Η αποτυχία του πολυπολιτισμικού μοντέλου στη Δύση και η “ξεγνοιασιά” της Ελλάδας

του Ελευθέριου Δικαίου

 

Από πηγές  στην αγγλική γλώσσα, εκτείθενται παρακάτω ενδεικτικές πληροφορίες σχετικά με τη στάση της πολιτικής ηγεσίας σύγχρονων αναπτυγμένων χωρών (Αγγλία,  Γερμανία, Γαλλία, Ολλανδία, Ισπανία, Σουηδία,  Φινλανδία, ΗΠΑ, Καναδάς, Αυστραλία, Ιαπωνία κ.ά.), απέναντι στις επιπτώσεις άσκησης της λεγόμενης πολυπολιτισμικής πολιτικής. Είναι γνωστό ότι στις εν λόγω χώρες εφαρμόστηκε για χρόνια  και με διάφορους τρόπους το μοντέλο της πολυπολιτισμικότητας. Ωστόσο με βάση τα σύγχρονα δεδομένα, καταφαίνεται πλέον στις περισσότερες των περιπτώσεων, ότι η υιοθέτηση του πολυπολιτισμικού μοντέλου στις χώρες αυτές δημιούργησε περισσότερα προβλήματα από αυτά που έλυσε, έτσι ώστε η συνέχιση του να είναι πολιτικά απευκτέα.

Στο σημερινό ελληνικό κράτος της μνημονιακής υποταγής, παρατηρείται όμως το εξής παράδοξο: Ενώ η πολιτική της πολυπολιτισμικότητας επικρίνεται πλέον και αναθεωρείται, σχεδόν όπου έχει εφαρμοστεί, στην Ελλάδα αντίθετα η πολιτική αυτή επιχειρείται να εισαχθεί, και μάλιστα στην πιο ακραία ίσως εκδοχή της, σε σχέση με πολλές άλλες χώρες του δυτικού κόσμου (Βλ. ενδεικτικά: E. Δικαίος, Η νομοθετική πρωτοβουλία περί χορήγησης ιθαγένειας σε αλλοδαπούς μετανάστες. Λύση ή όξυνση του προβλήματος; Απόπειρα κριτικής θεώρησης, 27.01.2010, http://dikaiopolis.gr/2010/01/27/nmsxd_allodapwn/ , http://antibaro.gr/node/1092). Ένα από τα βασικά εργαλεία προώθησης αυτής της πολιτικής είναι και ο ν. 3838/2010, για τη συνταγματικότητα βασικών διατάξεων του οποίου αναμένεται να αποφασίσει η Ολομ. του ΣτΕ. 

 Στο τέλος των ξένων δημοσιευμάτων παρατίθεται ενδεικτικό άρθρο του καθηγητή Ν. Αλιβιζάτου, υπερασπιζόμενο την κυβερνητική πολιτική προς ενίσχυση της πολυπολιτισμικότητας στην ελληνική κοινωνία με αιχμή το ν. 3838/2010, που αφορά στην απόδοση της ελληνικής ιθαγένειας, αλλά και εκλογικών δικαιωμάτων σε αλλοδαπούς. Κατα τη γνώμη μου, παρατηρείται έντονη αντίφαση ανάμεσα στους ισχυρισμούς του συγγραφέα και των σύγχρονων εξελίξεων στη Δύση σε σχέση με το εξεταζόμενο θέμα. Καλό είναι όμως να μελετώνται σοβαρά όλες οι απόψεις και τάσεις για τη συναγωγή κατά το δυνατό αντικειμενικών συμπερασμάτων.

Το συγκεκριμένο άρθρο επιλέγεται ανάμεσα σε άλλα, καθώς είναι ίσως από τα πιο αντιπροσωπευτικά σε ό,τι αφορα την υπεράσπιση της κυβερνητικής πρωτοβουλίας για το θεσμικό “άνοιγμα” στην απόδοση ελληνικής ιθαγένειας και του εκλογικού σώματος σε αλλοδαπούς . Σημειώνεται εξάλλου ότι ο συγγραφέας εκπροσωπεί νομικά το ελληνικό κράτος στη συγκεκριμένη υπόθεση, ενώ είναι και μέλος της ΜΚΟ “Ελληνική Ένωση για τα Δικαιώματα του Ανθρώπου”,  η οποία διαδραμάτισε σημαντικό ρόλο στην κατάρτιση του εν λόγω νόμου.  Και τούτο, δίότι η γνωμοδότηση-μελέτη που δημοσίευσε η εν λόγω ΜΚΟ τον Μάρτιο του 2009, με 10 ση­μεία για την αλλαγή του παλαιότερου νόμου  απόδοσης της ιθαγένειας του έτους 2004 (με τίτλο «Νέος Κώδικας Ελληνικής Ιθαγένειας»), υιοθετήθηκε σε μεγάλο βαθμό από το υπουργείο Εσωτερικών και αποτέλεσε τη βάση του ν. 3838/2010 (Βλ. Κ. Σεβρής, Τι συμβαίνει όταν αυτός που νομοθετεί στην ουσία είναι οι ΜΚΟ, Εφημερίδα Ρήξη, 09.01, 2010, αναδημοσίευση σε: http://akritas-history-of-makedonia.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_12.html ).

Προκειμένου να δοθεί μία συνοπτική εικόνα της προβληματικής που εγείρει η εφαρμογή της πολιτικής του πολυπολιτισμού, αλλά και της σύγχρονης στάσης κορυφαίων πολιτικών της Δύσης απέναντι σε αυτό το ζήτημα, παρατίθενται πιο κάτω για κάθε χώρα χωριστά ενδεικτικά δημοσιεύματα. Τα δημοσιεύματα αυτά στοχεύουν να δώσουν περαιτέρω έναυσμα, ώστε ο κάθε ενδιαφερόμενος να  εμβαθύνει  ή έστω να προβληματιστεί περαιτέρω σε σχέση με το καίριο αυτό ζήτημα που απασχολεί τα μέγιστα και την Ελλάδα : 

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UNITED KINGDOM

Cameron: My war on multiculturalism

No funding for Muslim groups that fail to back women’s rights

By Oliver Wright and Jerome Taylor

AFP

David Cameron launches an attack today on 30 years

David Cameron launched a devastating attack today on 30 years of multiculturalism in Britain, warning it is fostering extremist ideology and directly contributing to home-grown Islamic terrorism.

Signalling a radical departure from the strategies of previous governments, Mr Cameron said that Britain must adopt a policy of “muscular liberalism” to enforce the values of equality, law and freedom of speech across all parts of society.

He warned Muslim groups that if they fail to endorse women’s rights or promote integration, they will lose all government funding. All immigrants to Britain must speak English and schools will be expected to teach the country’s common culture.

an international security conference in Munich and will form the basis of the Government’s new anti-terrorism strategy to be published later this year.

But his remarks have already infuriated Muslim groups, as they come on the day of what is expected to be the largest demonstration so far of anti-Muslim sentiment being planned by the English Defence League. They accused Mr Cameron of placing an unfair onus on minority communities to integrate, while failing to emphasise how the wider community can help immigrants feel more welcome in Britain. They suggested his speech was part of a concerted attack on multiculturalism from centre-right European governments and pointed out he was making it in Germany – where Chancellor Angela Merkel recently made a similar attack.

In his speech, Mr Cameron rejected suggestions that a change in Western foreign policy could stop the Islamic terrorist threat and says Britain needs to tackle the home-grown causes of extremist ideology. “We have failed to provide a vision of society [to young Muslims] to which they feel they want to belong,” he said. “We have even tolerated segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values. All this leaves some young Muslims feeling rootless. And the search for something to belong to and believe in can lead them to extremist ideology.”

Mr Cameron blamed a doctrine of “state multiculturalism” which encourages different cultures to live separate lives. This, he says, has led to the “failure of some to confront the horrors of forced marriage”. But he added it is also the root cause of radicalisation which can lead to terrorism.

“As evidence emerges about the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences, it is clear that many of them were initially influenced by what some have called ‘non-violent extremists’ and then took those radical beliefs to the next level by embracing violence. This is an indictment of our approach to these issues in the past. And if we are to defeat this threat, I believe it’s time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past.

