# Multiculturalism Has Failed, Say European Leaders **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 11, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047 "2011-02-11T18:23:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/181 "2011-02-16T14:58:26Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > Basically, the Baltic states went back to _jus sanguinis_ citizenship, which is not an unusual thing as far as countries go. But that’s not the same thing as imposing ethnic purity. Their residents, including the ethnic Russians, can acquire citizenship provided they fulfill a few conditions, which (if I look at [Estonian nationality law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_nationality_law) for an example) includes showing some knowledge of civics and of the national language. In other words, they have to take a few steps to fulfill their side of the social contract, and if they do so they can become citizens equal to all others. > > I cannot view this as unreasonable. Russians have nearly a whole continent in which they can live with full citizenship rights if they’re not interested in knowing any language other than Russian. Even in the Russian Federation’s national republics, use of Russian is prevalent and the nominal national language is in many cases endangered. If Estonians and Latvians want to feel at home in their country, instead of feeling they are somewhere in the middle of Russia, they have the right and the ability to do something about it. It is wrong and inequitable to impose “citizenship criteria” on persons who are already long-time citizens (in some cases for generations now), treating them essentially as aliens in their own country. What “Russians” have en mass is not in issue. We are talking about individual people who happen to live in Estonia, not “Russians” as a group. The fact that some Russians, elsewhere, have full citizenship rights makes absolutely no difference - why should it? “Get out if you don’t like it” isn’t an answer to a denial of human rights. Those who happen to live in Estonia and Latvia, and have been long-time citizens of those countries (and in some cases the grandchildren of citizens) and who speak Russian are fully as much “Estonians” and “Latvians” as those who live there and speak Estonian or Latvian. The fact that this makes their fellow-citizens “uncomfortable” is surely no excuse to deprive them of citizenship rights and thus to treat them as second-class or aliens. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/182 "2011-02-16T16:18:05Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > This said, what causes harm can be a matter of debate. As an American, you’re probably more on the individualist side of things, as evidenced by your toleration of Nazi or anti-gay speech as harmless. To Americans, the individual freedom of expression is paramount. But even in the US, some kinds of speech are not tolerated, threats for example. Members of less individualistic cultures may view speech that would be tolerable to Americans as inacceptable. All true–and irrelevant, I’m afraid. Those were simply examples. I certainly advocate a pretty extreme free-speech position, but if you have a less extreme free-speech position, you can still apply the same metric. You might come to different conclusions regarding anti-gay speech, but whether that anti-gay speech is coming from an atheist, a CoE pastor, or a Muslim extremist shouldn’t matter. > [@](#): > > And even when we don’t want to make something illegal, it doesn’t mean we have to actively encourage it. I think you should learn to communicate in the national language when moving into a new society. This doesn’t mean I think it should be illegal not to, just that I won’t shed any tears if you’re having trouble communicating with your neighbours or with the government, or if you’re ever told that you cannot become a citizen unless you do learn it. Some government services I really want everyone to be able to use: -Police (around here, there’s a real problem with crime in immigrant communities that’s exacerbated by the difficulty some immigrants have communicating with the police) -Health Department services (if you can’t get vaccinated, it endangers everyone’s health). -Schools (if you want immigrant kids to assimilate, they need to be enrolled in schools that use best practices for ESL services, and you want parents to be able to communicate with teachers about their children’s progress). -Tax departments (I don’t want people to have an excuse not to pay taxes) There are a lot of government services that I want extended to people regardless of their fluency with English. What’s the advantage, for example, in the Health Department not being allowed to communicate in Spanish? FWIW, I think there’s a parallel among English speakers: I’d like illiterate people to be able to use government services, too. > [@](#): > > Well frankly, if you’re failing to learn the language of your community, it’s because you’re not really trying. You figure you can get by without the effort and maybe you’re right. But if you put yourself into a situation where you had to learn it, you would. Of course it may take some time, so I’d agree that there is a societal benefit to accommodating you (by providing translators, for example) while you’re still learning. And I’d even say that the society has a duty towards you, and should provide