# Multiculturalism - To What Extent?



## Couchie

So the Norway bomb/shooting has brought the issue of multiculturalism back into the limelight, what are your views on to what extent immigrants should adopt a national identity? On one hand we have stop anti-Islamification groups like the English Defence League, on the other hand there's politicians and advocacy groups who will scream racism if the debate is even opened... surely the answer is somewhere in the middle?


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## norman bates

i think that multiculturalism exist also in societies considered culturally homogeneous: for example a believer of any religion and an agnostic/atheist could not share the same view of the world and the same values. So i'm absolutely for multiculturalism.


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## Couchie

norman bates said:


> i think that multiculturalism exist also in societies considered culturally homogeneous: for example a believer of any religion and an agnostic/atheist could not share the same view of the world and the same values. So i'm absolutely for multiculturalism.


A multicultural society is by definition *not* homogeneous. There may be ideological differences in homogeneous cultures, such as different religions, but outwardly differences are less pronounced, they'd speak the same language, dress and act similarly, and give up aspects of their 'home' culture at odds with the country's core values. On the other hand, multicultural societies keep much of their home culture intact, they maintain their native tongues and possibly don't learn the country's language, and they often are concentrated in communities within cities with pronounced differences (Chinatown, Little Italy, etc). Canada is very multicultural, in Vancouver it is common to run into Chinese-Canadians who can speak hardly any english, and have very little pressure to learn it because in their local community everything is available to them in Chinese. On the Toronto subway or streetcar you can generally expect to hear around four different languages being spoken around you. And of course, the difference experienced driving between Ontario and Quebec is as dramatic as flying between the UK and France.

I guess the most contemporary issue is to what extent Muslims should be free to govern themselves with Sharia law in western countries?


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## Operafocus

Before I say what I'm about to say, I have to mention that I'm not against multi-culturalism at all - but there are various aspects about it that need to change.

I've lived in a place in London that's been practically taken over by immigrants from one country - so much so that probably 7 out of 10 don't speak English because they don't have to (many have probably been there 20 years and don't speak a word of English), have no interest in integrating into English society and basically take over an entire part of a town where they live as they would where they're from.

This makes people uncomfortable. Especially as various views on, for instance, women come with it.

On a personal note I can say that on a daily basis I was followed around by various men who clearly couldn't handle me showing off a bit of flesh (usually arms or calves). I was once asked what I'd charge for a handjob by one d*ckhead who drove past me as I was waiting for a bus. On several occasions both myself and my partner experienced attempted muggings by larger groups, where they had knives in their pockets.

As for Norway, when I came back here in April, there were five rapes by "ethnic Norwegians" (newspaper language) in one weekend, and more followed. They then interviewed a group of Somalis who said "we don't respect women when we've been drinking, but we try when we're sober. Women here are different than our women, and we can't control ourselves" etc - and one Muslim doctor went out in the press with the following statement: "Norwegian women ask for it!" (being raped).

This is what makes people angry. Not immigrants who come here and *try their best*. Please come if you're going to make an effort and integrate.

I think the solution to making immigrants less of a problem for society in general - and for people who are "against it" to begin with are some simple rules:

- Give all immigrants compulsory lessons in the language of the country they're immigrating to. Make it an intensive course for a few months, then weekly follow-up for a year. People who don't attend, will get consequences. At the end of a year, give them an oral test to make sure they can understand and make themselves understood enough to be able to hold down a job.
- Parallel with learning the language, they learn about the society they're going to be integrated into; How social rules work there, acceptable behaviour, the law itself and so on.​
Much like the requirements for becoming a U.S. citizen:
- Be able to read, write, and speak English and have knowledge and an understanding of U.S. history and government (civics).
- Be a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States during all relevant periods under the law.​


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## Aksel

Operafocus said:


> As for Norway, when I came back here in April, there were five rapes by "ethnic Norwegians" (newspaper language) in one weekend, and more followed. They then interviewed a group of Somalis who said "we don't respect women when we've been drinking, but we try when we're sober. Women here are different than our women, and we can't control ourselves" etc - and one Muslim doctor went out in the press with the following statement: "Norwegian women ask for it!" (being raped).
> 
> This is what makes people angry. Not immigrants who come here and *try their best*. Please come if you're going to make an effort and integrate.
> 
> I think the solution to making immigrants less of a problem for society in general - and for people who are "against it" to begin with are some simple rules:
> 
> - Give all immigrants compulsory lessons in the language of the country they're immigrating to. Make it an intensive course for a few months, then weekly follow-up for a year. People who don't attend, will get consequences. At the end of a year, give them an oral test to make sure they can understand and make themselves understood enough to be able to hold down a job.
> - Parallel with learning the language, they learn about the society they're going to be integrated into; How social rules work there, acceptable behaviour, the law itself and so on.​


I agree completely. But it annoys me that there are almost never any positive stories about immigrants and immigration in the media, at least not in Norway. If anything, I think it's the continually bad press immigrants get in Norwegian media (not to mention Christian Tybring-Gjedde) that fuels the massive onslaught of FrP voters here in Norway, at least a huge chunk of it. That, and poor infrastructure, but that's another story.


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## Operafocus

Aksel said:


> I agree completely. But it annoys me that there are almost never any positive stories about immigrants and immigration in the media, at least not in Norway. If anything, I think it's the continually bad press immigrants get in Norwegian media (not to mention Christian Tybring-Gjedde) that fuels the massive onslaught of FrP voters here in Norway, at least a huge chunk of it. That, and poor infrastructure, but that's another story.


FrP scare people into voting for them by sparkling fears in them by over-exposing "all the bad stuff foreigners do". For some people, that's all that matters. "Hey, a political party that understands how we feel - let's vote for them!" Scary.


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## Delicious Manager

If I emigrated to another country, I would consider it my DUTY to learnt the language, traditions and customs as well as I possibly could. I consider it rude in the extreme not to make any effort to integrate yourself into the culture in which you live. If you don't like the culture, don't live there! Here in the UK, official documents are often printed in maybe a dozen languages. This is wrong. English is the official language here, along with Welsh (and Scots Gaelic). I would have no problem seeing documents in those languages, but Polish? Turkish, Urdu? Vietnamese? No! If you want to live in the UK, learn the damn language like I would learn YOUR country's language if I lived there!

I have no issue with people retaining a sense of their traditional culture, but don't expect your adopted country to change for you! I would not expect special treatment in any other country and I don't expect to give it here. By deliberately isolating themselves, some groups cause friction and resentment. They also give crackpots like Anders Behring Breivik an excuse to perpetrate terrible acts.

The UK has benefitted from the influence of other cultures for 2000 years - it's what makes the country interesting and diverse. Goodness, without the Romans, we wouldn't have our 'traditional English' roast dinner! Multiculturalism can be a great thing; we can learn from each other, take the best of each culture and throw it into the melting pot. Of course, those that want to isolate themselves won't read any of this, so we're simply preaching to the converted.


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## presto

It’s a very tricky one, let too many people in you’re in danger of losing your national identity, I think this is happening in the UK.
Immigrants tend to stick together and whole areas have become like little foreign countries in their own right that seem to have no allegiance to the county that adopted them.
It’s good having a Multicultural society that’s tolerant and rich in diversity but it can only work to a point and if immigrants integrate. 
As soon as a minority group gets too big people start to feel uneasy about it taking over and changing their culture and way of life.


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## Almaviva

I think all these cultural ghettos get eventually absorbed. It may take a generation or two. 
I think countries have the right to select who they want to allow in, and it's at *that* point that certain requirements should be enforced - like a minimum of proficiency in the official language, notions of civics, history, etc., like we do in the United States (duly pointed out by the OP). But once you let these people in, then I don't think you continue to have the right to impose things like "mandatory language lessons or face the consequences." This would be a curtailment of individual freedoms. If you value what your country is (a freedom-respecting country) you shouldn't try to defend your values by straying from them. Now, the people who harassed you and tried to mug you, that's a different story, that's criminal behavior, and should be curbed. Sharia law? No. If an immigrant wants to come, he/she needs to obey the laws of the land. These immigrants should have no more rights (such as being allowed to uphold their own Sharia law) than others but also no less rights (being forced to take language classes, or else). If you don't want them, don't give them immigrant visas. But if you do give them a visa, then, treat them fairly.


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## regressivetransphobe

Nationalism is dressed up prejudice. Let all "national identity" die for all I care.



> Immigrants tend to stick together and whole areas have become like little foreign countries in their own right that seem to have no allegiance to the county that adopted them.


Doesn't it strike you as strange imposing allegiance to the state upon citizens? Maybe it's just me. When we were forced to recite the pledge of allegiance, all I could think was "B-R-A-I-N-W-A-S-H-I-N-G".



> If I emigrated to another country, I would consider it my DUTY to learnt the language, traditions and customs as well as I possibly could.


As long as by going against traditions and customs you aren't breaking the law or actively harming anyone, I don't understand the importance placed on integration. I would bring my own way with me, to any extent possible, because it's part of who I am. And if America (in my case) isn't supposed to be about self-determination down to the most personal facets of your lifestyle, then there is nothing about it worth preserving anyway.

There's also the fact that people more willing to integrate than I would be might not have the opportunity. Privilege is an important thing to think about.


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## TxllxT

Czechoslovakia used to be a country where Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Jews and Gypsies lived together for ages. The Czechs and Slovaks entered Bohemia around 600 AD from the east and the Germans were invited around 1200 by the Bohemian kings to live and start trading in the King's privileged towns. All this ended in 1946. The Jews were annihilated during WWII, the Germans extradited in 1946 and the Gypsies were forcefully moved from Prague to the empty border towns (Karlsbad, Teplice etc.). Bohemia used to be a multi-cultural society wherein the Czechs, Germans & Jews competed peacefully with eachother by means of culture: why did Prague get such a lot of wonderful architecture? Answer: Prague competed with Vienna, competed with Berlin, with Karlsbad & Teplice (Germanspeaking towns in Bohemia). Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke were born in Prague.

When I came living in Prague I got to know many Czechs, who knew their culture. Endless discussions about music, opera, Czech history. But when I asked about Franz Kafka, about Rainer Maria Rilke: the silence after brainwashing was palpable. Kafka was a weirdo and Rilke....who??? --- During the 19th century the university of Prague was reknown in all the slavonic countries, because there the concept of nationalism was invented and favoured with a fury, that nationalism was able to spark in people's minds. Being 'Czech' became a religion.

Today we tend to look at 'culture' as something that is different from 'religion'. But there are people for whom culture & religion is just one and the same: for example the (orthodox) Jews, for whom being Jewish brings all together, both culture and religion. But nowadays we meet in the street people who show by their way of clothing that they are Islamic. For them is being Islamic something all together: culture & religion.

The problem inherent with 'multiculturalism' is onesidedness: some *only* want to see 'culture' (leaving 'religion' to a non-public space), others want to see culture & religion as a whole. In Holland the social-democrats talk about multiculturalism as a nice mixing up of cultures while treating the religion as something completely different. The freedom-party of mr. Wilders talks about islamic culture & religion as an whole: they detest the Islamic religion and do not like women to cover up completely under pieces of clothing.

So the first thing in our nowadays Babylon is to make clear what we are talking about: do we talk about 'culture' as a funny&weird dress-up of the superficial (*not* willing to take a more extensive look) or are we willing to see the whole of culture & religion?


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## HarpsichordConcerto

I support multiculturalism _in principle_ (both cultural and religious aspects), that it _in principle_ could enrich the lives of the majority, and vice-versa indeed; enriching those who become part of the majority, with a sense of mutual enrichment and diversity.

