BBC's, 'Have your Say' : Does multiculturalism work?
ed's comment on BBC's 'Have your Say',
I am from Singapore, and there, multiculturalism has failed. Not because multiculturalism is necessarily prone to failure, but because one particular culture - legalism-confucianism - has been imposed upon all through the media, government policies, immigration policies, etc. Over time, the chinese have been bred to appreciate no other way of thought or action other than the imposed, and thereafter internalised, one. Hence, multiculturalism died the death without even a whimper.
The point here is not that multiculturalism does not work, but it requires the engendering, not of tolerance, but equal and mutual respect and appreciation. We also have to drop this 'indigenous therefore we are numero uno' nonsense. That isn't very far from, 'we are majority and we don't need to give a toss about you'. And that, in turn, isn't far from, 'racism as just a matter of preference'.
Multiculturalism is just a term for 'the existence of varying perspectives'. With mutual consideration, there can only be progress in perspectives - whether by way of Marxian or Hegelian dialectics. That, after all, is how the sciences advanced and why we might be able to tot a music player of sizes one might potentially choke on. To move against multiculturalism is just a short step from moving against difference of any sort, and hence, a prelude to fascism.
When one complains about fascist governments, one ought to ask if one is not fueling the basis for it by the seemingly innocuous expectation that others be like us to live amongst us. Is the arrogance of an elite not paralleled and symbiotically strengthened by that of the 'we are indigenous' or 'we are majority' stance? Isn't anti-multiculturalism perspectivally supportive of what China is doing in Xinjiang and Tibet?
a2ed
I am from Singapore, and there, multiculturalism has failed. Not because multiculturalism is necessarily prone to failure, but because one particular culture - legalism-confucianism - has been imposed upon all through the media, government policies, immigration policies, etc. Over time, the chinese have been bred to appreciate no other way of thought or action other than the imposed, and thereafter internalised, one. Hence, multiculturalism died the death without even a whimper.
The point here is not that multiculturalism does not work, but it requires the engendering, not of tolerance, but equal and mutual respect and appreciation. We also have to drop this 'indigenous therefore we are numero uno' nonsense. That isn't very far from, 'we are majority and we don't need to give a toss about you'. And that, in turn, isn't far from, 'racism as just a matter of preference'.
Multiculturalism is just a term for 'the existence of varying perspectives'. With mutual consideration, there can only be progress in perspectives - whether by way of Marxian or Hegelian dialectics. That, after all, is how the sciences advanced and why we might be able to tot a music player of sizes one might potentially choke on. To move against multiculturalism is just a short step from moving against difference of any sort, and hence, a prelude to fascism.
When one complains about fascist governments, one ought to ask if one is not fueling the basis for it by the seemingly innocuous expectation that others be like us to live amongst us. Is the arrogance of an elite not paralleled and symbiotically strengthened by that of the 'we are indigenous' or 'we are majority' stance? Isn't anti-multiculturalism perspectivally supportive of what China is doing in Xinjiang and Tibet?
a2ed
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