Talk:Multiculturalism/Archive 1

message: Sorry, I took a stab at it before discussing anything here, but I'll try to address Ortolan and Stewacide's points.
America is torn between (a) embracing lots of different cultures and (b) promoting a clear standard of right and wrong. There is a view that "all cultures are equally good" which presumably means that cannibals from primitive are on the same level as America's founding fathers. This touches on the philosophical issue of "relativism", here meaning the doctrine that no one is ever in a position to say that anything is right or wrong since there is no absolute right or wrong".
Some of the bullet points from the previous version ought to be brought back into the article (gently, slowly!) -- but as paragraphs. I wouldn't like to see a hodgepodge, because that's not an article. It's not even a good outline. 
I'm not saying my version is the best possible one, just that it's a valid starting point; the previous version was junk. At best, it described one POV; but it didn't even do that well. So I started with the viewpoint -- the identified and attributed POV -- of a recognized scholar. 
If someone wants to add a Marxian analysis; or a "liberal viewpoint"; or a "right-wing" view from someone like Bill O'Reilly or Patrick Buchanan; or any of several spokesmen or -women from the Democratic Party, good! Please add clearly identified POVs to the article!! I'm just using Ravitch as a stub: I don't pretend she's objective or neutral. --Uncle Ed 17:15, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: The Ed Poor rewrite

message: I removed "California drivers can take their exams in a number of languages, something no Canadian province or Australian state permits."  I do not known for certain, but I would be very surprised if driver's tests are not available in both French and English in some Canadian provinces. - SimonP 03:50, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
:Hilariously wrong, in fact.  I can't speak for other Canadian provinces, but here in BC you can take your driver's license exam in damn near any language you can find a certified translator for; which would include at three or four varieties of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Arabic, Farsi, Amharic, Russian, Polish, Yugoslav in all its varieties, and the usual list of other European languages; I wouldn't be surprised if Somali and Swahili were also available, although generally Africans speak enough English or French to be examined in those languages. (public services in the city of Vancouver and other municipalities are also available in a plethora of languages).  There's thousands of BCers who barely speak a word of English who have a BCDL, and by that I mean legitimate driver's licenses.  What I mean by that is that because of the translator-examiner system, there were large-scale abuses of licensing procedures in the wake of the influx from Hong Kong after that city's takeover by China; such that for $3000 your examiner and your translator would get you through the test; so all kinds of people (over 100,000) who not only didn't speak English but didn't actually study the local driving laws or do a proper exam are on our roads.  When this first broke as a scandal, "multiculturalism" was invoked to keep there from being mass criminal prosecutions for bribing officials and obtaining a license illegally; the campaign against prosecutions was led by S.U.C.C.E.S.S., the United Chinese Canadian Enrichment Services Society, on the basis that since over 96% of the licenses obtained this way were to new Chinese immigrants, it would be "racist" to prosecute the driver's licensing scandal since most of the indicted would be Chinese.  Of course, this is the same crowd that has no problem with Chinese-only shopping malls which habitually exclude/shun non-Chinese customers, but have also joined the bandwagon over redress for the Head Tax; one great feature of multiculturalism as experienced in Canada is the rank hypocrisy and the flexibly biased interpretations of what it means; so long as the interpretation retrenches/distinguishes your group's status within the multiculture; and the loosey-goosey use of "racism" whenever another group or groups reacts to your own group's uppitiness and sometimes arrogance (as with the driver's license scandal).  There have been recent convictions concerning this, but not on the same scale, and of course prosecutions are unofficially "ethnically distributed" so it doesn't appear that any one group is breaking the law more than others; which means that some groups are "getting away with it" at a higher rate than other groups, because of "ethnic balance" in the prosecutions.  One guy I knew rented a basement suite from a senior Insurance Corporation of British Columbia administrator for East Vancouver back in the early 1990s, and during a drunken neighbourly conversation one night my acquaintance asked his landlord, "c'mon, tell me how many of the accidents in East Van are caused by Chinese?" and the landlord replied "we're not allowed to keep those kinds of statistics...but, frankly, all of them" (granted this in a part of town where 30-70% of drivers/residents are now Chinese, depending on the neighbourhood).  This may sound like a set of racist comments to someone not familiar with Vancouver or its ethnic milieu, but other groups than my own (white guy, granted) including Filipinos and other Asians have the same opinion/experiences.  What's a tragedy, to me, is that because of multiculturalism this city does now have definable groups; before the influx it was just multicultural/multiethnic; now it's divided, despite official propaganda and big-media bumpf to the contrary....Skookum1 16:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed line

message: Will Kymlicka?
And who is "administrative scientist Gunnar K. A. Njalsson"? Relevant enough to be paraphrased so extensively, or is this paragraph on wikipedia his major publication? His ideas don't seem very scientific to me.--84.188.155.49 06:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the Kymlicka section, because it didn't seem to be related to anything else in the article and was just floating there in its own little universe. - Randwicked Alex B 07:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who's this Kymlicka fellow? 

message: I've temporarily removed the following statement from the article:
:"According to the UN, Toronto, Canada, is the most multicultural city in the world."
While I think that this is probably true, it doesn't seem to be very good form to say "According to the UN..."  Is this an official statement of a UN agency?  If so which one?  Is it the result of a comparative study?  By whom?  It would be best to provide a source for this.  Sunray 21:26, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
:Toronto has a way of self-aggrandizement in all things, which is one of the many reasons other Canadians shrug it (the boasting) off and despite the place (when not hypnotized by the slick if cheesy selljob the city specializes in). "Most", "best" and all that stuff; Vancouver does the same, but only because it apes Toronto, and not incidentally it began when Toronto-based media began to dominate Vancouver's....and I'd venture London as more multicultural anyway.....Skookum1 15:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Toronto: the world's most multicultural city?

message: For example, France has made efforts to adapt French culture to new immigrant groups
What specifically is considered a French effort to adapt French culture to new immigrants? I come from France, and haven't seen any such a thing ever. Integration, as in assimilation is the motto, and even third generation descendants of immigrants who have little to nothing in common with their original population are still considered immigrants, non integrated unless you are unable to guess they have immigrant ancestors.
:This is an important comment.  I suggest you not only delete this line from the article, but add a section on multiculturalism in France, too. Continental Europe is conspicuously absent from this article.  Does that imply a lack of understanding of the importance of multiculturalism, at least regarding immigrants?  What about Switzerland and Spain, that have long histories of multiple cultures living within one nation?  All this is very important, and absent from the discussion, both here and in contempoary politics.  Bruxism 01:24, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll delete it if I get no reference, but I'll give it a few days first, whoever wrote that must have had something in mind I guess. Good suggestion on adding a section on multiculturalism in Continental Europe. I wouldn't be able to write on any other country than France and Spain though: I don't know enough about other countries to write a quality entry about them. To quickly answer your questions : Not only French society lacks understanding of the importance of multiculturalism, it actually has a quite negative opinion of it and has policies that deeply oppose the concept (both for immigrants and native minorities). I'll describe the issue in more details when I write about it (I'm a little bit tight on time now). Spain is more open to multiculturalism, and has kept some diversity (with catalans, basques, galicians, etc.) despite Franco's policies going against that. I'm only dealing with contemporary aspects of multiculturalism and setting aside the middle ages episodes against Jews and Muslims, which AFAIU are not relevant to this article. Spain's tolerance to multiculturalism is limited to its native national components though, not to immigrant cultures at all (though immigration is too recent a phenomenon in Spain to have any significantly structured policy in that sense).--Yobaranut 07:17, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  France 