However, in practice it is far, far less ideal and in just about all developed nations where this is particularly an issue, Australia included, I don't particularly think it works terribly well with some (not all) folks. I often see this branding of "multicultralism" get contorted by fringe lobbyists and other interest groups without a giving a hoot about the majority, that tolerance should come at just about any cost and anyone who dares question it would automatically be labelled racist/bigot/whatever. I am deeply against the reaching out of extreme special treatment on some immigrants who hardly compromise their wanted cultures and religions, for example their loud demands on building schools solely for their children (and religion) without any sense of mutual enrichment whatsoever.


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## Almaviva

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I support multiculturalism _in principle_ (both cultural and religious aspects), that it _in principle_ could enrich the lives of the majority, and vice-versa indeed; enriching those who become part of the majority, with a sense of mutual enrichment and diversity.
> 
> However, in practice it is far, far less ideal and in just about all developed nations where this is particularly an issue, Australia included, I don't particularly think it works terribly well with some (not all) folks. I often see this branding of "multicultralism" get contorted by fringe lobbyists and other interest groups without a giving a hoot about the majority, that tolerance should come at just about any cost and anyone who dares question it would automatically be labelled racist/bigot/whatever. I am deeply against the reaching out of extreme special treatment on some immigrants who hardly compromise their wanted cultures and religions, for example their loud demands on building schools solely for their children (and religion) without any sense of mutual enrichment whatsoever.


So what you're saying is that extremes are bad. Like I said, I favor equal treatment, not more rights than for the mainstream culture (building special schools for the minorities), not less (enforcing dress code prohibitions).


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Almaviva said:


> ... not less (enforcing dress code prohibitions).


If HarpsicordConcerto walked around in public wearing a balacava, then HC might soon get asked by police why, although a lady wearing a burqa for religious reasons might not. So in this case though, I think it would be sensible and fair to enforce some dress code prohibitions on both, including the wearer of the burqa. (Australia is not a Muslim state).


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## Almaviva

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> If HarpsicordConcerto walked around in public wearing a balacava, then HC might soon get asked by police why, although a lady wearing a burqa for religious reasons might not. So in this case though, I think it would be sensible and fair to enforce some dress code prohibitions on both, including the wearer of the burqa. (Australia is not a Muslim state).


 I don't know. Does Australian law prohibit a Catholic priest or nun from wearing their religious garbs? Or an orthodox Jew? If not, then the Muslims should be allowed to wear theirs as well.


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## Rasa

I don't support multiculturalism. For me, anyone can practice their culture to the full extent as long as they don't infringe on public liberties and law.

I don't feel that other cultures should have to make contact with me.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Almaviva said:


> I don't know. Does Australian law prohibit a Catholic priest or nun of wearing their religious garbs? Or an orthodox Jew? If not, then the Muslims should be allowed to wear theirs as well.


The religious argument you suggested, and often cited, is a valid one on its own. In this case then, the merits of permitting versus banning the burqa should be assessed on a much wider scale in the context of one's society, and there are more reasons for banning it than not (at least here in Australia). The religious argmuent is the _only_ significant argument in its favour. Permitting the burqa on religious grounds quickly complicates the application of it on a much wider scale; citing some examples:-

(1) Real case: a police officer did a random breath check on a driver who happened to wear a burqa and the driver refused to adequately remove the burqa for identity check. The lady took the policeforce to court after the police was about to pernalise her. Anybody else _in a society where we are generally required by law to cooperate with the police_ for identity checks would be required to do so. In this case, as Australia is not a majority Muslim state, the case was rightfully dismissed. A banning should follow suit. What about employees who choose to wear a burqa at work, say at a family restuarant and cites religious discrimination otherwise? Again, remember who the majority and social contexts are. Wider ramifications include the publication of pork content in food sold in supermarkets for example, or on the menus of restaurants.

(2) The burqa is really about the oppression of women, under the license of Islam. While this might be entirely acceptable in Muslim states, Australia upholds equality in both sexes, and as this symbolism of oppression has no context in Australian society, it therefore doesn't really hold to water have it worn.

At the end of the day, it is the social and legal context of the majority that matters, through mutual enrichment and diversification, not the minority who appears disinterested in it.


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## science

Rasa said:


> I don't support multiculturalism. For me, anyone can practice their culture to the full extent as long as they don't infringe on public liberties and law.
> 
> I don't feel that other cultures should have to make contact with me.


Your first and second sentences seem to me to contradict each other.

Evidently the word "multiculturalism" means different things to different people.


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## science

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2011/07/29/saudi-cleric-rules-in-favor-of-child-marriage.html



> Saudi Cleric Rules for Child Marriage
> 
> Sheik Saleh al-Fawzan, one of Saudi Arabia's most influential clerics, has backed a religious ruling that allows fathers to arrange marriages for their daughters "even if they are in the cradle." But he drew the line when it came to sex, writing in his fatwa that husbands cannot have intercourse with their child spouses "unless they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of men." Fawzan's new ruling-which comes on the heels of the Justice Ministry's legislative attempt to regulate marriages between prepubescent girls and men-has spurred confrontation between the Saudi government and the country's powerful conservative clergy. According to Saudi media, the Justice Ministry would fight to set a minimum age for marriage in the male-dominated, Islamic kingdom-but it's not clear how much power Fawzan's fatwa would have in the case.


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## jurianbai

the problem is multiculturalism rule usually to protect minority and compromised the majority culture. in indonesia and malaysia, minority christians and chinese depends heavily on minority rules as protection, if not they will got slammed out of surface. in western, the muslim enjoy this as part of human right, usually not vice versa in mecca or afghanistan.

meanwhile if world become one big multiculturalism community, the chinese and indians is the majority, western should beware that the population for_ ang moh _ (red hair aka. white men) is shrinking. if multiculturalism not take carefully it will be a back boomerang in a 50 years onward.


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## Almaviva

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> The religious argument you suggested, and often cited, is a valid one on its own. In this case then, the merits of permitting versus banning the burqa should be assessed on a much wider scale in the context of one's society, and there are more reasons for banning it than not (at least here in Australia). The religious argmuent is the _only_ significant argument in its favour. Permitting the burqa on religious grounds quickly complicates the application of it on a much wider scale; citing some examples:-
> 
> (1) Real case: a police officer did a random breath check on a driver who happened to wear a burqa and the driver refused to adequately remove the burqa for identity check. The lady took the policeforce to court after the police was about to pernalise her. Anybody else _in a society where we are generally required by law to cooperate with the police_ for identity checks would be required to do so. In this case, as Australia is not a majority Muslim state, the case was rightfully dismissed. A banning should follow suit. What about employees who choose to wear a burqa at work, say at a family restuarant and cites religious discrimination otherwise? Again, remember who the majority and social contexts are. Wider ramifications include the publication of pork content in food sold in supermarkets for example, or on the menus of restaurants.
> 
> (2) The burqa is really about the oppression of women, under the license of Islam. While this might be entirely acceptable in Muslim states, Australia upholds equality in both sexes, and as this symbolism of oppression has no context in Australian society, it therefore doesn't really hold to water have it worn.
> 
> At the end of the day, it is the social and legal context of the majority that matters, through mutual enrichment and diversification, not the minority who appears disinterested in it.


The first case is not a concern. It doesn't hold water and the judge correctly dismissed it. But it shouldn't result in a ban for burqas, just, should result in the notion that people won't be able to flash their religion to avoid police action - which is perfectly fine in a secular state. People can't, for example, rob a bank and then run into a church and invoke sanctuary. That doesn't mean that if someone tries this and is correctly arrested, next you need to ban churches.

Your second point - that "a burqa is really about the oppression of women" - might be challenged by an anthropologist as an example of cultural assumptions typically made by the dominant culture that the minority or foreign culture is inferior. All good anthropologists will tell you that there is no such thing as superiority or inferiority of a culture. Practices that appear barbaric to a culture may very well be what makes people happy and serene in another culture. I've read interviews of pious Muslim women who vehemently defended their right to express their religious selves by wearing the clothing that their religion prescribes to them (such as scarves over the head and even burqas). For many of these women (probably not all) they may feel that it is extremely invasive for the civil government to interfere with their religious practices. They may feel deeply violated by having to show some skin, or may feel terribly curtailed and unable to go outside because the way they feel culturally comfortable to show up outside - that is, covered up - is being taken away from them - they may basically feel condemned to house arrest for no fault of their own. We Westerns will easily assume that these women were brainwashed and that deep inside they feel deeply oppressed by these practices and would be delighted if some knight in shiny arms like a civil government rescued them and allowed them to free themselves of these oppressive garbs. Not necessarily so, buddy. For many of them the feeling may be just the opposite. Don't underestimate the power of culture. Many of these women may be perfectly happy with their roles in their specific culture and desire no interference from people who don't understand their culture.

I could just as easily say that the practice of celibacy among Catholic priests is oppressive to men, and you don't see a lot of countries passing laws to force Catholic priests to abandon celibacy. So Australia upholds equality in both sexes. Does Australia then ban the practices of the Catholic church that condemn male priests to celibacy and forbid female nuns from becoming priests if they want to? It's gender inequality as well.

HC, all these arguments are slippery things, and they often boil down to degree of strangeness. Although Australia is mostly a Protestant country, Catholicism or Judaism are not as "strange" - don't have the same otherness - therefore practices that are essentially also invasive of individual liberties are tolerated. But when it's a Muslim practice, then the fear of otherness kicks in and people are quick to muddle the waters and think that it is perfectly justified to hold them to a higher standard than the one they ask of Catholics and Jews.

When people say "it's fine in Muslim countries, but not here" they are basically afraid of losing their national identity. Because if you think a burqa is not fine, then it isn't fine anywhere on Earth. You either think it's oppressive and not OK in any circumstance, or you think people should be allowed to practice their religion without interference, regardless of whether they live in Afghanistan or Australia. Otherwise you're using a double standard. Oh, among their cultural context it's fine, but not in Australian society? Guess what, people don't check their cultural context at the door when they come in like they check a coat. Even if they immigrate from Afghanistan to Australia, they still keep their cultural context around them (that's exactly why they choose to live in ghettos surrounded by their peers - these things take one, two, three generations to change - and they usually do change gently, but it is not easy to push the change down their throats).
You might say - why did they come, then? Well, that's a question for them, I don't know, for various reasons, I suppose. But *you* let them in.

You'll say, no, it's fine to say it's OK in Afghanistan but not here because in Afghanistan it's the dominant culture. Well, we may disagree again about majority and minority, and this goes towards a bigger ideological divide. I understand that in most Western countries or countries founded upon Western culture like Australia, the idea of democracy is the rule of the majority - one person, one vote, you tally them at the end.

Here in the United States we believe that the idea of democracy - in the way we organize our federation - a republic which is not entirely democratic - is one in which the state ensures that the minority won't be completed run over by the majority. That's why in many of our institutions there is no direct representation (example, a small, poorly populated state still sends two senators to Congress, as many as states like California, Texas, and New York - so it's not one person, one vote since the vote of an inhabitant of that state proportionally counts more than that of someone who lives in a populous state).

Because if we took the concept of majority to the most extreme consequences, say, a situation like this could happen: there's a town with 100 inhabitants. 90 of them have green hair, and 10 of them have blue hair. The ninety get together, petition the authorities to have a referendum, and put to vote a bill saying that anybody born with blue hair is an abomination and ought to be killed immediately and murder in these circumstances would be deemed legal. Then the voting day arrives, and their measure is approved 90 to 10 and becomes law. They proceed to exterminate the 10 blue-haired folks and their kids.

