Multiculturalism = Balkanization

[HumanBeast]

I guess somebody needs to explain multiculturalism to me. It's because I'm from West Virginia. We're slow up in the mountains, and dim, and have trouble understanding things that don't make any sense at all.

Be patient. Explain multiculturalism to me in block letters.

If my history's right, all kinds of folk used to come to America from every whichaplace. (I'm not sure that's a word even in West Virginia.) They'd go off to a ghetto and be miserable. You'd have Eye-talians and Irish and Jews and Scowegians, people from every place there was and probably from some there wasn't. Weren't.

Before long they'd start marrying right and left, apparently without looking. Pretty soon you had people named Heidi Torricelli O'Feinstein. They weren't sure what they were any more, so they decided to be Americans and not worry about it. It made good sense, because America was where they were. This gamboling about in the gene pool produced accidental monoculturalism, and it worked pretty well.

Hostilities died out because they were too complicated to remember. I mean, if the Germans were supposed to hate the Poles, and you were half German and your grandmother was a quarter Polish, then you had to hate an eighth of your grandmother--and no man could tell which eighth. The accounting alone made it impractical. People began to get along because it was the easy way out.

It works still. I'm mostly English, and months have gone by since I've shot at an Irishman.

But now, if I understand aright, we're going to be multicultural, and stay split up in different tribes and act like it's a good idea. (Separate but equal. Didn't we do that before?) We're going to have white, black, Hispanic, and Asian nations all in the same country. And we're all going to live together in peace and love and mutual respect, and have drumming circles and smoke ditchweed together.

Now, granted I'm simpleminded. I don't understand higher psychology. My school learning is pretty weak, like moonshine that didn't get run through the radiator enough. Still, before we get too multicultural, I figure we ought to see how it works for other folk.

Start with Canada, since it's stuck to us and can't get away. Canada has a pretty good dose of Frenchmen in Quebec, and they've been nothing but trouble. The country's always about to break apart because nobody can stand the French, and the French hate everybody. They'll never get used to each other.

Now, you might think, OK, that's just the Canadians. Maybe their brains froze or something. Maybe multiculturalism works better for other people.

Well, how about Mexico, which is multicultural in Indians? Last I heard, Mexicans and Indians were having a shooting war in Chiapas. So far, they haven't done much in the line of drumming circles. Maybe some scalpings, though.

Of course there's Yugoslavia, the world's motingator case of multiculturalism. You can't get much more multicultural. They've got cultures nobody can spell, all cutting each other's throats. So far they've produced nothing but shrapnel.

I begin to suspect that multiculturalism works fine, soon as one side kills the other off.

And in Indonesia the Indonesians butcher the East Timorese, and in Rwanda the Tutus chop up the Hutsis (or Tootsies, or somebody), and in the Sudan the Moslem northerners kill the southern animists, and Iraq gasses its Kurds.

In Malaysia the Malays can't stand the Chinese. In Ireland the Protestants and Catholics think they have to blow each other up every little while, like leaky air mattresses. The Vietnamese kick around the Montagnards, the Cambodians slaughter their Vietnamese, the Japanese hate their Koreans, and in South Africa the whites and blacks claw at each other like cats in a bag. In Israel the Arabs and Jews are no end multicultural, between explosions. The Christians and Moslems go at it in Lebanon, and the Guatemalans torture their Indians, the Tamils and Sinhalese in Ceylon shoot each other in droves, and. . . .

Yep, this multiculturalism business works pretty well. No one can deny it. Pretty soon there won't be anybody left.

While we're at it, how has multiculturalism done in the U. S. of A.? So far, it's the worst problem we've got, unless Hillary gets elected. We have a white European country with an utterly incompatible, inassimilable black African culture spread through it. We spend most of our national energy trying to straighten that one out. We've got crime, welfare, racial hatred, riots, burned cities, weird political stuff like affirmative action, constant lawsuits, fear, loathing, and ill will.

I don't guess we better try any more multiculturalism just yet. We don't have enough guns.

But that's just me. I hear now we're gonna ghettoize the Hispanics instead of assimilating them, so we can have more riots and cities going up in flames, and about a dozen generations of hostility, and car bombs if we get really multicultural. Hooboy. I've never heard of a better idea.

Except any other idea at all.

