Is britain uni cultural or multicultural ?

[johncocker]

PARIS: The leader of the French National Front, Marine Le Pen, has ridiculed descriptions of the US and Australia as ''multicultural''.

 

In an interview with the Herald in Paris, Ms Le Pen - whose popularity has eclipsed that of the President, Nicolas Sarkozy - argued that true multiculturalism cannot work and, where it has existed, it ended in war.

 

''The only places where real multiculturalism existed … the Balkans, Lebanon … it ended up in conflict,'' she said. ''In France when people talk about multiculturalism, it is most often in reference to the United States. But I believe that is false. The United States is not a multicultural society.

 

Advertisement: Story continues below ''In reality it is uni-cultural - it has one culture, it is a culture in which each citizen has a unique relationship with the American nation. Isn't it the same in Australia? This … requires the submission by the individual [to] a series of values which must be accepted by everybody.''

 

Ms Le Pen, a 42-year-old criminal lawyer, said multiculturalist policies were created by Anglo-Saxon politicians to help them define - and capture - ethnic communities into easy voting blocs.

 

She said that this approach ''benefits the politicians who use the communities … but ultimately it erodes the interest of the nation as a whole.

 

''This model of multiculturalism is one which other countries, including the Anglo-Saxon nations, are now moving away from. Look at what David Cameron has said recently, see what Mrs Merkel in Germany says.''

 

Ms Le Pen, the youngest daughter of the notorious neo-fascist, Jean-Marie, has become a media darling in France, refashioning the party created by her father 40 years ago from a blatantly racist organisation into a hybrid of far-left, anti-big-business, anti-privatisation patriots mixed with a far-right anti-globalisation and anti-immigration bloc.

 

Harnessing post-credit-crunch insecurity amid rising unemployment, she has forced a law-and-order and anti-immigration auction that has in turn forced Mr Sarkozy so far to the right that he has alienated his centre-right supporters.

 

She said Australia appeared to have avoided the immigration pitfalls faced by France, Italy and other European nations by carefully safeguarding immigration numbers.

 

Much of France's problems, she said, lay with the erosion of the ''long and noble'' tradition of post-colonial assimilation, which ''feeble, slack'' French governments allowed to be watered down into an ''Anglo-Saxon model'' of integration.

 

''Assimilation is a concept which says to those who arrive that you must live and comply by the ways of life and traditions of the country to which you have come.

 

''We have forgotten this tradition and have suggested to the new arrivals that they can keep their way of life, their traditions.

 

''We have arrived now to a situation of multiculturalism which is the most dangerous: it is a coexistence which is not at all peaceful, and a number of communities have withdrawn and live unto themselves.''

 

Ms Le Pen also railed against being caricatured overseas as ''extreme right'' and being branded a racist for questioning multiculturalism.

 

''I believe strongly that it is time that we question the politicians' rhetoric that if you question immigration it means you are a racist. This is not true. Immigration is a worldwide problem. It is a phenomenon that transcends nations. It is an economic issue with massive social implications.

 

''Surely, you can conclude and debate that the consequences of migration can sometimes be bad for your country without blaming immigrants or bear a grudge against migrants.''

[Mullamad]

Immigration is not a bad thing, it's the amount of immigration and who the immigrants are that is the problem.

[L00b]

See poujadism for a useful historical precedent (to all intents and purposes, ideologically speaking).

[mj.scuba]

People get mixed up with Multiculturalism, and the existance of different cultures together in one place.

 

Multiculturalism is political doctrine.

 

Multiple cultures existing together in one place is just what happens as a result of population movements, but it isn't Multiculturalism.

[LeMaquis]

PARIS: The leader of the French National Front, Marine Le Pen, has ridiculed descriptions of the US and Australia as ''multicultural''.

 

Marine clearly hasn't realised that President Obama is black.

[Harleyman]

PARIS: The leader of the French National Front, Marine Le Pen, has ridiculed descriptions of the US and Australia as ''multicultural''. In an interview with the Herald in Paris, Ms Le Pen - whose popularity has eclipsed that of the President, Nicolas Sarkozy - argued that true multiculturalism cannot work and, where it has existed, it ended in war.