“Instead of ignoring this extremist ideology, we – as governments and societies – have got to confront it. Instead of encouraging people to live apart, we need a clear sense of shared national identity, open to everyone.”

Mr Cameron went on to suggest a radically new government approach which Downing Street said would form the basis of a review of the “Prevent Strategy”, launched under Labour in 2007. “We need to think much harder about who it’s in the public interest to work with,” he said. “Some organisations that seek to present themselves as a gateway to the Muslim community are showered with public money despite doing little to combat extremism. This is like turning to a right-wing fascist party to fight a violent white supremacist movement.”

He adds, that in future, only organisations which believe in universal human rights – particularly for women – and promote integration will be supported with public money. “Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism,” he will say.

But Muslim groups said Mr Cameron’s approach was simplistic and would not succeed in tackling extremism. “Communities are not static entities and there are those who see being British as their identity and there are those who do not feel that it is an overriding part of their identity,” said Fiyaz Mughal, founder of interfaith group Faith Matters. “Finger-pointing at communities and then cutting social investment into projects is a sure-fire way of causing greater resentment. It blames some communities while his Government slashes social investment.”

Inayat Bunglawala, chairman of Muslims4UK, described the speech as “deeply patronising”. He said: “The overwhelming majority of UK Muslims are proud to be British and are appalled by the antics of a tiny group of extremists.”

In its latest annual survey of immigration attitudes, the German Marshall Fund found that 23 per cent of Britons believed immigration was the country’s largest problem. In Canada and the US, where the number of foreign-born people is considerably higher, the figure is closer to 10 per cent.

* Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of Muslim youth group The Ramadhan Foundation, said: “The speech by British Prime Minister David Cameron MP fails to tackle the stooge of the fascists EDL and the BNP. Singling out Muslims as he has done feeds the hysteria and paranoia about Islam and Muslims.

“British Muslims abhor terrorism and extremism and we have worked hard to eradicate this evil from our country but to suggest that we do not sign up to the values of tolerance, respect and freedom is deeply offensive and incorrect.

“Multiculturalism is about understanding each others faiths and cultures whilst being proud of our British citizenship – it would help if politicians stopped pandering to the agenda of the BNP and the fascist EDL.

“On the day we see fascists marching in Luton we have seen no similar condemnation or leadership shown from the Government. Only when we see true action on the fascists will confidence be restored in our politics.

“Politicians should be working to bring communities together not ripping them apart.

“This sort of rhetoric to score cheap political points will damage community relations in the long term and affect our efforts to deal with terrorism and extremism.”

Dr Faisal Hanjra, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, described Mr Cameron’s speech as “disappointing”.

“We were hoping that with the new Government, the coalition, there would be a change of emphasis in terms of counter-terrorism and dealing with the problem at hand,” he told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.

He said he supported the Prime Minister’s comments about learning English and the need for a more coherent national identity.

But he went on: “In terms of the approach to tackling terrorism, though, it doesn’t seem to be particularly new – it wasn’t so long ago that the Labour government was telling Muslim parents to look out for your young children and make sure you tell us if they are becoming radicalised.

“Again, it seems very much that the Muslim community is in the spotlight and being treated as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.”

Cameron’s rules

What he said

“Young white men are told, ‘The blacks are all criminals. Young Afro-Caribbean men are told, ‘The Asian shopkeepers are ripping you off’. Young Muslim men are told, ‘The British want to destroy Islam’. The best answer to ignorance like this is a good education. We’ve got to make sure that people learn English, and we’ve got to make sure that kids are taught British history properly at school.” 29 January 2007

“We wouldn’t be half the country we are without immigration. But you can’t have a situation where a country doesn’t know – and can’t control – who is coming in and out, and who is settling here. The government needs to be in control of the situation.” 29 January 2007

“For too long we’ve caved in to more extreme elements by hiding under the cloak of cultural sensitivity. For too long we’ve given in to the loudest voices from each community, without listening to what the majority want. And for too long, we’ve come to ignore differences – even if they fly in the face of human rights, notions of equality and child protection – with a hapless shrug of the shoulders, saying, ‘It’s their culture isn’t it? Let them do what they want’.” 26 February 2008

“Whether it’s making sure that imams coming over to this country can speak English properly, whether it’s making sure we deradicalise our universities, I think we do have to take a range of further steps and I’m going to be working hard to make sure that we do this. Yes, we have got to have the policing in place, yes, we’ve got to make sure we invest in our intelligence services, yes, we’ve got to co-operate with other countries. But we’ve also got to ask why it is that so many young men in our own country get radicalised in this completely unacceptable way.”

The Independent, 15 December 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-my-war-on-multiculturalism-2205074.html

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GERMANY

Germany and the Failure of Multiculturalism

By

George Friedman

German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared at an Oct. 16 meeting of young members of her party, the Christian Democratic Union, that multiculturalism, or Multikulti, as the Germans put it, “has failed totally.” Horst Seehofer, minister-president of Bavaria and the chairman of a sister party to the Christian Democrats, said at the same meeting that the two parties were “committed to a dominant German culture and opposed to a multicultural one.” Merkel also said that the flood of immigrants is holding back the German economy, although Germany does need more highly trained specialists, as opposed to the laborers who have sought economic advantages in Germany.

The statements were striking in their bluntness and their willingness to speak of a dominant German culture, a concept that for obvious reasons Germans have been sensitive about asserting since World War II. The statement should be taken with utmost seriousness and considered for its social and geopolitical implications. It should also be considered in the broader context of Europe’s response to immigration, not to Germany’s response alone.

Let’s begin with the origins of the problem. Post-World War II Germany faced a severe labor shortage for two reasons: a labor pool depleted by the devastating war — and by Soviet prisoner-of-war camps — and the economic miracle that began on the back of revived industry in the 1950s. Initially, Germany was able to compensate by admitting ethnic Germans fleeing Central Europe and Communist East Germany. But the influx only helped assuage the population loss from World War II. Germany needed more labor to feed its burgeoning export-based industry, and in particular more unskilled laborers for manufacturing, construction and other industries.

To resolve the continuing labor shortage, Germany turned to a series of successive labor recruitment deals, first with Italy (1955). After labor from Italy dried up due to Italy’s own burgeoning economy, Germany turned to Spain (1960), Greece (1960), Turkey (1961) and then Yugoslavia (1968). Labor recruitment led to a massive influx of “Gastarbeiter,” German for “guest workers,” into German society. The Germans did not see this as something that would change German society: They regarded the migrants as temporary labor, not as immigrants in any sense. As the term implied, the workers were guests and would return to their countries of origin when they were no longer needed (many Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese did just this). This did not particularly trouble the Germans, who were primarily interested in labor.

The Germans simply didn’t expect this to be a long-term issue. They did not consider how to assimilate these migrants, a topic that rarely came up in policy discussions. Meanwhile, the presence of migrant labor allowed millions of Germans to move from unskilled labor to white-collar jobs during the 1960s.

An economic slowdown in 1966 and full-on recession following the oil shock of 1973 changed labor conditions in Germany. Germany no longer needed a steady stream of unskilled labor and actually found itself facing mounting unemployment among migrants already in country, leading to the “Anwerbestopp,” German for “labor recruitment stop,” in 1973.

Nonetheless, the halt in migration did not resolve the fact that guest workers already were in Germany in great numbers, migrants who now wanted to bring in family members. The 1970s saw most migration switch to “family reunions” and, when the German government moved to close that loophole, asylum. As the Italians, Spanish and Portuguese returned home to tend to their countries’ own successive economic miracles, Muslim Turks became the overwhelming majority of migrants in Germany — particularly as asylum seekers flocked into Germany, most of whom were not fleeing any real government retribution. It did not help that Germany had particularly open asylum laws in large part due to guilt over the Holocaust, a loophole Turkish migrants exploited en masse following the 1980 coup d’etat in Turkey.

As the migrants transformed from a temporary exigency to a multigenerational community, the Germans had to confront the problem. At base, they did not want the migrants to become part of Germany. But if they were to remain in the country, Berlin wanted to make sure the migrants became loyal to Germany. The onus on assimilating migrants into the larger society increased as Muslim discontent rocked Europe in the 1980s. The solution Germans finally agreed upon in the mid-to-late 1980s was multiculturalism, a liberal and humane concept that offered migrants a grand bargain: Retain your culture but pledge loyalty to the state.