Fact is, people of different flavors just don't get along very well. Maybe we ought to. Maybe we all ought to love each other. Maybe we ought to be reasonable, though that's stretching it. But we aren't going to. We never have. So we better get busy and try to be one kind of people. That would be the smart thing to do. Still, it's worth a try.

Why do we deliberately adopt a guaranteed recipe for divisiveness? You'd think a track record of unrelieved multicultural disaster would be some slight contraindication to more of it. If you think that, you obviously don't have any experience of American politics. Still, you might ask, who is it that wants to inflict a multicultural morass on innocent Americans?

First, Democratic politicians trying to lock in voting blocs.

Second, the whole lemming pack of post-hippie professors, intellectuals, feminists, self-serving racial dissensionists, and aggressive vegetarians who have the touchiest of feely ideas and thirty seconds of experience in the real world. Thirty seconds aggregate, I mean. Why are they doing it?

Hard to say. They give me the impression of never having gotten over adolescence. They've confused America with their parents, and they're mad at it, and they're throwing a fit.

Me, I'm going back to Wheeling, where people are monocultural and talk the same and have the same DNA, and shoot pool in low dives. I mean, a bar fight at least makes some sense.

Source... http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm



Why do you need different cultures when you live in a nation that promotes creativity from individuals?

[December]

If Multiculturalism won't be stopped then large ethnic groups could declare independence from Washington and USA will end up just like USSR or Yugoslavia.

[Nono]

We're slow up in the mountains. (...) Now, granted I'm simpleminded. (...)

Jeez, what a pain in the ass this guy is with his faux good-ol'-boy vibe. Gimme a break and make your point, and spare us the amateur Appalachian anti-intellectualism.

Start with Canada, since it's stuck to us and can't get away. Canada has a pretty good dose of Frenchmen in Quebec, and they've been nothing but trouble. The country's always about to break apart because nobody can stand the French, and the French hate everybody. They'll never get used to each other.

Yeah well so what? Canada's doing very well thank you. Unlike the US it hasn't had any civil wars. The "Frenchmen" have been nothing but trouble? Well guess what, bubba, they were there long before the Anglos ever closed in. It's the Anglos who came along with a different culture.

I agree that the newcomers have to adapt to the locals. This, of course, was not the policy of Fred's ancestors vis-Ã*-vis the Indians, now was it?

Anyway, don't Americans endlessly bore us to death by celebrating their regional diversity, such as being cornpone shitkickers from West Virginia and therefore not a buncha liberal multiculturalists like the them city slickers?

[DANG]

LOL
git er done, nono![hr]That thars funny, I dont care who ya are.

[PatrickHenry]

Multiculturalism is doing fine in Hawaii.

There are many mixed race families here and individuals can celebrate all their cultural heritages with festivals and food.

Violence and bitterness are products of the human spirit gone wrong, not a result of celebrating and participating in cultural identity.

Mischaracterizing blacks and Hispainics in a misguided attempt at humor is reprehensible.

[Buck Laser]

For the life of me, I don't understand why people obsess so much over multiculturalism, unless it's just a code word for racism. I love living in a town where a variety of cultures and customs coexist with robust ethnic communities. I lived close to Chicago for a bit more than 30 years, and after having been a bit cowed by it, grew to appreciate the true diversity that characterizes the city.

Probably most of the people who oppose multiculturalism so vehemently have never experienced real diversity, or have been scared by their first encounter with it. South Texas, where I was born and raised wasn't quite as diverse as Hawaii, but hispanic and anglo cultures were and are inextricably intertwined there, so I came to accept that as the norm. As a child, I HAD to learn enough Spanish in order to talk with my playmates. One of the great regrets of my life is that I've lost most of the Spanish I used to have.

Yes, there are undoubtedly problems when different cultures come up against each other--sometimes in terms of struggles for political power, sometimes in real culture--or gang--wars, but I'll take that over bland homogeneity any day.

[DANG]

My town, Sacramento is the diversity capital of America.
Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento,_California)
...and the city was cited by Time magazine as America's most integrated.Which is very cool, I love a coat of many colors. We should be all inclusive, never exclusive.

But, on the other hand, we have a large population of haters, too.
Check out the Hate Map for California (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp?S=CA&m=5) See all the symbols for Black Separatist, Christian Identity, General Hate, Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Confederate, Neo-Nazi, Racist Skinhead and White Nationalists??

Not a pretty picture.

You can find your area on the national hate map (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp).

How shallow and stupid people can be!!


