Merkel: Multicultural society has utterly failed

[Everlasting]

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel: "lmmigrants should learn to speak German"

Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says.

She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11559451

Duh, I have said this since forever.

[CFTraveler]

You keep tooting the 'hate' horn, don't you? 

[personalreality]

how can a culture reconcile immigration without the sacrifice of cultural identity?

someone has to give.

unless we just do away with national borders and create a new homogeneous humanity.

[Stillwater]

You made a nearly identical topic a year ago:

"The Multiculture experiment has failed"

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_news_and_media/the_multiculture_experiment_has_failed-t30405.0.htmlThat one was about muslim immigration in Sweden.

That one was about muslim immigration in Sweden.

This one is basically about muslim immigration in Germany.

You clearly have a commited interest in this area, lol.

On a side note, even being a speaker of German, hearing her angrily speak German at a podium making exagerated hand gesticulations forces a mental reference on me, lol, however trite that is.

[Everlasting]

You keep tooting the 'hate' horn, don't you? 

How am I hateful exactly, just posting a news story.

I have seen what mass immigration from the less civilized world does, it's not pretty for the host country.

[personalreality]

that seems to be a trend though, posting about cultural "purity".

really though, does anyone have a good suggestion for successful multicultural societies? 

i really can't think of a way to handle it without one group giving up their identity and being assimilated into the other.

[bardips]

really though, does anyone have a good suggestion for successful multicultural societies? 

yeah, it's simple.  In fact, it's been happening here in The West for about a century or more.  Erase their traditional identity and make people dependent on you for their identity.

Do that by getting them all hooked on mindless entertainment, control their education, put neurotoxins in the food and water supply, corrupt their morality with pop culture, control all media, censor or debunk all dissent.  In other words, by controlling the framework that people live in, you can restrict their choices to options you present.  and by influencing their emotions, you can influence their decision making.  so with those tools, you can replace their old identity with whatever you want.

remember 1984, the book?  How the fake wars provided the illusion of national identity?

[CFTraveler]

The thing about culture is that it's about traditions that get passed on from generation to generation, and has to do with what the culture is about.  It really has nothing to do with power and money or might- it is the strength of the culture itself.
If two cultures are in constant contact with each other, the stronger will influence the weaker.  Strong and weak have nothing to do with might, it has to do with identity.
So you have a place like the United States, where you have a variety of immigrants that have come from year to year, and you will find that even though the language is English (from the original settlers in some areas, others like Pennsylvania (Amish) will retain their German, and other places like New Mexico which retained much of their original Spanish (and Florida too, who was part of Spain before becoming part of the US)  but yet one of the most well-known foods (for example) that can be called American, is Pizza.  Why Pizza, and not Steak and Kidney Pie?  Simple- because the culture of transplanted Italians who created this food was stronger than the Irish and English group that was there- the same can be said about New Orleans cooking and music- Creole and Cajun food and Jazz are wonderful things that have come from multiculturalism.
The problem with it is that it is natural for the latest newcomer to be shunned for those who were newcomers 30 and 40 years ago, because their identity has been established and melted into the prevailing culture, and given it what it's going to give and lost what it was going to lose.  Every culture changes, and the problem is not that there are different people living next to each other, it's the way the society reacts to their being forced to melt, whether they want to or not.
There is a difference in being a refugee and longing for your homeland- you are not going to tend to become part of the prevailing society, and that's where a lot of the problems come from- when refugees are brought somewhere to live to avoid being slaughtered, and they don't understand the culture (or even want to be there, sometimes) and the people that are already there resent their intrusion- then there are the problems.
So the problem is not the 'experiment in multiculturalism' - the problem is the wars, famines and other catastrophes that happen that cause huge quantities of populations to be foisted on whoever is living somewhere.
Now, if we could get rid of war, hate, and forced emigration,  then multiculturalism wouldn't be an issue, because it's not the real issue.

[Stillwater]

Despite the fact that these topics are getting out of hand, I do agree that there is a real underlying issue here. I did my undergraduate thesis on ways of integrating heterogenous Islamic pockets of society with the urban fabric in U.S. cities. I met with several Imams in my city discussing the issue, with the intent of determing what social obstacles Islamic practice presented to this end. What I found again and again was dissatisfaction with the fundamental ways American society was arranged. This is not to say that American society is necessarily great as it is formed now, far from it, but rather that it is sharply rejected and opposed by the thought of men like these.

For instance, based on the Koran, the idea of collecting interest is a sin, since it allows the rich to profit from the debts of the poor. As a result, Muslims use radically different banking systems, where no interest is charged on loans, and loans are substantially harder to get. The Koran also urges it's commands to be brought to the highest heads of society- the ideal Islamic state should thus be a theocracy. Each of these imams assured me that it is the work of Satan to establish any other form of government.

So you can see that although these men were living in the U.S., they have great distaste for the way U.S. society is arranged. Muslims which hold closest to the Koran therefore feel an imperative urge to see that the principles which they believe in, and which their holy book tells them society should be based on come to consumation around them. The problems other societies which are seeing large influx of Muslims into their population thus face is that this group has a latent urge to transform any society they inhabit to reflect their theological principles.

This is not to say that this has never happened before in history. The U.S. has in recent years converted a large portion of the world into its own economic ideologies, and the remainder have been rendered mercantile states of cheap labor. But this was largely a mechanical sort of takeover, with no guiding principles other than profit motives. The expanding Islamic population of the world is being fueled by religious fervor, and this is one of the strongest forces we have met in human history. The issue may not be so much multi-cultural integration, so much as a gradual transformation of massive parts of Europe, until the pressure being exerted is counteracted by some other force, be it hate, war, government, or cultural revolution.

[CFTraveler]

I agree with you 100% with you, Stillwater.  The issue is not multiculturalism, but the motives for the immigrating/emigrating population, be it muslim fundamentalists, communist ideologues or imperialist capitalists. If the motive is to 'convert' a different culture, problems are going to happen.

[Stillwater]

At my own peril I clicked on the links. What does a chinese dress have to do with this subject? Why do I even ask.... I know why you are here