Do you think that this is a fair example of the right of a majority to run things?

Now, what is my position on all of this? I am an atheist and frankly, I think that celibacy, nuns, the Amish who don't use electricity, scarves, burqas, etc., seem to *me* to be some rather weird concepts.

But I wouldn't want to impose *my* standards on others who may be *peacefully* and *lawfully* upholding their religions and whatever comes with it, be it celibacy, or a nun's habit, or a burqa.

Lawfully, I say. If a woman tries to evade a breath check by hiding herself behind a burqa, do dismiss her claim. Kudos to that judge. She is in Australia and she must respect Australian law. On the other hand, when she is NOT disrespecting the law and just practicing her religion, regardless of how I feel about it (oppressive? ridiculous?), I say, let her practice her religion. Who are we to judge her? Do we really know whether or not she feels oppressed?

Separation of Church and State and fair treatment of minorities for me are essential Western values.

You know, you think these folks are turning Australian society upside down and are threatening your national identity? Well, then, don't grant them immigrant visas. This much is your right. But if you lawfully admit them into your society, then, do respect their freedom to practice their religion, just like you wouldn't like it if the situation were reversed.


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## Sid James

I think this is a complex & emotional issue, as some above have said. I'm really not sure about what is the solution to the challenges posed by multiculturalism. Esp. in terms of what's currently going on in Iraq & Afghanistan (hard to imagine, these "wars" or "conflicts" have been going on for about 10 years now & these countries were far from stable before that even). Some people I know say that Australia should limit it's intake of migrants, esp. from non-European countries. I can see the point of that, I don't think it would be good for Australia to be turned into a semi-Islamic state (as Harpsichord Concerto suggests). I read many years ago that the French government banned all religious clothing for government employees, including wearing of crosses, that sort of thing. I know they were criticised for that, but at least it was a "blanket" banning, not singling out any religion. The interests of the secular French state/nation were seen as more important than any religious values. But this is a "rubbery" issue if transplanted to our Australian context. Eg. in France, the whole education system (as I understand it) is secular only. There are no religious schools or other educational institutions like that (excepting things like seminaries for training priests, that sort of thing). But here in Australia, we have a mixture of government (state) & religious schools and higher education institutions. It would be hard to do here what was done in France. & this has been like this all along in Australia, since the British established their colony here, there's been a "mixed" system. Initially, the religious schools were Catholic & Anglican & other Christian denominations, then Jewish ones were set up, & now there are a number of Islamic ones. It's kind of difficult to make any long-standing solutions, "blanket" or not, in this kind of context, esp. with how history has evolved here. We can keep an eye on religious indoctrination or extremism in these religious schools, but there are probably limits on that as well (eg. in terms of civil liberties, the separation between church & state, all these things). It's like you're damned if you don't interfere & you're damned if you do. A classic "catch 22" situation if there ever was one...


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## jurianbai

alma, when you go to Iran or Mecca, if you are a girl you are obligated a headwear or burqa. when said you are not muslim, the reason will be it is a compulsary overthere regardless religion, and more cultural thing. also the woman overthere will said it is more wise to use headwear because it is much SAFE for a girl rather than you go out "naked" hair.


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## Almaviva

Sid James said:


> I think this is a complex & emotional issue, as some above have said. I'm really not sure about what is the solution to the challenges posed by multiculturalism. Esp. in terms of what's currently going on in Iraq & Afghanistan (hard to imagine, these "wars" or "conflicts" have been going on for about 10 years now & these countries were far from stable before that even). Some people I know say that Australia should limit it's intake of migrants, esp. from non-European countries. I can see the point of that, I don't think it would be good for Australia to be turned into a semi-Islamic state (as Harpsichord Concerto suggests). I read many years ago that the French government banned all religious clothing for government employees, including wearing of crosses, that sort of thing. I know they were criticised for that, but at least it was a "blanket" banning, not singling out any religion. The interests of the secular French state/nation were seen as more important than any religious values. But this is a "rubbery" issue if transplanted to our Australian context. Eg. in France, the whole education system (as I understand it) is secular only. There are no religious schools or other educational institutions like that (excepting things like seminaries for training priests, that sort of thing). But here in Australia, we have a mixture of government (state) & religious schools and higher education institutions. It would be hard to do here what was done in France. & this has been like this all along in Australia, since the British established their colony here, there's been a "mixed" system. Initially, the religious schools were Catholic & Anglican & other Christian denominations, then Jewish ones were set up, & now there are a number of Islamic ones. It's kind of difficult to make any long-standing solutions, "blanket" or not, in this kind of context, esp. with how history has evolved here. We can keep an eye on religious indoctrination or extremism in these religious schools, but there are probably limits on that as well (eg. in terms of civil liberties, the separation between church & state, all these things). It's like you're damned if you don't interfere & you're damned if you do. A classic "catch 22" situation if there ever was one...


I'm not familiar with what happened in France - I was following for a while the polemic about school girls wearing scarfs - but I stopped paying attention. I also don't know about this blanket prohibition of all religious items for governmental employees.

But I'd assume, if they did the latter, it was done for those employees *while at work,* right? I wouldn't imagine that once they punched the clock at 5 PM and went outside and fished their crosses out of their purses to wear them again out on the streets, the police would come running and snatch the cross from them and arrest them, right?

I think it's OK for a business, a governmental institution, etc., to have a dress code and make some demands on the employees. People are not forced to work for them, if they don't agree. Ideally they should be told this before they are hired. But it wouldn't be OK to ban crosses out on the streets, right?

Equally, it may be not OK to ban burqas out on the streets.

You know, any time such garbs interfere with an existing law and pose a security risk - say, you shouldn't be able to enter a bank with a burqa because who knows if you'd be hiring a machine gun under it to rob the bank, maybe the person doing this is not even a Muslim or even less, a woman, but rather some male bank robber with a machine gun - then, fine. But where there is no conflict with other laws and no unlawful behavior, then I think nobody has any right to legislate on people's displays of their religious beliefs. Do you guys have separation of Church and State, yes or no? If you do, why are you trying to pass laws to curtail people's religious freedoms?


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## Almaviva

jurianbai said:


> alma, when you go to Iran or Mecca, if you are a girl you are obligated a headwear or burqa. when said you are not muslim, the reason will be it is a compulsary overthere regardless religion, and more cultural thing. also the woman overthere will said it is more wise to use headwear because it is much SAFE for a girl rather than you go out "naked" hair.


Oh well, Iran and Saudi Arabia are *not* secular states.
Should we now emulate these religious states?
Do we value our freedoms, or not?
Are we now starting to act like them?
I like the fact that I live in a non-secular state. My government doesn't impose any religious practice on me (thankfully, because I'm an atheist). The counterpart is that my government shouldn't curtail anybody's religious practices either. The government should just stay out of it, in my opinion.


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## Sid James

Almaviva said:


> I'm not familiar with what happened in France - I was following for a while the polemic about school girls wearing scarfs - but I stopped paying attention. I also don't know about this blanket prohibition of all religious items for governmental employees.


Well, I read an article about this issue in France about 5 years ago. My memory is hazy, I think that the current President Sarkozy was involved. I'm not up on all the details, but I think the law banning religious clothing & other items did go through their parliament.



> But I'd assume, if they did the latter, it was done for those employees *while at work,* right? I wouldn't imagine that once they punched the clock at 5 PM and went outside and fished their crosses out of their purses to wear them again out on the streets, the police would come running and snatch the cross from them and arrest them, right?


Yes, the ban in France (as I understand it) applies to government employees as well as school and university students. As I said, my understanding of their education system is that it's totally secular - except for things like seminaries - unlike Australia where we have always had a "mixed" education sector, made up of both government & non-government schools/universities (some of these are secular but private [not free like govt. schools, pay only basis, but no religious basis] but others are religious)...


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## Almaviva

Let me tell you all a related story to illustrate my assertion that cultural superiority doesn't exist.
I've been always appalled at the institution of arranged marriages.
I've always assumed that it is a violence committed against these youngsters and it is despicable that people are forced to marry each other without love.
I felt that my culture which doesn't practice arranged marriages is superior to the culture of those who do.

So relatively recently I developed a growing friendship with a woman who is a Hindu, who immigrated from India to the United States, is highly educated (medical doctor) and married to a gentleman who is a computer engineer. Her marriage to her husband was arranged through matchmakers hired by their families. They've been together for decades, have college-age kids, are cultured and sophisticated individuals, and they are highly successful professionals who both make 6-figure salaries. So, they are what one might call the enlightened elite.

So with the growing friendship I finally felt comfortable to ask her questions about the practice of arranged marriages, which I was curious about.

Her answer which as far as I know is entirely truthful and not just lip-service or product of brainwashing surprised me. Here is what she said:

"I think our system is superior to yours. See, your youngsters go out on their own trying to find a mate, fall in love with a potential mate, idealize the person, get married. So they love each other. But it's human nature that love, that infatuation with fast heartbeat and butterflies in the stomach, doesn't last. Give it six months, maybe one year. Then what is left if it is a good match of two compatible persons, is friendship, companionship, common interests, a family to raise, mutual support, tenderness. People who get all that have successful marriages, and call it love. It's not love any longer. My husband and I have never been "in love" with each other. We met for the first time days before we got married. But we have enjoyed all of these feelings and common interests I've mentioned. We have a very good marriage and a very good relationship. He's my best friend in life. He's a good husband for me and I'm a good wife for him. Physical attraction? It fades just like infatuation fades, and beauty is skin deep and people age and lose it. It shouldn't be how you pick your mate for life. See, when I was young, if I had tried myself to find a mate on my own, I might have picked the wrong person, based on idealized infatuation or looks - not to forget that this process is all very anxiety-provoking. I might find out later when it would have been too late, that my husband who seemed so nice and so ideal was a wife beater, an alcoholic, a lazy bum, a con artist, or a womanizer. I was too young and inexperienced. The elders in our families know better. They are wise and experienced. They picked the best matchmakers, and they made sure to get me a good husband, and to get him a good wife. It worked. You Westerners say that love is what is important. I see many of those marriages based on love end in bitterness, disappointment, divorce, and hatred. Well, my husband was picked for me by my elders and their matchmakers, and they made a wonderful choice. We've been together for twenty years and we are likely to remain together for the rest of our lives. Love is overrated."

So, would *I* want to be forced into a marriage to a woman picked by my elders? No, absolutely not. But I'm not of my friend's culture. She seems to be pretty happy with her culture. Who am I to say that my culture is superior, and hers is oppressive and interferes with people's freedom? It may seem this way to me, but it certainly doesn't seem this way to her.
*She* thinks that *her* culture is the superior one, and that we are fools for valuing love this much (although, polite as she is, she didn't say it in these words).

So, my friends, everything is relative, and beware of feelings of cultural superiority.


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## jurianbai

Almaviva said:


> Oh well, Iran and Saudi Arabia are *not* secular states.
> Should we now emulate these religious states?
> Do we value our freedoms, or not?
> Are we now starting to act like them?
> I like the fact that I live in a non-secular state. My government doesn't impose any religious practice on me (thankfully, because I'm an atheist). The counterpart is that my government shouldn't curtail anybody's religious practices either. The government should just stay out of it, in my opinion.