you with the opportunity to learn. But you on the other hand have a duty (maybe not a legal one, but I’d say a moral one) to take this opportunity. What are you basing this “you’re not really trying” claim on? As I said before, it’s very difficult for many adults to learn a new language during their adult years. This appears to be an artifact of our biology: kids ages 2-8 have tremendous amounts of their brains devoted to acquiring language, but those abilities atrophy as adolescence approaches. Some adults retain the ability to learn a new language, but others can’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/183 "2011-02-16T16:32:57Z")
Personally I don’t approve of those who believes that it is gods will that women aren’t allowed to leave the house without a male or a chaperone, that women MUST wear strictly confining clothes, that it is permissable for male members of their family to beat them for real or imagined transgressions. I also don’t approve of those who forbid women to have independant careers, and who think that it is ethically correct for male family members to kill female family members for even GOING OUT with someone (even without any sexual contact) of whom their ethnicity, religion, or branch of religion is not approved of by the male members of the family. I don’t approve of people of a cultural minority trying to get the Law of the Land set aside for themselves and their friends and special laws more suited to the middle ages applied to themselves. If that makes me intolerant, then I must be intolerant. The host culture is always criticised for being lukewarm in their acceptance of alien practices introduced by those who have CHOSEN, uninvited to move to their country, but there is a deafening silence about immigrant communities, castigating for example, the majoritys women as being sluts because of their lifestyle, the population at large of being godless heretics, and so on. Admittedly not all of those from the transplanted communities hold those views, but when called upon to condemn them they always seem to be halfhearted in their comments, which doesn’t help the majority population to feel that their intentions of integration are very strong and that their tolerance for the majority culture is very real. I think that different cultural events make my country a more interesting, exotic and colourful place to live. But I don’t appreciate people who are in reality, uninvited guests condemning the way I live, and trying to bring pressure to bear to amend my lifestyle to a way that THEY like. If you don’t like it then invite yourselves off to yet another country and hide behind THEIR passports without having any intention of showing tolerance for their culture let alone integrating with it. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/184 "2011-02-16T16:51:07Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Personally I don’t approve of those who believes that it is gods will that women aren’t allowed to leave the house without a male or a chaperone, that women MUST wear strictly confining clothes, that it is permissable for male members of their family to beat them for real or imagined transgressions. > > I also don’t approve of those who forbid women to have independant careers, and who think that it is ethically correct for male family members to kill female family members for even GOING OUT with someone (even without any sexual contact) of whom their ethnicity, religion, or branch of religion is not approved of by the male members of the family. > > I don’t approve of people of a cultural minority trying to get the Law of the Land set aside for themselves and their friends and special laws more suited to the middle ages applied to themselves. > > If that makes me intolerant, then I must be intolerant. > > The host culture is always criticised for being lukewarm in their acceptance of alien practices introduced by those who have CHOSEN, uninvited to move to their country, but there is a deafening silence about immigrant communities, castigating for example, the majoritys women as being sluts because of their lifestyle, the population at large of being godless heretics, and so on. > > Admittedly not all of those from the transplanted communities hold those views, but when called upon to condemn them they always seem to be halfhearted in their comments, which doesn’t help the majority population to feel that their intentions of integration are very strong and that their tolerance for the majority culture is very real. > I think that different cultural events make my country a more interesting, exotic and colourful place to live. > > But I don’t appreciate people who are in reality, uninvited guests condemning the way I live, and trying to bring pressure to bear to amend my lifestyle to a way that THEY like. > > If you don’t like it then invite yourselves off to yet another country and hide behind THEIR passports without having any intention of showing tolerance for their culture let alone integrating with it. There are really different issues here. Those who come to another country must respect the laws of that country. If they murder women for dating or whatever, hang 'em high (or incarcerate 'em to the full extent of the law, or whatever). I don’t think anyone would disagree. Equally, if some of them hold what you and I consider obnoxious views, no-one says anyone has to approve of those views - any more that one has to approve of the nasty obnoxious views anyone else has. OTOH, once they are citizens, they are not “guests” any more than you are. They have a perfect right to lobby to change the laws in their favour, within whatever constitution prevails in your jurisdiction - just as you have. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/185 "2011-02-16T16:56:16Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Personally I don’t approve of those who believes that it is gods will that women aren’t allowed to leave the house without a male or a chaperone, that women MUST wear strictly confining clothes, that it is permissable for male members of their family to beat them for real or imagined transgressions. > > I also don’t approve of those who forbid women to have independant careers, and who think that it is ethically correct for male family members to kill female family members for even GOING OUT with someone (even without any sexual contact) of whom their ethnicity, religion, or branch of religion is not approved of by the male members of the family. > > I don’t approve of people of a cultural minority trying to get the Law of the Land set aside for themselves and their friends and special laws more suited to the middle ages applied to themselves. What a wonderful coincidence–neither does anyone else in this thread! Your last example, however, requires a little examination. If someone wants the law of the land set aside, of course that’s a non-starter. If, however, they want to practice a brand of private arbitration in an arena of life in which private arbitration is allowed, then it’s none of my dang business what their flavor of private arbitration is. > [@](#): > > The host culture is always criticised for being lukewarm in their acceptance of alien practices introduced by those who have CHOSEN, uninvited to move to their country, but there is a deafening silence about immigrant communities, castigating for example, the majoritys women as being sluts because of their lifestyle, the population at large of being godless heretics, and so on. If that’s what you need, then here, lemme break the silence: I condemn immigrants who castigate women (not the majoritys women, but women) for being sluts or the population at large for being heretics. Is that all you need? If those immigrants try to change the law to prevent godless heresy or sluttiness, I’ll register my opposition on a messageboard, too. > [@](#): > > But I don’t appreciate people who are in reality, uninvited guests condemning the way I live, and trying to bring pressure to bear to amend my lifestyle to a way that THEY like. Well, of course not. I don’t think anyone here is saying, “It’s wrong for the majority culture to impose their culture on a minority, but the reverse is just peachy keen.” If you start a GD thread about how it’d be wrong to impose Sharia law on the general US population, I suspect there won’t be a heckuva lot of controversy. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/186 "2011-02-16T17:09:39Z")
It seems to me that the Baltics - Russians situation is something that is not in any real sense tied to immigration. Russians were moved by the Soviet State en masse to the Baltics as part of a security policy. This is not a case of immigration policy in any traditional sense, but Post Imperial unwinding, which presents very different questions. Now after independence and at least a decade of cold hostility to their independence by Russia, one can understand the Baltic state’s complexes relative to Russian (as the imposed imperial language) and the Russian minority of sometimes questionable allegiance to the new Baltic states and a source of potential irredentist claims by Russia (where in the case of the Ukraine and other periphery states, one can see vividly this is not a merely theoretical concern). On the other hand I’ve read critical accounts of the manner in which certain Baltic states are approaching minority rights and active discrimination against Russian speakers. In short, there are complex questions in the Baltics (which provide fodder for criticism of both the Baltic governments policies and the comportment of the ex-imperial power tied minority), and ones that are not really the same as immigration questions, and whose origins and drivers are significantly different than anything that W. Europe is facing relative to immigration. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/187 "2011-02-16T17:18:46Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Your last example, however, requires a little examination. If someone wants the law of the land set aside, of course that’s a non-starter. If, however, they want to practice a brand of private arbitration in an arena of life in which private arbitration is allowed, then it’s none of my dang business what their flavor of private arbitration is. It is if its a patriarchal rural culture intertwined inextricably with a similar religion and imported wholesale from backward rural Bangladesh and Pakistan it’s very much our business. When women have such distinctly unequal status and the laws/customs are stacked against them I don’t think we can be sanguine about the results. [What Isn’t Wrong with Sharia Law](http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/05/sharia-law-religious-courts) > [@](#): > > Now a report, Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights, reveals