British Multiculturalism

[Camikaze]

Unfortunately you're not helping with the "Greens screaming rasism at every opportunity" stereotype

Naw, I'm just angling at the possibility that the source of many observable problems can't be located in immigrants themselves, so much as in what might be inevitable teething when society is changed in any way. And that, to the extent that the status quo is feeling threatened by something new, that's really a problem with them and nobody else. That's what I'd get from what Bamspeedy posted, anyway.

I'm kinda unsure about a definition of 'multiculturalism' that assumes that somehow the differences in culture between immigrants and non-immigrants are a completely different thing to differences in culture between any other groups, such as young people and old people. 'Multiculturalism' has come to refer to a situation in which people born in one country live in close proximity to people born in another, but I don't see how the word would be any less apt to describe the situation in which my internet-oriented existence is compatible with my grandmother's completely non-internet-oriented existence.

 

[Tahuti]

What exactly makes 20th century migration unnatural? What's unnatural migration anyway? I can think of the slave trade and forced political expulsions which might qualify but that's about it.

For REDY, it seems that national borders are paramount. So just annex Britain under a World Government and be done with it! Long live the Illuminati!

 

[Tee Kay]

I'm kinda unsure about a definition of 'multiculturalism' that assumes that somehow the differences in culture between immigrants and non-immigrants are a completely different thing to differences in culture between any other groups, such as young people and old people.

Hang on, let me just get my IPA-approved dictionary:

Multiculturalism, noun, leftist PC-speak referring to the process by which Muslims and other dangerous elements are encouraged to infiltrate Western society by self-hating-leftists ashamed of their own heritage, ultimately bringing about the destruction of the Judeo-Christian civilisation.

There you go, hope that clears things up a bit.

 

[Tahuti]

Basically, a modern variant of the Dolchstoss legend.

 

[Arwon]

Australia has always had a large foreign born population. In this day and age does any country have a problem with Greek and Italian immigrants?

From 2001-2011 Australia's foreign born population grew by 14%. The UK's foreign born during that time grew by almost 50%.

http://devpolicy.org/wp-content/upl...ign-born-population-between-2001-and-2011.png

Further to previous post actually I am pretty sure that graph has to be wrong. Australia's foreign born population in 2003 was 4.7m and now it's 6.4m. That's more than 14% growth. Pretty much bang on 40% actually.

Unless it's growth in the proportion (ugh proportion change expressed as percentage change...) of total population foreign born in which case yeah of course an increase from 9% to 13% is a bigger growth percentage than 23% to 26%.

Also this is a great graph showing that Australia hasn't always had such s large foreign born population:

 

[Bamspeedy]

Further to previous post actually I am pretty sure that graph has to be wrong. Australia's foreign born population in 2003 was 4.7m and now it's 6.4m. That's more than 14% growth. Pretty much bang on 40% actually.

Unless it's growth in the proportion (ugh percentage change expressed as percentage change...) of total population foreign born in which case yeah of course an increase from 9% to 13% is a bigger growth percentage than 23% to 26%.

Also this is a great graph showing that Australia hasn't always had such s large foreign born population:

I got my chart from a pro-Australia immigration site, so I'm puzzled why you try so hard to refute it.

I didn't mean Australia's foreign born population was large forever or since it's existence. Australia has had over 20% for the last 40 years. That is a longer time than most of us posters have been alive.

 

[aelf]

I don't have any issues with multiculturalism but I prefer when it happens naturally. I don't really care for diversity initiatives and multicultural window dressing. At my university during our orientation we even had a multicultural advisor, I don't know what he actually did.

Universities do this because it sells. Some people consider the 'cultural experience' in their calculation of which institute of higher learning to go to. This of course hints at the larger problem of the commodification of multiculturalism, but the initiative is primarily economically-motivated.

So why do you hate freedom and the free market?

 

[Kyriakos]

As usual, NovaKart is a rare voice of reason here. Maybe some of the career 'defenders of multiculturalism' (by which they mean that the idea has to be forced because reasons) etc should bother to have a look at people of different cultures and their own view. As well as of other sexualities, minorities and so on

 

[aelf]

Now I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say through this point.

Probably garden-variety conservative jitteriness about certain groups of people who are different from him. And evasive maneuvers to overtly try and distance himself from that in public.

 

[Bamspeedy]

And Aelf is up to his usual antics.

 

[Camikaze]

Probably garden-variety conservative jitteriness about certain groups of people who are different from him. And evasive maneuvers to overtly try and distance himself from that in public.

Perhaps you haven't read many of Bamspeedy's posts before? It's extraordinarily unlikely that that's what he's saying. It seems intellectually lazy, not to mention dickish, to jump to your totally unsupported assumption.

 

[Mise]

As usual, NovaKart is a rare voice of reason here. Maybe some of the career 'defenders of multiculturalism' (by which they mean that the idea has to be forced because reasons) etc should bother to have a look at people of different cultures and their own view. As well as of other sexualities, minorities and so on

I don't know if I count as a "career defender of multiculturalism", if what you mean by that is that "the idea has to be forced", but since I agree with Arwon, Camikaze etc, and totally disagree with Quackers, I suppose I can answer.