I understand Alma. So, if my imaginative religion (my real religion, sadly, didn't care much about the issue) stated I am a sinful for wearing other religion' headwear, symbolization of other God's follower, I will never can enter Arab. The same thing to burqa women, will not able to go French without compromise their faith. But then I will not able to complaint much on the issue because it is a religious country, while French... a secular (?) is wrong doing.

On this point, I agree that I also like the setup of secular country on this issue. Even so, as religious person, I will pray hard that these secular nations, with ever growing atheist , will stand on forever on this ideology, and will not failed in the end.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Almaviva said:


> Your second point - that "a burqa is really about the oppression of women" - might be challenged by an anthropologist as an example of cultural assumptions typically made by the dominant culture that the minority or foreign culture is inferior. All good anthropologists will tell you that there is no such thing as superiority or inferiority of a culture. Practices that appear barbaric to a culture may very well be what makes people happy and serene in another culture. I've read interviews of pious Muslim women who vehemently defended their right to express their religious selves by wearing the clothing that their religion prescribes to them (such as scarfs over the head and even burqas). For many of these women (probably not all) they may feel that it is extremely invasive for the civil government to interfere with their religious practices. They may feel deeply violated by having to show some skin, or may feel terribly curtailed and unable to go outside because the way they feel culturally comfortable to show up outside - that is, covered up - is being taken away from them - they may basically feel condemned to house arrest for no fault of their own. We Westerns will easily assume that these women were brainwashed and that deep inside they feel deeply oppressed by these practices and would be delighted if some knight in shiny arms like a civil government rescued them and allowed them to free themselves of these oppressive garbs. Not necessarily so, buddy. For many of them the feeling may be just the opposite. Don't underestimate the power of culture. Many of these women may be perfectly happy with their roles in their specific culture and desire no interference from people who don't understand their culture.


I wrote very clearly immediately following my sentence regarding the burqa representing oppression of women. That if the practice is socially acceptable in Islamic states because they view it as religiously justifiable _in their countries_ (or even by anthropologists as you suggested), then that is all fine, and more importantly, largely irrelevant as far as _Australian social contexts _are concerned. My point was a very simple one, and one that did not infer anything, as you suggested, regarding superiority or inferiority. Freedom of religious and cultural practice/expression should not come at any price when one enters into another country when the majority has its own social and legal identities.

There was absolutely no inference made in part regarding cultural inferiority or superiority. I am rather sorry and puzzled that you might have read it that way. It is the expectation that minority groups have absolutely equal recognition in all cultural and social matters at significant compromise of the majority that bothers me, which was the basic point of my notes above. If I invite friends into my house, while I certainly welcome their differences and opinions, I do expect some degree of mutual cooperation while under the one roof.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Almaviva said:


> Let me tell you all a related story to illustrate my assertion that cultural superiority doesn't exist.
> 
> So, my friends, everything is relative, and beware of feelings of cultural superiority.


I agree with you entirely that cultural superiority does not exist, and as I wrote in my post above this one, cultural superiority was not the issue in my notes above.


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## Meaghan

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> If HarpsicordConcerto walked around in public wearing a balacava, then HC might soon get asked by police why, although a lady wearing a burqa for religious reasons might not.


Hah, that's because the _meanings_ police associate with balaclavas and burqas are, for very concrete and sensible reasons, different. Wearing a balaclava and wearing a burqa do not signify the same things and should not trigger the same reactions.


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## Meaghan

Almaviva said:


> You Westerners say that love is what is important. I see many of those marriages based on love end in bitterness, disappointment, divorce, and hatred. Well, my husband was picked for me by my elders and their matchmakers, and they made a wonderful choice. We've been together for twenty years and we are likely to remain together for the rest of our lives. Love is overrated.


I can imagine how strange your friend's testimony must have seemed to you, Alma, having read the story of how you met your wife.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

jurianbai said:


> the problem is multiculturalism rule usually to protect minority and compromised the majority culture. in indonesia and malaysia, minority christians and chinese depends heavily on minority rules as protection, if not they will got slammed out of surface. in western, the muslim enjoy this as part of human right, usually not vice versa in mecca or afghanistan...


Exactly my point (the part I highlighted in blue). I support multiculturalism in principle, but as I wrote above that in practice, this is very often abused. As for the Chinese minority in Indonesia (our most important neighbour) and Malaysia, my understanding is that the Chinese are certainly an economic "powerhouse", contributing extensively and significantly to the economies of those nations without expecting and or imposing significantly compromising demands on the majority of non-Chinese Indonesians and Malaysians. Good on them.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Meaghan said:


> Hah, that's because the _meanings_ police associate with balaclavas and burqas are, for very concrete and sensible reasons, different. Wearing a balaclava and wearing a burqa do not signify the same things and should not trigger the same reactions.


Agree. But it is the social reaction, already imbued in our society of the majority, that matters in this example, which is my basic point.


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## Meaghan

Since there seems to be a fair bit of discussion here about Islamic garb - 

I'm not so fond of burqas. I think they can be disempowering to women. 

BUT - 

I have real problems with the idea that banning burqas (or the less cumbersome hijab headscarves) in public spaces in any way helps empower or liberate Muslim women. Telling someone what they can or cannot wear is exactly the opposite of liberation. I have a Muslim friend at college who, though she does not wear a burqa, does wear long skirts and long sleeves and a headscarf at all times. She is smart and well-educated and a fairly normal American 19-year-old and does not see her clothing as oppressive. To her, it is a way of demonstrating her faith, and a symbol of belonging to her cultural heritage. So, who am I to judge? People who think for themselves (and plenty of hijab-wearing women fall into this category) take umbrage when they are told what to wear, and I can see how they would find it deeply insulting if you told them you were trying to free them from the oppression of sexism. "Liberation" is not something you can force on the population you are trying to liberate. When you try, it becomes just another form of repression.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Meaghan said:


> ... I have a Muslim friend at college who, though she does not wear a burqa, does wear long skirts and long sleeves and a headscarf at all times. She is smart and well-educated and a fairly normal American 19-year-old and does not see her clothing as oppressive. To her, it is a way of demonstrating her faith, and a symbol of belonging to her cultural heritage. So, who am I to judge? People who think for themselves (and plenty of hijab-wearing women fall into this category) take umbrage when they are told what to wear, and I can see how they would find it deeply insulting if you told them you were trying to free them from the oppression of sexism. "Liberation" is not something you can force on the population you are trying to liberate. When you try, it becomes just another form of repression.


You have mixed the issue: we were discussing the full garment, the burqa. Your respectable friend, as you have described, does not wear it. (In fact, I wonder why does she not wear it?) Equally, I would advocate to ban extreme forms of Islamic practice in Australia, as Australian social values by and large, do not endorse it because the majority (including significant numbers other immigrant populations here, such as the Chinese, Europeans and Africans) don't believe in oppressing others both physically and intellectually.

The issue of liberation is of course an important one, but again not at any price. An excellent example is guns. Gun ownerhsip was outlawed in Australia not that long ago following a massacre. You might argue that everyone has the right to own a gun. The majority of Australians don't feel the need to own guns as easily as we can buy any household item; except for, you guessed it, a minority. Should society be made less safe, directly or indirectly, because gun ownerhsip liberation of a minority is infringed on by banning it? Well, Australian major capital cities, in comparison with American cities don't have a gun problem, and numerous of us feel a lot safer as a result.


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## Operafocus

Almaviva said:


> I think our system is superior to yours. See, your youngsters go out on their own trying to find a mate, fall in love with a potential mate, idealize the person, get married. So they love each other. But it's human nature that love, that infatuation with fast heartbeat and butterflies in the stomach, doesn't last. Give it six months, maybe one year. Then what is left if it is a good match of two compatible persons, is friendship, companionship, common interests, a family to raise, mutual support, tenderness. People who get all that have successful marriages, and call it love. It's not love any longer.


And yet, people who found each other without the help of their parents - shock horror - actually happily stay together for 70 years. Their system superior? No offense to this person, but I think they've misunderstood the meaning of love. Probably because she's never experienced what we call "courting" herself, with all the excitement that entails, with her hand-picked husband. Yes, you have your year, year and a half of total bliss and horniness, and then it's either make or break, mainly based on whether those _in-love_ feelings have grown into something more stable and lasting, with its basis in love - the kind where you know your partner's flaws and love them for it, because you realise it's part of their character. If you ask me if I would get "the perfect man" hand-picked and live with someone I was *never* actually, well, _hot for_ vs having a super-exciting time for 12-18 months and 70 "ordinary" years on top of that, then I'd choose the 2nd option any day. Call me old fashioned (or new fashioned, depending), but I think that when you sit there at 78 and have known your spouse for 50 years, that it's acctually important to have the memories of that time when you couldn't keep your hands off each other. If you never had that... then what's the real point? The only real difference between a lover and a friend is, after all, lust. Can you really, truly lust with your entire being over a person you've hands-on-heart never had even a crush on, even for the first few months of your time together? Sex then becomes a duty, a way of expanding a family so that you can spend the next 18-25 years raising children and not have to sit and think that you might have wasted your life on a partner who was forced to marry you because their parents said they had to...



Almaviva said:


> See, when I was young, if I had tried myself to find a mate on my own, I might have picked the wrong person, based on idealized infatuation or looks - not to forget that this process is all very anxiety-provoking. I might find out later when it would have been too late, that my husband who seemed so nice and so ideal was a wife beater, an alcoholic, a lazy bum, a con artist, or a womanizer. I was too young and inexperienced. The elders in our families know better. They are wise and experienced. They picked the best matchmakers, and they made sure to get me a good husband, and to get him a good wife. It worked.


But does it always work? No. She makes it sound like aaaaaaall marriages over there are _really_ happy and _really_ perfect. In a culture where you end up getting stoned if you want a divorce, you won't let either yourself or anyone else know how you actually feel in your marriage. And also, finding the wrong person, making mistakes and so on... isn't that a part of what we call *life*!? Or am I missing something? And, just because a man seemed to be a nice fella and his parents said he's been brought up well, doesn't mean he won't be a wife beater, an alcoholic, a lazy f*cker or a womaniser. These aren't necessarily traits one puts on one's resume, you know... Various religious groups will hold their prayer book in one hand and hit with the other. How someone behaves at 17-18 actually has very little to do with the person they'll become - especially if they get caught up in a marriage with a person they deep down inside cannot stand, because their parents thought it would be a good match based on how good a family they come from. Nice, wealthy people seem perfectly capable of breeding arseholes as well.



Almaviva said:


> You Westerners say that love is what is important. I see many of those marriages based on love end in bitterness, disappointment, divorce, and hatred. Well, my husband was picked for me by my elders and their matchmakers, and they made a wonderful choice. We've been together for twenty years and we are likely to remain together for the rest of our lives. Love is overrated."


"Love is overrated". Well, I'm sorry, but what's the friggin' point of being together all your lives if you can't even say you love each other? As I said above, I think this woman has misunderstood the concept of love. Don't we love our friends, our children, our family? Sure, most people don't stay in-love for their entire lives, but some actually manage to keep it going because they remind themselves of what it was like when they first met! Yes, looks and bodies and all that infamously fade, but the feelings you have for someone needn't.