 

''The only places where real multiculturalism existed … the Balkans, Lebanon … it ended up in conflict,'' she said. ''In France when people talk about multiculturalism, it is most often in reference to the United States. But I believe that is false. The United States is not a multicultural society.

 

Advertisement: Story continues below ''In reality it is uni-cultural - it has one culture, it is a culture in which each citizen has a unique relationship with the American nation. Isn't it the same in Australia? This … requires the submission by the individual [to] a series of values which must be accepted by everybody.''

 

Ms Le Pen, a 42-year-old criminal lawyer, said multiculturalist policies were created by Anglo-Saxon politicians to help them define - and capture - ethnic communities into easy voting blocs.

 

She said that this approach ''benefits the politicians who use the communities … but ultimately it erodes the interest of the nation as a whole.

 

''This model of multiculturalism is one which other countries, including the Anglo-Saxon nations, are now moving away from. Look at what David Cameron has said recently, see what Mrs Merkel in Germany says.''

 

Ms Le Pen, the youngest daughter of the notorious neo-fascist, Jean-Marie, has become a media darling in France, refashioning the party created by her father 40 years ago from a blatantly racist organisation into a hybrid of far-left, anti-big-business, anti-privatisation patriots mixed with a far-right anti-globalisation and anti-immigration bloc.

 

Harnessing post-credit-crunch insecurity amid rising unemployment, she has forced a law-and-order and anti-immigration auction that has in turn forced Mr Sarkozy so far to the right that he has alienated his centre-right supporters.

 

She said Australia appeared to have avoided the immigration pitfalls faced by France, Italy and other European nations by carefully safeguarding immigration numbers.

 

Much of France's problems, she said, lay with the erosion of the ''long and noble'' tradition of post-colonial assimilation, which ''feeble, slack'' French governments allowed to be watered down into an ''Anglo-Saxon model'' of integration.

 

''Assimilation is a concept which says to those who arrive that you must live and comply by the ways of life and traditions of the country to which you have come.

 

''We have forgotten this tradition and have suggested to the new arrivals that they can keep their way of life, their traditions.

 

''We have arrived now to a situation of multiculturalism which is the most dangerous: it is a coexistence which is not at all peaceful, and a number of communities have withdrawn and live unto themselves.''

 

Ms Le Pen also railed against being caricatured overseas as ''extreme right'' and being branded a racist for questioning multiculturalism.

 

''I believe strongly that it is time that we question the politicians' rhetoric that if you question immigration it means you are a racist. This is not true. Immigration is a worldwide problem. It is a phenomenon that transcends nations. It is an economic issue with massive social implications.

 

''Surely, you can conclude and debate that the consequences of migration can sometimes be bad for your country without blaming immigrants or bear a grudge against migrants.''

 

 

She's a blinkered know nothing idiot. The US became a nation of many cultures during the two centuries following the war for Independence through the influx of millions of immigrants of all races and religions from just about anywhere in continental Europe

[JFKvsNixon]

the UK has always been multicultural even from it's very early days, with the Scots, the Welsh the Irish and the English. Even before the days of the UK, again Britain has been multi cultural with the Celts, the Angles, the Saxons, the Normans, the Romans, the Vikings, the Picts et al.

[flamingjimmy]

People get mixed up with Multiculturalism, and the existance of different cultures together in one place.

 

Multiculturalism is political doctrine.

 

Multiple cultures existing together in one place is just what happens as a result of population movements, but it isn't Multiculturalism.

 

It's no use saying what you think it isn't if you're not going to say what you think it is.

[Harleyman]

the UK has always been multicultural even from it's very early days, with the Scots, the Welsh the Irish and the English. Even before the days of the UK, again Britain has been multi cultural with the Celts, the Angles, the Saxons, the Normans, the Romans, the Vikings, the Picts et al.

 

Also the arrival of the Huguenots a few centuries back... distant ancestors of mine

[plekhanov]

Britain was multicultural long before post war immigration & it still is today.