Not that I have much to say; I read NovaKart's longish post the first time I saw it, and I re-read it again to see if I missed anything. It was a good post - his is a reasonable and rather unobjectionable position. Indeed, I have no substantial objections to any of it. There are a few things that, if I was really nitpicking, I could take issue with, but I broadly I agree that he has a reasonable, unobjectionable position.

I don't know anyone here who thinks that multiculturalism has to be forced. Those of us arguing against Quackers are broadly of the opinion that immigration is not a national threat. Personally I think that, in general, people should be allowed to live where they want, and that having several different ethnicities all living in the same country is not in any way a problem.

As for your last sentence, NovaKart is hardly the only person from a different culture or member of a sexual minority. There are several of us who satisfy one or more minority status.

 

[aelf]

Perhaps you haven't read many of Bamspeedy's posts before? It's extraordinarily unlikely that that's what he's saying. It seems intellectually lazy, not to mention dickish, to jump to your totally unsupported assumption.

I'm not the one making odd posts getting at some obscure point about the composition of immigrants in a country ostensibly being some kind of factor in some problem related to immigration.

I suppose hints and innuendos are fine, but being frank about what you think isn't respectable (it's "dickish"). A typical outing with moderates in polite conversation over tea, I guess.

 

[Traitorfish]

And before that pretty much the organising principle of our political system was Irish Catholics vs English Protestants.

Yes, but the English and Irish are basically the same. I mean, it's not like there have been dozens of armed conflicts between them. It's not like three of those conflicts took place in the twentieth century. It's not like the most recent of those conflicts was only concluded within Quackers lifetime. It's not like "concluded" is really a bit of a euphemism for "still continuing at a low key". It's not like "low key" is a further euphemism for "actually showing uncomfortable signs of revival since 2010". It's not like any of that is the case. Because they're basically the same. Y'know?

Depends on time. before 19th century it was more than 40% and and in some areas(centre) were even Czechs minority. Prague was multicultural (bicultural?) city for centuries. For me is something like natural migration (for example Scots, Irish to England, English to Scotland, Ireland) and unnatural migration, signing 20th century multiculturalism.

There are more than a few Scots who regarded (and still regard) Irish immigration as "unnatural". They even have a special club dedicated to that proposition. Lots of colourful banners, parades, marching bands, all very jolly. Point being, that's the sort of distinction that depends on what assumption you make about who belongs where.

 

[Domen]

And that itself a decline from an outright German-speaking majority before industrialisation.

Before Czechization, you mean. It became trendy during the late 1700s and the 1800s to speak Czech there (again).

 

[Kyriakos]

^The Czechs did seem to have been 3rd class citizens in their own land in the last two centuries of the Austrian Empire. At least judging from Prague the social hierarchy looked like:
German--German speaking Jewish--Czech/Czech-speaking.

 

[Domen]

^The Czechs did seem to have been 3rd class citizens in their own land in the last two centuries of the Austrian Empire. At least judging from Prague the social hierarchy looked like:
German--German speaking Jewish--Czech/Czech-speaking.

Do you know who started the Czech National Revival ??? People who did not speak Czech.

They were learning how to speak Czech from their servants.

And later they were boasting that they finally know the language of their ancestors.

==============================================

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_National_Revival

People who did not speak Czech.

Germans, I mean.

===============================================

As for Germans in Prague:

Not only their % was declining, but also absolute number was declining very fast, due to Czechization.

E.g. Gary Cohen in "The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914" writes about this.

 

[Traitorfish]

Do you know who started the Czech National Revival ??? People who did not speak Czech.

They were learning how to speak Czech from their servants.

And later they were boasting that they finally know the language of their ancestors.

There's a difference, though, between learning Czech as a hobby and speaking Czech as a first language. Even fluent speakers of Czech were likely to continue to prefer it as long as it remained the intellectual and political language of the Austrian elite.

 

[Quackers]

TF, its disingenious to conclude in one breath that the UK is a peaceful, multicultural state between the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish and than in the next breath, point out the conflicts in the British state.
Which one is it? You need to sort your respiration out.
Under my reasoning both are possible.

 

[Domen]

Even fluent speakers of Czech were likely to continue to prefer it as long as it remained the intellectual and political language of the Austrian elite.

The 1800s was period of great rise of the social status of the Czech language. Once again.

There's a difference, though, between learning Czech as a hobby

Not as a "hobby" but as part of the Czech National Revival.

Bohemian Germans suddenly "discovered" their "Czechinness" (?) and decided to learn Czech in order to become Czechs.

Not sure if "Czechinness" (or "Czechness"?) is a correct word, though.

======================================

IIRC, all (or almost all) key activists of the Czech National Revival movement were people who spoke German - not Czech - as their first language.

======================================

Today you can compare them to Vitali Klitschko and Yulia Tymoshenko, both of whom are native Russian-speakers and learned Ukrainian only later.