*A little story of "Western love"*
I met a man once, he was 96 and his wife was 90. She was dying of lung cancer, and I was there to help her breathe easier. He took me to her room and said, "This is my girl!" They looked at each other and their eyes sparkled. They had met when she was 20 and he was 26, 70 years earlier. When I'd done what I could for her, I sat and had tea with him. He told me about when they met, with the enthusiasm of a teenager. He told me how beautiful she had looked, which dress she wore, how they had travelled the world, had a child, started with Yoga before most people even knew it existed... How they had experienced life together, where the red thread was *love*. Before I left that day, this man of 96 went in to his wife's room, picked her up and carried her out into the sun, where he sat with her on her lap, stroking her cheek and looked at me with tears in his eyes; "This is my girl," he said, "my sweetheart. Isn't she beautiful?"


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## Couchie

Well, I must disagree with Almaviva and HarpsichordConcerto, I *do* believe some cultures are vastly inferior.

Almaviva, I don't think your friend actually made a case at all for forced arranged marriage, she merely made a good argument for the benefits of an arranged marriage, I missed the part justifying why the woman deserves no freedom? By American culture you can choose to marry for love, choose to marry not for love, choose to have your marriage arranged for you, choose to not get married, choose admit the possible failure of your marriage, choose to get a divorce, and then consider whether to choose remarriage. American culture does not disallow arranged marriage, seek out a matchmaker if you want, it merely affords the woman many more options, options that the vast majority of women when given the freedom prefer to arranged marriage.

Now, some other examples of clearly dysfunctional culture:

- Female genital mutilation in Northeast Africa
- Honour killings of women (and some men) in Muslim nations for adultery, with or without trial
- Death penalties for homosexual relations in some African nations
- Infanticide of female babies in India 
- Nonexistence of virtually any rights for Afghan women
- Rampant rape in African countries where women can do nothing about it

As you can see, injustices against women extend far beyond being asked to wear certain garments or marry people they've never met. I'd be interested to hear how any of the above are not indicative of an inferior culture?


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## Couchie

Meaghan said:


> I have real problems with the idea that banning burqas (or the less cumbersome hijab headscarves) in public spaces in any way helps empower or liberate Muslim women. Telling someone what they can or cannot wear is exactly the opposite of liberation. I have a Muslim friend at college who, though she does not wear a burqa, does wear long skirts and long sleeves and a headscarf at all times. She is smart and well-educated and a fairly normal American 19-year-old and does not see her clothing as oppressive. To her, it is a way of demonstrating her faith, and a symbol of belonging to her cultural heritage. So, who am I to judge? People who think for themselves (and plenty of hijab-wearing women fall into this category) take umbrage when they are told what to wear, and I can see how they would find it deeply insulting if you told them you were trying to free them from the oppression of sexism. "Liberation" is not something you can force on the population you are trying to liberate. When you try, it becomes just another form of repression.


It's still the simple matter that women are held to be not worthy of the rights granted to men sheerly due to Qu'ran-based gender discrimination, that she accepts such reductions in personal freedom willingly while not expecting the same from men is a product of brainwashing since birth; asking a woman her opinion on the burqa she's wearing is about as insightful as asking a Hitler youth their opinion on Nazisim.

Here is a video of an Iranian woman trying to tell Christopher Hitches that Iranian women have rights:


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Couchie said:


> Now, some other examples of clearly dysfunctional culture:
> 
> - Female genital mutilation in Northeast Africa
> - Honour killings of women (and some men) in Muslim nations for adultery, with or without trial
> - Death penalties for homosexual relations in some African nations
> - Infanticide of female babies in India
> - Nonexistence of virtually any rights for Afghan women
> - Rampant rape in African countries where women can do nothing about it
> 
> As you can see, injustices against women extend far beyond being asked to wear certain garments or marry people they've never met. I'd be interested to hear how any of the above are not indicative of an inferior culture?


Those you listed are downright savagery. None of those would be tolerated in Australia for example, so in that sense, I might be right to say such savagery/"inferior cultures" within one own's country here in Australia (and many other parts of the world) would not be considered socially acceptable by the majority. So yes, you're right with your examples. I wasn't thinking about these examples within the context of Australian society simply because none you listed have been issues here (not that I m aware of), whereas the burqa example has.


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## Vazgen

Almaviva said:


> I've read interviews of pious Muslim women who vehemently defended their right to express their religious selves by wearing the clothing that their religion prescribes to them (such as scarfs over the head and even burqas).


Okay. But are these women free _not _to wear these items of clothing in their communities? I've heard of plenty of women being attacked or having acid thrown in their faces for refusing this ritual concealment. Is their predicament simply not important enough to us because it's women being repressed?

Welcome to the tyranny of lesser evils.

-Vaz


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## Curiosity

Couchie said:


> Now, some other examples of clearly dysfunctional culture:
> 
> - Female genital mutilation in Northeast Africa


How about routine/default male genital mutilation in north America?


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## Meaghan

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> You have mixed the issue: we were discussing the full garment, the burqa. Your respectable friend, as you have described, does not wear it. (In fact, I wonder why does she not wear it?)


Because the Qu'ran does not prescribe the burqa, only modest dress. Different Muslims interpret this differently.

And I agree that the burqa is a different matter. My point is that banning it does not help Muslim women gain social equality. If women are going to be liberated by ceasing to wear the burqa, it will be because they _decide_ to stop wearing it; if it is merely the result of an enforced dress code, the women's social position has not really changed. I would like to see women stop wearing burqas, by I don't think they will be helped by being forced.

I am bothered more when I see bans on less-restrictive forms of dress. In France, women and girls may not wear headscarves in schools. This is part of a ban on "conspicuous religious symbols" that is not enforced evenly for all religions. It seems to me that these bans, ostensibly made in the name of protecting _laïcité_ (secularity), promoting gender equality, or "safety," almost always have xenophobia at their root. Did anybody start banning "conspicuous religious symbols" _before_ they had an influx of Muslim immigrants?



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> The issue of liberation is of course an important one, but again not at any price. An excellent example is guns. Gun ownerhsip was outlawed in Australia not that long ago following a massacre. You might argue that everyone has the right to own a gun. The majority of Australians don't feel the need to own guns as easily as we can buy any household item; except for, you guessed it, a minority. Should society be made less safe, directly or indirectly, because gun ownerhsip liberation of a minority is infringed on by banning it? Well, Australian major capital cities, in comparison with American cities don't have a gun problem, and numerous of us feel a lot safer as a result.


But once again, HC, you have compared a burqa to something that represents a danger to other people. I fail to see the connection between wearing a burqa and carrying a gun. Unless you mean that burqas are a safety hazard because people can conceal weapons under them? I ask out of curiosity, and not in sarcasm, if you know of terrorist attacks in non-Muslim countries (I specify because this is where people ban/try to ban various forms of Islamic dress) that have been perpetrated by people wearing burqas. If there is in fact a pattern of this happening, then maybe you have a point. But I think people more frequently conceal weapons under other types of garments. Trenchcoats?

For the record, I am _not_ of the belief that everyone has the right to own a gun. Guns make me feel less safe. Burqas, while I feel sorry for the people wearing them, don't.


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## Almaviva

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I wrote very clearly immediately following my sentence regarding the burqa representing oppression of women. That if the practice is socially acceptable in Islamic states because they view it as religiously justifiable _in their countries_ (or even by anthropologists as you suggested), then that is all fine, and more importantly, largely irrelevant as far as _Australian social contexts _are concerned. My point was a very simple one, and one that did not infer anything, as you suggested, regarding superiority or inferiority. Freedom of religious and cultural practice/expression should not come at any price when one enters into another country when the majority has its own social and legal identities.
> 
> There was absolutely no inference made in part regarding cultural inferiority or superiority. I am rather sorry and puzzled that you might have read it that way. It is the expectation that minority groups have absolutely equal recognition in all cultural and social matters at significant compromise of the majority that bothers me, which was the basic point of my notes above. If I invite friends into my house, while I certainly welcome their differences and opinions, I do expect some degree of mutual cooperation while under the one roof.


HC, you seem to have taken some offense from my focus on the notion of cultural superiority. I wasn't my intention to offend you, and I apologize for any misunderstanding. I was not properly accusing *you* of feelings of cultural superiority, I was merely saying that an anthropologist might *interpret this way* people's assertion, for instance, that "a burqa is really about the oppression of women" - as a scientific hypothesis about how these assertions get generated, what is the underlying root cause of this kind of assertion. I focused on this issue of cultural superiority because it's an approach to this issue that interests me. I didn't mean to say that your words were proof that this is how you feel, but rather, that in the dominant culture at large, it is relatively easy to almost subconsciously acquire certain notions about the cultural minority that often stems from a pervasive feeling that "my culture is right about this, theirs isn't." If you don't harbor these feelings, good for you and kudos to you, but it doesn't make my point invalid, because I'm sure one could easily find in Australian society, just as in any other society, people who do. What the heck, even I harbor these feelings, as I said in my post about arranged marriages - I confessed in all letters that I thought that my culture was superior to my Hindu friend's culture because we don't practice arranged marriages while hers does.

Sometimes it is very hard to challenge these pervasive feelings. Take female circumcision (a.k.a. genital mutilation) in some African countries, for example. Who in his/her right mind doesn't feel repulsed by the concept? It is *very* hard to look into this with neutral eyes and avoid feeling like it's a barbarian practice, it's stuff that savages do to the poor female victims of this horrible mutilation. It is hard not to feel superior to the culture that practices this. However, a trained anthropologist might be able to overcome his/her repulsion and look into it as a valid example of a culture at work. Even when I say this, I shudder with disgust. Thankfully I'm not a trained anthropologist so I don't need to be professionally objective about it. Ugh...

So, my point is, it is hard not to feel superior (it's what cultures do... "our way is better than their way"), and kudos to you if you successfully avoid these feelings - but like I said, the point remains that a lot of what is said about these things (maybe not by you) stems from these feelings and from the fear of otherness.

You didn't say anything about my point regarding celibacy for male priests and nuns not being allowed to be priests. Aren't those rules also oppressive towards these genders? Why are they allowed in Australian society while the supposedly oppressive-against-females burqas should not be? It's a double standard. Like I said when I evoked the example of female genital mutilation, the strangeness of celibate priests and nuns is less than the strangeness / otherness of burqas which is in its turn less than the strangeness / otherness of female genital mutilation. Therefore we accept the Catholic practices, feel resistant to the burqas, and feel repulsed by the female circumcision. However there are people in those cultures who think that even the latter is OK and business-as-usual.

I want to challenge you a little bit here, HC. Let's go back to the original point. When you say "burqas are *really* about oppression of females" do you feel strongly that this is the undeniable truth, that this is a fact that can't be put to the test, that other approaches to the issue are faulty? Because if you do, I think you *are* at a certain level thinking from the standpoint that "my culture is right about this, theirs is wrong" even if you may be not entirely aware of it, even if the root cause of your stance may be subconscious or subtly coming from the pervasive effects of the culture you were born and raised into.

Again, no offense intended. I'm approaching this more from the standpoint of social sciences than from any possible attacks on your person which I would NEVER do - not only because I like you, HC, but also because it would be wrong to engage in such things towards a fellow TC member. It's just interesting to be a bit challenging at times - I don't mind being challenged about my own beliefs, it's instructive, so I hope you don't mind my challenging yours. Cheers.


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## Almaviva

Operafocus said:


> And yet, people who found each other without the help of their parents - shock horror - actually happily stay together for 70 years. Their system superior? No offense to this person, but I think they've misunderstood the meaning of love.


You're preaching to the choir here, Operafocus. I'm not the one who thinks like my Hindu friend, much the opposite. I rather value everything that you've talked about above - like others here know from my own story of deep, intense love-at-first-sight and continuous, decades-long love for my lovely wife.