In this concept, Turkish immigrants, for example, would not be expected to assimilate into German culture. Rather, they would retain their own culture, including language and religion, and that culture would coexist with German culture. Thus, there would be a large number of foreigners, many of whom could not speak German and by definition did not share German and European values.

While respecting diversity, the policy seemed to amount to buying migrant loyalty. The deeper explanation was that the Germans did not want, and did not know how, to assimilate culturally, linguistically, religiously and morally diverse people. Multiculturalism did not so much represent respect for diversity as much as a way to escape the question of what it meant to be German and what pathways foreigners would follow to become Germans.

This goes back to the European notion of the nation, which is substantially different from the American notion. For most of its history, the United States thought of itself as a nation of immigrants, but with a core culture that immigrants would have to accept in a well-known multicultural process. Anyone could become an American, so long as they accepted the language and dominant culture of the nation. This left a lot of room for uniqueness, but some values had to be shared. Citizenship became a legal concept. It required a process, an oath and shared values. Nationality could be acquired; it had a price.

To be French, Polish or Greek meant not only that you learned their respective language or adopted their values — it meant that you were French, Polish or Greek because your parents were, as were their parents. It meant a shared history of suffering and triumph. One couldn’t acquire that.

For the Europeans, multiculturalism was not the liberal and humane respect for other cultures that it pretended to be. It was a way to deal with the reality that a large pool of migrants had been invited as workers into the country. The offer of multiculturalism was a grand bargain meant to lock in migrant loyalty in exchange for allowing them to keep their culture — and to protect European culture from foreign influences by sequestering the immigrants. The Germans tried to have their workers and a German identity simultaneously. It didn’t work.

Multiculturalism resulted in the permanent alienation of the immigrants. Having been told to keep their own identity, they did not have a shared interest in the fate of Germany. They identified with the country they came from much more than with Germany. Turkey was home. Germany was a convenience. It followed that their primary loyalty was to their home and not to Germany. The idea that a commitment to one’s homeland culture was compatible with a political loyalty to the nation one lived in was simplistic. Things don’t work that way. As a result, Germany did not simply have an alien mass in its midst: Given the state of affairs between the Islamic world and the West, at least some Muslim immigrants were engaged in potential terrorism.

Multiculturalism is profoundly divisive, particularly in countries that define the nation in European terms, e.g., through nationality. What is fascinating is that the German chancellor has chosen to become the most aggressive major European leader to speak out against multiculturalism. Her reasons, political and social, are obvious. But it must also be remembered that this is Germany, which previously addressed the problem of the German nation via the Holocaust. In the 65 years since the end of World War II, the Germans have been extraordinarily careful to avoid discussions of this issue, and German leaders have not wanted to say things such as being committed to a dominant German culture. We therefore need to look at the failure of multiculturalism in Germany in another sense, namely, with regard to what is happening in Germany.

Simply put, Germany is returning to history. It has spent the past 65 years desperately trying not to confront the question of national identity, the rights of minorities in Germany and the exercise of German self-interest. The Germans have embedded themselves in multinational groupings like the European Union and NATO to try to avoid a discussion of a simple and profound concept: nationalism. Given what they did last time the matter came up, they are to be congratulated for their exercise of decent silence. But that silence is now over.

Two things have forced the re-emergence of German national awareness. The first, of course, is the immediate issue — a large and indigestible mass of Turkish and other Muslim workers. The second is the state of the multinational organizations to which Germany tried to confine itself. NATO, a military alliance consisting mainly of countries lacking militaries worth noting, is moribund. The second is the state of the European Union. After the Greek and related economic crises, the certainties about a united Europe have frayed. Germany now sees itself as shaping EU institutions so as not to be forced into being the European Union’s ultimate financial guarantor. And this compels Germany to think about Germany beyond its relations with Europe.

It is impossible for Germany to reconsider its position on multiculturalism without, at the same time, validating the principle of the German nation. Once the principle of the nation exists, so does the idea of a national interest. Once the national interest exists, Germany exists in the context of the European Union only as what Goethe termed an “elective affinity.” What was a certainty amid the Cold War now becomes an option. And if Europe becomes an option for Germany, then not only has Germany re-entered history, but given that Germany is the leading European power, the history of Europe begins anew again.

This isn’t to say that Germany must follow any particular foreign policy given its new official view on multiculturalism; it can choose many paths. But an attack on multiculturalism is simultaneously an affirmation of German national identity. You can’t have the first without the second. And once that happens, many things become possible.

Consider that Merkel made clear that Germany needed 400,000 trained specialists. Consider also that Germany badly needs workers of all sorts who are not Muslims living in Germany, particularly in view of Germany’s demographic problems. If Germany can’t import workers for social reasons, it can export factories, call centers, medical analysis and IT support desks. Not far to the east is Russia, which has a demographic crisis of its own but nonetheless has spare labor capacity due to its reliance on purely extractive natural resources for its economy. Germany already depends on Russian energy. If it comes to rely on Russian workers, and in turn Russia comes to rely on German investment, then the map of Europe could be redrawn once again and European history restarted at an even greater pace.

Merkel’s statement is therefore of enormous importance on two levels. First, she has said aloud what many leaders already know, which is that multiculturalism can become a national catastrophe. Second, in stating this, she sets in motion other processes that could have a profound impact on not only Germany and Europe but also the global balance of power. It is not clear at this time what her intention is, which may well be to boost her center-right coalition government’s abysmal popularity. But the process that has begun is neither easily contained nor neatly managed. All of Europe, indeed, much of the world, is coping with the struggle between cultures within their borders. But the Germans are different, historically and geographically. When they begin thinking these thoughts, the stakes go up.

STRATFOR Global Intelligence

19.10.2010

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20101018_germany_and_failure_multiculturalism

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FRANCE

Sarkozy denounces multiculturalism as “failure”

RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC in Paris

12.02.2011

FRENCH PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy has declared multiculturalism a failure and has taken issue with Muslims praying on the streets of French cities.

In a televised exchange with selected voters, aimed at setting out his plans for the year ahead, Mr Sarkozy echoed the recent critiques of multiculturalism by British prime minister David Cameron and German chancellor Angela Merkel.

“It’s a failure,” he said. “The truth is that in all our democracies, we’ve been too concerned about the identity of the new arrivals and not enough about the identity of the country receiving them. This raises the issue of Islam and our Muslim compatriots.

“Our Muslim compatriots should be able to live and practise their religion like anyone else . . . but it can only be a French Islam and not just an Islam in France.”

Mr Sarkozy’s public approval ratings have held constant at about 30 per cent for the past year and cracks have begun to appear in the centre-right coalition that ensured his victory in 2007.

With a presidential election due next year, his UMP party has been unsettled by the improved standing of the far-right National Front under its new leader, Marine Le Pen.

The president’s remarks came just days after Ms Le Pen congratulated Mr Cameron on his criticism of multiculturalism, claiming it was an endorsement of her party’s position.

In a wide-ranging TV interview watched by 8.2 million people, Mr Sarkozy also echoed Ms Le Pen’s controversial remarks about Muslims praying on the streets of French cities. She compared the sight to an occupation, which was widely interpreted as a reference to the second World War.

“In France we don’t want people to pray in an ostentatious manner in the street. Prayer offends no one but we do not want . . . aggressive religious proselytising,” he said.

The president’s remarks on multiculturalism raised confusion yesterday, as France sees itself as having implicitly rejected the live-and-let-live model by insisting on assimilation of immigrants in the state system and the rejection of religion in the secular public sphere.

While Germany and Britain have been relatively flexible about minorities’ cultural practices, France has banned headscarves in schools and is about to introduce a separate ban on face veils in all public places.

A group representing French people of African origin called on Mr Sarkozy yesterday to explain his statement.

“The diversity of French society, especially its religious diversity, cannot be a failure because this diversity is France itself,” Patrick Lozès, head of the Representative Council of Black Associations, said.

