Read the rest here. (The BBC has a video as well as a partial transcript.)The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel: "lmmigrants should learn to speak German." Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says.
She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.
The comments come amid rising anti-immigration feeling in Germany. A recent survey suggested more than 30% of people believed the country was "overrun by foreigners".
The study - by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think-tank - also showed that roughly the same number thought that some 16 million of Germany's immigrants or people with foreign origins had come to the country for its social benefits.
Mrs Merkel told a gathering of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party on Saturday that at "the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country."
She added: "We kidded ourselves a while, we said: 'They won't stay, sometime they will be gone', but this isn't reality." "And of course, the approach [to build] a multicultural [society] and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other... has failed, utterly failed."
So the geniuses who invented the liberal idea of multiculturalism are finally starting to admit that it is a disaster. Perhaps now one of them will actually come up with a solution. But don't hold your breath.
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2 comments:
Couple questions:
1) Do you see European (or German) multiculturalism as distinct from Canadian multiculturalism? In your view is this a problem with multiculturalism in general, or just with the German manifestation thereof?
2) Would you care to venture a solution?
Nathan,
1. European multiculturalism is worse than American multiculturalism because Europe is a less self-confident society that makes fewer attempts to integrate immigrants into the host country. Europeans no longer have a common religious commitment to God, human dignity and an objective moral order.
The US is a more self-confident society with a long history of being a melting pot into which immigrants are integrated by "Americanizing" them. People who come to the US (at least until recently) are expected to learn English, accept the principles of the American Founding and make America their unquestioned object of loyalty as far as nations go.
Canada is in between - more like Europe but not quite as bad. Our problem is that the white, middle class elite has rejected our Christian heritage so there is a big empty spot at the heart of our national identity.
2. As far as the big picture of Muslim immigration to the West is concerned, I would seek to limit it to those Muslims who are genuinely interested in renouncing all thoughts of imposing Sharia Law on either Muslims enclaves withing Western countries or on Western countries as a whole. I would make the acceptance of liberal democracy and Christian traditions of limited government,the separation of powers, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, individual liberty, free enterprise, etc. a condition of being allowed to come or to stay. Muslims who believe in God and morality can be assets; but those who see Islam as a political ideology are dangerous and cannot be assimilated.
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