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hardcore_gamer

Just what exactly does immigration have to do with multiculturalism?

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EDIT: Before I get any more posts claiming this, I am NOT American but Icelandic. So some of the things in this post are about things happening in Iceland and not the USA or somewhere else.

I have noticed a growing trend among some people on the left who talk about hostility towards immigration and hostility towards multiculturalism like they are directly related to each other even though they are not.

Basically, it seems that people who do this are trying to create a social stigma against people who don't like the idea of multiculturalism by branding them "anti-immigration and thus racist".

At fist I did not really care, but then as this trend grew I got annoyed and now it has become extremely annoying. I know this probably doesn't apply to all countries (like the USA for example), but it seems that a considerable portion of the left that does this is doing so to advance their own political believes (socialism) by changing the original meanings of words for their own benefit.

For example, I have heard some self proclaimed leftists claim that multiculturalism is good by default because without it immigrants cannot become a part of society, which is a massive load of shit. I have also heard many Icelandic leftists (I pointed out that they are Icelandic because what I am about to say is probably exclusive to Icelandic politicians and not politicians in general) throw the term "multiculturalism" around like candy for the sake of gathering support even though a lot of them just barely (or not at all) even understand what multiculturalism even is.

To quote wikipedia:

Wikipedia said:

Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures


Note the word multiple. A lot of the people on the Icelandic left claim that Iceland has already become a multicultural state, even though Iceland is literally one of the most ethnic centric nations on Earth with even the majority of actual left being fairly nationalistic compared to many other countries, which makes their claim that Iceland "has already become multicultural" utterly laughable.

And yet they (as well as lots of other people from other countries) still insist that people cannot be accepting of immigrants without adopting multiculturalism, even though a recent study revealed the overwhelming majority of the people who had immigrated to Iceland to feel both happy and undiscriminated against.

I don't like the idea of multiculturalism, but it has nothing to do with any kind of dislike towards immigrants, I just want the country to hang on to its culture and customs instead of merely becoming one culture in a country with many cultures.

This thread isn't an attack on people who believe in multiculturalism, I am just sick of hearing people pull out the old and tired "disliking multiculturalism makes you racist" and "all good and accepting people are multiculturalist".

Why do people act as if you cannot be ok with immigrants without also believing in multiculturalism and/or that not liking it makes you a racist pig?

Thoughts?

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I don't really consider myself on the left, exactly, but I think it has to do with the fact that people who are anti-immigrant tend to oppose multiculturalism. Doesn't mean it goes both ways, as you are clearly an example against that, but I can see where the notion of a connection comes from.

As for myself, I don't really see what the problem with multiculturalism is... If you're not infringing on my rights, why should I care what you do? I don't like the idea of telling other people how to act, how to dress, what to eat, etc. Besides, in some ways, I find myself on the fringe of even my own culture, and a crackdown on multiculturalism would mean an end to me being able to lead my own life the way I see fit. For example, many see Christianity as part of our culture - so what, I shouldn't be allowed to be an atheist? And I support gay rights, which again, to many goes against our culture.

So really, my views on multiculturalism are an offshoot of my general views on life, which is that we should all have maximum freedom so long as we aren't hurting others.

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hardcore_gamer said:

I don't like the idea of multiculturalism, but it has nothing to do with any kind of dislike towards immigrants, I just want the country to hang on to its culture and customs instead of merely becoming one culture in a country with many cultures.


The idea is that multiculturalism shouldn't be taking anything away from that nation's culture. Everyone should be able to enjoy their own culture whilst still respecting everyone else's. That's the theory, anyway. Doesn't always work out like that, sadly.

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hardcore_gamer said:

but it seems that a considerable portion of the left that does this is doing so to advance their own political believes (socialism)

Are you kidding me? The left in the USA is right wing everywhere else in the world. Socialist? HAHAHAHA...get real. Look, 'Obama-care' is literally the exact same thing the republicans tried to push through in 1993 in the face of 'hillary-care'.

I don't like the idea of multiculturalism, but it has nothing to do with any kind of dislike towards immigrants,

Of course not, it has to do with a fear of your loss of cultural identity and superiority. IE: we can't have others come here because they speak a different language and have a different culture and you don't want that.

I just want the country to hang on to its culture and customs instead of merely becoming one culture in a country with many cultures.

This is so stupid. The 'culture' of the USA is a an amalgamation of a multitude of different cultures that have been here. British, french, german, african, spanish, irish, scandinavian... What culture are you refering to?

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I'm suddenly reminded of how so many people misuse the word "racist." It's become a go-to word anytime someone says or does something controversial that is even remotely tied to race. Not to change the subject, but I for one am sick and tired of people throwing the race card around when the issue isn't even about race or being racist.