Mr Sarkozy broke a mainstream political taboo last summer when he explicitly linked immigration and crime. In the TV interview, he acknowledged his government had not done enough on juvenile delinquency.

On the controversy over French ministers’ holidays in north Africa, which have provoked rows over the government’s close connections to autocratic Arab regimes, Mr Sarkozy said “not a cent of public money was misused”, but he accepted the revelations about foreign leaders’ hospitality could “shock” the public.

Irish Times, 12.02.2011

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0212/1224289636274.html

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Tuesday 15 February 2011

Christian Democrat leader Maxime Verhagen on Monday said the multicultural society has failed. He was speaking during the recording of tv show Nova College Tour, reports the Algemeen Dagblad.

Verhagen told the programme the Dutch no longer feel at home in their own country and immigrants are not entirely happy here either.

The minister wants the Dutch to be prouder of their country like people in the US where they first say they are American and then where they originally come from, says the paper.

He follows his European colleagues in declaring multiculturalism a failure. German chancellor Angela Merkel, British prime minister David Cameron and French president Nicolas Sarkozy have all said the same, the paper states.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2011/02/multiculturalism_has_failed_ve.php

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SPAIN

October 27, 2006

WASHINGTON, Oct 26, 2006 (AFP) – Multicultural policies in Europe have largely failed, former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar said Thursday on the one-year anniversary of riots by ethnic minorities in France.
“I believe that multiculturalism is a big failure,” Aznar said, speaking at Georgetown University.
“I’m against the idea of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism divides our societies, debilitates our societies, multiculturalism does not produce tolerance, nor integration.”
“And this is one of the reasons of the great failures in several European societies at this moment.”
Aznar, a pro-US conservative who led Spain from 1996 to 2004, emphasized that laws must be administered equally toward everyone.
“This is the best way to integrate societies and to promote integration. To accept different laws, depending on the origin ethnic or the religion is a very serious mistake in our society,” he said, speaking in English.
“For me, to establish different laws is absolutely unacceptable in a free society. This is one of the reasons (that) multiculturalism is a very, very serious failure in Europe.”

The Tocqueville Connection

http://nodnc.com/modules.php?name=news&file=article&sid=714

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SWEDEN etc.

Sweden joins Europe-wide backlash against immigration

By

Ian Traynor

In a country that elevated social democracy into the natural form of government for decades, Maria has been a loyal stalwart. The 66-year-old retired canteen worker has always voted for Sweden‘s Social Democratic party, like the vast majority in her working-class suburb of Malmo. Until last Sunday, that is. That morning Maria broke the habit of a lifetime and in doing so helped redraw the map of Swedish politics. She voted for an extreme-right movement accused of being Islamophobic that broke into parliament in Stockholm for the first time, probably condemning the country to a fragile minority government.

She was not alone. In Maria’s high-rise suburb of Almgården an astonishing one in three voted for Sweden Democrats, a party dubbed “racist and neo-Nazi” and led by Jimmie Åkesson, the new young darling of the European far right.

The reason is plain. Maria pointed across the dual carriageway to the neighbouring housing scheme of Rosengård, known locally as “the ghetto”.

It is home to almost 20,000 immigrants, overwhelmingly Muslim, almost half of them jobless.

“It’s become crazy around here. You can’t go out in the evening,” said Maria, who like other locals, did not want her surname revealed. “I’ve got nothing against foreigners. I’ve been married to a Bulgarian for 40 years. But these people don’t share our values. If you don’t like the colour of our flag, I say, I’ll help you pack your bags.”

Another resident, running a minicab service, remained loyal to the centre-left, but said: “Åkesson’s right. Enough is enough. Even in the jungles of Africa, they don’t know where Sweden is, but they know they can come here, get money and not need to work. I came so close to voting for Sweden Democrats. Maybe the next time.”

Åkesson, a dapper, bespectacled 31-year-old, celebrated his party winning nearly 6% of the vote by declaring: “We’re in.” The Social Democrats slumped to their worst result. The same equation now applies across Europe.

Malmo, formerly an old industrial city, lays fair claim to being the cradle of Swedish social democracy. The centre-left still controls the city, but its power is eroding in what has been an exceptionally promising summer for Islam-baiting, anti-immigrant movements in Europe.

In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy has been trying to recover support he forfeited in March to the National Front by expelling Romanian Gypsies. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ Freedom party goes from strength to strength with his single issue anti-Islam campaign, paralysing Dutch governance.

In Austria, the extreme right leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, is running for mayor of Vienna next month. He will lose. But he looks likely to take more than 20% of the capital’s vote. Next door in Hungary the radical rightwing Jobbik has gained a parliamentary foothold and is demanding permanent, guarded internment camps for Gypsies. In Italy the anti-immigrant Northern League of Umberto Bossi is in government and is the country’s fastest-growing party.

In Germany, meanwhile, where the extreme right has failed to make inroads, the political sensation of the summer has been the taboo-busting, bestselling book by Thilo Sarazzin, a former Berlin central banker.

He claims that the country is digging its own grave by admitting waves of immigrants he characterises as spongers, welfare cheats, and sub-intelligent beings copulating their way from ethnic minority to takeover majority.

Against this troubled background, Sweden has long seemed aloof and immune, an oasis of civility and openness, with the most generous welfare, asylum, and immigration policies in Europe. But with about 100,000 immigrants entering a country of almost 9 million every year, Åkesson’s breakthrough suggests there has been a shift in the public mood.

“We will not get as tough on immigration as Denmark, Norway or the Netherlands,” said Prof Jan Ekberg, a national expert on the economics of migration at Linnaeus University. “But the Sweden Democrats will increase their vote if we don’t succeed in our immigration policy. That’s the main issue.”

In Malmo, where about 80,000 of the 300,000 population are immigrants, the limits of Swedish openness are being tested. “It’s a very divided city,” said Daniel Sandström, editor of the main city paper, Sydsvenskan. “It’s made a successful transition from being an old industrial city to a new, postmodern place of middle-class consumers. That means winners and losers. The losers are the old, the poor, and the immigrants.”

Teaching 21 seven-year-olds in a primary school in the immigrant “ghetto”, Cecilia Hallström is the sole native Swede in the well-equipped classroom.

“Of course, the school is open to everyone, but it is only Muslims who come here,” she said. The children, taught in Swedish, are native Arabic, Pashtun, Kurdish and Bosnian speakers of a dozen nationalities. Hallström is a firm supporter of multiculturalism, but noted: “People are just getting fed up. The far right is not new here, but it is gaining ground. We’ve taken in so many new immigrants that people are saying we need to slow down and take proper care of the ones that are here.”

Signs of friction and trouble are not hard to find beneath the veneer of Scandinavian order, decency and prosperity. Beyzat Becirov points to the window in his office at Malmo’s main mosque.

A bullet perforated the reinforced glass earlier this year, shaved the neck of a colleague and lodged itself in the drawer of a desk. “We’ve got to defeat all fascism,” said the imam and head of Malmo’s 60,000-strong Islamic community. “But you get it on both sides, on our side as well.” His mosque is the oldest and biggest in Sweden. It has been burned down once, and a pig was placed in the prayer hall. Becirov said there had been 300 attacks since it was built in 1983. There have been riots. There are no-go areas.

Two things were new in Malmo, said Becirov. Recent years had brought a flood of people “from Asia, Africa, and Arab countries. There’s a problem with the Somalis, the Lebanese, the Palestinians. They have difficulty integrating. And there’s no jobs.” The other novelty was the local rise of the Sweden Democrats, who Becirov described as the “new Nazis”, suggesting that the country was joining the European club. “It’s a bit like a tsunami spreading across Europe. And now it’s here, too.”

In Denmark and Germany, France and Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland, politicians, pundits and publics are immersed in noisy argument about values and loyalties, the end of multiculturalism, the integration failures of foreigners. It’s a backlash against mass immigration. Sweden has seemed oblivious to the tumult while keeping its doors open. But that seemed to shift on Sunday, not least in Malmo and its hinterland where Åkesson, announcing that Muslim immigration is the biggest threat to Sweden since Adolf Hitler, scored double-digit results across the south-west.

That Sweden is moving into the European mainstream in its attitudes to immigration is a contested and controversial point that seems to cut to the core of Swedes’ ideas of themselves.

Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of the far-right Danish People’s party just across the stunning Oeresund road and rail bridge linking Malmo to Copenhagen, gleefully welcomed the election result and the Åkesson breakthrough by declaring: “Sweden is becoming a normal country.” That touched a nerve because Sweden and Denmark have opposing immigration policies, with the Danes practising what may be the most restrictive regime in Europe.

“Åkesson puts Sweden and intolerance together. But the true situation and tradition here is of internationalism and tolerance,” said Sandström.

Jörgen Grubb, one of Akesson’s seven councillors in Malmo, thinks talk of Swedish specialness is rank hypocrisy. “We’ve always tried to be the perfect country, telling the world we’re so good and nice to everyone. But we’ve just been hiding and now it’s changing. We’ve become less naïve.”

Åkesson’s appeal is one of nostalgia for a bygone era, the stiff conservatism and tradition of the white Sweden of the 1950s. The test of the rebellion’s impact will be whether, as everywhere else in Europe, the mainstream parties try to co-opt Åkesson’s voters by accommodating some of his policies.

Lena Westerlund, chief economist at the national trades union association, does not expect any major policy changes on immigration. “I’m not saying it’s not problematic, but for our economy the immigration is a net benefit. We have a very bad demographic, we need a much younger population.”

Prof Ekberg also does not expect any big policy change. “The problem is not immigration, it is integration, especially in the labour market. If there are no jobs, the consequences are segregation, housing problems and divided cities.”

It is in the post-industrial cities of Europe, once centre-left citadels, that the far right has been making big gains – Le Pen in Marseille, Wilders in Rotterdam, Strache in “red” Vienna. Åkesson in Malmo is new, but part of a trend.

“He is a clever populist, careful not to cross the line and say anything that seems undemocratic. But his party has a tremendous acceptance of racism,” said Sandström. “And Sweden is turning into a more European country, while Swedes still want to be some kind of an exception. That’s the debate that will be taking place here for years now.”

At the extremes

France The National Front’s hard line on immigration plays well with some voters. Commentators say President Nicolas Sarkozy has shifted further right to capture these votes.

Netherlands Geert Wilders, leader of Freedom Party, is in negotiations to form a coalition government.

Austria The Freedom Party has become a political force and Barbara Rosenkranz, who says anti-Nazi laws should be abolished, came second in presidential race.

Hungary Jobbik party entered parliament in April 2010.

Italy Northern League used a poster of white sheep kicking out a black one to convey anti-immigration message. Swiss People’s party, too, has used such a poster image.

The Guardian, 24.09.2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/24/sweden-immigration-far-right-asylum

By

Alistair Macdonald

“… in Sweden, which for decades prided itself as a beacon of multiculturalism, the Sweden Democrats won 5.7% of the vote in national elections after campaigning on a platform of anti-immigration and antimulticulturalism.

“Swedes are moving out from some cities; they don’t feel it’s their home, it doesn’t feel like Sweden anymore,” said Kent Ekeroth, one of the party’s new lawmakers.Instead of multiculturalism, politicians across Europe have lately been calling for integration through policies like mandatory language courses that force immigrants to assimilate…”.

THE WALL  STREET JOURNAL, 15.02.2011

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703716904576134400934623230.html

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FINLAND

Muslim Immigration Transforms Finland

As in other European countries (here and here), the politically correct guardians of Finnish multiculturalism have tried to silence public discussion about the escalating problem of Muslim immigration.

In March 2009, for example, Jussi Kristian Halla-aho, a politician and well-known political commentator, was taken to court on charges of “incitement against an ethnic group” and “breach of the sanctity of religion” for writing that Islam is a religion of paedophilia. He was referring to the Islamic prophet Mohammed, who is believed to have married a six year old girl and consummated the marriage when she was nine.

A Helsinki court later dropped the charges of blasphemy but ordered Halla-aho to pay a fine of €330 ($450) for disturbing religious worship. The Finnish public prosecutor, incensed at the lower court’s dismissal of the blasphemy charges, appealed the case to the Finnish Supreme Court, where it is now being reviewed.

Halla-Aho, the best-known political blogger in Finland, maintains a blog entitled Scripta, that deals with issues such as “immigration, multiculturalism, tolerance, racism, freedom of speech and political correctness.” His blog has between 3,000 and 6,000 readers a day. According to Halla-aho, immigration is a taboo topic in Finland. He has received death threats because of his web columns, which criticize the number of immigrants coming to Finland and argue that Muslims cannot be integrated.

In April 2011, Juha Molari, a Finnish Lutheran pastor, was “defrocked” after he was accused of inciting religious hatred for describing Doku Umarov, the man behind the Moscow metro and airport bombings, as a “terrorist.”

Also that month, the Finnish Ministry of Interior launched a new Internet site focused on immigration. The politically correct objective is to “give a boost to factual and serious debate and information on the issue,” and “to get away from an ‘us and them’ position as well as from preaching and guilt attitudes.” Of course, the site does not have a discussion forum.

Also, Finland’s political map has been redrawn in the aftermath of parliamentary elections on April 17, when the nationalist True Finns Party won more votes than the governing party and now stands on the cusp of political power. The surge of the True Finns Party, which campaigned on a platform of opposition to Muslim immigration and further European integration, reflects growing voter disenchantment with multiculturalism and the ruling establishment’s fixation with the European Union.

The final vote results show the populist True Finns Party finishing third place with 39 seats in Finland’s 200-seat Parliament, just behind the center-right National Coalition Party with 43 seats and the center-left Social Democrats with 42 seats. The governing Center Party lost 16 seats, ending up with 24 seats.

As the largest vote-getter, the National Coalition Party has been given the first chance to form a government, and the party leader Jyrki Katainen, set to be Finland’s next prime minister, said “it is our duty to form a majority government.” He is now negotiating with the True Finns and the Social Democrats to build a governing coalition.

Support for the True Finns, led by charismatic leader Timo Soini, has nearly quadrupled its share of the vote from 4% to 19% since the last parliamentary elections in 2007. Using a catchy campaign slogan (kansa tietää: “The people know”), the party has harvested popular anger over issues ranging from bailouts of debt-laden European countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal to unemployment and immigration, especially from Muslim countries.

Although Europe’s political establishment and the mainstream news media have variously branded the True Finns as “far-right,” “racist,” “xenophobic,” and “fascist” because of the party’s opposition to immigration, in reality the party does not fit neatly into any political grouping. The True Finns combine left-wing economic policies (the party defends the welfare state, for example, and favors raising taxes to do so) with conservative social values (Soini is a devout Roman Catholic). The party has been placed on the center-left in the parliamentary seating order.

In any event, both the National Coalition Party and the Social Democrats have adopted many of the anti-immigration positions held by the True Finns. For example, the National Coalition Party has called for “realism in asylum policy; resources for integration;” and the Social Democratic Party has set a goal for “controlled immigration.” Further, members of all three parties have voiced their concerns about immigration and the threat it poses to Finnish culture and identity.

Immigration is also not the exclusive concern of only one type of Finnish voter. According to a recent survey commissioned by the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper and conducted by Suomen Gallup, Finns of all political persuasions and socio-economic classes are concerned about immigration. The polling data show that nearly 60% of Finns are opposed to immigration. This number is up from 44% in 2009 and 36% in 2007.

Immigrants make up about 4% of the Finnish population, a relatively percentage low by European standards. There are an estimated 60,000 Muslims in Finland, which has a population of just over 5 million. The Muslim population has increased rapidly in recent years, due largely to immigration; and there are now dozens of Islamic communities in the country. As in other European countries, the debate over immigration centers on growing concerns about the failure of Muslim immigrants to integrate into Finland and learn the language.

A case in point is the request by Muslims in Finland for a fatwa (Islamic legal ruling) on how they should live in their newly adopted country. The fatwa was issued by Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajid, a well-known Saudi Arabian expert on Islamic Sharia law, who, in 2008, issued a fatwa to kill Mickey Mouse. He says: “You have to be aware that you are living in a Christian society, a Christian country, whose flag bears the cross! … It should be a priority of Islamic groups and political parties, especially those that are trying to establish an Islamic state, as we said, to preserve the identity of the Muslims who are living there. One of the most important means of preserving their identity is for Muslim men to marry Muslim women and to strive to create an Islamic atmosphere in their social lives. In the Islamic parties and organizations there should be people who direct the Muslims’ private matters such as marriage, divorce and social relationships in accordance with the laws of Allah.”