Thank god everybody doesnt look like me!!
What a boring life that would be.
But, we all have to deal with life on lifes terms. Pity we cant work together better.

[Nono]

Much as I think it's up to immigrants to make concessions in adapting to the mentality and values of their new country, I can't help agreeing with DANG, Pat and Buck.

I live in Switzerland (about a third the size of Pennsylvania) which has four official languages divided up among 26 fairly varied and autonomous cantons -- something pretty cool.

That said, if you want to come live here and practice sharia law, engage in honour killings, etc. and then base it on the prinicple of multiculturalism, sorry, it won't fly.

[Alonzo]

In Canada Quebec and the rest isn't multiculturalism, it's multiple cultures under the same flag. In Toronto, Vancouver etc. that's multiculturalism, multiple cultures in the same streets and homes.

[tony mitra]

For a study of working multiculturalism, you might consider not just the examples of conflict, but also examples of harmony.

For example, check India. It has 400 languages and 25 different written scripts. It has all major religious groups, and have had them for over a thousand years. It has had influx from the middle east, the far east, Europe and east Africa. It has linguistic and cultural roots that can also be traced to the origin of the Grecko Roman and west European roots, and it has had five thousand years of exchange with China with just one single border skirmish in all this time.

India, however, is not the only example. For multicultural examples nearer to home, you might look at it with slightly different eyes. Try North America before the white settlers arrived with their long guns.

Examples are just that - you can always pick the ones that suit you.

Cheers and have a great weekend.
Tony

[Nono]

In Canada Quebec and the rest isn't multiculturalism, it's multiple cultures under the same flag. In Toronto, Vancouver etc. that's multiculturalism, multiple cultures in the same streets and homes.

Sure Quebec is an example of multicultualism, but on a different scale (within the Canadian confederation).

In all countries where there's major immigration (i.e. virtually all Western countries these days) you have multiple cultures in the same streets. Then in a generation or two people assimilate to the dominant culture. At least one hopes.

Problems arise when the new arrivals feel that their culture is somehow morally superior to the ambient one, and refuse to observe the latter's rules (i.e. laws).

Speaking of Toronto, you may recall that the Ontario government sailed pretty close to the wind a few years ago on the subject of sharia-based tribunals: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/09/09/sharia-protests-20050909.html

That was a close one.[hr]India, however, is not the only example. For multicultural examples nearer to home, you might look at it with slightly different eyes. Try North America before the white settlers arrived with their long guns.

In both India (over the millennia but especially since the Mogul invasion) there has been plenty of murderous conflict, indeed at least one full-scale pogrom within the past decade.

As for North America, there was a good deal of bloodletting (slavery too) before the Europeans showed up.

So both are examples of multiculturalism meaning different cultures coexisting on the same territory. But doing so harmoniously? Sorry; no.

[Alonzo]

Nono, they had allowed both Jewish and Christian religious courts already. They were voluntary and dealt largely with family issues. They could be overruled by civilian courts and didn't deal with major crimes.

I'm not sure if I agree with the concept itself, but they should have allowed it considering they already had similar ones in place. Muslims simply wanted what other religious groups already had.

After Jewish grouped joined with Muslim groups to try to restore the courts:

TORONTO -- Jews and Muslims in Ontario pledged Wednesday to fight for faith-based tribunals to settle family disputes after its premier stunned their communities by announcing he would ban all religious arbitration in Canada's largest province.

Ontario appeared well on its way to becoming the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of Sharia, an ancient set of Islamic rules, to settle some Muslim family disputes.

The province has allowed Catholic and Jewish tribunals to settle family law matters on a voluntary basis since 1991. The practice got little attention until Muslim leaders demanded the same rights.

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:i8BJViDFuz8J:findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20050915/ai_n15714095+religious+courts+canada&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us

But, as for multiculturalism, Quebec is about preserving a particular culture over all others. And, from what I understand of it (I lived in Toronto, not Quebec) actual integration of various cultural and ethnic groups was not a priority. They priority seemed to be to get them to adopt the prevailing culture.

[tony mitra]

In both India (over the millennia but especially since the Mogul invasion) there has been plenty of murderous conflict, indeed at least one full-scale pogrom within the past decade.

As for North America, there was a good deal of bloodletting (slavery too) before the Europeans showed up.

So both are examples of multiculturalism meaning different cultures coexisting on the same territory. But doing so harmoniously? Sorry; no.