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Quast said:

snip


I would probably have bothered responding to your points had you actually read what I said, which you clearly did not since you missed the parts where I clearly in an unmistakable manner said I was from/talking about Iceland and not the USA where things are completely different.

Iceland is nothing like the US. The US is a young 300 or so year old nation that was created mostly through immigration, while Iceland is almost 1200 years old with a population that has kept it to itself for almost the entire time on a remote island in the middle of nowhere. Completely different cultural backgrounds.

I also don't get it how you were somehow able to mix Obama's health care plans into this.

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Multiculturalism works in theory. Where it begins to fail is when some cultures cry foul of the local culture or the social structure it's based around. Good examples include the situation they have in Britain with Andy Choudary trying to create Sharia ran zones and Muslim only schooling (I'm a public school supporter).

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Multiculturalism is kind of weird in the U.S. We make a really big deal about "foreign" cultures (African, Asian, Latin, Middle Eastern), but we seem to have very little interest in Anglican cultures. It's almost like white people are the "default" American race and their culture isn't as interesting or important.

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Over here in the UK the parties on the right ARE racist, no questions asked. Have you heard what Nick Griffin is capable of saying? He's convinced there's no such thing as a black Welshman, for one thing. :S

Anyway, of course there are going to be comparisons between a negative outlook on immigration and a hatred of all things foreign, however plausible or implausible it might seem. The two do go together very nicely. (And I use that word... wrongly.)

We're paranoid of foreign people coming over and taking up our jobs for less pay and longer hours. We tremble at the thought of more people from different countries setting up home here until the white man is simply phased out of entire counties. "Oh no, of course they'll want to come and live here! Look at the climate!" "We won't be British any more if we let loads of foreigners in! D:"

Here's a newsflash, ladies and gentlemen: the fact that it's called "Great" Britain doesn't make it great. Have you seen it lately? It's a shithole. Just being British labels you with a penchant for whining, bad teeth, no skintone, and abysmal laziness.

Also, the name "Great Britain" doesn't even make the country British. Why not stop all foreign imports if you're so worried about your precious Britainishness? Yeah, try fashioning an HDTV set out of scones and Yorkshire pudding.

And if you want to stop rich British people hiring Polish workers for virtually no pay who'll build them a new conservatory - on time, with a smile on their face, and without needing a sit-down and a cup of tea every five minutes - then tell the British workers who overcharge and underwork to get their sodding work ethic back and stop demanding to be paid for fixing the wrong drainpipe or fitting the wrong kind of engine in our cars.

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Jimmy91 said:

Here's a newsflash, ladies and gentlemen: the fact that it's called "Great" Britain doesn't make it great. Have you seen it lately? It's a shithole. Just being British labels you with a penchant for whining, bad teeth, no skintone, and abysmal laziness.

Don't forget the bad food. ;)


On topic, it frustrates me that in Finland each and every political discussion where someone tries to be even slightly critical of current immigration gets turned into a shitfest of name calling almost immediately. It's simply impossible to suggest that "social welfare refugees" (as we call people who move to welfare states only for the benefits) should be more limited without being labeled a racist yourself. As such, any kind of constructive discussion on the status quo is simply impossible, and with no discussion on the issue nothing can be done to it either. Except making things worse by letting more poor, jobless refugees in and put them all into the same suburbs which'll slowly turn into ghettos.

Well, we do have one political party that has suggested limiting these social welfare refugees, is pro-immigration if the people have jobs AND has suggested that refugees would be spread around the country to avoid forming of ghettos. That last point in particular is a good one, since these uneducated people would be great workforce on the dying countryside where you can find lots of simpleish, physical jobs. Hell, even some educated workers like doctors would be more than welcome there (for some reason a lot of Finnish doctors would rather stay unemployed than work on the countryside). So what happened when these suggestion were made? The party was called racist and the discussion ended there. Yeah. :/

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I would consider myself firmly on the left, and I do think multiculturalism is the wrong way to go about immigration. Assimilation is the only viable way to go about it.

Multiculturalism leads to segregation -- if you have multiple cultures that stay separate instead of merging into a single cohesive whole, it's because each culture stays in its own little ghetto. Segregation leads to xenophobia (since you don't socialize with the other communities and therefore you focus on the differences that divide rather than the common points that gather together), and turn any inequality (in status, average wealth, or whatever) between each community into a racial issue rather than a social one.

It just makes everything worse. It is simply not possible to integrate in a multicultural society -- you disintegrate the society instead by being your own little island, along with like-minded people of the same community, and you separate from the rest.


It seems that nationalism has left such a sour taste, with the excesses of the 20th century, that any form of nation-building is seen as a bad thing. But you can't expect a nation-state to operate if the citizens don't consider themselves a nation. (That's the differences between a country, a state and a nation. Country is the physical thing, the land itself. State is the legal thing, the administration, law and government. Nation is the human thing, the people and their culture. When the three separate notions do not correspond to each others, you've got a problem.)