This is already happening. According to some reports, Muslim children in Finnish schools often are not allowed to take part in school activities such as singing and dancing, which are considered religious. Often, immigrant children play the race card if a solution to a conflict does not go in their favor or if a teacher rebukes the child.

In December 2010, the Islamic Society of Finland, headquartered in downtown Helsinki, complained that the country’s Muslims are running out of places to worship as their numbers grow. Finland’s only officially consecrated mosque is located in the town of Järvenpää, some 40 kilometers north of Helsinki.

In March 2011, the Islamic Society of Finland called for the government to provide university-level courses for the country’s imams. There are around 40 to 50 imams in Finland, both teaching and conducting religious services at mosques and prayer rooms. Their educational backgrounds vary. “Many have studied in their communities or in their home countries. What is needed is a degree from an institute of higher education for all imams,” says Anas Hajjar, an imam with the Islamic Society of Finland.

In recent years, ethnic Finns have been leaving immigrant-heavy neighborhoods to find more suitable housing elsewhere. According to some studies, Finland’s largest cities have developed areas where more than one-fifth of the population is of foreign origin. As native Finns move out of areas with significant immigrant populations, they are reducing the size of the population capable of paying taxes, leaving behind only those consuming welfare services, according to the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper.

Much of the problem revolves around Finland’s immigration policy, which is one of the most liberal in Europe. This was highlighted in November 2009, when Egypt Today magazine published a story entitled “Welcome to Finland,” which portrayed Finland as a paradise for Muslim immigration.

According to Egypt Today: “Tara Ahmed, a 25-year-old Kurdish woman, came with her husband to Finland seven years ago to work. ‘There are a lot of services offered to us here,’ she says. ‘Plus, during my seven years I haven’t had one single harassment, assault or discrimination case in any form.’ Like most immigrants, Ahmed and her husband took advantage of the free Finnish language lessons offered by the government, which pays immigrants €8 per day to attend. The government also provides immigrants with a free home, health care for their family and education for their children. In addition, they get a monthly stipend of €367 per adult to cover expenses until they start earning their own living. The government is able to pay for these services due to a progressive tax rate that can exceed fifty percent of a person’s income. Even so, officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed that Finland needs immigrants and that, in the long run, they are not a burden on society.”

After that story was published, the number of Muslim immigrants to Finland skyrocketed. For example, immigration from Somalia alone more than doubled in 2010, from 2009. Most of the Somali adults coming to Finland are illiterate, according to the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper. In September 2010, Finnish authorities admitted that Somalis were abusing the family unification procedure to facilitate human trafficking.

Some Muslim immigrants to Finland have travelled to Pakistan or Somalia to attend Jihadi training camps, according to Vasabladet, a newspaper in Sweden. In February 2010, Helsingin Sanomat reported that the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab was recruiting young Somalis living in Finland to go to war against the Somali government.

In early 2010, the Finnish Security Police (SUPO) asked Parliament for €1.7 million in funding to station officers permanently in Africa and the Middle East to stop possible terrorists who might want to travel to Finland. In August 2010, SUPO said it had successfully prevented terrorist suspects from Africa from entering Finland. In December 2010, Interior Minister Anne Homlund said that training individuals to commit terrorist acts would become a criminal offense.

In December 2009, an Albanian Muslim shot dead three men and a woman at a shopping centre in Espoo. The lone gunman was dressed in black and walked through the mall randomly firing at shoppers.

There are now believed to be several hundred hard-line Wahhabi Muslim fundamentalists in Finland, according to a journalist for the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Tom Kankkonen, who recently wrote a book entitled Islam Euroopassa (Islam in Europe). He says these Islamists operate in communities such as the Helsinki Muslimikoti (Muslim Home), the Iqra Association, and the Salafi Forum on the Internet.

But lately some Finns have been pushing back.

In January 2011, the City of Helsinki said that it would stop reserving special hours for Muslim women to use the public pool in the suburb of Jakomäki. In the future, the time slot for Muslim women will be open to all women. Previously, the Jakomäki swimming hall blocked off Saturday mornings specifically for Muslim women. The women’s session followed a swimming class for Muslim girls.

In December 2010, the Ombudsman for Minorities, Eva Biaudet, issued a statement saying that a ban on Muslim prayer by a gym in the City of Espoo was not a violation of the prohibition on discrimination against ethnic minorities. In August 2010, the exercise center posted a notice requesting clients not to pray in its facilities. A nearby library provided a screened-off section in its rooms during August-September for use by Muslims during the month of Ramadan. But nine Espoo city councillors have demanded that religious practices be kept separate from public services.

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USA

The Trouble With Multiculturalism

By

Leon Wieseltier
Published: October 23, 1994

DICTATORSHIP OF VIRTUE Multiculturalism and the Battle for America’s Future. By Richard Bernstein. 367 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $25.

PLURALISM is hard, for individuals and for groups. In the United States, however, we have been so vain for so long about pluralism that we have forgotten its hardships. Pluralism, after all, is premised not only on difference, but on the proximity of difference: another way to live is never out of mind in America, because it is never out of sight. The sidewalks are crowded with incommensurabilities. You live and work and play with people for whom your view of the world is nonsense, or worse.

Exclusiveness is an illusion when experience is so porous, when everything is everywhere. There is no safety in numbers. There is safety only in sameness; and so pluralism frequently provokes noisy fits of sameness. The recent movement in culture and politics known as multiculturalism is one of those noisy fits. It will pass, but it will come again. It is a regular feature of the American situation. Multiculturalism claims to originate in a fear of homogeneity, of an erasure of the particular by the general; but in truth it reflects a fear of heterogeneity, which is a classically American fear.

It should be obvious, as an empirical matter, that American society has been, for at least a hundred years, a multicultural society. A multicultural society, however, produces multicultural individuals. And multicultural individuals, from the standpoint of the ancestral group and the inherited tradition, are lost individuals, and fallen. They join, in their persons, influences and instructions that were not supposed to be joined. The American problem for groups and traditions has been to retain the tolerance of the country and the loyalty of their sons and daughters. And so the ideal of traditionalists in the United States is a multicultural society of monocultural people, an American nation that is nothing more than a peaceful association of conformities. They believe in an impossible union of insularity and democracy. But their mixture of tolerance in the street and intolerance in the home often comes to ruin, and so they, the free and strung-out communities of America, panic. They read, and eat, and marry, inconsistently with their own.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/23/books/the-trouble-with-multiculturalism.html

—————

by

John Leo
25 June 2007

Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities. He fears that his work on the surprisingly negative effects of diversity will become part of the immigration debate, even though he finds that in the long run, people do forge new communities and new ties.

Putnam’s study reveals that immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups, but also within the groups themselves. Trust, even for members of one’s own race, is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friendships fewer. The problem isn’t ethnic conflict or troubled racial relations, but withdrawal and isolation. Putnam writes: “In colloquial language, people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’—that is, to pull in like a turtle.”

In the 41 sites Putnam studied in the U.S., he found that the more diverse the neighborhood, the less residents trust neighbors. This proved true in communities large and small, from big cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Boston to tiny Yakima, Washington, rural South Dakota, and the mountains of West Virginia. In diverse San Francisco and Los Angeles, about 30 percent of people say that they trust neighbors a lot. In ethnically homogeneous communities in the Dakotas, the figure is 70 percent to 80 percent.

Diversity does not produce “bad race relations,” Putnam says. Rather, people in diverse communities tend “to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.” Putnam adds a crushing footnote: his findings “may underestimate the real effect of diversity on social withdrawal.”

Neither age nor disparities of wealth explain this result. “Americans raised in the 1970s,” he writes, “seem fully as unnerved by diversity as those raised in the 1920s.” And the “hunkering down” occurred no matter whether the communities were relatively egalitarian or showed great differences in personal income. Even when communities are equally poor or rich, equally safe or crime-ridden, diversity correlates with less trust of neighbors, lower confidence in local politicians and news media, less charitable giving and volunteering, fewer close friends, and less happiness.

