the yard. The kids of the Turkish teacher will not try to make a living selling drugs, but get the best possible education, and just like their non-Turkish peers go to university. And: those people intermarry.
So to me difficulties in connection with multiculturalism are more often than not problems of social class than asssumed abstract cultural backgrounds.
Of course, I can only speak for my part of the world, but here, few people have problems with Iranian doctors, Iraqui engineers, Russian nurses, Italian shopkeepers and Turkish teachers or politicians. And those who have are usually far right in their political inclinations.
The Syrian doctor will in all likelihood not attempt to slaughter a lamb on his balcony and simply toss his rubbish in the yard. The kids of the Turkish teacher will not try to make a living selling drugs, but get the best possible education, and just like their non-Turkish peers go to university. And: those people intermarry.
So to me difficulties in connection with multiculturalism are more often than not problems of social class than asssumed abstract cultural backgrounds.