message: In the external links section, the link to the article "Multiculturalism: E Pluribus Plures" by Diane Ravitch seems to be a dead link. (I'm not learned or confident enough to edit the actual wikipedia entry) -m.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.237.91.30 (talk • contribs) .
:The link is dead and I couldn't find that essay anywhere else on the net so I removed it.--Rockero 22:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External link to page not found 

message: What's with the external links in this article? They all take an anti-multiculturalism position; one is even a racist diatribe by a fringe organization that warns of the impeding "Asianization" of Australia ("The Menace of Multiculturalism" by Cameron McKenzie). Somebody needs to add some balance and weed out the less credible links. As it stands it looks like somebody has an agenda to push. -- Kilgore Trout  03:22, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: I too thought the section critiqueing U.S. multiculturalism was a horribly lopsided report. I believe America embraces multi-culture. Just as a small example my university is working toward a more diverse campus each year. That is an important part of their long term agenda.
:In general, this can be said to be true. However, the reality of what college campus' attempt to do, compared to what "Americans want" is difficult to prove to be the same thing. Like the issue in general, this is an example of 'theory vs. practice'. In theory, my undergrad alma mater has made efforts to culturally diversify the campus. Lots of initiatives, lots of approaches. I'm not sure how one can measure if such attemps have been sucessful. Or even what success in these endovors would look like. So, it's not enough to say these things exist, but rather we need to understand the goals and whether or not they've been accomplsihed or even can be.
:However, to your point, the college campus has been an on going experiment in multiculturalism policies. That should probably get some focus in the article.--Jonashart 20:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lopsided article 

message: These paragraphs have been removed from the "Criticisms of multiculturalism in general" section due to the fact that they are not criticisms, but rather a defense of multiculturalism. The pro and con arguments need to be separate. The pro-multicultural portion above has no clauses that rebut their statements, yet in the criticism part, every critique is rebutted. This is poor writing technique and does not follow proper debate rules and needs to be adjusted. For now, I've taken out all of the rebuttals from the criticism and placed it here.
:However, proponents claim that policies that facilitate racially proportional representation (district as opposed to at-large local elections) and the accommodation of bilingualism in voting, both do precisely the opposite: they may encourage political participation and increase minority representation in local and national political life. On the other hand, democracy can only work if there is public debate. 
:But it is also true that the human mind is born without any culture, and that in nearly all societies attempt to condition their citizens culturally. What is distinct about multiculturalism is the assertion of an identity, aside from the nationally imposed identity, allowing for individuals within minority cultures to exercise more free choice than they otherwise would in a universalist society.
:But some multiculturalists argue that this is not supported by historical record. According to their interpretation, fears that minorities in the US or Canada will have divided loyalties have been a canard, for example, to intern Japanese-Americans during World War II. Some multiculturalist research indicates that native-born ethnic and religious minorities in North America have high rates of out-marriage and participate fully in their country of birth. They tend to identify culturally but not politically with the home of their forbears. The potential struggle to alter societal values is a concern mainly in European countries with a historically monocultural development, where religious and ethnic minorities may be or at least perceive themselves to be politically and socially marginalized, a condition that can reinforce fundamentalist strains in any culture.
Instead of removing the paragraphs, it would be better to rename the section "debates" or "controversies" and present both sides of the arguments. Otherwise, the article looks very one-sided. C3po 08:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad debate techniques in the Criticism section 

message: Polemic removed. I cannot believe that such an essay has any place in an encyclopedia. JiHymas@himivest.com 17:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Feel free to start linking any appropriate quotes or sources you think would improve this article.--Saintlink 04:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''Multiculturalism - The big one''' 

message: The most recent edit changing "non-white people" to "foreigners" is interesting. If that paragraph following the Pat B quote is a follow up, then read below. If it's a stand alone comment about people's general concerns regarding multiculturalism, then it was a good change.
While it'd be nice to believe the people who express views like those of Pat B. fear all foreigners, can we really believe that to be true? If all the immigration to the US (legal or otherwise) were by white, Christian Europeans, can we honestly believe we'd see the same kind of disputes regarding these issues? The fact is, people fear the "other", especially when that other doesn't look like "us". Unfortunately, part of people's push against "multiculturalism", both in the U.S. and in Canada has very much to do with race, color and religion. As such, we should think carefully about the language we use to describe that reality. Understating can be as dangerous as overstating. Granted, I understand the difficulty in quantifying such things, so word choice can be a tricky task. However, people do not become "unracist" because we choose more politically correct language to describe the situation.  --Jonashart 13:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: United States Critique

message: Editors interested in this topic might like to take part in peer review on a new version of Global justice I've been working on. Cheers, --Sam Clark 11:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer review request

message: The second half of this particular qoute could use some ciation. It's far too anecdotal, and the kind of thing that breeds uninformed hearsay. While it's probably 100% true, proof always puts one's argument on more solid ground.
"Recent immigrants are largely concentrated in the cities of Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, which are beginning to feel the strain of this large population growth due to this localized immigration."
--Jonashart 15:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Like I said, I don't doubt the reality of the situation. My concern is that in a day and age where rhetoric surrounding immigration and ethnic tension is rampant, the more proof for such statements, the better. Living an hour south of the border, I'd be a bit concerned if I overheard one of my co-workers say something to the effect of "Well, Montreal is in terrible shape because of the Arabs (or whomever)..." That kind of unsupported, ambiguous statement does little good, even if just meant to inform. Perhaps I'm overly sensitive to the subject, but I think we can be better about how we affect the general discourse. I don't mean to sound three kinds of PC, but language affects ideas, ideas affect action, etc, etc. These things are chatted about by people who don't really pay close attention to the details, and are happy to parrot any little tidbit they pickup. This topic is no different from a thousand others in that way. However, I pay attention to this one.--Jonashart 17:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Gotcha. I'm familiar with the "don't ask, don't tell/don't look behind the Great Oz's curtain" attitude to which you refer. Again, slippery slope down an overtly polical discussion that is best avoided here. Lots of interesting qualitative vs. quantitative topics to kick around as well.--Jonashart 17:28, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Keep your head low and your mouth shut, huh?  Yeah, I know...but I've gotten tired of having to do that so speak my mind on a regular basis, even in Wiki as too often there's really bad history/moralizing all over the place in various articles.  I'll send you some WikiTalk links later, plus some of my ravings on www.thetyee.ca, which is a local online magazine/blogging space where I shoot my mouth off full steam.  I'm tired of being the forelock-tugging Canadian meekly dishing out what the political/academic establishment has decided is good for us; see Talk:Canadian identity, for instance.Skookum1 17:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not quite that bad. But, as a Yank, there's only so much I can/should say. My understanding of these things comes as a foreign observer. One need tread carefully when discussing such idealized entities such as the Canadian Cultural Mosaic and Multiculturalism. And rightly so, as I'd hope people would be respectful (even if critical) of the Melting Pot, for instance.--Jonashart 17:56, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I don't know about being a Yank disqualifying you from commenting on us; after all, people with freshly-minted Canadian passports (legitimate or otherwise) do it all the time, as do landed immigrants - telling us who we're supposed to be, what it's supposed to mean to be Canadian, what's wrong with Canadians ("don't like hard work", "untrustworthy" and other similarly flattering comments), and more.  That's all a spin off of the government/CBC propaganda machine, which has an image/identity it's created that it wants us all to buy into; and a handy way to do that is to indoctrinate all the new arrivals, such that their voices will eventually drown out the older identities in the country; the comment on a young Chinese-Canadian businessman-turned-politico-from-Calgary to Gloria Macarenko on the CBC's flubbery two Canada Days ago resonates harshly in this light: "We've almost eradicated the old British Columbian identity/culture...we're just waiting for the holdouts to die off".  Yeah, tolerance and appreciation of diverse cultures, huh?  Especially not our own, apparently; that was in fact the first time I EVER heard on CBC that there had ever been a British Columbian culture...And as for the Melting Pot thing, a lot of Canadians (including more-integrated "multicultural" ones) look south and they see a place where a Martian-American is much more likely to feel American and identify with the United States, vs a Martian-Canadian whose primary loyalties and identity are still connected with Mars, and often still hold a passport for same; and insist on living Martian-style and showing no regard for the non-Martians around them...The Mosaic sucks, and as noted above somewhere harks back to the divisive forces which tore apart multicultural states in the past (Ottomans, Austria-Hungary, Rome, the Ummayad Caliphate and others).  Trudeau's noxious line that "English Canada doesn't have a culture, I'm going to give it one" is redolent of the anti-attitude towards old-stock Canada; it's as if we didn't exist; yet my First Nations friends comment, upon hearing that, that "yeah, we were told we didn't have a culture, either....".Skookum1 18:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're describing a reality never envisioned by the original champions of the idea (isn't that always the way tho?). If you have a culture in which specific ehtnicities have numeric, political, and economic superiority, and you introduce a system by which other cultures can occupy the same land, maintain a separate identity, and for foreseeable generations, account for fewer people, doesn't that seem adventageous to those already in power? What you're descibing sounds like it's backfiring...--Jonashart 18:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A few weeks ago a government blab-release announced, as a good thing, that over 50% of the country would be Chinese in twenty years.  This in context: the Chinese-Canadian associations and politicos are demanding "more balanced immigration", meaning more Chinese immigration.  Yet if you read Talk:Chinese Canadian you'll find that 30-50% of those already here do not speak English, and don't want to; that's up to 500,000 people at current levels.  To me, "balanced immigration" should mean more Latin Americans, Europeans, Middle Easteners etc, but that's not what it means in newspeak-multicuturalthink, apparently.  That such bits of news are presented without question and without much discussion is part of the political formula of this country, and of its media; those who control advertising spending, i.e. big companies who have a stake in increased trade with China etc, "don't want any trouble"Skookum1 19:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps the investment is too large at this point to turn back (or, any other direction)...--Jonashart 19:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

