Merkel says German multicultural society has failed

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

The BBC is especially disgusting in this respect. They had a show 'Make me a Muslim' and, instead of showing average, middle class people as representing the British Muslim community, they picked out the most foreign-dressed, thick-accented individuals straight from the caves of Afghanistan.

They are the "media" ,like all other media outlets they show what people want to hear.

 

[Solomon2]

That said, I would be very happy if the immigrants who come to Hong Kong (from Western countries and from other places in Asia, etc.), tried a bit harder to learn some Chinese.

Bah! I had a Chinese teacher once. She could speak and read Chinese, but she couldn't write it, though she did learn to speak and write both German and English as a student in China.

Clearly something has to be done to make Chinese easier to learn, if only for the Chinese themselves, or else you'll be following in Pakistan's footsteps, with English gradually displacing everything. For Art's sake don't do that; it would mean the eventual death of Chinese calligraphy.

*

Merkel is no bigot. She sees things unusually clearly, speaks her mind about them, and acts accordingly. Not for her are the conventions of others.

The U.S. is often seen as a multi-cultural society par excellence, but we Americans think of it as "the melting pot"; a third-generation immigrant usually thinks of himself as an American first, and gives his origins little thought. Yet large-scale immigration of Muslims into the U.S. is a recent phenomenon of the past thirty years or so. It remains to be seen if social peace can continue to be maintained as the number of Muslims increases. Some observers, like Debbie Schlussel, argue this is not happening. Germany has experienced large-scale immigration of Muslims for twice as long. I do wonder if the U.S. will repeat Germany's experience.

For myself, I wonder if the process may be more like the Italian: it took six generations and decades of directed law enforcement activity for the children of the mafiosi to lose interest in the family business.

 

[Ras]

That's a whole different topic. Some of us would argue that the US invasion of Muslim countries and Israel's killing of Palestinians constitute premeditated terrorism, albeit practised by a uniformed military.

Interesting point..and it gives rise to another question. Why do some Muslims care what happens in Palestine that they are willing to resort to terrorism to get their point across. This phenomenon seems to be prevalent in varying degrees in Muslims from North Africa to Pakistan and certain parts of India.

Bangladeshis,Indonesian,Malaysians(close to 1/3rd of all muslims in the world) for example do not seem to care about it as much.

It is a mistake to call Muslims a monolith group.

 

[Coltsfan]

So the fact that the BJP and Shiv Sena are doing so well in India must be a reflection on Hinduism and all Hindus, right?

C'mon now, we were actually have a good discussion there (for a change) but I think you got carried away a little bit there.

Comparing suicide bomber and talibani elements to BJP?

BTW, last time I checked BJP lost elections big time to congress. So, even if we go by your flawed analogy, the moderate elements in India have thrown them out in favor of a more moderate party.

On the other hand, Islam is perceived (perhaps inaccurately) as getting more and more extremist in recent times. About time that moderate elements in Islam stand up and own the responsibility of letting terrorists highjack the message of their religion.