My point is, *she* (the Hindu friend) doesn't see it. *She* thinks that their way is better than our way, just like we think that our way is better than hers. This was my only point. I have never implied that I agree with ANY of her views on the matter, and even while she was saying it, I was making to myself in my mind the same objections you have made.

But there is little doubt in my mind that she meant what she was saying, and *was* deeply convinced of the superiority of their approach to marriage. That's why I said that right/wrong/superior/inferior are concepts that are hard to apply to cultural events. It's all relative.


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## Almaviva

Vazgen said:


> Okay. But are these women free _not _to wear these items of clothing in their communities? I've heard of plenty of women being attacked or having acid thrown in their faces for refusing this ritual concealment. Is their predicament simply not important enough to us because it's women being repressed?
> 
> Welcome to the tyranny of lesser evils.
> 
> -Vaz


Sure, I agree with you. But my own idea about this (which unfortunately doesn't prevail in the more radical Islamic countries although it *does* prevail in the more liberal ones like Turkey which is a secular country) is that those who feel like wearing the burqa should be allowed to do so without being forced to remove it, and those who don't feel like wearing it should be also free to do so without being stoned or having acid thrown at them.

Unfortunately, though, this sensible approach doesn't prevail everywhere.


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## Almaviva

I really like Meaghan's approach to this issue.:tiphat:
I feel compelled to say it in more words than just clicking on "like."


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## Almaviva

Couchie said:


> Well, I must disagree with Almaviva and HarpsichordConcerto, I *do* believe some cultures are vastly inferior.
> 
> Almaviva, I don't think your friend actually made a case at all for forced arranged marriage, she merely made a good argument for the benefits of an arranged marriage, I missed the part justifying why the woman deserves no freedom? By American culture you can choose to marry for love, choose to marry not for love, choose to have your marriage arranged for you, choose to not get married, choose admit the possible failure of your marriage, choose to get a divorce, and then consider whether to choose remarriage. American culture does not disallow arranged marriage, seek out a matchmaker if you want, it merely affords the woman many more options, options that the vast majority of women when given the freedom prefer to arranged marriage.
> 
> Now, some other examples of clearly dysfunctional culture:
> 
> - Female genital mutilation in Northeast Africa
> - Honour killings of women (and some men) in Muslim nations for adultery, with or without trial
> - Death penalties for homosexual relations in some African nations
> - Infanticide of female babies in India
> - Nonexistence of virtually any rights for Afghan women
> - Rampant rape in African countries where women can do nothing about it
> 
> As you can see, injustices against women extend far beyond being asked to wear certain garments or marry people they've never met. I'd be interested to hear how any of the above are not indicative of an inferior culture?


What I meant is not that she made a valid case (read my reply to Operafocus) but rather that *she* believes in the case she made.

I have expressed my views on female genital mutilation while replying to HC, before I read your post. My views on it may be better illustrated by a shudder and a "ughhhh" sound. I feel glad that I'm not an anthropologist so I don't need to try and feel neutral about it when I'm at work.

Still, an anthropologist will sustain that even when faced to the list you mentioned above, cultures are not superior to other cultures. There have been books and dissertations written on the matter. They can be consulted in any academic library.

What more often happens is that individuals inside cultures react with cruel and barbaric acts to cultural precepts. We have plenty of examples of this happening *within* our oh-so-superior Western culture in ALL phases of its long history, from people being thrown to lions in Ancient Rome to "witches" and "heretics" being put to death by fire during the Inquisition, to white supremacists decimating Jews in Europe, to the French throwing Maghreb men into the Seine, to the Brits massacring Indians, to Americans decimating Native-Americans, to the Ku-Klux-Kan and their lynchings, to various ethnic cleansings, to nut-jobs bombing a Federal building in Oklahoma City or opening fire on children in Norway. Oh yeah, we're clearly superior!

_Homo homini lupus_, across ALL cultures.


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## Operafocus

Almaviva said:


> You're preaching to the choir here, Operafocus. I'm not the one who thinks like my Hindu friend, much the opposite. I rather value everything that you've talked about above - like others here know from my own story of deep, intense love-at-first-sight and continuous, decades-long love for my lovely wife.
> 
> My point is, *she* (the Hindu friend) doesn't see it. *She* thinks that their way is better than our way, just like we think that our way is better than hers. This was my only point. I have never implied that I agree with ANY of her views on the matter, and even while she was saying it, I was making to myself in my mind the same objections you have made.
> 
> But there is little doubt in my mind that she meant what she was saying, and *was* deeply convinced of the superiority of their approach to marriage. That's why I said that right/wrong/superior/inferior are concepts that are hard to apply to cultural events. It's all relative.


I wasn't suggesting you agreed with her :kiss: What I guess I find the most opposite to my own beliefs is - I guess - _a person's right to choose_ and also _make their own mistakes._ Both systems are, well, "flawed", because people are involved. We're not machines and not just mechanics. We have feelings and beliefs and needs. That she means what she's saying is quite obvious - and why shouldn't she? It's all she knows. If she had tried "our way", where we love and lust and then get married, I wonder if she would still claim that love is overrated


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## Couchie

Almaviva said:


> What I meant is not that she made a valid case (read my reply to Operafocus) but rather that *she* believes in the case she made.
> 
> I have expressed my views on female genital mutilation while replying to HC, before I read your post. My views on it may be better illustrated by a shudder and a "ughhhh" sound. I feel glad that I'm not an anthropologist so I don't need to try and feel neutral about it when I'm at work.
> 
> Still, an anthropologist will sustain that even when faced to the list you mentioned above, cultures are not superior to other cultures. There have been books and dissertations written on the matter. They can be consulted in any academic library.


Cultural relativism as it applies to anthropology is a research method for cultural understanding, it's not a doctrine that argues all cultural values are equally valid, that's _moral_ relativism, which unlike cultural relativism is a highly contentious and debatable issue. I take a utilitarianism view that the best cultures are those that maximize individual happiness. As neuroscience advances and we discover more about the science of morality and scientific sources of happiness, some of these moral questions could be moved from the strict realm of philosophy to the realm of science, which could lead to a more factual foundation for moral universalism where the values of different cultures can be judged objectively.



Almaviva said:


> What more often happens is that individuals inside cultures react with cruel and barbaric acts to cultural precepts. We have plenty of examples of this happening *within* our oh-so-superior Western culture in ALL phases of its long history, from people being thrown to lions in Ancient Rome to "witches" and "heretics" being put to death by fire during the Inquisition, to white supremacists decimating Jews in Europe, to the French throwing Maghreb men into the Seine, to the Brits massacring Indians, to Americans decimating Native-Americans, to the Ku-Klux-Kan and their lynchings, to various ethnic cleansings, to nut-jobs bombing a Federal building in Oklahoma City or opening fire on children in Norway. Oh yeah, we're clearly superior!
> 
> _Homo homini lupus_, across ALL cultures.


Well cultures change, for better or for worse, and it only makes sense to compare cultures as they presently exist. Slavery use to be the norm in the west, it doesn't make sense to say Canada's culture is currently better than the USA's because 180 years ago we banned slavery 30 years before the USA; what matters is today both our cultures hold slavery as abominable. All in all I'm totally disinterested in asserting cultural superiority, just interested in minimizing authoritarianism and unhappiness in the world.


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## Couchie

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Those you listed are downright savagery. None of those would be tolerated in Australia for example, so in that sense, I might be right to say such savagery/"inferior cultures" within one own's country here in Australia (and many other parts of the world) would not be considered socially acceptable by the majority. So yes, you're right with your examples. I wasn't thinking about these examples within the context of Australian society simply because none you listed have been issues here (not that I m aware of), whereas the burqa example has.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-02-06/female-circumcision-happening-in-australia/2594496
http://www.news.com.au/top-stories/...l-honour-killing/story-e6frfkp9-1111116166086


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## Almaviva

Couchie said:


> As neuroscience advances and we discover more about the science of morality and scientific sources of happiness, some of these moral questions could be moved from the strict realm of philosophy to the realm of science, which could lead to a more factual foundation for moral universalism where the values of different cultures can be judged objectively.


Touching optimism, Couchie. I'm not as sure that science will ever sort this out.



> Well cultures change, for better or for worse, and it only makes sense to compare cultures as they presently exist. Slavery use to be the norm in the west, it doesn't make sense to say Canada's culture is currently better than the USA's because 180 years ago we banned slavery 30 years before the USA; what matters is today both our cultures hold slavery as abominable.


It's happening *now*, Couchie. The Norway killings just happened last week, not 30 years ago.



> All in all I'm totally disinterested in asserting cultural superiority, just interested in minimizing authoritarianism and unhappiness in the world.


 There, I agree with you.


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## Couchie

Curiosity said:


> How about routine/default male genital mutilation in north America?


First I'd like to point out that male circumcision a far safer, far less severe mutilation, the purpose of which is not to deprive the person of sexual pleasure so they can be more easily forced into submission.

Second, I'm very much in support of a ban on infant male circumcision.


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## Couchie

Almaviva said:


> Touching optimism, Couchie. I'm not as sure that science will ever sort this out.
> 
> It's happening *now*, Couchie. The Norway killings just happened last week, not 30 years ago.


Those killings were not a Norwegian cultural practice. The Norwegian culture is opposed to such killings, the people have expressed their outrage, and now he is locked up and awaiting a life sentence because he is a cultural _deviant_.

Compare to how Pakistanis react to honour killings: If it is even reported, the police look the other way, or half-*** an investigation before filing it as an "accident" because the practice is so common and ingrained in the culture, with the prevailing attitude that the woman _deserved_ it for not honoring her role as the man's property.


----------



## Almaviva

Couchie said:


> Those killings were not a Norwegian cultural practice. The Norwegian culture is opposed to such killings, the people have expressed their outrage, and now he is locked up and awaiting a life sentence because he is a cultural _deviant_.
> 
> Compare to how Pakistanis react to honour killings: If it is even reported, the police look the other way, or half-*** an investigation before filing it as an "accident" because the practice is so common and ingrained in the culture, with the prevailing attitude that the woman _deserved_ it for not honoring her role as the man's property.


Small consolation for the parents of the Norwegian victims.
He may have been a deviant, but he was also a product of a culture that sees the infiltration of the cultural space by other cultures as threatening.

The scale of things may be different in some specific cases - like you said, questionable killings are more prevailing in Pakistan and more ingrained in their socially accepted culture than what the Norwegian nutjob did. But then, the scale of killings sponsored by Western countries is also appalling - see the hundreds of thousands (millions?) innocent civilians killed as "collateral damage" in Iraq.

My point is, let's set aside any illusions of cultural superiority because what our own culture does is rather nasty. Have you heard, for instance, of experimentation on human subjects done in African countries by Western pharmaceutical companies?

I have no illusions of any purity of intentions in Western cultures. It all boils down to human nature, and human nature is often rotten. Like I said, across the board.

It is also part of human nature to try hard to feel good about one's culture, so that we tend to always dismiss *our* wrongdoing while we highlight *their* wrongdoing, which is exactly what you did above.