text: From that perspective, you could see such action as a 're-upping' of the early federal laws separating the Anglos and Francos (see: Upper and Lower Canada). This acts as a modernized version,   as the B&B Commision wasn't initially concerned with anyone outside those groups. More food for thought.--Jonashart 13:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The issue of political name-calling, when it comes to arguing against something like federal Multiculturalism, is unfortunate. Right vs. Left is just a reductionist view of the world. Being told how you should think, and to think otherwise is wrong is always a bad thing, no matter what side it's coming from. Because one finds fault with something like this particular federal policy shouldn't be equated to not likeing foreigners...but often is. This is the way the word turns.--Jonashart 17:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

text: We'd take you, but only if you stop quoting Lennon! I'd prefer Ozzy's blatent rip-off, "Dreamer" (he's an admitted giant fan of the Lennon and the MopTops).  Alot of what you describe seems like federally sponsored self-loathing. Several groups have their reasons for promoting Multiculturalism, but with very, very different goals in mind. In fact it looks a bit like a hegemonic free-for-all: "the identity of Canada is up for grabs, good luck!". Ok, that's a bit cynical, but it's odd that the identity(s) of a nation can never truely be established, if that means being "unfair" to newcomers. As an American, I find some irony in this. The running joke re: culture and ethnicty is that the US doesn't have any. Of course, thats because it's wide open, and it's supposed to mean something different for all. However, our gov't isn't as quite involved in dictating that process. Seems like Canadian culture will head the same direction, but for vastly different reasons.--Jonashart 18:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed 

message: The monoculturalism article is only a stub, and since the term was invented as the 'opposite of multiculturalism' its context is here. Of course the monocultural ideal existed before the neologism, but it would have been called 'national unity' or something similar.Paul111 19:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge monoculturalism 

message: No source was given for this work, and there is online evidcne that it exists, as already noted above. This is apparently a hoax by someone posting their own views.Paul111 10:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted Gunnar Njalsson 

message: I removed this confusing passage in the Australia sub-section The government had to accept that the assimilation had failed, as a result, the multiculturalism policy was brought in during the 1970's The paragraph implied that a right-wing columnist (Andrew Bolt) had campaigned for assimilation and as a result a 1970's government had introduced multiculturalism. That can't be right, especially as he was still a schoolboy at the time.Paul111 10:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Andrew Bolt behind multiculturalism? 

message: Saying that Fortuyn's followers were often xenophobic is very POV and probably incorrect considering his open homosexuality. I'll change it to "occasionly". --Onias 21:04, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Xenophobia

message: --Greasysteve13 10:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why does [[monoculturalism]] redirect here?

message: Some words should be shed on the question whether multiculturalism is a mere fact of life or rather an ideology like marxism and libertarianism.
::In Canada, it is Federal policy. The point is a good one, however. Canada declared itself "multicultual" in the midst of some social unrest regarding the social and economic statuses of several different groups (French Canadians, Ukrainian Canadians, Italian Candians, etc.). By the time a federal policy was put into place, Canada had been "multicultural" for the better part of 300 years. Such a policy/declaration certainly had/has political motivation and leanings that should not be overlooked. One should ask: "What motivates a government to declare it's country 'multicultural'"? Begin to answer that question, and a very interesting history unfolds.--Jonashart 18:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't multiculturalism a policy more than it is an ideology? Driller thriller 17:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is multiculturalism an ideology? 

message: The article seems to have ignored multiculturalism in Asia altogether and seems to concentrates on English speaking world (with the exception of the Dutch). __earth (Talk) 15:16, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Systemic bias? 

message: Paul: this is a good add. However, I suggest two things: 1) This needs citation. How people think, feel, and behave as stated fact is shakey ground. I know there's plenty written on this stuff, citing it would be a big plus; 2) Much of the section is written in past tense. The issues you raise continue, so you could 'present tense' most of it.
Don't want to edit it w/o giving you the heads up. I like it!--Jonashart 13:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you think they apply to the American section, great. I just get nervous when I read "people feel" or "many believe" w/o substantiation. Even though you're right, evidence never hurts.--Jonashart 17:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, that perception is out there, for both "sides". Check out Fred Halliday's "Islam and the Myth of Confrontation".  A great read on this stuff.--Jonashart 15:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Islam complicates the issue

message: I've added an Asian country in effort to make the article more global in its worldview. __earth (Talk) 05:59, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The question is whether Malaysia does indeed have a multicultural policy comparable to the term as used in the US, Canada, and Europe. Some of the policy items listed are apparently attempts to create a syncretic national identity, and that is something different. If the term multiculturalism is retroactively applied to communalism and responses to communalism, then it would include more societies and governments, but that would be an anachronism. The question was raised (see above, on Systemic bias) about the geographical bias of this article, but in this case some selectiveness is accurate. Multiculturalism was largely an issue for western developed nation-states with high immigration, and originally only the Anglophone states among those. Its abandonment is also an issue for those states. The fact that a state has different ethnic and cultural groups, and that its governments policies address this, does not necessarily make those policies 'multicultural'.Paul111 11:43, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

