Germany never changes... German leader says multiculturalism has failed.

[dannubis]

@ Hera

If the first condition can't be fulfilled you are correct and in the end this will lead to civil war. I hope you are wrong...

My opinion in this matter is that Merkel is correct. Our society will change. We won't be able to stop that. However, this change should happen gradually so we don't destroy what we have built up.

And your last line is stupid-people scaremongering BS. Unfortunately it works.

[dannubis]

$10,000 is quite a lot of pretention.
In general the immigrants are different. Of course not in every individual case.
I think that's caused by the price and the ocean.

And of course that the culture of the American immigrants ('black Americans' and 'Spanish Americans') do not differ that much culturally from the 'western' Americans on values that matter for a more solid society.

Still there are A LOT OF problems when talking about the mexicans and their wilingness/ ability to learn proper English...

[Dinner]

What she said made perfect sense, namely, that immigrants had to learn German and adopt German values including work values instead of just trying to sponge off of the social safety net while not trying to integrate.

[Caligastia]

If you can't understand this, Alby, then you aren't very understanding of other cultures.

[Elok]

Nationality and ethnicity are theoretically and legally divorced in the UK and all of the EU. We have racists and xenophobes, everywhere does. If you are trying to claim that the US doesn't have a large percentage of people who consider an "American" to be a White Christian I will suggest you are deluded. Plus - Mexican Border vs Canadian Border. As a political issue the difference between those two is not entirely down to economics.

And Australia has a huge movement against immigration from non-whites. It's a highly controversial subject there. To suggest they are an example to others seems strange.

The rise of these kinds of views is deeply concerning for a lot of Europeans. As it is to a lot of Americans.

So...why do some EU countries have bull**** laws about veils and minarets? I assumed that you had to have some kind of enshrined belief in a national culture to get away with that kind of thing. It seems I assumed wrong, but then how do such laws exist? Well, I recall that the headscarf ban was phrased as some national security nonsense--even though everybody knew it was primarily about burqas and hijabs and what-have-you--but the minaret business in Switzerland. How does that work? Zoning violations?

And why do Muslim youth riot in Paris every other Tuesday? We've been bombing the piss out of the Islamic world for most of the past ten years and all we get is the occasional nut like that Nidal psycho who shot up Ft. Hood. And while we have some people as venomous as that Wilders guy in the Netherlands, none of them, to my knowledge, hold elected office.

Our Christian-nation types are pretty thoroughly restrained behind the First Amendment; they fumble attempts at school prayer, intelligent design and other rubbish every now and then, but that's it. The Minutemen appear to be motivated primarily by "they're stealing our jobs and mooching our social services," not "they'll teach our children to eat fajitas." And we have a relatively small, but growing number of Latino politicians. Does the average EU country have a comparable situation with regards to foreign congressmen/MPs/Mayors/whatever? I'm having no luck digging up stats on Wiki or Google.

Oh, and I mentioned Australia as another example of a country that I knew wasn't tied to an ethnicity. I had no idea about the situation there, and wasn't claiming they ought to be emulated. Nobody who likes "Vegemite" is worthy of emulation.

[Dinner]

ALPIE should ask Sloww how his Spanish lessons are progressing to get an idea of how the US sees multiculturalism...

EDIT: and this is NOT intended as a smeer towards USians or Texans

That's more or less it. Merkel is telling immigrants they have to learn German and not suck up welfare or at least that's what many of the papers here are reporting. This doesn't sound remotely controversial and the US demands the same thing (I.E. demands people learn English and limits welfare for even legal immigrants who have been here less then 10 years).

[MikeH]

So...why do some EU countries have bull**** laws about veils and minarets? I assumed that you had to have some kind of enshrined belief in a national culture to get away with that kind of thing. It seems I assumed wrong, but then how do such laws exist? Well, I recall that the headscarf ban was phrased as some national security nonsense--even though everybody knew it was primarily about burqas and hijabs and what-have-you--but the minaret business in Switzerland. How does that work? Zoning violations?

Switzerland isn't in the EU, I should have been clearer that I was referencing EU law. Switzerland is quite isolationist. But as for Minarets what happens in the US if someone wants to build an Islamic centre a few blocks away from Ground Zero? Everyone whoops and cheers about how great their multicultural nation is?

The UK has various bull**** local laws about kids wearing hooded tops in shopping centres, for 'security reasons' ie. You can't see someones face on CCTV. Which are analagous to the burqua restrictions. There was a case here of a suspected terrorist who borrowed a burqua to disguise himself as he escaped. I don't agree with either of those laws, but if you look at the burqua rules that do apply to EU countries they aren't specifically targeted at one religious group. And they tend to fall into two camps.

1. Attire must be practical for the job and adhere to safety rules.
2. Officials must be able to identify you when using government services, eg. immigration officer seeing your face at passport control or benefits officer being able to identify you for benefit payments.

The French Burqua ban is highly controversial throughout Europe. Here's a view from one of our right wing papers:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/7896536/Burka-ban-Why-must-I-cast-off-the-veil.html

And why do Muslim youth riot in Paris every other Tuesday? We've been bombing the piss out of the Islamic world for most of the past ten years and all we get is the occasional nut like that Nidal psycho who shot up Ft. Hood. And while we have some people as venomous as that Wilders guy in the Netherlands, none of them, to my knowledge, hold elected office.