----------



## Couchie

Almaviva said:


> Small consolation for the parents of the Norwegian victims.
> He may have been a deviant, but he was also a product of a culture that sees the infiltration of the cultural space by other cultures as threatening.
> 
> The scale of things may be different in some specific cases - like you said, questionable killings are more prevailing in Pakistan and more ingrained in their socially accepted culture than what the Norwegian nutjob did. But then, the scale of killings sponsored by Western countries is also appalling - see the hundreds of thousands (millions?) innocent civilians killed as "collateral damage" in Iraq.
> 
> My point is, let's set aside any illusions of cultural superiority because what our own culture does is rather nasty. Have you heard, for instance, of experimentation on human subjects done in African countries by Western pharmaceutical companies?
> 
> I have no illusions of any purity of intentions in Western cultures. It all boils down to human nature, and human nature is often rotten. Like I said, across the board.
> 
> It is also part of human nature to try hard to feel good about one's culture, so that we tend to always dismiss *our* wrongdoing while we highlight *their* wrongdoing, which is exactly what you did above.


I would be careful saying that the shootings were a product of Norwegian culture. The views and reasoning held by the shooter could be attributed to a surrounding xenophobic culture, but the act of the massacre itself? Where did that come from? Certainly not Norwegian culture, but his own psychopathy. Quite a difference from Pakistan, where the actual act of murder itself is widely held to be ordained by their religious beliefs.

Your second point on war and pharmaceutical companies: this is an interesting point because the military and corporations very much have their own distinct cultures from the rest of society. How much can a country's society at large be held responsible for the transgressions of top-level executives in the White House and corporate board rooms? I don't think most of society likes collateral deaths or corporate misconduct. At any rate you're mistaken if you think I said anywhere that I think our culture is flawless, we certainly have contemporary issues, but we ARE better in some respects than other cultures (we don't slaughter 10,000 women a year for adultery), and all cultures are NOT equally good.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Almaviva said:


> You didn't say anything about my point regarding celibacy for male priests and nuns not being allowed to be priests. Aren't those rules also oppressive towards these genders? Why are they allowed in Australian society while the supposedly oppressive-against-females burqas should not be? It's a double standard. Like I said when I evoked the example of female genital mutilation, the strangeness of celibate priests and nuns is less than the strangeness / otherness of burqas which is in its turn less than the strangeness / otherness of female genital mutilation. Therefore we accept the Catholic practices, feel resistant to the burqas, and feel repulsed by the female circumcision. However there are people in those cultures who think that even the latter is OK and business-as-usual.


Male priests and nuns issue are being debated like they are in many parts of the world. What matters to me, here in Australia, is that a significant proportion from both sides (I don't know what the figures are) both agree and disagree. It is part of their Catholic heritage thus far, and something both camps might resolve. Note that it is a significant part of their religious debate with different schools of thoughts on this matter.



Almaviva said:


> I want to challenge you a little bit here, HC. Let's go back to the original point. When you say "burqas are *really* about oppression of females" do you feel strongly that this is the undeniable truth, that this is a fact that can't be put to the test, that other approaches to the issue are faulty? Because if you do, I think you *are* at a certain level thinking from the standpoint that "my culture is right about this, theirs is wrong" even if you may be not entirely aware of it, even if the root cause of your stance may be subconscious or subtly coming from the pervasive effects of the culture you were born and raised into.


If women don't wear their burqas in some parts of the world, then they face physical punishment. However, if this is _socially acceptable in their countries_, then I have nothing to say about it. Again, what I said was if wearing the burqa and say physical punishment for not wearing want to be legalised in Australia, because these are their imported religious cultures that the _majority of Australians don't agree with_, then I see it should be fittingly banned. The burqa and what it represents from their countries, simply have no place in the context of Australian society. Other examples include "honour killings", another imported culture that has no social context in Australia obviously. Equally, if another group prefers to be in public wearing nothing but their underpants, then we might consider doing the same.

So yes, if Australian cultural values are at a clash with these examples _here in our own country_, and if we feel quite strongly about something, then we should NOT be wary of being called a racist/bigots/whatever at the mere thought of considering social measures, legal or otherwise, to manage or curtail it. Many of us don't feel the need to support multiculturalism at any price, as this has become an abused framework for loud minorities. That is the crux of the problem, and that was my answer to the OP's question - to what extent.

Multiculturalism has worked exceptionally well of course with many immigrants, such as the Chinese and South-East-Asians folks who have migrated here and have contributed enormously to the social enrichment of all folks, amongst other measures, not least economically.


----------



## Almaviva

Couchie said:


> I would be careful saying that the shootings were a product of Norwegian culture. The views and reasoning held by the shooter could be attributed to a surrounding xenophobic culture, but the act of the massacre itself? Where did that come from? Certainly not Norwegian culture, but his own psychopathy. Quite a difference from Pakistan, where the actual act of murder itself is widely held to be ordained by their religious beliefs.
> 
> Your second point on war and pharmaceutical companies: this is an interesting point because the military and corporations very much have their own distinct cultures from the rest of society. How much can a country's society at large be held responsible for the transgressions of top-level executives in the White House and corporate board rooms? I don't think most of society likes collateral deaths or corporate misconduct. At any rate you're mistaken if you think I said anywhere that I think our culture is flawless, we certainly have contemporary issues, but we ARE better in some respects than other cultures (we don't slaughter 10,000 women a year for adultery), and all cultures are NOT equally good.


Again, small consolation for the family of the victims when people get slain by someone who is in the fringes of the culture versus someone who is in the mainstream. That's pretty much the difference here.

War over oil with collateral damage, pharmaceutical companies using humans for experimentation - we live in a culture in which people turn their gaze the other way from these horrors because they value their passenger cars and relatively cheap gas and their cosmetics and prescription drugs more than they value the lives and health of some Middle Eastern or African "savages."

Again, you dismiss our culture's bad behaviors as fringe, not shared by the entire population or even by our leaders, while you insist the "others" are the barbarians, when the end result in *both* cases is death and suffering. Maybe we're just better at disguising it and keeping it out of sight.

I remember something I read during the Vietnam war. An elderly in one of the villages said "we've been living in peace and in harmony with nature, planting and harvesting rice in our fields, living a simple life, for 3,000 years around here. Then you come with your helicopters and your Napalm bombs and burn our children alive, and you say that *we* are the primitive savages???"

You're misunderstanding my position, Couchie. I'm not saying that all cultures are equally good. What I'm saying is that they are all equally bad.

We won't slaughter 10,000 women a year for adultery, sure (thankfully). Unfortunately we *will* kill 1,000,000 innocent civilians in Iraq so that we can continue to drive our passenger cars. Oh sure, it's not us doing the killing, it's the subculture practiced by our top-level executives in the White House and corporate board rooms. Like I said, small consolation for the victims. Not to forget that at least 50 out of each 100 of us are happy to vote for those top-level executives in the White House, and that most of us own stock from those companies (directly or through investment funds, etc.) - but as long as we're not doing the killing ourselves, we can relax, go to sleep peacefully, and feel disgusted at and superior to those darn primitive Muslims who do those horrible things to their women.

Wake-up, Couchie. We're just as bad.


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## Almaviva

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Male priests and nuns issue are being debated like they are in many parts of the world. What matters to me, here in Australia, is that a significant proportion from both sides (I don't know what the figures are) both agree and disagree. It is part of their Catholic heritage thus far, and something both camps might resolve. Note that it is a significant part of their religious debate with different schools of thoughts on this matter.
> 
> If women don't wear their burqas in some parts of the world, then they face physical punishment. However, if this is _socially acceptable in their countries_, then I have nothing to say about it. Again, what I said was if wearing the burqa and say physical punishment for not wearing want to be legalised in Australia, because these are their imported religious cultures that the _majority of Australians don't agree with_, then I see it should be fittingly banned. The burqa and what it represents from their countries, simply have no place in the context of Australian society. Other examples include "honour killings", another imported culture that has no social context in Australia obviously. Equally, if another group prefers to be in public wearing nothing but their underpants, then we might consider doing the same.
> 
> So yes, if Australian cultural values are at a clash with these examples _here in our own country_, and if we feel quite strongly about something, then we should NOT be wary of being called a racist/bigots/whatever at the mere thought of considering social measures, legal or otherwise, to manage or curtail it. Many of us don't feel the need to support multiculturalism ant any price, as this has become an abused framework for loud minorities. That is the crux of the problem.


Sorry, buddy, but your reply just confirmed to me the fact that we're all prompt to dismiss the importance of something that is supposedly wrong (e.g., male priests celibacy, restrictions on nuns) when it's not too strange, while we aren't when it is. You say "it is part of their Catholic heritage" - so it's fine. Well, burqas *are* part of their Muslim heritage - so it's fine. Oh wait, it's not fine. Okaaayyyy.... Oh no, wait again, it's fine there in their lands. But it isn't fine here. So is it fine or not? Now wait, it's not fine because they're punished if they don't wear it - oh wait, Catholic priests who break their vows are punished too. I'm confused here, my head is spinning.

OK, so, it's OK to consider measures, "legal or otherwise" to curtail it. Say what? So it's OK to consider *illegal* measures to curtail it? And here I was thinking that Australian society practiced the rule of law?

Again please don't get offended. It's not against you, or against Australian society. I'm just trying to show how these waters can get muddy. These issues are often more complex than we think. We often engage in *rationalizations* to validate our conflicting feelings about them, but if we are really willing to put these concepts to test, we'll see that things are not so black and white. We say (rationalizing) - "it's oppressive against women." But then we hear back from one of these women: "what is oppressive is that you try to make me give my burqa away by force and I feel uncomfortable not wearing it in public, you'll end up condemning to house arrest." Oops, how will the rationalization deal with this, now? Like Operafocus said, it's hard to "liberate" someone by forcing the person to do something. Muddy, muddy.

About the majority of Australians not agreeing with it - refer to my example of the people with green hair versus the people with blue hair. What the majority thinks is right has no real bearing in what is philosophically/ethically right. Majorities are known for engaging in various abusive behaviors. What the majority is saying is, "it's not right *for us*, therefore we'll make it so that it's not right for them either, or else." Substitute the "or else" here for, say, "social measures, legal or otherwise, to manage or curtail it."

The bottom line is this: you probably shouldn't have granted immigrant visas to these folks, because your society is probably not ready to absorb them. That's the ultimate source of this entire conflict.

But now, you have. They're already there, with a legal right to be there. So now you have to deal with the problem. All that I'm advocating for is that you deal with the problem in a manner that is fair to them, the minority, not merely to make things the way the majority wants.

Again, my point of view here is more philosophical than nationalistic. I don't mean Australia itself. You probably know that here in America we have plenty of similar problems (e.g., the recent debate about that mosque near the World Trade Center site).

I'm just saying, we humans, regardless of our cultures, all behave badly. It's in our condition. We are the wolves of our fellow men and women. No subgroup in our numbers is any better than others. We're all pretty bad. So we should at the very least hesitate before passing judgment against other subgroups. That's all that I'm saying.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Sorry Almaviva, I think you have missed the basic points of what I have repeatedly said about the extent of supporting multiculturalism relative to social values already imbued in one's own country, and relative to social compromises the majority are willing to give. (Australia on the whole, is one of the most tolerable nations on the planet).

I'm getting out of this thread. No more from moi.


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## Almaviva

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Sorry Almaviva, I think you have missed the basic points of what I have repeatedly said about the extent of supporting multiculturalism relative to social values already imbued in one's own country, relative to social compromises the majority are willing to give.
> 
> I'm getting out of this thread. No more from moi.


HC, I didn't miss it. I just called it a rationalization. I understand that what I said was frustrating for you. Sorry for this aspect of it. I've enjoyed debating it with you (I'm not sure if the feeling is mutual, though - but that's OK, all these controversial topics bring about strong feelings). Cheers.


