Main reason for seeing 'multiculturalism' as a failure

[trader/warrior]

Is it honestly possible to just live indefinetely off unemployment in Sweden? Cause I know that wouldn't work over here without outright welfare fraud or some real disability.

Unemployment among immigrants isn't that bad either. About 7% for immigrants, 13,4% for africans specifically(link). now thats over 10% higher than the general population, but not really unexpected for mostly low skilled, uneducated people. I can't imagine it to be so much worse in Sweden, especially when I think of all the rhetoric used by the anti-immigration xenophobes over here as well.

Interestingly I recently saw a study which showed that the less immigrants live in your area, the more anti-immigration people there tend to be. It seems to me these people have a really selective perception of immigrants, or more specifically, muslims. I see 5 muslim girls without a veil for each one with, and hundreds for each with a burqua. I see 10 immigrants spending years learning the language fluently and speaking it at home with their kids for every one that never bothers to make an effort and so on, yet some people tend to only notice the bad apples.

When you think back to the time when the lower classes were not muslimy brown people, was there less crime? No, there was more. Were there less riots? No, there were a lot more. Was unemployment lower? Nope, it was higher.

What we should do is only let people in who are useful and who are easy to integrate, surprise surprise, educated people from the Netherlands are closer to us culture-wise and more skilled workers for relevant jobs than Somali analphabets, letting the former in but not the latter is not racist, its just common sense.

Oh yes those silly geneva conventions, universal declaration of human rights and UN obligations!

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Well when multiculturalism is getting your society taken over by muslims then yes I would say it has failed. Personally I am not a big fan of multiculturalism if you come to the United States then I expect you grandchildren to be integrated fully into our society. Imagine how much easier it would be on black people if they would just integrate if no one sees a behavioral difference then you can nearly eliminate what little racism remains in the world.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well when multiculturalism is getting your society taken over by muslims then yes I would say it has failed.

Sorry, where is this?

Personally I am not a big fan of multiculturalism if you come to the United States then I expect you grandchildren to be integrated fully into our society.

Is multiculturalism incompatible with integration? I think you may be conflating the ideas of "integration" and "assimilation".

Imagine how much easier it would be on black people if they would just integrate if no one sees a behavioral difference then you can nearly eliminate what little racism remains in the world.

Why don't "white people" start acting like "black people"? What makes you so much better?

 

[Babbler]

Well when multiculturalism is getting your society taken over by muslims then yes I would say it has failed. Personally I am not a big fan of multiculturalism if you come to the United States then I expect you grandchildren to be integrated fully into our society. Imagine how much easier it would be on black people if they would just integrate if no one sees a behavioral difference then you can nearly eliminate what little racism remains in the world.

There's no society where Muslim immigrants are "taking over". That's just a far-right myth.

And the reason black people in the United States didn't assimilate is because the white population didn't want them to do so. I think if the majority were will to accept immigrants and minorities, then most of them are probably going to integrate and assimilate within due time.

 

[SKILORD]

Imagine how much easier it would be on black people if they would just integrate if no one sees a behavioral difference then you can nearly eliminate what little racism remains in the world.

There WAS an African American styled integration policy, it was called having sex with white girls. (still is)

It did not go over particularly well with some members of the white community, historically speaking.

When you downplay the amount of racism in the world you empower racists by characterizing them as the defiant remnants of an ancient ideology. Racism lives, the greatest trick it ever pulled was getting people to think it doesn't.

 

[aelf]

What the heck do you have against Scandinavians anyway? You got briefly detained at an airport for lacking documentation, get over it.

I had all the official documentation necessary, thank you very much. But I wasn't even thinking about that, just sentiments like this coming from over there that I can see all over the Internet (including from you here). Thank you for reminding me how sensitive Scandinavian countries are about immigration, though.

What we should do is only let people in who are useful and who are easy to integrate, surprise surprise, educated people from the Netherlands are closer to us culture-wise and more skilled workers for relevant jobs than Somali analphabets, letting the former in but not the latter is not racist, its just common sense.

What do you mean "easy to integrate"? That's the part that people either side-step or euphemise to death.

 

[Yeekim]

The statistics I can find for 2009-10 (that is, a one year period) are 13770 refugees. And last year there were almost 7000 asylum seeking arrivals by boat. I don't know what exactly you're trying to prove here, or what Italy having a larger number of refugee arrivals actually means to a debate on multiculturalism.

I admit I didn't study Australian situation extensively and based my claim on this article from the beginning of last year.

Why are we so concerned about the 4500 or so boatpeople who have attempted to seek asylum in Australia since the ALP was elected about 2 1/2 years ago?

Might be the author has intentionally shrinked the numbers to better serve his point, or simply that your intake has significantly grown this past year.

As for your second question, my point is that it is obviously difficult to turn poor and poorly educated and people from some fourth world country who even might not understand local language into productive members of society. They will create problems and create frustration that shall be blamed on "multiculturalism":
EDIT:

A Scandinavian poster posting about the failure of multiculturalism. Why am I not surprised?