text: See also the sections on Singapore and the Ottoman Empire, above. Paul111 10:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I edited the tone of the Malaysia section, in places like an advertorial:  "policies... encouraged unity among all ethnics group in Malaysia"; "created a tolerant multicultural society"; "Malaysia's liberal belief in multiculturalism".Paul111 09:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Malaysia section 

message: Is the article is about multiculturalism or policies on multiculturalism? __earth (Talk) 08:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Multicultural-ism means policies, and ideology. 'Multicultural' is a descriptive term, which could be applied to thousands of human societies over thousands of years. The details do not belong in this article, because that is not the usage of 'multiculturalism' in the English language. (It would also become a pointless list of societies and states, with little else in common). Wikipedia guidelines say articles should not contradict themseleves. This article now says in one section that multiculturalism originated in 1970's Canada, and in another that it dates from 1957 in Malaysia. This needs resolution, and it seems a definition problem. Are you saying that Malaysia had multiculturalist policies, or are you primarily saying it had multiple cultures?Paul111 13:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You might want to produce a citation for that. Future editors might think such definition as original research. __earth (Talk) 12:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

text: On comparison, the Malaysia policies don't look like western multiculturalism. On the basis of what is described here and at other articles on Malaysia, Malaysian policy is nationalist and monoculturalist. The underlying reason seems to be that the Malay majority has never accepted the presence of non-Malays, and that they seek te return to a homogenous society. That sounds familiar, since many European nation-states had similar majority attitudes, and still do. The scope of this article does not include multilingualism on its own, or consociationalism. In summary, Malaysian policy does not belong in this article. Nevertheless, I suggest retaining the Malaysia section, rewritten as a non-western comparison for cultural policies in a multi-ethnic state.Paul111 12:44, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Multicultural or multiculturalism

message: The onus is on those who claim that Malaysia has multiculturalist policies, to   indicate what makes them comparable to 'multiculturalism' in Canada or the Netherlands. The claim that multicultural-ism is in fact a synonym for multicultural, which is apparently the position of user __earth, is untenable (and I doubt if any source could be found for that position). User __earth should clarify the issue, and say if he wants this article expanded to cover any society where multiple cultures are present. If only Malaysia is the issue, then a source should be provided, for the claim that it has multiculturalist policies since 1957.Paul111 18:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about your interpretation of multiculturalism? That should be referenced too. And see an article at the economist . Also, Malaysia and Capitalist Modernisation: Plural and Multicultural Models by Steve Fenton. Also, see Guardian on how the author uses multiculturalism  __earth (Talk) 15:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Paul, is this page about multiculturalism on general or multiculturalism controversy in Europe? If it's the latter, it should be moved at Multiculturalism in Europe because multiculturalism here should discuss multiculturalism on general. __earth (Talk) 16:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

text: This issue was raised before, tho not as specifically. I think __earth has a relevant point: is this article about the BIG M "Multiculturalism" as policy, or little "multiculturalism" as a phenomenon, which may encompass policy? Per the intro definition, it appears to focus on BIG M policy. While that is completely legit, unless there's a disambiguation being made, perhaps the article title should be more reflective of the specific nature of that usage (example Multiculturalism_(Policy). Paul111's suggestion of a separate article re: multicultural societies is a great idea.--Jonashart 20:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Fair points. Certainly worth further consideration. So, is your take the 'Multiculturalism' should stand, as-is as the title?--Jonashart 21:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation needed?=

message: Kitrus reverted copy-edits to this section. Presumably the target was the substantive edits, but the English needed improvement -  'fuel economics growth of the region', 'frequent intellectual spars', 'during the same time', and 'reflect the society readiness' - and such copy-edits should not be reverted.Paul111 10:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Correcting English

message: Enjoyed the article just some comments on the criticisms on multiculturalism  
Multiculturalism is an ideology advocating that society should consist of, or at least allow and include, distinct cultural groups, with equal status. 
From the 1970s, multiculturalism was a consensus ideology in The Netherlands among the 'political class', and determined official policy. The principle was expressed in the phrase "Integratie met behoud van eigen taal en cultuur", that is, social integration while retaining the language and culture of the immigrant groups. Immigrants were treated as members of a monolithic cultural bloc, on the basis of nationality - their religion only became an issue in the 1990s. These communities were addressed by the Dutch government, in what it considered to be their own languages - Arabic for Moroccan immigrants, even though many of them did not speak it. Opposition to the consensus was politically marginal. The anti-immigration Centrumpartij had occasional electoral successes, but its leader Hans Janmaat was ostracised, and fined for his strident opposition to multiculturalism.
However rom the late 1990s multiculturalism came under sustained intellectual attack in Western Europe, again largely, but not exclusively, from the political right. The period saw the rise of anti-immigrant populism in Europe, which was uniformly, and often fanatically, hostile to multiculturalism. The debate became increasingly polarised, and increasingly associated with Islam and terrorism. The multiculturalism issue merged with the immigration policy issue.
Some have claimed that in the 1950s, the Netherlands was generally a mono-ethnic and monocultural society: it was not monolingual, but almost everyone could speak standard Dutch.  Its inhabitants shared a classic national identity, with a national mythos emphasising the Dutch Golden Age, and national heroes such as Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. 
This is not true because the Netherlands also consisted of overseas teritories such as Suriname and Indonesia in which she created multicultural societies with the aim of exploiting them economically. The ‘national’ mythos of heroes such as Michiel de Ruyter where not shared by large parts of the population living in both Indonesia and Suriname. These ‘national heroes’ where often nothing more than slave trafficers and pirates and the Dutch Golden Age was the period in which the the port city of Amsterdam was the European capital of slavery, also helping to manage the slave trade of neighbouring nations and with up to 10,000 slaving vessels associated with the port.
In 1999, the legal philosopher Paul Cliteur attacked multiculturalism in his book 'The Philosophy of Human Rights. Cliteur rejects all political correctness on the issue: western culture, the Rechtsstaat (rule of law), and human rights are superior to non-western culture and values.
The truth is that the rule of law and human rights are not typical nor original parts of Dutch culture nor western culture. Torture (Like in Abu Gharib by Americans), economic and enviromental exploitation and degradation unfortunatly are. Human rights originated from ancient Mesopotamia and the dutch where in colonial times nothing but renowned for committing the most cruel atrocities against human rights (Hollanse bok). The rule of law and the adherence to human rights are not typical to western culture just as they fail to be in other culture’s. 
Paul Cliteur also claims  that human rights are the product of the Enlightenment. Other more reliable sources report that appalled by the barbarism of the Second World War, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
According to Njalsson, multiculturalism is particular to a western urban environment and cannot survive as an ideology outside it. 
Fortunately Multiculturalism exsists in non western societies like Suriname and guarantee’s the survival of at least a sence of social harmony in that country.  
The mosque and synagogue besides each other in Keizerstraat, Paramaribo, Suriname
Scheffer approvingly quoted the sociologist J.A.A. van Doorn, that the presence of immigrants in the Netherlands had "put the clock back" by 100 or 150 years. The high immigration rate, and the lack of 'integration' threatened society, and must be stopped.
If the presence of immigrants put holland back 150 years it still has another 150 to go; right where it should have been had it not explioted slaves for 300 years. The truth is that immigration was invited by the dutch in the 1950 and 1960 and  accelerated in the 1970s when the dutch needed migrant labour to sustain their then slaveless economy.
In 2002, the legal scholar Afshin Ellian - a refugee from Iran - advocated a monocultural ‘Rechtsstaat’ in the Netherlands. A liberal democracy cannot be multicultural, he argued, because multiculturalism is an ideology and a democracy has no official ideology. Also, according to Ellian, a democracy must be monolingual. The Dutch language is the language of the constitution, and therefore it must be the only public language - all others must be limited to the private sphere.
Allthough I would agree that it is to the benefit of immigrants to learn to effectivly communicate in the language of the constitution  I must stongly object to fact that it has to be the only language and that a democracy has no oficial ideology. The word ‘Rechtsstaat’ means constitutional state which means that the whole idea of a democracy derives its ligitimacy from the submission of state authority to fundamental rights enshrined in a constitution embodying the dominant ideology.
Ellian also complained that the Netherlands had legalised the "feudal system of the Islamic Empire". Democracy and the rule of law could only be restored by abolishing multiculturalism.
The Islamic feudal system like in the ottoman empire was characterised by absent land ownership and by excessive taxation and exploitation. However it examplified the abandonement of the ‘spoils system’ predominant from the time of the Prophet Muhammad and regulated by his successor, Caliph Omar.
‘Know that whenever you seize anything as a spoil, to God belongs a fifth thereof and to his Apostle ....’
In the Prophet Muhammad's time, that fifth of the booty of conquest was to be portioned out to members of his family and also to the needy. But as the booty more often passed to the leaders who succeeded Muhammad, this system indeed seems to have set the patterns for an unequal distribution of wealth ever present in Dutch society. But unfortunately for the slaves and indentured immigrants in Dutch colonies these patterns had been adopted long before the immigration of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in the 1960 and 1970’s and can therefore not be blamed on immigration.
Democracy and the rule of law can better be restored with measures guaranteeing an involved and informed participation in the public sphere supported by a constitution. This should be accompanied by a restoration of social justice and a fair distribution of wealth as suggested by the Prophet (blessings be upon him)
00:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The lack of a national identity in the Netherlands is largely due to the Second World War. It is a social stigma in the Netherlands for example, to wear the Dutch flag on one's jacket, people rather wear orange, in reference to the Dutch monarchy. This needs some expanding and mentioning in the Netherlands section. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mitch12440 (talk • contribs) 02:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Netherlands

