[lit-ideas] Re: At War with Ourselves
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 19:33:21 -0800
Well, I think we've just about beaten this insignificant quibble to death.
Actually it's been a sort of moving quibble. You weren't specific in the
beginning, just a vague indefinite something or other - much like Irene's
vagueness; then as time went on you seemed to pick something you liked and
there we've been
France is multicultural. We agree on that. The French people don't like
it. We agree on that. It doesn't work. I think we agree on that, but
where we don't agree is whether the French leadership approved of
multiculturalism.
The EU constitution required multiculturalism. Jacques Chirac and the other
French leaders praised the constitution and urged its acceptance. But the
French people roundly defeated it to a very large extent because if this
very same multiculturalism. Can we agree on that?
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report
<http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=306&language_id=1>
&report_id=306&language_id=1
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of JUDITH EVANS
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 6:38 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: At War with Ourselves
LH>A multicultural society means that the society accepts multiple cultures
*At last* -- and, agreed.
LH> If you go to France you don't' have to strive to be like other
Frenchmen, learn the language, learn LH>French history, or learn French
politics.
France set its face against such policies (*hence the banning of headscarves
-- and Jewish religious emblems -- in schools there*). The French tradition
of integration is that one is, whatever else one is, primarily and above all
else, *French*. The "Jacobin tradition" is of a unitary culture.
LH> You can be a Muslim and continue to speak Arabic and it's okay.
so I should bloody well think -- even Jacobinism allows that. What the
French tradiion seeks to ban and in some instances does is the intrusion of
Muslim tradition into the public sphere and the secular state (*e.g.
headscarves in schools*).
LH>Muslims were not tasked with become Frenchmen and women.
NONSENSE
LH>I'm surprised all you liberals are having so much trouble with this.
I'm having problems with your ignorance about France.
LH>You should be saying, "oh yes, it will work."
I'm saying it hasn't really been tried in France.
LH> Isn't it racist to say that multiculturalism won't work?
LH>Do you think it's okay for those French Caucasians to tell those
dark-skinned Arabs that they have LH>to be just like them?
French "colour-etc. blindness", integrationism, is a noble liberal ideal
that has failed, of recent decades, in that immigrant groups have become and
remained socially disadvantaged, marginalized, excluded. They live in
ghettoes like those of the US. The British and American political-liberal
ideal, more pluralist, has perhaps coped better. But I admire the
universalist notion/ideal that says a black Frenchman and a white Frenchman
are French first and foremost, that would refuse a hyphenation if it could.
Judy Evans, Cardiff
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