Putnam has long been aware that his findings could have a big effect on the immigration debate. Last October, he told the Financial Times that “he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity.” He said it “would have been irresponsible to publish without that,” a quote that should raise eyebrows. Academics aren’t supposed to withhold negative data until they can suggest antidotes to their findings.

Nor has Putnam made details of his study available for examination by peers and the public. So far, he has published only an initial summary of his findings, from a speech he gave after winning an award in Sweden, in the June issue of Scandinavian Political Studies. His office said Putnam is in Britain, working on a religion project at the University of Manchester, and is currently too busy to grant an interview.

Putnam’s study does make two positive points: in the long run, increased immigration and diversity are inevitable and desirable, and successful immigrant societies “dampen the negative effects of diversity” by constructing new identities. Social psychologists have long favored the optimistic hypothesis that contact between different ethnic and racial groups increases tolerance and social solidarity. For instance, white soldiers assigned to units with black soldiers after World War II were more relaxed about desegregation of the army than were soldiers in all-white units. But Putnam acknowledges that most empirical studies do not support the “contact hypothesis.” In general, they find that the more people are brought into contact with those of another race or ethnicity, the more they stick to their own, and the less they trust others. Putnam writes: “Across local areas in the United States, Australia, Sweden Canada and Britain, greater ethnic diversity is associated with lower social trust and, at least in some cases, lower investment in public goods.”

Though Putnam is wary of what right-wing politicians might do with his findings, the data might give pause to those on the left, and in the center as well. If he’s right, heavy immigration will inflict social deterioration for decades to come, harming immigrants as well as the native-born. Putnam is hopeful that eventually America will forge a new solidarity based on a “new, broader sense of we.” The problem is how to do that in an era of multiculturalism and disdain for assimilation.

CITY-JOURNAL

http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-06-25jl.html

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CANADA

The Failure of Multiculturalism in Canada

by

MAHFOOZ A. KANWAR, Canadian

once supported multiculturalism in Canada because I believed then that it gave us a sense of pluralism and diversity. However, I have observed and experienced that multiculturalism has encouraged convolution of our mainstream culture. It has also been exploited by some sub-cultural and religious groups in terms of government grants.

We are restricted to do things the Canadian way lest we offend the minorities. We cannot even say Merry Christmas. It is amazing that 77% of the Canadian majority are scared of offending 23% of Canadian minorities. We have become so timid that the majority cannot assert its own freedom of expression.

We cannot publically question certain foreign social customs, traditions, and values that do not fit in the Canadian web. Rather than encouraging the new immigrants to adjust to Canada, we tolerate peculiar ways of doing things. We do not remind them that they are in Canada, not in their original homelands.

In a multicultural society such as Canada, it is the responsibility of minorities to adjust to the majority. It does not mean that minorities have to totally amalgamate with the majority. They can practise some of their cultural baggage within their confinement, their back stage behaviour. However, their front stage behaviour should resemble mainstream Canadian behaviour.

Whoever comes to Canada must learn the limits of our system. We do not kill our daughters or other female members of our families who refuse to wear hijab, niqab or burka which are not mandated by the Quran. A 16-year-old Muslim girl named Aqsa Pervez should not have been killed by her father in Toronto because she refused to don a hijab. We do not kill our daughters if they date the wrong men. A 17-year-old Sikh girl should not have been killed in British Columbia by her father because she was caught dating a Caucasian young man.

We do not approve of testing the sex of the fetus, and aborting it if it is female. We do not practise the dowry system in Canada, and, therefore, do not kill our brides because they did not bring enough dowry. Millions of female fetuses are aborted every year in India, and millions of female infants have been killed by their parents in India and China. Thousands of brides in India are burned to death in their kitchens because they did not bring enough dowry. Thirty thousand Sikhs living abroad took the dowries but abandoned their brides in India in 2005. This is not accepted in Canada.

In some countries thousands of women are murdered every year for family or religious honour. We should not hide behind political correctness and we should expose the cultural and religious background of these heinous crimes especially if they happens in Canada. We should also expose those who bring their cultural baggage containing the social custom of female circumcision.

I do not agree with the hyphenated identity in Canada because it divides our loyalties. My argument is that people are not forced to come to Canada and they are not forced to stay here.

Therefore, those who come here on their own volition and stay here must be truly patriotic Canadians or go back.

I do not agree with those Canadians who engage in their fight against the system in their original countries on the Canadian soil. They should go back and fight from within.

Similarly, I disagree with Canadians who bring their religious baggage here. For example, Muslims are less than 2% of the Canadian population, yet in 2004 and 2005, a fraction of them, the fundamentalists, wanted the Sharia law in Canada, a secular country.

MONCTON NEWS

16.02.2011

http://metromonctonnews.com/?p=3439

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AUSTRALIA

By

Bonnie Malkin in Sydney, 29 Sep 2010

Former Australian PM attacks multiculturalism

John Howard, the former prime minister of Australia, has attacked “multiculturalism” in English-speaking nations, saying that some countries have gone too far in accommodating Muslim minorities.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8031840/Former-Australian-PM-attacks-multiculturalism.html

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JAPAN

Aso says Japan is nation of ‘one race’

_______________________________________________________________________________

Διαφορετική άποψη αναφορικά με τα ανωτέρω δεδομένα φαίνεται ωστόσο να έχει ο καθηγητής Συνταγματικού Δικαίου κ. Νίκος Αλιβιζάτος. Το παρακάτω άρθρο αποτυπώνει την άποψη του:

Mετανάστες: «συνταγματικό τόξο» για την Ελλάδα

Του Νικου Κ. Αλιβιζατου*

«Σε λιγότερο από έξι χρόνια, η Γερμανία κατέστρεψε τις ηθικές δομές του δυτικού κόσμου, διαπράττοντας εγκλήματα που κανένας δεν μπορούσε να διανοηθεί? όσο για τους νικητές, μετέτρεψαν σε στάχτη τα μνημεία ενός χιλιόχρονου γερμανικού πολιτισμού. (…) Τα ανωτέρω δύο τραύματα εξηγούν γιατί οι αναμνήσεις του τελευταίου πολέμου είναι τόσο επώδυνες (…)».
ΧΑΝΑ ΑΡΕΝΤ (1950)

Με το ανωτέρω απόσπασμα από συνέντευξη της μεγάλης Αμερικανίδας φιλοσόφου κλείνει το πρώτο κεφάλαιο της «Ιστορίας της Ευρώπης και του κόσμου από το 1945», που συνέγραψαν από κοινού Γάλλοι και Γερμανοί εκπαιδευτικοί για τη Γ΄ τάξη του λυκείου των σχολείων τους (εκδ. Klett & Nathan, 2006, σ. 15). Ξεκινώντας από αυτό τo χωρίο, οι μαθητές των δύο χωρών – «προαιώνιων εχθρών» στην Ευρώπη μέχρι πρότινος- καλούνται σήμερα να απαντήσουν στο ερώτημα: «Ποια ήταν η ιδιαιτερότητα του Β΄ Παγκόσμιου Πολέμου;».

Το βιβλίο αυτό μού το θύμισαν δύο περιστατικά ακραίας πολιτικής συμπεριφοράς της πρόσφατης επικαιρότητάς μας: από τη μια, η οξύτατη επίθεση που δέχθηκε η καθηγήτρια Θάλεια Δραγώνα, μετά τον διορισμό της ως ειδικής γραμματέως στο υπουργείο Παιδείας. Και, από την άλλη, οι αντιδράσεις που προκάλεσε το νομοσχέδιο, που έδωσε στη δημοσιότητα το υπουργείο Εσωτερικών, για την πολιτογράφηση και τα δικαιώματα των μεταναστών.