message: The comments on Malaysia by user __earth seem to indicate a misunderstanding of the historical background. Apparently, he is trying to claim that Malaysia invented multiculturalism, or at least 'had it before the West'. That assumes that multiculturalism is a Good Thing, a Great Invention, like printing or the telephone. But in reality, it is a bitterly disputed political ideology, which is hated and despised by millions of people, and which is being rapidly abandoned in western Europe. I hope that will clarify why this article should not include claims to have 'invented multiculturalism', or false historical attributions of 'multiculturalism' to non-modern societies - see anachronism.Paul111 12:59, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I didn't say Malaysia invented multiculturalism. Neither did I say it's a good thing. I'm just saying it exists. In fact, like I've mentioned, Austria and Switzerland probably did it earlier than Malaysia. I'm just saying Malaysian society became multicultural before independence and right after independence, it practices multicultural policies like different education system for different ethnic groups. __earth (Talk) 16:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is multiculturalism a Good Thing? 

message: Firstly, one may either italisize OR underline works; furthermore if a piece of writing cannot stand on its own then it is put in quotes.  As an English teacher might say, "If it has a spine underline," and if not, use quotes.  
I would just like to refer people to Charles Taylor, a Canadian man who wrote a critical essay on multicultralism.  His work brings up many current issues of multiculturalism and talks about the value of collective over individual rights.  His work may be considered essential reading on this topic.
142.179.124.211 06:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foremost Essay on Mutliculturalism- Charles Taylor 

message: User Pco posted several signed comments into the text of this section. After notification that this was inappropriate, several comments were "reposted" in the section. They are obviously personal views, but Wikipedia is not a forum, and they did not improve the previous version. Reverted.Paul111 10:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits to US Melting Pot by [[User:Pco|Pco]] 

message: I am doing research on Indian History and it is painfully sad to note that India - mother of all multiculturalism sinces ages does not have a mention on this page. For example so many cultures living together in India -
Punjabi,
Gujarati,
Hindi,
Bihari,
Kashmiri,
Marathi,
Oriya,
Goan,
Bengali,
Tamil,
Telgu,
Kannada,
Malyalam
and a couple of dozen more. Each of those have different belief, language, fooding, clothes, festivals etc. And yet we do not find it adequate to mention it on this page. zombie_neal 16:22, 05 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the discussion above (and archived) on Malaysia and the Ottoman Empire.Paul111 11:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then the name of page needs to changed to something like "Multiculturalism in Western Countries". You cannot define a phenomenon on your terms. Multicultarism is a general term which applies to all socities equally. I see only two options here
1) Either include eartern societies and their view on this page. 
2) Or change the name of page to reflect aptly what it contains.
The basic problem with us in west is that we think we are the whole world, which we are not. Wake up people.
zombie_neal 14:34, 06 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: India

message: I would like to point out that there were people from all around the British Empire arriving in Australia before 1800 and that it is only true that the majority of people were detained in England for instance there were people from the American and former American colonies--Squall1991 13:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A question about the 'proposed referendum' by Robert Menzies in 1967 - please provide a reference that states that there was a referendum this year concerning the abolition of the White Australia Policy. As far as I'm aware, the WAP was not removed in so public a way. The referendum referred to was the one that gave the Commonwealth of Australia the power to make laws for indigenous (Aboriginal) Australians. Eyedubya 21:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australia 

message: I plan on adding the following to the "Intellectual critique" section of the article. It is about professor Stanley Fish's critique of multiculturalism. Seeing as how this is a disputed article, I thought that I would write about it here in the discussion page before placing it in the main article, so as to give people time to review it. Here is the article that I will be citing: http://www.reason.com/news/show/27743.html and the most important portion of Fish's work is the following:
"The politics of difference is what I mean by strong multiculturalism. It is strong because it values difference in and for itself rather than as a manifestation of something more basically constitutive. Whereas the boutique multiculturalist will accord a superficial respect to cultures other than his own, a respect he will withdraw when he finds the practices of a culture irrational or inhumane, a strong multiculturalist will want to accord a deep respect to all cultures at their core, for he believes that each has the right to form its own identity and nourish its own sense of what is rational and humane. For the strong multiculturalist the first principle is not rationality or some other supracultural universal, but tolerance. <BR>But the trouble with stipulating tolerance as your first principle is that you cannot possibly be faithful to it because sooner or later the culture whose core values you are tolerating will reveal itself to be intolerant at that same core; that is, the distinctiveness that marks it as unique and self-defining will resist the appeal of moderation or incorporation into a larger whole. Confronted with a demand that it surrender its viewpoint or enlarge it to include the practices of its natural enemies--other religions, other races, other genders, other classes--a beleaguered culture will fight back with everything from discriminatory legislation to violence. <BR>At this point the strong multiculturalist faces a dilemma: either he stretches his toleration so that it extends to the intolerance residing at the heart of a culture he would honor, in which case tolerance is no longer his guiding principle, or he condemns the core intolerance of that culture (recoiling in horror when Khomeini calls for the death of Rushdie), in which case he is no longer according it respect at the point where its distinctiveness is most obviously at stake. Typically, the strong multiculturalist will grab the second handle of this dilemma (usually in the name of some supracultural universal now seen to have been hiding up his sleeve from the beginning) and thereby reveal himself not to be a strong multiculturalist at all. Indeed it turns out that strong multiculturalism is not a distinct position but a somewhat deeper instance of the shallow category of boutique multiculturalism."
_selfworm_ ( Give me a piece of your mind · Userboxes · Contribs )_ 02:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intellectual critique 