Well, India is more than just Mogul invasion, or recent conflicts between Hindu and Muslims or Christians. The place has harboured and nurtured a plethora of different kinds of people over extended periods without exterminating, or discriminating, or otherwise subjugating them.

One example is the Zoroastrians, who did not survive the onslaught of Islamic expansion in their original land, Persia, and had to run away in all directions to survive. While they are virtually vanished from elsewhere, they still survive as an ethnically and spiritually distinct group in India for over a thousand years, and survive and thrive in India till date without any kind of conflict with the rest of Indians.

Another example is the Benoy Menshe tribe of Israel, banished from their land 2,800 years ago, and moved east all the way to the Himalayan foothills of North-East India and survives till today, again without being either wiped out or assimilated and homogenized, retaining their distinctive features all the way across three millennia. The only time they faced losing the trace of their origin was when, of all things, they faced pressure from later European Missionaries that attempted to convert them to Christianity in order to “civilize� them about two hundred years ago.

One more example is the aboriginal people of India, who, although missed the bus so far on education and industrialization, have managed to retain their numbers and way of life as well as languages and mythologies all the way from 3,000 BC till today, even if they did not increase their numbers and multiplied the same way as the later arriving “modern� man, or the farmers, cultivators and city builders.

There are only a handful of people that, through a different notion of themselves and a propensity of not tolerating other lines of thought and religion, that have often initiated conflicts in an attempt to convert all and homogenize the population, invariably ending up in conflicts that did not achieve the original goal. Two such forces have been the sustain invasion and rule of Mogul rulers, the later phase of whom were perhaps comparable to today's orthodox and intolerant wings of Islam, appearing hell bent on converting the masses to Islam (unsuccessfully, I might add), only to be replaced eventually by British Colonials, who brought with them a notion that Christianity was superior, as was the general Western style of living, thinking and way of living.

So, one could present a case that when it came to conflicts based on religion, while there might have been skirmishes between faiths here and there, the Muslim and the Christian hard liners took the conflict to a different, and a higher level, escalating and hardening the notions of intolerance to a global theory and practice.

So also one might argue that the notion of racial conflict, while there might have been skirmishes locally, were heightened historically and to a global level primarily by the European colonialists, bringing with them an inherent sense of racial superiority coupled with a denigrating idea about all other kinds of people.

However, there is some evidence that this pervasive sense of 'racial supremacy' of the European creed is not very old, and might have risen with the age of industrialization in Europe. The invention of the steam engine brought unparalleled rise in standard of living, spare income and spare time to pursue interests in arts, science, nation building, as well as military conquest of the rest of the world.

There is also a school of thought, increasingly more prominent these days, that this sense of superiority is likely to be short lived as the original study of physical science is not necessarily an invention of the west. Also, as rest of the world assimilates the later flourishes of physical sciences of the west, the world would settle back into its natural course of things and a balancing out of views, and regain its multidirectional flow of ideas and inspirations.

Europe of today shows a marked contrast to the notion of Bulkanization. There are 25 so called nations that have people talking in different languages and having different and often violent history against each other, are now busy joining hands into an increasingly intertwined multicultural society without attempting to create a robotic standardization in language, religious belief or culture.

Balkanization is is Balkan, and it may be replicated in pockets where similar conditions apply. But those conditions are not applicable globally and this is not a theory that fits the whole planet.

This is just my view. I am sure there will be room for other views too, and no end to arguments thereof. I consider myself a living proof of multi-culturalism, and would have a hard time denying myself my roots.

Cheers.

[Nono]

Muslims simply wanted what other religious groups already had. After Jewish grouped joined with Muslim groups to try to restore the courts.

My view is that no-one should have special anything in the realm of justice, education, etc. It amounts to a declaration of non-intent to become part of the 'host' society. Honestly, if they can't live with embracing the society they've come to, they should piss off. And yes, I include non-secularist Jews in this.

Separate schools in Ontario are a bit different since they have long historical roots that should be viewed as part of the ambient society.[hr]India is more than just Mogul invasion.

See "millennia" in my post.

The place has harboured and nurtured a plethora of different kinds of people over extended periods without exterminating, or discriminating, or otherwise subjugating them.

Fair enough. But it has also seen periods of breathtakingly savage violence, e.g. The Partition.

