Multiculturalism - a racism in disguise

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Spiffor
But the central point of feminism is that women themselves decided to defend their dignity and sovereignty.

This depends on definitions. I see socialist-feminists doing more to achieve this than radical feminists. Ultimately I see feminism as an analysis that mistakenly starts with gender rather than production, and ultimately blames men, rather than backward social relations, for inequality.

[Spiffor]

Thanks for the link. Interesting read

However, my version seems to differ with your comment:

Article 5

Positive action

With a view to ensuring full equality in practice, the principle of equal treatment shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or adopting specific measures to prevent or compensate for disadvantages linked to racial or ethnic origin.

The directive doesn't push for affirmative action in countries where it doesn't exist. However, it doesn't bar AA-countries to continue practicing it. Generally speaking, this directive seems harmless (I can't imagine a EU country that hadn't adopted such dispositions in 2000 already), but maybe the European Court turned it into something stronger since.

Affirmative action is more prevalent in countries with multiculturalism, but it's not exactly the same as multiculturalism: in its core, multiculturalism is about adapting our laws to make the cohabitation between various groups more harmonious.
AA is about providing better opportunities (economic opportunities mostly) to minorities. Because legal equality isn't enough to provide a real equal-opportunity, when society treats the members of the minority unequally from the members of the majority (or of a favored minority).

[RGBVideo]

Make your own feminism-thread or start talking in PMs, please.

Arguing about what is "true" feminism is about as idiotic as arguing about what is "true" marxism-leninism. I believe all men in this forum are for equal treatment of men and women, so there isn't really that much to argue outside the definition of the word "feminism".

[RGBVideo]

my version seems to differ with your comment:

It is not "my comment". It is directly copied from an official web page of the European comission, id est the guys who made the directive.

this directive seems harmless

Yes. Clearly the guy who was on probation for manslaughter while he beat the fuck out of two schoolkids in front of my eyes getting away instantly without any time in jail because he was black and declared himself to be a muslim was harmless.

in its core, multiculturalism is X

In it's core, marxism-leninism is about giving the power to the working people.
In it's core, libertarianism is about making freedom possible.
In it's core, nazism (zomg godwin! I lose :()is about taking care of bunnies and poor little babies.

Call me crazy, but when the phrase "multiculturalism" is used to justify racial discrimination, it is very clearly wrong. It doesn't matter how many "positive" or "good" words you put in front of it, discrimination based on race or religion is wrong. I don't really care about formal definitions which bored geeks in Wikipedia have formed from a orwellian word-combination which doesn't actually mean anything. The things and acts which are being done with the excuse of the phrase "multiculturalism" have been and are my focus in this thread. These things include the directive which changed the Finnish law so that it now gives milder penalties to people who are of a "correct" race or religion.

Why are you excusing racial discrimination, Spiffor? What motivates you to defend bigotry? If you do not, then say that you do not and we're done with this because we agree.

[Heresson]

A tiny point showing how situation may turn:
before ww2, definite most of law students in Poland were Jews. Therefore, right-wing parties toyed with the idea of numerus clausus, that is a notion that the percentage of Jews in these (and other) studies had to be not bigger than their percentage in society.
This idea was fought bitterly by left-wing parties.

Now these are left-wing parties who would gladly institute a numerus clausus for men... parties are obliged to give a third of the places in their parliamentary lists to women, I believe, but there were ideas to make it 50%, and apply it to gouverment-owned companies etc.
I don't know why people do not see this irony.
It is very easy to discriminate against someone who is considered the discriminator, and very hard to "protect" him against being discriminated against.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by VJ
Yes. Clearly the guy who was on probation for manslaughter while he beat the **** out of two schoolkids in front of my eyes getting away instantly without any time in jail because he was black and declared himself to be a muslim was harmless.

And this comes from the directive how? Over here, we don't have AA, and we're in the same EU as you are. To me, this event looks like something typical of the Finnish judicial system (at least what I read of it in Pekka-posts).