the adverse effect of sharia courts on family law. Under sharia’s civil code, a woman’s testimony is worth half of a man’s. A man can divorce his wife by repudiation, whereas a woman must give justifications, some of which are difficult to prove. Child custody reverts to the father at a preset age; women who remarry lose custody of their children even before then; and sons inherit twice the share of daughters. > > There has been much controversy about Muslim arbitration tribunals, which have attracted attention because they operate as tribunals under the Arbitration Act, making their rulings binding in UK law. > > But sharia councils, which are charities, are equally harmful since their mediation differs little from arbitration. Sharia councils will frequently ask people to sign an agreement to abide by their decisions. Councils call themselves courts and the presiding imams are judges. There is neither control over the appointment of these judges nor an independent monitoring mechanism. People often do not have access to legal advice and representation. Proceedings are not recorded, nor are there any searchable legal judgements. Nor is there any real right to appeal. Just peachy. [Some Imams ‘biased against women’](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7783627.stm) > [@](#): > > A Muslim think tank has found some UK Imams discriminate against women when enforcing Islamic Sharia law. > > Scholars at the Centre for Islamic Pluralism (CIP) interviewed 90 Muslims in London, the West Midlands, Lancashire and West Yorkshire. > > They found some women did not get fair hearings in forced marriage, arranged marriage and domestic violence matters. [More goodness](http://www.hudson-ny.org/641/the-uk-girls-trapped-by-islamic-law) > [@](#): > > Although it has generally been thought that five sharia courts were operating in Britain, just over a week ago Civitas revealed that there are now at least 85 sharia courts operating across the country. > > Troublingly, Civitas says that some sharia rulings it looked at, “[…] advise illegal actions and others that transgress human rights standards as they are applied by British courts,” and that, “[…] for many Muslims, sharia courts are in practice part of an institutionalized atmosphere of intimidation, backed by the ultimate sanction of a death threat.” > > In other cases, a lack of ability in spoken English, or lack of familiarity of British society, law, police, and so forth, will undoubtedly mean that many Muslim girls and women in particular are left vulnerable to a court system that is biased against them. There is always a spectacular risk of abuse in a system with an inbuilt gender bias and power bias running on norms of justice contrary to what we consider human rights. > [@](#): > > In February of last year, a 15 year-old Pakistani girl was forced to marry a forty year-old man with the mental age of five, again via the telephone. When she arrived in England from Pakistan she was forced to work as a prostitute by her new family, who invited men to their house to rape her. “This marriage,” Victoria Golshani on Islamist Watch observes, “was not recognized by the Home Office but was and is still recognized by the Sharia courts that flourish in the UK,” having been approved by the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain, despite the minimum age for marriage being 16 under English law. > > Should she have a boyfriend at some point in the future - though doing nothing abnormal in the eyes of English society - she will be committing adultery in the eyes of Britain’s 85 sharia courts, and, as such, in the eyes of many Muslims in England and her home country, Pakistan. Such a thought would undoubtedly make any Muslim girl rightly fearful for her safety. All such courts of any religion should be shut down. And while we’re at it - no state funding for schools of any religion either. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/188 "2011-02-16T17:19:29Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > It seems to me that the Baltics - Russians situation is something that is not in any real sense tied to immigration. Russians were moved by the Soviet State en masse to the Baltics as part of a security policy. This is not a case of immigration policy in any traditional sense, but Post Imperial unwinding, which presents very different questions. > > Now after independence and at least a decade of cold hostility to their independence by Russia, one can understand the Baltic state’s complexes relative to Russian (as the imposed imperial language) and the Russian minority of sometimes questionable allegiance to the new Baltic states and a source of potential irredentist claims by Russia (where in the case of the Ukraine and other periphery states, one can see vividly this is not a merely theoretical concern). > > On the other hand I’ve read critical accounts of the manner in which certain Baltic states are approaching minority rights and active discrimination against Russian speakers. > > In short, there are complex questions in the Baltics (which provide fodder for criticism of both the Baltic governments policies and the comportment of the ex-imperial power tied minority), and ones that are not really the same as immigration questions, and whose origins and drivers are significantly different than anything that W. Europe is facing relative to immigration. The Baltics are simply an extreme case, presumably chosen to disprove a general rule - as in, if it is “okay” to discriminate against fellow-citizens on the basis of ethnicity in the Baltics, why not here (albeit perhaps to a lesser degree)? One could substitute any case for the Baltics where the minority can be suspected of dubious loyalty to the rule of the majority, based on historic, religious, ethnic, lingusitic factors. Seems a fair question to me, and one deserving of a robust answer - it _isn’t_ okay, even in the Baltics. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/189 "2011-02-16T18:28:55Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Have you ever been outside the country?!? In Mexico, India and China you can eat at McDonalds Going into McDonalds in India and finding nary a hamburger on the menu does make it feel a bit, un-McDonalds. I couldn’t even muster staying for the fries. ☹ As for burqas, I find the locations of one shop in Chicago selling them two blocks away from it’s most famous strip club rather humerous. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/190 "2011-02-16T20:45:44Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > When women have such distinctly unequal status and the laws/customs are stacked against them I don’t think we can be sanguine about the results. > > [What Isn’t Wrong with Sharia Law](http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/05/sharia-law-religious-courts) I think you’re missing my point–but on reread it’s because I left out an important qualifier, so my bad. Lemme try it again: If, however, they want to practice a brand of private arbitration in an arena of life in which private arbitration is allowed, AND THEY OPERATE IT ACCORDING TO THE REQUIRED STANDARDS OF PRIVATE ARBITRATION, then it’s none of my dang business what their flavor of private arbitration is. I thought I’d said that, but I didn’t, and I should’ve. In other words, yes, there are certainly arbitration boards that treat clients unfairly. Some of those are the in-the-pocket arbitration boards used by corporations to screw employees out of compensation for corporate malfeasance, but others of them are Sharia arbitration boards. The solution isn’t to say, “No Sharia law.” The solution is to create and enforce clear guidelines for arbitration boards. These guidelines probably ought to be based on a robust understanding of human rights. They may not discriminate against protected classes any more than any other institution: if you want to treat a certain race, sex, or creed differently from all others, the default answer is “you can’t.” I’m no lawyer, but I suspect that an arbitration board that recommends an illegal action would be legally culpable for its recommendation, possibly under anti-conspiracy laws; if not, the law should be changed to make it crystal clear that no board may recommend illegal actions. Within those parameters, if someone wants to set up a board that depends on a magic 8 ball, or on reading iguana feces, or on Koranic scholarship, no skin off my nose. Does that qualifier answer your objections adequately? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/191 "2011-02-16T20:53:42Z")
Another way of looking at the issue is by replacing “arbitration” with “contract”. All of the same arguments remain just as true - in an ethnic community where in some cases (say) women are not treated equally or are taken advantage of because they lack English skills, they are, again in some cases, likely to be ripped off in various ways by on their face legally-binding contracts. The (say) husband says “sign here” and the wife signs. Is the solution to (for example) prohibit persons from that community to contract? Or is a better solution to have courts enforcing contracts alive to the possibility of unconcionability? Same with arbitration. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/192 "2011-02-16T23:16:22Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > > > Well frankly, if you’re failing to learn the language of your community, it’s because you’re not really trying. > > Nonsense, it’s always been quite common for first generation immigrants to learn little to none of the local language. It’s a difficult task, however easily it is dismissed by the people who don’t expect to be the ones doing it. Your claim does not disprove mine. It is common for first generation immigrants to learn little to none of the local language, but that’s when they live in ethnic enclaves where they don’t need to use it. In other words, they’re not _trying_ to learn it, just as I claimed. Should they? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? I don’t think there can be only one answer. > [@Malthus](#): > > It is wrong and inequitable to impose “citizenship criteria” on persons who are already long-time citizens (in some cases for generations now), treating them essentially as aliens in their own country. Here I’ll make more of a legalistic argument, but the thing is that there wasn’t such a thing as Estonian (or Latvian, etc.) citizenship, and there hadn’t been since 1940. The Baltic states were not successor states of the Soviet Union, so when they gained independence they could and did define their nationality law as they pleased. The Soviet Union does have a successor state, which is Russia, and these long-time citizens (of the Soviet Union) could have kept that citizenship without having to meet any additional criterion. (And they can gain Estonian (etc.) citizenship, so it’s not a matter of “ethnic purity”.) I don’t think you and I can agree on this, **Malthus** , although of course I understand your position, and I’m sure you understand mine as well. You’re approaching the issue from a standpoint of individual rights, while I’m looking more at the collective rights of societies. Both of these concepts need to be weighted when designing citizenship criteria, or a general cultural policy. One question though: do you think residents of a country have some sort of natural, individual right to citizenship, with the rights that follow from it, in that country? Because it seems to me that the very concept of citizenship, which is a creation of the collectivity, implies a link to this collectivity, and from that a requirement to fulfill one’s end of the social contract. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > All true–and irrelevant, I’m afraid. Those were simply examples. I certainly advocate a pretty extreme free-speech position, but if you have a less extreme free-speech position, you can still apply the same metric. You might come to different conclusions regarding anti-gay speech, but whether that anti-gay speech is coming from an atheist, a CoE pastor, or a Muslim extremist shouldn’t matter. This seems reasonable to me, but I’m curious to know what you think of the concept of hate crimes, since they’re a case where we go beyond what direct harm an act has caused and into the realm of the conscience of the perpetrator. Of course, in this particular case, someone guilty of an homophobic assault is guilty of a hate crime (if such a concept exists in their jurisdiction) whether they’re an atheist or a Muslim extremist, so perhaps the point is moot. Some jurisdictions have also started punishing more harshly so-called “honour killings”, which are another example of a potentially culturally-linked crime. Once again, we can hope to be able to recognize such crimes without needing to refer to the defendant’s cultural background, although I can see why it could be part of the proof. This said, I agree with you that people should enjoy equality before the law regardless of what their cultural background is. > [@](#): > > Some government services I really want everyone to be able to use: > -Police (around here, there’s a real problem with crime in immigrant communities that’s exacerbated by the difficulty some immigrants have communicating with the police) > -Health Department services (if you can’t get vaccinated, it endangers everyone’s health). > -Schools (if you want immigrant kids to assimilate, they need to be enrolled in schools that use best practices for ESL services, and you want parents to be able to communicate with teachers about their children’s progress). > -Tax departments (I don’t want people to have an excuse not to pay taxes) This all seems fair to me, although of course it can always happen that people will fall through the cracks. It is understood that learning a new language can be a long process, so some level of accommodation while this process is ongoing is good policy. > [@](#): > > What are you basing this “you’re not really trying” claim on? As I said before, it’s very difficult for many adults to learn a new language during their adult years. This appears to be an artifact of our biology: kids ages 2-8 have tremendous amounts of their brains devoted to acquiring language, but those abilities atrophy as adolescence approaches. Some adults retain the ability to learn a new language, but others can’t do it. If you live in an American city where the main language of communication is English, it can be extremely difficult or even impossible for you to learn another language. But if you were to move in another country where you’d be surrounded at all times by speakers of another language, with no English around, you would basically have to learn to communicate in that language. Maybe not perfectly, but enough to be understood. Unless you deliberately isolate yourself. That’s because you’d be in full immersion in the language, which would require much more effort from you than simply trying to learn a foreign language in your spare time. I’m willing to consider that some learning disabilities may make this process impossible, but I’m talking about the majority of adults here. > [@wmfellows](#): > > It seems to me that the Baltics - Russians situation is something that is not in any real sense tied to immigration. Russians were moved by the Soviet State en masse to the Baltics as part of a security policy. This is not a case of immigration policy in any traditional sense, but Post Imperial unwinding, which presents very different questions. It is a particular case, and one where some arguments on one side or the other cannot really be transferred to the question of immigration. But we’re talking about multiculturalism here, which includes more than just immigration even though it’s what might pop up to mind first. I think it’s an interesting case to consider, with parallels elsewhere in the world, which is why I brought it up. And it does show that questioning multiculturalism isn’t automatically a codeword for rejecting Muslims. This may be what’s on the mind of some who’d claim multiculturalism has “failed”, in Europe or elsewhere, but multiculturalism is a complicated question which involves much more than just this. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/193 "2011-02-16T23:20:48Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > It is if its a patriarchal rural culture intertwined inextricably with a similar religion and imported wholesale from backward rural Bangladesh and Pakistan it’s very much our business. > > When women have such distinctly unequal status and the laws/customs are stacked against them I don’t think we can be sanguine about the results. > > All such courts of any religion should be shut down. > > And while we’re at it - no state funding for schools of any religion either. The more sensible approach would be to restrict immigration from muslim countries. There are plenty of other places if you need extra people. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/194 "2011-02-17T00:03:57Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Oh really? Then answer me this: if a country simply decides to conduct all government business in the host language only, say, English, who is getting beat up? Where is this force you speak of? Never mind “lots of it”, any of it? The US doesn’t have an official language. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/195 "2011-02-17T00:17:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The US doesn’t have an official language. Nor does it have an official religion. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/196 "2011-02-17T00:36:29Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The US doesn’t have an official language. I don’t believe anyone claimed it did. I know I didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/197 "2011-02-17T00:39:22Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The US doesn’t have an official language. > [@kidchameleon](#): > > Nor does it have an official religion. But those are what the other side in this argument want to create. A state defined and enforced language, religion and culture. In the name of “protecting our culture”, and most amusingly, in the name of freedom. The phrase “we destroyed the village in order to save it” comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/198 "2011-02-17T00:47:44Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > But those are what the other side in this argument want to create. A state defined and enforced language, religion and culture. In the name of “protecting our culture”, and most amusingly, in the name of freedom. The phrase “we destroyed the village in order to save it” comes to mind. What is wrong with protecting a culture or having an official language? [Lhasa Tibetan - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Tibetan) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/199 "2011-02-17T00:51:24Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > What is wrong with protecting a culture or having an official language? Stomping on people for being different isn’t “protecting your culture”, it’s aggression. And an official language is at best pointless, and more often an excuse to indulge in bigotry and exploitation. Nothing good can come from it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047/200 "2011-02-17T03:28:14Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > … You’re approaching the issue from a standpoint of individual rights, while I’m looking more at the collective rights of societies. Both of these concepts need to be weighted when designing citizenship criteria, or a general cultural policy. > > One question though: do you think residents of a country have some sort of natural, individual right to citizenship, with the rights that follow from it, in that country? Because it seems to me that the very concept of citizenship, which is a creation of the collectivity, implies a link to this collectivity, and from that a requirement to fulfill one’s end of the social contract… This was not addressed to me but I think this does hit upon the dynamic quite well. The question is hitting the sweet spot that grants significant individual rights _and_ the collective rights of the society. My position is that significant individual rights can be granted, that significant subcultural variation can be tolerated, respected, and even affirmed, while not only not diminishing those collective rights but enhancing them. Subcultures can be both members of a hyphen group and members of a larger community made of many such groups. The social contract to the collective does not require homegenity nor does it benefit from it. It requires a respect for the collective’s core values, and if the society is to be a pluralistic one, one of those shared core values must be respect for other members freedom to have many differences. BTW, while I do not endorse creating an official language (which forcing all government business to be conducted in a single language implicitly does), there IS some good from encouraging a common tongue. It is hard for an individual to be be part of the whole if the individual parts of the whole cannot interact. Without a shared language we may very function like the people in [that Escher print](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_(M._C._Escher)), walking along different axes in the same environment and functioning as completely separate peoples. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-has-failed-say-european-leaders/571047.md?page=11)