Anyway, what exactly is wrong with multiculturalism? Will you fight each other if not everybody shops in IKEA or something? Why do you even care about what kind of culture other people identify with? This sounds positively medieval.

Noone in their right mind gives any importance to the question where somebody shops, what cuisine he prefers, what music he listens to or what holidays he celebrates and I don't think I've ever seen anyone in this forum who has said these things are important - so why even bring these strawmen up?

And if you look at New York for instance, all those cultures got along swimmingly from day 1, or did it take a couple of generations to get where they are now?

No, it required genocide of the original inhabitanst first.

 

[Bill3000]

Personally I am not a big fan of multiculturalism if you come to the United States then I expect you grandchildren to be integrated fully into our society. Imagine how much easier it would be on black people if they would just integrate if no one sees a behavioral difference then you can nearly eliminate what little racism remains in the world.

We're not some communal communist society in which people are prohibited from having an individual identity. That is fundamentally against all American principles. If you want that, move to China.

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

What do you mean "easy to integrate"? That's the part that people either side-step or euphemise to death.

I mean they quickly become a functioning part of society.

Oh yes those silly geneva conventions, universal declaration of human rights and UN obligations!

Those are a miniscule number every year.

 

[Cutlass]

What the heck do you have against Scandinavians anyway? You got briefly detained at an airport for lacking documentation, get over it.

What we should do is only let people in who are useful and who are easy to integrate, surprise surprise, educated people from the Netherlands are closer to us culture-wise and more skilled workers for relevant jobs than Somali analphabets, letting the former in but not the latter is not racist, its just common sense.

But as a I showed in my previous post, a bunch of Somalis dumped in a nearly all white setting in Maine did fine for themselves and their community.

http://americancity.org/magazine/article/from-east-africa-to-down-east-maine-mcneil/

http://www.seedsofpeace.org/story/2002/12/seeds_of_peace_down_east_magazine

 

[Babbler]

Specific to the OP, I'd imagine that it's because it's easier to erode the welfare state if the multicultural country becomes (a) aware and (b) dissatisfied with their multicultural nature. As diversity continues to increase, we'll continue to see noises about reducing welfare.

Maybe. That reminds of the research that Robert Putnam did finding that "social capital" decreased with increased diversity. But that was for the USA only, and it could be attributed to some quirk of US society, or the way that different groups in the States interact with each other. Does anybody know of any similar research done in other countries, and what their results were?

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

But as a I showed in my previous post, a bunch of Somalis dumped in a nearly all white setting in Maine did fine for themselves and their community.

I see they did so fine the mayor sent out an open letter asking them to please stop bringing over more of their countrymen . Seriously though, if it works fine there then fine. I'd love to see some proper statistics on employment/crime though, not just two newspaper articles saying things are now better than they originally were.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I'd love to see some proper statistics on employment/crime though, not just two newspaper articles saying things are now better than they originally were.

It's probably findable in SCB. The numbers I've found so far concerns Göteborgs kommun,
Somali born 20-64 years old,
2009 - Earned income:
0 kr = 43%
1-119 000kr = 33%
2005 these numbers were 45% and 34%

 

[Sveon]

Are all Scandinavians like AL_DA_GREAT?

At least 6% of Swedes are. The less vocal 94% voted for sustained or expanded immigration. Most of them can also, unlike Loppan and Gabryel, distinguish between a refugee and a labour immigrant.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

6% of Swedes are white nationalists who post on Stormfront and deny the holocaust?

 

[Yeekim]

At least 6% of Swedes are. The less vocal 94% voted for sustained or expanded immigration. Most of them can also, unlike Loppan and Gabryel, distinguish between a refugee and a labour immigrant.

The distiction between a bona fide refugee and somone who simply seeks better economic opportunities is not necessarily clearly cut.
In majority of cases, Sweden could probably send most who claim asylum there back to third countries, as I find it unlikely that Sweden could be the first safe country one arrived to after departure from, say, Somalia.
Read more here:
http://elsareview.org/2010/10/asylum/
Not that it would always be morally defensible.

 

[Traitorfish]

I see they did so fine the mayor sent out an open letter asking them to please stop bringing over more of their countrymen .

If that proved anything, then we would long ago have concluded that it was indeed preferable for the Jews to stay behind the ghetto walls.

 

[Sveon]

Wouldn't surprise me if they are close to that at least. They are pretty fired up at the moment because there has been very little room for this discussion in the past and now they even have speakers in the parliament. Let's hope it's just a phase, but I doubt it.

edit: in reply to the mushroom man.

 

[Mise]

At least 6% of Swedes are. The less vocal 94% voted for sustained or expanded immigration. Most of them can also, unlike Loppan and Gabryel, distinguish between a refugee and a labour immigrant.

Gosh, you wouldn't believe how reassuring that is!

 

[Loppan Torkel]

At least 6% of Swedes are. The less vocal 94% voted for sustained or expanded immigration. Most of them can also, unlike Loppan and Gabryel, distinguish between a refugee and a labour immigrant.

How do you distinguish between them when it comes to multiculturalism? Does only one, the most successful, group count? Is that multiculturalism - the Iranian dentist who manage to contribute to the Swedish society?