Call me crazy, but when the phrase "multiculturalism" is used to justify racial discrimination, it is very clearly wrong. It doesn't matter how many "positive" or "good" words you put in front of it, discrimination based on race or religion is wrong. I don't really care about formal definitions which bored geeks in Wikipedia have formed from a orwellian word-combination which doesn't actually mean anything. The things and acts which are being done with the excuse of the phrase "multiculturalism" have been and are my focus in this thread. These things include the directive which changed the Finnish law so that it now gives milder penalties to people who are of a "correct" race or religion.

If the Finnish politicians tried to say that they had no choice in implementing AA because of evil Brussels, they're demagogues and liars. Nowhere in the directive does it say that penalties should be lower for minorities: it has been purely invented by the Finnish parliament.
Also, lower penalties for minorities strikes me as being incredibly stupid (despite me generally agreeing with the policy of low penalties in Finland). A crime is a crime, and the only personality traits that should weigh in a judicial decision are personal responsibility (you don't deal the same way with a healthy adult than with a child or a trisomic) and criminal past. I wonder how the heck such a law could pass without the Finns making a huge stink about it.

Why are you excusing racial discrimination, Spiffor? What motivates you to defend bigotry?

1. When I explain something, it doesn't mean I agree with it. I'm ambivalent about AA, for exactly the same reasons I'm ambivalent about multiculturalism: while it'll help integration on the short run, I fear it'll divide society on the long run.

2. I'm not defending bigotry. I'm defending what I consider the best result, i.e. a society where everybody has the opportunity to make his own destiny. Multiculturalism and AA can contribute to it. They aren't panaceas. They aren't the evil you ascribe to them. They're tools, to be used or not, in the right situation.
If you grow up in a country whose enlightened values are brutally at odds with your obscurantist parents' and neighbours', to the point that a synthesis between them is impossible: at one point you'll have to choose between your loved ones and your country. Is it empowering? No, it isn't. A reasonable use of multiculturalism can mend the gap, and actually help people feeling at ease in what is their country too.
If you grow up in a country where all officials tells you that everybody's equal. But at the same time, you see that you're constantly rejected from job interviews, from house interviews, from nightclubs... because society rejects people of your colour, is it empowering? Is it equal chance? Was it worth it to study so much, if everybody still thinks of you as a stupid ******? No it's not. To compensate for society's racism, strict legal equality is not necessarily enough. AA can be an answer.

Now, the thing that strongly bothers me about multiculturalism and AA is that the state puts people in boxes, that supposedly represent their identity. I fear this kind of well-wishing discrimination will end up imprisoning people in these boxes. And instead of creating a harmonious system, it'll create a bunch of various identities at odds against each other.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I honestly don't know. Do you have Abu Hamza style ranting clerics in the States? There's this phrase 'Londonistan' which is supposed to refer to a culture of extremism in some mosques and a fashion for ultra-radicalism.

I'm sure we probably do somewhere (though I know one is in jail for the WTC bombings in 1993ish). Though most ranting clerics in the US tend to be Christian, ie, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson types.

Perhaps 'Nationalism' is not an entirely negative thing when it is about cohesion in society and shared values and principles. Perhaps there should be a less negative word for it. I feel that the West, certainly the UK and EU, has lost its way in knowing what really defines its own values - enlightenment values that should be non-negotiable, but somehow seem up for grabs. When free speech is under threat - as it is from many quarters, it seems that those values are no longer taken for granted.

I realize that free speech is far more entrenched in the US than in Europe (in terms of its perceived sacredness), but it isn't like enlightenment values are being held up as non-negotiable under this administration... and it isn't due to Muslims (well, indirectly, I guess... Bush is using the Muslim fundies to take away certain rights).

My (unfashionable) view is that the concept of interventionism has become popularised in recent years at various levels. What it boils down to, for the firebrand young radical, is that if "going to war for {insert noble cause here} is good enough for Tony Blair, it is good enough for me". Add this to the concept of internationalism among leftists and liberals, the disregard for traditional notions of sovereignty and nation-states, mixed with the concept of an Islamic Nation that transcends borders, and the radicalism is more of a religious version of ideas that are popular with governments and secular internationalists alike. That is, that International Law and Sovereignty are inconvenient fictions that deserve to be disregarded in the service of some greater good. I consider these to be the bedrock of international order, more so than leading governments, it seems.

