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Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth
also... with regard to the previous argument over whether culture matters.. i would really think that one over again if i was you.
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I have and I live in one of the biggest and most multicultural cities in the world and ever since I've been a kid it's always been the same, and I see no reason to change it and its nice to watch things evolve.
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keep in mind that modern multiculturalism is largely a social experiment. this isn't the ordinary way in which societies have functioned throughout history. people in a community sharing a common cultural identity has always been a vital part of any truly functional society. this isn't to say you can't have sub-cultures within the larger shared culture. however, for this to work, all of these sub-cultures have to at least be compatible with the larger shared culture.
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This sounds like you're working with a small town mentality here. To be honest society has often worked this way historically, regardless of whether the newbies originally came in peace or as conquerors and it usually ends up with the newbies eventually being absorbed into the greater culture of the original one.
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to import people from foreign cultures and say the only thing that matters is a shared language and respect for the law is making a pretty drastic assumption about the importance (or lack thereof) of culture in a functional society. and to my knowledge, there aren't many historical precedents you can draw upon to suggest that this radical version of multiculturalism is plausible.
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Just the type of rhetoric that a nationalist would come out with.
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i would say that western countries need to lay out the most vital beliefs and principles that are at the core of their way of life - things like pluralism, secularism, democracy, free speech, feminism, etc. if the sub-cultures that are imported are compatible with these ideals, then perhaps multiculturalism can work. if not, then you have a basic recipe for conflict and tension. to expect anything else while importing these kinds of cultures defies all common sense to me.
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They already do in the legislature, but if the country is a democracy it has to allow the newcomers a certain amount of cultural liberty, because if not the country is not operating as its own legislation suggests it should do.
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so... for example... a lot of muslim immigrants in europe hold ideologies with little to no respect for these central ideals or the western way of life. if you import enough of these people(the conservative muslims, i'm not speaking about all muslims), then they will gather into clusters and develop their own communities which exist within the host country but make little to no effort to interact with said country to any extent beyond what is pragmatically necessary for them to exist. when you have this sort of thing, you once again have a basic recipe for tension and conflict. instead of compatible sub-cultures within a larger shared culture you have competing cultures. you have an in group/out group situation within a single society. these in group/out group tendencies are what is at the root of nationalism. it isn't some social construct... it is something ubiquitous to all human societies. there's a good reason for that. so you really need to consider that when constructing a multicultural society.
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Have you ever been to Europe, out of America or even out of your state? because based on what your saying, it looks like you've just watched a few news reports and read a few newspapers concerning the life and times of immigrants in Europe.
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imagine the shoe was on the other foot and you imported massive amounts of westerners with no respect for islamic or arab culture to saudi arabia. when the current inhabitants of saudi arabia then predictably became hostile to the new arrivals, would you similarly say too bad and its their fault for being so xenophobic? or maybe question whether the westerners should've been imported into that society in the first place?
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Firstly, who the **** wants to go and live in a desert and secondly loads of westerners do because they're paid well to go and work there. The non-democratic laws as you well know restrict them their freedom so they have no real desire to stay there longer than they have to.
You can't use your above argument about importing massive amounts of westerners eastwards as it's not really plausible and there is no real historical evidence either for this type of experiment. The nearest you can use for this type of experiment would be the Ottoman Empire and how it treated non-muslims within its western borders.