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I think that a more responsible approach to immigration should be taken, but I love multiculturalism. As long as people can respect each other's culture and stop trying to prove that they are the smartest and best. Which won't happen I guess.

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Jimmy91 said:

UK rant

I'm just going to say, Great Britain is the name of an island, not a country. I live in the US and I even know that :|

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Jodwin said:

Except making things worse by letting more poor, jobless refugees in and put them all into the same suburbs which'll slowly turn into ghettos.

. . . suggested that refugees would be spread around the country to avoid forming of ghettos. That last point in particular is a good one, since these uneducated people would be great workforce on the dying countryside where you can find lots of simpleish, physical jobs. Hell, even some educated workers like doctors would be more than welcome there (for some reason a lot of Finnish doctors would rather stay unemployed than work on the countryside).

The situation's much the same in Australia, where we're degenerating into a nation of tribes.

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hardcore_gamer said:

...but it seems that a considerable portion of the left that does this is doing so to advance their own political believes (socialism)

Stopped reading there.

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Wagi said:

Stopped reading there.


Why? What do you know about how the Icelandic left behaves? The socialists are currently in charge here by the way.

Again, I am not an American so this has nothing to do with American politics. Perhaps I should add that to the OP?

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hardcore_gamer said:

Why? What do you know about how the Icelandic left behaves? The socialists are currently in charge here by the way.

Again, I am not an American so this has nothing to do with American politics. Perhaps I should add that to the OP?

Yeah, I'm far too used to American politics.

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Wagi said:

Stopped reading there.


Yeah but the reds are a discredited failure and must be stamped out, actually.

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It pisses me off that shallow things like culture and religion can break people apart. I can't say anything more about this because it would open cans of worms.

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hardcore_gamer said:
For example, I have heard some self proclaimed leftists claim that multiculturalism is good by default because without it immigrants cannot become a part of society, which is a massive load of shit.

It is good because people are migrating a lot in the world, and having an intolerant attitude towards different cultures tends toward strife and abuse. It is good as a way to deal with things. That doesn't mean people who support it want to have people move around and mix for the sake of it. Cultural isolation is economical, social and technological isolation, so people start to mix rather naturally.

And yet they (as well as lots of other people from other countries) still insist that people cannot be accepting of immigrants without adopting multiculturalism, even though a recent study revealed the overwhelming majority of the people who had immigrated to Iceland to feel both happy and undiscriminated against.

I get the impression your culture is rather progressive (it has a welfare state) that there aren't too many immigrants, and you aren't close to conflict zones. All this may make the issue stranger to you, compared to what happens to other countries in the mainlands.

Gez said:
It seems that nationalism has left such a sour taste, with the excesses of the 20th century, that any form of nation-building is seen as a bad thing. But you can't expect a nation-state to operate if the citizens don't consider themselves a nation. (That's the differences between a country, a state and a nation. Country is the physical thing, the land itself. State is the legal thing, the administration, law and government. Nation is the human thing, the people and their culture. When the three separate notions do not correspond to each others, you've got a problem.)

The problem is there, like it or not.

I would say that the excesses in the 20th century were rather a crisis because after all the idea of nation is arbitrary and vague. Enhancements in technology have made us communicate much more, and we're somehow closer to and more aware of all the different cultures worldwide. Genetics have shown races only exist in a general vague way in the sea of mixing people. Whole social movements have questioned the relevance and applicability of clear-cut nations and identities due to their historical experiences.

The assimilation you speak of, on what level should it occur? If it applies to groups in nation states it also applies to them in relation to regions or meta-national relations, so that nations themselves get assimilated into something greater. And that happens, and that's one of the things that have eroded the idea of nation states. In that scenario, other cultural identities may take predominance over a national identity. Assimilation of immigrants may occur, but it also occurs the other way around. Immigrants bring new customs and some of these become part of the regional identity. So, what are we assimilating? Does some part have to go while another stays? Who decides?

In some sense, we all have many nationalities, because the world is full of people that have migrated, and their cultures bear characteristics from their origins, which in turn were the results of mixings. A nation is not a "fixed" thing. It is continually changing much like the policies of countries and like technology. This change occurs due to (multi)cultural influences. A degree of assimilation occurs, but it's in the process of cultural mixing and generation.

You said segregation comes from multiculturalism (or more properly different cultures at the same time), but it also comes from assimilation whenever one party is supposed to assimilate the "dominant" party's culture. "Your culture isn't worth much, you must drop it to fit in, you aren't worth much, because your culture identifies you. In fact, you'll never be part of the real thing because you have a weird skin color and face, but we can let you be a relative copy of that, instead." So yeah, multicultural assimilation is not a bad idea. All regions, countries and provinces need to have their identities, but for them to be democratic, these should naturally flow from the cultures their participants bring in. And if people assimilate with each other, they should do it rather naturally, not through some forced "melting pot" idea that might not take them seriously.