Αξίζει να θυμίσει κανείς πολύ επιγραμματικά τα γεγονότα:

Η μεν κ. Δραγώνα δεν επικρίθηκε για κάποια απόφαση που πήρε η ίδια ή το υπουργείο Παιδείας, ούτε καν για κάποια εξαγγελία. Κατηγορήθηκε αναδρομικά για απόψεις που είχε διατυπώσει σε συλλογικό επιστημονικό βιβλίο, που κυκλοφόρησε πριν από αρκετά χρόνια, για τον εθνοκεντρισμό στην εκπαίδευση («Τι είν’ η πατρίδα μας;», Αθήνα, εκδ. Αλεξάνδρεια, 1997). Αν ο κ. Γ. Καρατζαφέρης και οι βουλευτές του (ή, τουλάχιστον, ο εξ αυτών «διανοούμενος») είχαν μπει στον κόπο να ελέγξουν τις παραπομπές που έκαναν στο έργο της κ. Δραγώνα από φυλλάδιο μιας ένωσης αποστράτων, θα διαπίστωναν ότι πρόκειται για κλασική περίπτωση παραποίησης κειμένου και διαστρέβλωσης νοήματος.

Για παράδειγμα, πουθενά η κ. Δραγώνα δεν χαρακτηρίζει «ρατσιστή» όποιον αποσιωπά τη σημασία της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας. Επισημαίνει απλώς -χωρίς μάλιστα να κάνει κανένα δικό της σχόλιο- αποσιωπήσεις σημαντικών γεγονότων από την ιστορία αυτής της χώρας στα ελληνικά σχολικά εγχειρίδια (όπως άλλωστε και της παρουσίας των Eβραίων και άλλων αλλόθρησκων ομάδων στη νεότερη ελληνική ιστορία).

Οσο για το νομοσχέδιο του κ. Ραγκούση, ο προσεκτικός αναγνώστης, αν ενδιαφερόταν για την ουσία και όχι μόνο για εντυπώσεις, θα διαπίστωνε πολύ εύκολα ότι περιέχει τόσες ασφαλιστικές δικλίδες για την αποτροπή καταχρήσεων, που θα μπορούσε να χαρακτηρισθεί ακόμη και άτολμο.

Σε ό, τι αφορά, ειδικότερα, την ιθαγένεια των παιδιών μεταναστών που γεννιούνται στην Ελλάδα (β΄ γενιά μεταναστών), η προβλεπόμενη προϋπόθεση ότι ο ένας τουλάχιστον από τους γονείς θα πρέπει να κατοικεί νόμιμα στη χώρα «επί πέντε συνεχή έτη» (ή το παιδί να έχει παρακολουθήσει 3 ή 6 χρόνια τουλάχιστον σε ελληνικό σχολείο), περιορίζει πολύ την πιθανότητα καταστρατηγήσεων. Το ίδιο και η 5ετής νόμιμη διαμονή στην Ελλάδα, που προβλέπεται ως προϋπόθεση για την υποβολή της αίτησης πολιτογράφησης από ενηλίκους. Εξαιρετικά αυστηρές εξάλλου είναι και οι προϋποθέσεις για την άσκηση του εκλογικού δικαιώματος των μεταναστών στις δημοτικές και μόνον εκλογές. Σε αυτές, υπενθυμίζεται ότι ούτως ή άλλως από ετών ψηφίζουν και οι κοινοτικοί αλλοδαποί αν το επιθυμούν, δηλαδή σήμερα οι Ρουμάνοι και οι Βούλγαροι που κατοικούν στη χώρα μας.

Οσο για την ένσταση ότι περιορίζει τάχα τα κυριαρχικά δικαιώματα της χώρας η εισαγόμενη υποχρέωση της διοίκησης να αιτιολογεί τις αρνητικές αποφάσεις της σε αιτήσεις πολιτογράφησης, μόνον απορία προκαλεί. Διότι την αιτιολογία αυτή επιβάλλει η στοιχειώδης συνέπεια προς την αρχή του κράτους δικαίου, την οποία η ΕΣΔΑ κατοχυρώνει σήμερα για όλους (και όχι μόνο για τους ημεδαπούς). Αξίζει να σημειωθεί ότι η Γαλλία, χώρα εκ παραδόσεως διστακτική σε τέτοιου είδους ζητήματα, καθιέρωσε την υποχρεωτική αιτιολογία από το 1993.

Είναι λοιπόν φανερό ότι η πολεμική που ασκήθηκε στα ανωτέρω δύο θέματα απέβλεπε περισσότερο στη δημιουργία εντυπώσεων παρά στο να αναδείξει υπαρκτές διαφωνίες και ατέλειες.

Σε ό, τι με αφορά, αν οι επιθέσεις αυτές προέρχονταν αποκλειστικά από την άκρα δεξιά, θα αδιαφορούσα: διότι από παλιά ο χώρος αυτός, όταν δεν δέρνει τους αντιπάλους του, έχει αναγάγει το ψέμα σε συνήθη μέθοδο και τη διαβολή σε καθημερινή πρακτική. Αποβλέποντας στη σπίλωση και την κατασυκοφάντηση, αδιαφορεί για τα επιχειρήματα.

Το ίδιο ισχύει και για ορισμένα έντυπα, τα οποία, αν και αυτοκατατάσσονται στον λεγόμενο «προοδευτικό χώρο», δεν ορρωδούν σε χυδαιότητα για να πουλήσουν λίγο περισσότερα φύλλα. Με τους κοινούς συκοφάντες, λοιπόν, δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει συζήτηση.

Στην πολυπολιτισμική Ευρώπη του ανοίγματος προς τον έξω κόσμο, τέτοιου είδους επιχειρήματα θεωρούνται φαιδρά ακόμη και στους συντηρητικούς κύκλους. Για τους μετανάστες και την ένταξή τους στις κοινωνίες τους, πολιτικοί όπως ο Σαρκοζί και η Μέρκελ δεν ενδίδουν σε ιδεολογήματα, αλλά συζητούν επί της ουσίας. Το ίδιο και τα κεντροδεξιά κόμματα σε χώρες όπως η Πορτογαλία, η Σουηδία, η Φινλανδία, ακόμη και το συντηρητικό Λουξεμβούργο που, τα τελευταία χρόνια, μεταρρύθμισαν ριζικά το δίκαιο της ιθαγένειάς τους. Ας διδαχθεί από τις εμπειρίες τους ο κ. Αντ. Σαμαράς.

«Ομως», θα αντέτειναν πιθανόν οι εγχώριοι ξενόφοβοι, «η Ελλάδα δεν είναι σαν το Βέλγιο ή την Ολλανδία. Εχει εκκρεμή εθνικά θέματα. Μόνον αφελείς και ανιστόρητοι υποστηρίζουν απόψεις σαν τις δικές σας».

Δεν υποτιμώ τις εθνικές ιδιαιτερότητες. Πιστεύω, εν τούτοις, ότι τριάντα χρόνια μετά την ένταξη της Ελλάδας στην ενωμένη Ευρώπη, αυτά που ενώνουν τη χώρα μας με τις χώρες του ευρωπαϊκού πυρήνα είναι πολύ περισσότερα από αυτά που τη χωρίζουν. Και ότι, εν πάση περιπτώσει, δεν δικαιολογούν τόσο σοβαρές αποκλίσεις από τις θεμελιώδεις αρχές του κράτους δικαίου.

Το 1945, όταν απελευθερώθηκε η Ιταλία, τα κόμματα της εθνικής αντίστασης που μετείχαν στην πρώτη κυβέρνηση της απελευθέρωσης και που ψήφισαν το 1947 το Σύνταγμα της χώρας, συγκρότησαν στην πράξη αυτό που επικράτησε να ονομάζεται «συνταγματικό τόξο» («arco costituzionale»). Ξεπερνώντας για τα «βασικά» τη διάκριση Δεξιάς και Αριστεράς, θέλησαν έτσι να δείξουν ότι είναι αποφασισμένα να απομονώσουν τον φασισμό, τον ρατσισμό και τη μισαλλοδοξία που αυτός εξέφραζε.

Μήπως ήρθε η ώρα να συγκροτηθεί και στη χώρα μας ένα «συνταγματικό τόξο» για την Ελλάδα του αύριο, για την Ελλάδα του κράτους δικαίου, στην υπό διαμόρφωση ενωμένη Ευρώπη;

ΚΑΘΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ, 03.01.2010

http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_columns_2_03/01/2010_38550