Why are areas of many US cities virtual no-go zones? Combination of poverty, anger, drugs and gangs.

You have elected plenty of right wing Christian hatemongers. IMO

Our Christian-nation types are pretty thoroughly restrained behind the First Amendment; they fumble attempts at school prayer, intelligent design and other rubbish every now and then, but that's it. The Minutemen appear to be motivated primarily by "they're stealing our jobs and mooching our social services," not "they'll teach our children to eat fajitas." And we have a relatively small, but growing number of Latino politicians. Does the average EU country have a comparable situation with regards to foreign congressmen/MPs/Mayors/whatever? I'm having no luck digging up stats on Wiki or Google.

Our nutjobs are much, much better restrained than yours legally speaking.

In the UK we have 8 Muslim MPs, 3 of whom are women out of 650. Which is not great. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi is the Conservative Party's co-chairmen. Muslims politicians are much better represented at local level where they represent more localised constituencies.

Oh, and I mentioned Australia as another example of a country that I knew wasn't tied to an ethnicity. I had no idea about the situation there, and wasn't claiming they ought to be emulated. Nobody who likes "Vegemite" is worthy of emulation.

Australia is worse than the UK when it comes to multiculturalism, but we're both very good.

[MikeH]

That's more or less it. Merkel is telling immigrants they have to learn German and not suck up welfare or at least that's what many of the papers here are reporting. This doesn't sound remotely controversial and the US demands the same thing (I.E. demands people learn English and limits welfare for even legal immigrants who have been here less then 10 years).

Exactly!!!11ONE!11

You already do all of that in the US, but in Europe it's still controversial to even go that far!!

[OzzyKP]

That's more or less it. Merkel is telling immigrants they have to learn German and not suck up welfare or at least that's what many of the papers here are reporting. This doesn't sound remotely controversial and the US demands the same thing (I.E. demands people learn English and limits welfare for even legal immigrants who have been here less then 10 years).

How do we demand people learn English? We don't even have an official language.

Switzerland isn't in the EU, I should have been clearer that I was referencing EU law. Switzerland is quite isolationist. But as for Minarets what happens in the US if someone wants to build an Islamic centre a few blocks away from Ground Zero? Everyone whoops and cheers about how great their multicultural nation is?

You see a couple of nutter demagogues complaining about it, but is there a law to stop the Mosque? No. We don't have minaret bans or burqua bans here. We don't try to legally expel an entire ethnic group (Roma). You say that your nutjobs are better restrained. The trouble is that your mainstream politicians (i.e. Merkel) sound like our nutjobs (i.e. Palin, Beck, etc). Your nutjobs... well they scare the bejezus out of us. Yet, whenever some American nutjob (i.e. moderate European) does something like threaten to burn a Koran or make a stink about the Ground Zero mosque you Europeans go into a frenzy about us dumb, redneck, racist, evil Americans, all the while excusing and ignoring your own terrible racism. Funny also how the American who threatened (and didn't follow through on it) to burn a Koran was made enemy #1 around the world, but when Brits actually did burn Korans Europe just kind of shrugged.

Plus with all the racism and fretting Europe does about "multiculturalism" it is very different orders of magnitude. All the hand-wringing in Germany about the Turks is over just 2.1% of their population. Mulsims are 4% total. In France Muslims are what, 8% of the population? 1.9% in Norway, 5% in Sweden, 4% in Switzerland, 6% in the Netherlands, etc. Not that big a deal. In this country, where ethnicity and skin color is a bigger deal than religion we are 12.4% Black, 15.4% Hispanic, 4.4% Asian, and 4.9% some other non-white race.

You guys honestly just need to get a grip and quit being such damned racists. I'd hate for you guys to do something rash again, and necessitate us coming back to kick your ass like we did in the 40's.

[Dinner]

A great many states do have official languages and part of the immigration and naturalization process is the ability to speak and read English not to mention the other tests (US history and government, etc...) are all taken in English so you're kind of screwed if you don't speak English. Of course there are ways around this (being a refugee, foreign spouse, etc...) but the vast majority are required to take the naturalization process to become a US citizen and that means being required to speak and read English.

[Caligastia]

If only voters had similar requirements...

[OzzyKP]

A great many states do have official languages and part of the immigration and naturalization process is the ability to speak and read English not to mention the other tests (US history and government, etc...) are all taken in English so you're kind of screwed if you don't speak English. Of course there are ways around this (being a refugee, foreign spouse, etc...) but the vast majority are required to take the naturalization process to become a US citizen and that means being required to speak and read English.

Knowing enough English to pass that test and actually knowing English are two different things.

[Dinner]

Yeah, not to difficult but still you have to know enough to understand the questions and write a response.

[Robert]

Our immigrants are worse than theres? Because some of them are islamic?

'Worse' is your word.
'different' is mine. If 'different' means 'worse' in your dictionary, then you're the xenophobe here

[Robert]

Still there are A LOT OF problems when talking about the mexicans and their wilingness/ ability to learn proper English...

Still there are, so then you can imagine how much more problems there are if the cultures are a lot more different then the cultures of the USA and Mexico.