message: Given the current structure:
    * 1 Before multiculturalism
          o 1.1 The monocultural nation-state Ideal (Europe)
          o 1.2 The Melting Pot Ideal (USA)
          o 1.3 Ethnic selection (Australia)
    * 2 Adoption as policy
          o 2.1 Origins in Canada
          o 2.2 Australia
          o 2.3 Sweden
          o 2.4 United States
          o 2.5 United Kingdom
          o 2.6 Malaysia
    * 3 Multiculturalism as introductory to monoculturalism
    * 4 Developing opposition to multiculturalism
          o 4.1 United States
          o 4.2 Canada
          o 4.3 Australia
          o 4.4 The Netherlands
                + 4.4.1 Intellectual critique
                + 4.4.2 Political reaction
          o 4.5 United Kingdom
          o 4.6 Germany
          o 4.7 France
    * 5 Islam, Europe and multiculturalism
    * 6 Post-multiculturalism in Europe
          o 6.1 Polarisation
    * 7 References
    * 8 See also
    * 9 Further reading
    * 10 External links
I think the whole article needs some rewording to become compact and concise. Some points get restated throughout the page and the reader quickly looses interest. Also the intro is very long, it can be shortened to a reasonable paragraph and the rest of the text can be merged under another title in the body. That's it for now. Someone who is more proficient than me may want to step in and give a hand. Dimror 06:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notes on arranging the article anew 

message: An IP address keeps trying to add a rant to the page, maybe it should be semi-protected.
1Z 18:04, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have fully protected it, as it was a content dispute between several users and would not be just blocking just a side without encouraging discussion. -- ReyBrujo 00:16, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protecton 

message: To be honest, seeing as i live in the US, why everybody seems to think that England is multicultural. I've been doing some research on stuff like this because i wanna pad in europe. So i was reading about each country like Germany, Britain, France etc. And to tell you the truth we guys love you Brits -scots with your bagpipes etc. which is great and the welsh with daffodils and snowdon. But, especialy we love you English with your fantastic accent and your polite personalities compared to us in your face americans. I know that you english are sat there thinking we'rnt like that but you are on the whole apart from drunken louts. Everybody in the world respects you and admires you guys. I mean personally i'm black and i visited Britain last month and i was shocked after all dis propaganda on multiculturalism in England, how white and christian it was. I went around the country from London, which is bound to have more black people and asians but nothing compared to New York and you think that Britain is a "ghetto" you don't know wat da word means. And i love your villages with village shops and churches. Even the towns have old historic buildings and i'm a bit sick with the US at the moment. So i was wondering whether someone could actually be proud of their fantastic country and tell me how nice it is and all the ins and outs please xxx. As i say, Britain is one of the most white places i ever been especially compared to France, they are VERY multicultural, so you got nuttin to worry about England. You lucky guys. We got loadsa problems. So i want someone to change this article and other cultural articles to do with Britain, not to say multicultural. 2.7% Jesus Christ thats practically nothing. Bye xx —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.44.243.118 (talk) 20:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amount of Moslems 

message: The cupidity of comments like the following always staggers me when I see it; disingenuous, or baldly denialist:
::China, having one of the richest heritages on the planet, provides an excellent example. London's Chinatown might ostensibly illustrate multiculturalism, but Chinatown is, of course, a superficial approximation of genuine Chinese culture - a tourists'-eye-view of China. The source of real Chinese culture is and will always be China, due to the fairly obvious fact that real, meaningful culture is a product of history and geography, not expedient political ideology.
That last line somehow skips over the fact of the Cultural Revolution and its sister eras, or the anti-Qing ideologies of the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, dunnit?  Beijing's "Europe Street" is a travesty, even a mockery, of the multiculturalism found in places like London; sharing with ethnocultural enclaves there only the rubric of official mandate (and no actual life of its own; Europe Street is only meant to look like whiteman-space, it's not actually meant to be populated by them, nor are they invited to live in it.  But even that's not quite my point: China had hundreds of non-Han, non-Sino-Tibetan languages, now all long extinct/extinguished or assimilated, or even recently extinguished (Manchurian, for a very pointed instance); or on their way to assimilation, which somehow is a good thing in China, but a bad thing in Western Countries, where it's some kind of a big no-no, right up there with cultural appropriation.  China's absorption of Tibetan and Uighur ethnicity would be more convincing if it were about something more than simply transplating Han language and populations and culture into Tibetan and Uighur territories, and some reciprocal adoption of Tibetan and Uighur cultures into mainstream Chinese.  This is not the case.  The very foundation of the allegedly 6000-year old civilization can really only be put down to something like 2150 B.P., to the First Qin Emperor and his wilfull destruction of Xia and Zhang dynasty records, and records of other peoples and kingdoms other than his own official one.  Yes, China is a product of its history, so is everywhere else, INCLUDING BRITAIN.  That someone feels the need to negatively adjudge Britain while giving China a free ride, even a paint-up as some kind of paradigm of multicultural perfection when it's more the opposite, a cultural Borg Empire, is too typical of the twisted thinking and re-rationalizations around these days.  China does not allow foreign enclaves within itself, not on the scale its trade agenda demands in its trade partners (as in calling Dubliners and Romans racist for blocking new Chinatown creations when you look at the potemkin village/front of Europe Street....); and modern Chinese revanchism is built on kicking out the European banks from Shanghai's Bund and the closure of the special economic zones; if comparable enclaves to British Columbia's Golden Village or the various new suburban Chinatows in Toronto or the US were built in China and Chinese culture discredited and shoved aside for the advancement of non-Chinese culture.....well, we all know what that would be called.  Maybe it'll come to that, one day, and China will inherit a population of in-migrants from its decaying/bloating empire in the way Britain, France and the US/Canada have done, and then the Chinese will be faced with genuine multiculturalism.  Not the official pretense of it, plus a lot of finger-pointing at other countries about how they're not as multicultural as China.  Tell that to the Manchurians and Tibetans and Uighurs and Mongolians and Hmong and Hui; simply because somebody is stuck with being inside China doesn't mean they want to be, or should be considered Chinese.  It's different with Britain, where even Britishness has been redefined according to the new agenda; and worse in Canada, where the old sense of what it was to be Canadian is now dismissed and derogated and some new paradigm put forward, failure to live up to which classes one as a barbarian of some kind.  What's the point of multiculturalism?  To justify immigration policies designed to import labour and capital to be able to pay for the pension plans/public services and other costs of running a country based on middle-class security and "sound investments".  The pretense is of some kind of noble principle; the reality is economic expediency, i.e. saving bucks and making more bucks.  No nobility or higher morality wanted/required, except in the press kit.Skookum1 23:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: I have added an entry on India. Please add stuff for China, Indonesia, Singapore etc.I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations 16:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Started a section on Eastern societies

message: I would like to start a major overhaul of the article, but before I do, I think it would help to archive the old discussions which have all been inactive for some time. 
But, I dont get how the archiving process works am asking someone who knows how to do so to leave a cleaner slate for comments and concerns that will inevitably come about due to any major changes. Thank you.207.69.137.8 16:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request to archive discussion 