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Depends of what cultures we're talking about.

I'm sure everybody would accept rich, white, Christian cultures from nice, small, rich, clean countries like Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourgh, Monaco, San Marino, Finland, Sweden etc. where everybody is blond with blue eyes and 100% aryan. These are the easy ones. The harmless ones. The neutral ones.

Now throw in some brown skin...some Islam...some controversial geopolitics...some inconvenient realities... some cultural incompatibility and annoying activism... yup, being "multicultural" is not as easy or pleasant as becoming a wannabe rastaman with a Manu Chao T-shirt now, is it?

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I've always been pro-multiculturalism. Then again, I'm an American and I live in a country founded by about 200 different cultures.

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myk said:

The assimilation you speak of, on what level should it occur? If it applies to groups in nation states it also applies to them in relation to regions or meta-national relations, so that nations themselves get assimilated into something greater. And that happens, and that's one of the things that have eroded the idea of nation states. In that scenario, other cultural identities may take predominance over a national identity.

It's not a problem if the national identity is eroded by a supranational identity. For example, if someone starts identifying as European rather than as British or French or German or whatever other EU country, then it's good.

It is a problem if the national identity is eroded by something smaller. Instead of the sense of community becoming more inclusive, it becomes more exclusive. The identity doesn't become a way to accept more people as kin, but to reject more people as not being "like us".

myk said:

Assimilation of immigrants may occur, but it also occurs the other way around. Immigrants bring new customs and some of these become part of the regional identity. So, what are we assimilating? Does some part have to go while another stays? Who decides?

Empty rhetorical question. The same people decide as those who decide how language evolves; that is to say, nobody, for any attempt at dictating that is doomed to fail and be deemed ridiculous and insulting. It is possible for some people to have an influence, but only with broad strokes and a serious time and money investment, or small anecdotal things with a lot of luck.

myk said:

You said segregation comes from multiculturalism (or more properly different cultures at the same time), but it also comes from assimilation whenever one party is supposed to assimilate the "dominant" party's culture. "Your culture isn't worth much, you must drop it to fit in, you aren't worth much, because your culture identifies you. In fact, you'll never be part of the real thing because you have a weird skin color and face, but we can let you be a relative copy of that, instead."

That's pretty much the exact inverse of assimilation you're describing there.

Assimilation is simply a matter of doing in Rome like the Romans and being accepted as a result. There's no question of superiority and inferiority in it. Bigotry on one side and resentment on the other are what prevents assimilation from occurring.

myk said:

So yeah, multicultural assimilation is not a bad idea. All regions, countries and provinces need to have their identities, but for them to be democratic, these should naturally flow from the cultures their participants bring in. And if people assimilate with each other, they should do it rather naturally, not through some forced "melting pot" idea that might not take them seriously.

Society is a lot more malleable than you seem to think. With a good sounding board you can redefine what's acceptable and expected behavior and what isn't. It works unsettlingly well. The changes aren't instantaneous, but they can happen quite fast, over just a couple generations... Go back in the USA of the 1960s and ask 20 random people what they'd think about having a Black president, for example.

Multiculturalism has been actively promoted as the desirable state of society, any alternative being deemed racist and oppressive. It's funny. Multiculturalism is all about having the country split up into many different cultures which keep to their own. Separate but equal, one could say. It's not racist because they're equal! And keeping them separate allows to preserve cultural diversity by ensuring cultural purity in each of the little communities. Really not racist at all.

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Multiculturalism is a funny contradiction. If you want everybody to believe in it you have to wreck a part of their culture -- possibly a huge part of their culture. This automatically makes your society less multicultural. It drags people slowly into creating permissive societies with fewer taboos, which is good. On the other hand, hard-core multiculturalists have a shitty habit of tolerating some pretty bad cultures. The end result seems to be what most countries had anyway.

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When I hear of multiculturalism I'm reminded of groups of nomads and squatters coming from the east and being allowed to do their biological stuff on your pavements and carpets because "they're different and exotic and their music is interesting". We're being way too tolerant to their disgusting customs.

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Things are only "culture" if they are foreign. Unless you are outside the USA in which case both the USA's and your own culture are not culture.

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It's just a buzzword thrown there to deceive you. While you debate trivial non-issues like this or animal rights, politicians and economists concentrate on the real deal (taxes, cuts, wars, oppressive laws etc.) while you are still debating if only a nigga should call another nigga a nigga, or whether there can be humane slaughter of sewer rats for pet foods or whatnot.

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