So is it socialism/leftism fault? I mean the gist I'm getting from this is that since the US does NOT have a past with a strong socialist movement, except for spurts here and there, the language of internationalism and 'who cares about sovereignty' has never been a message that was able to be co-opted by reactionaries?

It seems a bit of stretch to me. Though if you are correct, then the current US administration is just going to breed radicals because he seemingly has no use for state sovereignty, though he isn't into internationalism, so I guess it's a bit more complicated.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by VJ
You want me to find a quote of yours where you're defending anti-white bias?


First post of yours in this thread, attacking an author for daring to demand end for separate law treatment based on race. Ergo, you're defending law enforcement bias against white people.

Man, that was easy. Thanks for playing a rhetorical game. Now how about that reality?

Get a clue, VJ. Bruckner is a well-known troll in the French media. Each and every of his intervention is a .

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by VJ

Good strawman, pretending that I was claiming that criticising the author because the author is white is racism instead of what I actually claimed.

Read what I write, idiot. Nowhere did I mention the author's race.

[Last Conformist]

Re: An example of a specific directive, Spiffor:

Originally posted by VJ
Here's the part which was used to the legal discrimination I described (underlining mine):

Positive Action

The directives recognise explicitly that outlawing discrimination will not necessarily be enough by itself to ensure genuine equality of opportunity for everyone in society. Specific measures might be called for to compensate for disadvantages arising from a person’s racial or ethnic origin, age or other characteristics which might lead to them being treated unfairly.

This is what ideology of multiculturalism is in theory, surreal violence and continous fear I have described in this thread is what it is in practice.

This allows discrimination, but doesn't mandate it. Unless there's something more in the French (which I can't read), it would seem the blame for the particular policies you denounce lies firmly with the Finnish political system.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by VJ

Too bad I've known you for long enough to recognise your nitpicking out of things both you and the guy you're laughing at agree on and know as irrelevant to know that you're trolling again

Just out of curiosity, with whom am I agreeing on what here? I'm not agreeing with you that Spiff's a racist, if that's what you mean.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


Get a clue, VJ. Bruckner is a well-known troll in the French media. Each and every of his intervention is a .

Odd.

Replacing Bruckner with yourself, and French media with Apolyton....

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Sirotnikov and others.

The responses to Bruckner, by the two people he incriminates, are fairly interesting.

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1161.html

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1166.html

I bookmarked them and will read it over the weekend.

Don't expect me to fall for silly socialist post-modernist logic though

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Don't expect me to fall for silly socialist post-modernist logic though

Actually, they aren't nearly as silly socialist post-modern as Bruckner implies. Their responses strike me as interesting because they show that Bruckner based his criticism of them off BS "facts".

[Sirotnikov]

Ok, so Timothy Garton Ash basically has almost no interesting points in his answers.

He mainly says "I never said exactly this or that" which is technically a good retort. But he never seriously confronts the ideas presented by Bruckner except in the end:

Having commented in my New York Review essay that "I regard it as a profound shame for Holland and Europe that we could not keep among us someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali" I went on to suggest that her approach "is not showing the way forward for most Muslims in Europe, at least not for many years to come. A policy based on the expectation that millions of Muslims will so suddenly abandon the faith of their fathers and mothers is simply not realistic. If the message they hear from us is that the necessary condition for being European is to abandon their religion, then they will choose not to be European." I continue to insist that this is an obvious truth, and an important criticism of the position adopted by both Ali and Bruckner.

And then he abdicates without explaining key points:

- Why should Europe adjust its culture for its newer citizens, and not the contrary? It isn't the Europeans that came to Morocco

- What if the religion or culture or any other value of the newcomers is extremely contradictive with core European values? (freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc)

- How does that this describe the European demands on Turkey to change its basic laws and values?
.