message: Lead in sentance claims multiculturalism is "BOTH cultural and ethnic diversity" - anyone have a source for that? Why must it be BOTH?TheRedPenOfDoom 23:29, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  both cultural and ethnic diversity 

message: "enforcement of different codes of law on members of each ethnic group (e.g. Malaysia enforces Shar'ia law, but only for a particular ethnic group)"
I think it's  a hot topic in Europe. I think a lot of otherwise tolerant people wouldn't support this. So please add some source. --Zslevi (talk) 18:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legsilation 

message: I was about to enter a section on Multicultural education when I noticed this article's length. Would anyone like to start a new article on that topic? • Freechild'sup? 16:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, makes sense. Sunray (talk) 09:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Presumably it was redirected for a reason, but if you want to re-create the page and remove the redirection, please do so. It would of course be good to outline your reasons why you want to do that. --Gilgongo (talk) 12:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Multicultural education

message: :Image:May 13 aftermath.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 17:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:May 13 aftermath.jpg

message: Someone has objected to the length of this article. 
Does it make sense for this article to be simply a high level overview of Multiculturalism as an official policy and multiculturalism as 'cultures living together' - with links to other articles like Multiculturalism in Asia, Multiculturalism in Canada etc. 
How would the division of the specific new articles be determined?TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes sense to me. We could work out the sub-articles here. Sunray (talk) 09:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length and breaking the article into sub-articles 

message: One thing that I think it’s curious is that Multiculturalism nowadays is strong specially in Germanic-Protestant countries like USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Netherlands.
Multiculturalism is much less talked about and much less implemented in Latin-Catholic regions like Latin Europe and Latin America, where generally just one language is accepted as national language (maybe Spain is the exception, but anyway). The general tendency in Latin-Catholic countries are the melting pot based in a common officail language, holidays and laws for all the people, native or not.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.1.174.139 (talk) 03:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Germanic-Protestant thing? 

message: Despite having ethnic and racial diversity that far surpasses that of the Anglo influenced countries. This article posts no information about multiculturalism in Spanish/Portugese influenced societies. This is info-cism...
:Then provide some reliable sources with information to correct the bias. Your contributions would be welcome!TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 23:12, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiculturalism in Latin influenced countries are totally ignored 

message: would people who watch this page please review the article, Early infanticidal childrearing, which makes many claims about anthropology and about non-Western societies?  I was once involved in a flame-war with another editor, and it would be inappropriate for me to do a speedy delete or nominate the page for deletion.  More important, I think others need to comment on it.  I engaged in a detailed exchange recently with one other editor here, on the talk page; you may wish to review the discussion but it is getting involuted and I ask that you comment separately.  Thanks, Slrubenstein   |  Talk 12:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  article of concern 

message: I'm no multicultural expert, but under Ethnic selection (Australia) the following is probably wrong:
"Proposals to limit the law of hamburgers by nationality were intended to maintain the cultural and political identity of the colonies as part of the British Empire."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThomasJCyrus (talk • contribs) 17:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A piece of vandalism that was previously missed. Thanks for pointing it out!TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 19:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Law of Hamburgers? 

message: Someone seems to have added citation notices here with a zeal of which most other sections were apparently unworthy. Either a hippy from the UK's making a truculent protest or the rest of the article needs some serious scrutiny.
I fail to see the logic behind multiple placements within the same sentence, however in those sentences citation is needed. Vloxul (talk) 00:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It shouldn't be too hard to find sources, since muliculturalism in the United Kingdom and wider Europe (such as Spain, Italy and France) is regarded all round as an epic failed (outside one of two potsmoking college students). - Gennarous (talk) 14:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  United Kingdom  

message: I agree that this article would be a lot more focused and cohesive if it were broken up into multiple articles focusing either on one dimension of multiculturalism or multiple dimensions country by country. Also, one thing that I found odd is that the discussion focused so heavily on immigrants while failing to address the impact of colonialism and slavery. The presence of "native" peoples who have been disnfranchised and people who are or were enslaved in a nation further complicates this issue of multi-culturalism.  For those whose culture has been repressed, destroyed, denied, and distorted the preservation and reclamation of a cultural heritage is much more than just "identity politics". Also, discussions, policies, critiques, etc... of multi-culturalism must also be understood in relationship to power, oftentimes it is the dominant culture possessed by a specific group that wants to assert itself as the national culture, so that "monoculturalism" can be oppresive. I think that without some attempt to address these issues a discussion on multi-culturalism is bound to be skewed.Lbuffin (talk) 03:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, a very good point. I've edited the opening two lines of the lead recently to remove this bias. The article definitely needs re-structuring to make it more rounded, comprehensive and theoretically informed. Eyedubya (talk) 09:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A few suggestions 

message: WRT to the requests for sources: if you type 'multicultural' or 'multiculturalism' into WP, it ends up on this page. The lead therefore has the job of making the distinction between the two words before getting into the issues around the ideology/philosophy etc. Its important for an article on this topic that this distinction between de facto and de jure is made, given that there are those who see the latter as being responsible for the former, when in fact, far more societies are the former regardless of state policy on immigration. I can't see the point of asking for sources for the statement that some countries are demographically multicultural, since the evidence is so obviously to be found in statistics for any given nation. Eyedubya (talk) 10:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Lets try to find a way to improve the lead. - perhaps we need a disambiguation page for two different articles: one for the policy and one for the de facto/descriptive usage. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 14:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's an idea, though the one on 'multicultural' is probably going to be extremely short. Its the relationship between the two that is important for understanding the issues involved, so even with separate articles there would be some common content.Eyedubya (talk) 20:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro section / lead 

message: Cohortocracy arises as a term to describe what is happening in a number of societies, generally by well meaning liberal politicians, commentators and/or social scientists. They talk of dealing with communities or apparent groupings as needing to be reconciled through "multi-culturalism". This then gives rise to the situation where instead of societies being "represented by" their governing institutions, their governing institutions can be "representative of" them. One of the simplest of these is the representation of gender, there are 50% of each gender in the society, so their representatives should also be 50:50. Not that this is at all to be argued against, or is not laudable. The problem with this is that it can become absurd, the level at which representation can occur is naturally limited by the total number of representatives, so in a governing body which has for instance 100 members, any characteristic which is less than 1% in the population cannot be primarily represented. It may be that one of the hundred representatives will have that unrepresented characteristic also, this then leads to another situation where particular candidates become more "valuable" in representational currency, by representing more or less constituencies, and/or characteristics. There may well be practical and eminently just methods of implementing such a system, BUT... it must be noted that this will be a society where its governance will only be a mirror of the society, dangerously illusory. The reflected led by the reflection.... reflect on it..  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Glissade (talk • contribs) 13:11, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cohortocracy 