The Zoroastrians are dwindling fast, from what I've heard, and are now largely confined to a few people in Bombay. Not that this is a stick to beat India with. But it's a fact.

I was unable to find anything on Google re "Benoy Menshe". Seem to remember reading that a large number of the younger Indian Jews have long since shipped out to Israel.

Don't forget, tony, that there are all manner of dinky groups of this and that in all manner of countries. Even the US LOL.

As for the aborignals, where do they live? In the least desirable places that's where. As usual; since their ancestors were the survivors of those driven out of their original habitat. Same story in Vietnam, Morocco, the Americas, wherever.
Nothing that special about India.

There are only a handful of people that, through a different notion of themselves and a propensity of not tolerating other lines of thought and religion, that have often initiated conflicts.

Jeez, tony, by the way you talk you'd think the BJP, for example, had never had a prayer in Indian politics, or that there hadn't been a full-scale anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in recent years.

India is, and always has been, the scene of brutal sectarian confrontation.

... the Muslim and the Christian hard liners took the conflict to a different, and a higher level, escalating and hardening the notions of intolerance to a global theory and practice ...

Mighty curious your failure to mention Hindu lunatics here. There sure as hell are plenty of them around.

[tony mitra]

High Nono. Nope, I am no BJP fan and my ideas of religiousity of most folks are contrast with what most folks practice anyway. As far as Hindu sectarianism is concerned, it is my belief that the BJP and its allies came to powe ronly because of a backlash or excessive pandering to hardliner Muslim factions, almost like Newton's rule of action producing reaction.

India is unique because among all nations of the near east and further east that faced a sustained multiple century long onslaught of Islamic expansion, it is the only one that did not fully convert to Islam. had that not been the case, it is possible that the sectarian clashes in India would have come to rest, and Islam would have been uniformly practiced from Mecca all the way to Tokyo without a gap.

The worst phase of Hindu right wing sectarianism, in my view, happened in the distant past, say around 900 AD or so, where the then Hindu Kings forced a revival of Hinduism and an extermination of state sponsored or protected Budhhism. Scores of people were killed at the Indian version of the stakes if they so much as openly visit a Budhhist shrine. Unfortunately, there is not enough written history of the details of that time, but enough of that gory past remains in folk music, talks, and mythology. Having spread Budhhism out of India to the far corners of east and westward as far as Afghanistan, the movement was effectively killed within India, in the only large scale state sponsored Hindu terror (thats the only way I can describe it) about a thousand years ago.

What is happening now, is nothing in comparison, and taking the whole population (over one billion, with about 150 odd million of them Muslims), the incidences of religious violence is still a lot less than the people that die of gunshot wounds or traffic accidents in the US, which has a quarter of the Indian population. This is to put it in perspective.

It is also my belief, that once the Saudi financial clout diminishes (perhaps when their oil runs out), and their funding of a rather virulent form of madrassa training comes to an end, Muslims in Asia will gradually acquire a more tolerant view of the world. It is also by belief that parties such as BJP will cease to exist in those times. Only time will tell if my guess is right or not.

Benoy Menshe (not sure of the Hebrew spelling) has been identified as one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, by the Israeli Govt. This has nothing to do with modern Indian Jews emigrating to Israel to make a better living. This particular tribe, banished out of Israel in 800 BC, along with nine other tribes, had been considered historically as the "lost tribes" because no trace of them could be found anywhere, till recently, when they found one of them, the Benoy menshe, in north east India. The people are not westernised like the modern Indian Jews from cities that are migrating to Israel. They still live a tribal simplistic lifestyle. But they still follow customs brought from israel 2,800 years ago, and still carry names and legends etc. The Israli Rabbi groups studied them for some 20 odd years and finally petitioned the Israeli Govt to recognize them as one of the lost tribes. Then the Israeli Govt approached the INdian Govt to allow return migration of those people, back to the homeland their ancestors were forced to leave 2,800 years ago. The Indian Govt agreed, and the people are, as far as I know, being moved back to Israel in groups, which is proving to be a culture shock for both parties. The current Israeli folks have little resemblance with the life and times of 800 BC, and the Binoy Menshe tribe harbored an idea of their ancestral homeland which is in sharp contrast with that modern Israel is. So, both parties are trying to reconcile with each other.

By the way, did you hear the St. Petersburg Declaration of May 2007? It happened in St Petersberg, Florida. I found it pretty interesting.

Anyhow, nice discussion
Cheers