message: United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has a wide range of different nationalties. Walking through the streets of London you can discover many shops from various nationalities. Therefore you can assume that the UK is changing. Immigration led to a growth, both economically and socially. The Indian restaurant and Pakistani newsagency or shop corner have become integral parts of British life. Although these are steps towards equality some people want to hold on to their Britishness. As they do not define themselves as a multi-national society they do not want any immigration because they think that it will destroy the British identity. Nevertheless, integration took place. More and more shops from different nationalities are opening in the UK. Immigration has helped enrich the cultural life.
But nevertheless there are still cultural clashes leading to attacks on the grounds of racism against other ethnic groups. Therefore many immigrants fear racial attacks.
All in all there exists diversity and tolerance, but also prejudices.
Acceptance and integration
There have been improvements towards equality and intergration:
- there are now some Black and Asian MPs
- the ethnic minorities have wider representation in local government
- the annual Notting Hill Carnival, held in August, attracts 2 million visitors each year
Although all of these factors are steps towards equality, there is still a long way to go. Clearly a lot more work is needed to promote understanding between the races.149.225.80.38 (talk) 16:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have anything that relates to the actual content of the article? If not WP not a discussion forum and I will be removing this comment per WP:TPG-- The Red Pen of Doom 17:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your interest. Just so you know, Wikipedia is not a blog or a place to post your personal essays. Content to be added to a Wikipedia article must be supported by material published by a reliable source. For more information on writing material for Wikipedia articles, please read: How to write a great article. -- The Red Pen of Doom 13:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiculturalism  

message: I have been reverting edits by 65.94.xx.xx as they seem POV to me.  (Note one of edit comments in the history).   What do people think?  I say French Canadian is better for an international audience.Dbrodbeck (talk) 03:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This may have already achieved a stability on its own, but the article can identify both terms and briefly indicate how they are similar/different. -- The Red Pen of Doom 12:58, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Quebec

message: I removed the following information from the article becasue while it is sourced, the sources not appear to be addressing  "multiculturalism" themselves and therefore the inclusion of this data in the article about "multiculturalism" would appear to be a violation of WP:SYN. -- The Red Pen of Doom 12:48, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, the discrimination part is perhaps not relevant here but the Dalits definitely have a distinctive culture within India. One example would be their epic , about which most other Indians are not even aware. I dont know exactly how I want to add this in there though. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 19:05, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  India's caste system 

message: Indian society is divided into several thousands of caste and sub-caste. Dalits, often called an untouchable, or an outcaste, were commonly banned and segregated from full participation in Hindu social life.India: ‘Hidden Apartheid’ of Discrimination Against Dalits (Human Rights Watch, 13-2-2007) Some activists consider that the caste system is a form of racial discrimination.An Untouchable Subject? The participants of the United Nations Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in March 2001, condemned discrimination due to the caste system, and tried to pass a resolution declaring that caste as a basis for the segregation and oppression of peoples in terms of their descent and occupation is a form of apartheid. However, no formal resolution was passed to that effect.Final Declaration of the Global Conference Against Racism and Caste-based Discrimination
:: Well, the discrimination part is perhaps not relevant here but the Dalits definitely have a distinctive culture within India. One example would be their epic , about which most other Indians are not even aware. I dont know exactly how I want to add this in there though. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 19:05, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: removed from India section

message: Multiculturalism should not be presented as de facto state of things in which there are more cultural diversity. Driving multiculturalist politics can actually decrease the number of cultures. If you make two or more cultures to mix each other, after some time there is only one culture left. One of them has assimilated the other, or both have been assimilated to one new mixed culture. If every group of the world is mixed with every other group, the number of cultures decreases to very few. This would follow multiculturalism, but it would be a disaster to cultural diversity of the world. 193.65.112.51 (talk) 01:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This page is to dicuss how to improve the article, not a forum. If you have suggestions for improving the article, please feel free to make them otherwise this will be removed from the page per the talk page guidelines. -- The Red Pen of Doom 02:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My suggestion is to change the way multiculturalism is presented in the article. As I explained, multiculturalism is not the same thing as cultural diversity. (multiculturalism can actually lead to decrease of cultural diversity) Cultural diversity is a de facto state of things, multiculturalism is ideology. Due to my poor skills in English I am unable to fix the article by myself, so I commented it here. 193.65.112.51 (talk) 08:55, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Multiculturalism is not the same thing as cultural diversity

message: India is by far the most diverse nation on this plant (I can give and have already provided a host of references for this), the 'diversity' (mainly a dominant Anglo-Saxon materialistic culture with superficial imports from abroad) found in America and England is trivial. How many languages in totally different scripts from totally different language families are spoken in America ? How many different religions have world heritage sites in America ? How many different races are endemic to America ? Can you really compare 'black' culture (which is a fine culture) to the complexity of Islamic culture in India ? This is not to say that there are not bad things about Indian society (caste system, treatment of women), but to highlight trivial differences brought in by migrants who migrated mainly for economic reasons (and at great cost to their home country) over a far more diverse culture is nothing more than arrogance. So the section on eastern nations should come first.I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 03:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Let me make a few things clear

message: How can this article be so long without mentioning the Russian Federation?
Numerous dozens of autonomous minority regions of Russia enjoy education, government services, and more in their own language *AND* grant the same rights to a lesser or sometimes equal degree to what are sometimes surprisingly small minority groups.
The Bashkir Republic of Russia (Republic in this case is like State in US or Province in Canada) has, among others:
100+ Chuvash language schools
174 Mari language schools + 40 Mari language kindergartens
Tatar is used not only in many schools, but also in some high schools and post-secondary educational institutions
48 Udmurt language schools + 17 Udmurt language kindergartens
And to give you a sense of scale and degree of accommodation, there are only 24 thousand Udmurts in the Bashkir Republic.  North America is full of cities with larger ethnic minorities than that, who enjoy no state sponsored schools or any other dispensation, short of the occasional NGO's services.
Most of my info is from here: http://eng.bashkortostan450.ru/
--198.103.167.20 (talk) 16:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russian Federation 

message: Australia's multi-cultural policy is closer to that of Canda's than any other nation, with the possible exception of the USA.  Having a section titled 'Ethnic Selection'  is misleading at best.  The section needs to be re-worked to focus on the multi-cultural policy stance implemented from 1973 onwards and re-labelled in a more meaningful and less deceptive manner. 121.79.19.4 (talk) 22:20, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethnic Selection? 

message: This caught my eye and it's a bit shockingly POV:
:Some countries have official, or de jure policies of multiculturalism aimed at recognizing, celebrating and maintaining the different cultures or cultural identities within that society to promote social cohesion. In this context, multiculturalism advocates a society that extends equitable status to distinct cultural and religious groups, with no one culture predominating.
EQUITABLE??  I'm sorry, but in practice such policies are inherently discirminatory towards people not defined as "visible minorities" and/or of the wrong gender or race/ethnicity/origin/religion.  i.e. inherently not equitable for members of the so-called "dominant" group; - the "dominant group" as defined by either ideologues ore by resentful groups.  I don't buy that this language is NPOV, it's definitely not.  "extending equitable status" is only meaningful when race distinctions ARE DONE AWAY WITH - NOT when they are enshrined in law, and NOT when the policies treat ANY group inequitably.  What happens is that some cultures DO predominate, or enjoy privileges not allowed other groups.  for instance, at various universities and other orgs/corps in Canada, hiring priorities are extended to "(status) aboriginal people, visible minorities, and women (in that order)" (that's a near-quote from SFU's site); translation "white males need not apply".  Interestingly, both whites and males are in the minority among SFU staff and in the SFU student body (and totally absent from some faculties); but neither are considered minorities or in need of equitable treatment.  The posturing and pretension of pro-multiculturalism forces irritates me no end - it's bigotry dressed up in the cloth of righteousness, and for all its high moral values it has created more evils than it has fixed.....multiculturalism winds up restricting free speech, discriminating against individuals because of hte group they are defined as belong to, and worse....it's just another "-ism" that's gotten far out of control, and thinks it has The One Truth behind it while based in artifice adn resentment, 'not' reason or fairness...."equitable" my ass......Skookum1 (talk) 21:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Equitable???''