----------



## Couchie

Almaviva said:


> Again, small consolation for the family of the victims when people get slain by someone who is in the fringes of the culture versus someone who is in the mainstream. That's pretty much the difference here.
> 
> War over oil with collateral damage, pharmaceutical companies using humans for experimentation - we live in a culture in which people turn their gaze the other way from these horrors because they value their passenger cars and relatively cheap gas and their cosmetics and prescription drugs more than they value the lives and health of some Middle Eastern or African "savages."
> 
> Again, you dismiss our culture's bad behaviors as fringe, not shared by the entire population or even by our leaders, while you insist the "others" are the barbarians, when the end result in *both* cases is death and suffering. Maybe we're just better at disguising it and keeping it out of sight.
> 
> I remember something I read during the Vietnam war. An elderly in one of the villages said "we've been living in peace and in harmony with nature, planting and harvesting rice in our fields, living a simple life, for 3,000 years around here. Then you come with your helicopters and your Napalm bombs and burn our children alive, and you say that *we* are the primitive savages???"
> 
> You're misunderstanding my position, Couchie. I'm not saying that all cultures are equally good. What I'm saying is that they are all equally bad.
> 
> We won't slaughter 10,000 women a year for adultery, sure (thankfully). Unfortunately we *will* kill 1,000,000 innocent civilians in Iraq so that we can continue to drive our passenger cars. Oh sure, it's not us doing the killing, it's the subculture practiced by our top-level executives in the White House and corporate board rooms. Like I said, small consolation for the victims. Not to forget that at least 50 out of each 100 of us are happy to vote for those top-level executives in the White House, and that most of us own stock from those companies (directly or through investment funds, etc.) - but as long as we're not doing the killing ourselves, we can relax, go to sleep peacefully, and feel disgusted at and superior to those darn primitive Muslims who do those horrible things to their women.
> 
> Wake-up, Couchie. We're just as bad.


No. Living in a country that of has a government that disposes of authoritarian dictators, prevents guerrila communist uprisings, and has pharmaceutical companies too incompetent to make sure all participants of large clinical trials are aware of possible side effects is not as bad as killing your wife.

See, I can reduce these complex issues to biased and laughably simple terms as well.

I'd also like to point out I'm Canadian, we didn't go to Vietnam or Iraq, and yes unlike Americans in our culture we don't have the need to constantly feel like we're the best country in the world. I think the major difference between Western and Muslim societies is that in the later the society inflicts the atrocities on *themselves*, as opposed to America's aggressive foreign policy to actually _maintain_ their own culture's high standards of living, as bad as that policy sometimes is.

If you really feel America's culture is "equally bad" as Saudi Arabia's, then you should just go ahead and make a special clause in the constitution that immigrant Muslims may enact Sharia law in any way they see fit, who are you to judge if you're just as bad anyways?


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## samurai

I think the basic points being raised by Couchie and HC go to the issue of whether such barbaric treatment of and attitudes towards women are officially *sanctioned *bytherespectivegovernmentsofdifferingcountries, often using religion--or their own distorted interpretation of it --to justify and cloak their hideous deeds under its aegis.
For me, looking at countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, there is little doubt in my mind that they would love to roll back the clock to the Middle Ages--when "men were men and women knew their place"--all the while, of course keeping hold of their vast wealth garnered from oil and their fingers on the nuclear pulse.
Furthermore, being in essence more of an agnostic than a non-religious Jew, I firmly believe that when people of any particular faith--in this case, Islam--migrate in large numbers to Western countries in which there has been a long tradition of separation of church and state, they are not willing to easily abide by their host country's outlook, as they feel their religion and culture are superior in every way, because this has been ingrained into them since they were children, in many instances. No wonder there is friction! Contrast this with immigration in the past--especially in America--where most of the groups involved, be they of the Catholic faith {Irish and Italian} or my own group the Jews, by and large couldn't wait to merge into the larger culture as "Americans", especially having their children learn *to read, write and speak English.* Maybe Italian or Yiddish was still spoken in the privacy of their homes, but in the day to day life of going to school and work, etc. etc., the parents wanted--no, insisted--that their children learn English. I don't know--but I highly doubt--if this situation still obtains today in the current context. Add the rigidity of religion into the mix, and it becomes a toxic brew indeed!
I am very pessimitic indeed that *Sharia* *Law* and the *ideals* of *multiculturalism *will ever be able to peacefully co-exist, at least on this planet.


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## Almaviva

Couchie said:


> No. Living in a country that of has a government that disposes of authoritarian dictators, prevents guerrila communist uprisings, and has pharmaceutical companies too incompetent to make sure all participants of large clinical trials are aware of possible side effects is not as bad as killing your wife.
> 
> See, I can reduce these complex issues to biased and laughably simple terms as well.
> 
> I'd also like to point out I'm Canadian, we didn't go to Vietnam or Iraq, and yes unlike Americans in our culture we don't have the need to constantly feel like we're the best country in the world. I think the major difference between Western and Muslim societies is that in the later the society inflicts the atrocities on *themselves*, as opposed to America's aggressive foreign policy to actually _maintain_ their own culture's high standards of living, as bad as that policy sometimes is.
> 
> If you really feel America's culture is "equally bad" as Saudi Arabia's, then you should just go ahead and make a special clause in the constitution that immigrant Muslims may enact Sharia law in any way they see fit, who are you to judge if you're just as bad anyways?


I see by your reaction and HC's that my positions here have caused anger and offense. It wasn't my intention. It's probably just my ingrained pessimism and my lack of faith in humankind at this point (others have noticed that I've posted doomsday scenarios frequently, in these political or social discussions). Maybe I should just shut up. However I feel compelled to defend and explain my position one last time. Then I'll shut up, I promise.

I don't see where I'm being "biased" though, I'm being "equal opportunity" pessimistic and dismayed at their culture, our culture, everybody's culture. You say that Americans are obsessed with saying that our country is better. Well, here I am - an American - saying that our culture is just as bad as any, and you're thinking I'm evoking some supposed American superiority? If you've been reading me attentively, you should have noticed by now how discouraged I am with my country. Ironically, the Canadian who says we Americans like to feel superior is the one who is saying that Western culture is superior to Middle-Eastern culture (I'm using these terms broadly - before you accuse me of over-simplification again) while the American isn't.

As for Canadian innocence, you know, you guys have participated of some of these war efforts as well... even with troops: Canada sent 2,929 soldiers to Afghanistan (where collateral damage also occurs). Our cultures are unfortunately not that different, Couchie, although as a liberal, I like many of your efforts more than ours. But fundamentally speaking, we're both Western secular capitalist societies with predominant protestant faith, and maybe many of our more striking differences are just a product of different stages of evolution, it's all (by this I mean that you guys seem to be a bit more socially civilized than we are).

As for Muslims inflicting atrocities on themselves as opposed to what we do, again, Oklahoma City was a case in which we inflicted atrocities on ourselves. You've seen the number of shootings we've had here as well - Virginia Tech, the Arizona representative, Columbine, etc. That's all American on American violence. By the way, husbands kill wives in the United States as well, and I suppose, also in Canada, although numbers may differ. You may say - oh, but this is rare and not culturally endorsed. Sure, it's rare. We rather like to do our bulk killings elsewhere, 1,000,000 at a time rather than a few wives.

Regarding the cultural endorsement, like I said, being a victim of a fringe element or of a mainstream element hardly makes any difference for the victim. The fringe element is often a product of the culture as well, or you think the Columbine killers were not a product of our culture of grade inflation and in-crowds with separation between jocks and nerds, "winners" and "losers" and the ostracism and social alienation of the latter, not to forget the gun culture? No, Couchie, Columbine killings were perpetrated by fringe elements in American society, but they were very much a product (although deranged and dysfunctional) of American culture. So, say, your teenage daughter gets killed by one of the Columbine killers, and you feel better about it because - thank God, it wasn't done by someone from the mainstream of my culture, it wasn't socially endorsed! She wasn't killed because she didn't wear a headscarf or because she kissed her boyfriend in public. But she's dead anyway, Couchie. To say that our culture is superior to others because we don't kill when someone doesn't wear a headscarf, when we do kill because someone is labeled an in-crowd winner, doesn't hold a lot of water.

I see the barbarism in society hitting all cultures, and just being variable according to waves in history. Currently the Muslims are going through a wave of violence and we are relatively quiescent (although gun violence in the United States is often out of control), but in other phases of Western history we've been rather sanguinary ourselves. Maybe in 200 years the Muslim countries will be a paradise of love and freedom while we'll be a drug-infested, violent, post-industrial hell. Who knows?

About your last paragraph, I've said that immigrants should respect the law of the land (and I've specifically said that Sharia law shouldn't prevail). I'm for a state of law. However, all that I've been saying is that cultures are not superior to other cultures and minorities should still be allowed to practice their religion, as weird as it may seem to us. Because it's when we get to be intolerant of others that such problems occur and grow. Inclusion may be a better action than further exclusion.

I think that honey catches more flies than vinegar... but maybe it's a laughably simple way to put it, so, like I said, I'll shut up. Cheers. I'm out.


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## Couchie

Well, everyone has dropped out of the debate or was scared away... I WIN! 

Almaviva, I set out writing a very long rebuttal only to realize halfway through what you were driving at, and I think I actually agree-ish with you. I was hung up on your fringe vs. mainstream argument, which I still don't really understand (maybe avoid that one at dinner parties), but I think I get your central tenet that you can't really say one culture is better than another objectively. I will maintain that cultures that minimize discrimination between different members have the advantage that they will help minimize tension between such members, and perhaps some of the violence discussed before, but it really doesn't make sense to say A is better than B because there's so many factors in that determination and it really depends on which subjective benchmarks we subjectively pick - a fool's errand.

Also, sleep easy, I was never offended by what you wrote, it's not like you told me to f off or anything . 

Lastly, I do feel views on the Iraq war ("we *will* kill 1,000,000 innocent civilians in Iraq so that we can continue to drive our passenger cars") are a gross misrepresentation, this was what I was calling you biased on before, but this is another topic entirely. If your interested, we could start a new thread on the subject (who doesn't love an Iraq war debate), which could be especially interesting because I feel Dr. Mike and I could actually be on the same team, and the world may stop spinning or something. Or, we could also not.


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## Almaviva

Couchie said:


> Well, everyone has dropped out of the debate or was scared away... I WIN!
> 
> Almaviva, I set out writing a very long rebuttal only to realize halfway through what you were driving at, and I think I actually agree-ish with you. I was hung up on your fringe vs. mainstream argument, which I still don't really understand (maybe avoid that one at dinner parties), but I think I get your central tenet that you can't really say one culture is better than another objectively. I will maintain that cultures that minimize discrimination between different members have the advantage that they will help minimize tension between such members, and perhaps some of the violence discussed before, but it really doesn't make sense to say A is better than B because there's so many factors in that determination and it really depends on which subjective benchmarks we subjectively pick - a fool's errand.
> 
> Also, sleep easy, I was never offended by what you wrote, it's not like you told me to f off or anything .
> 
> Lastly, I do feel views on the Iraq war ("we *will* kill 1,000,000 innocent civilians in Iraq so that we can continue to drive our passenger cars") are a gross misrepresentation, this was what I was calling you biased on before, but this is another topic entirely. If your interested, we could start a new thread on the subject (who doesn't love an Iraq war debate), which could be especially interesting because I feel Dr. Mike and I could actually be on the same team, and the world may stop spinning or something. Or, we could also not.


Glad that you aren't offended.
Fringe or mainstream, all members of a culture are part of it.
Of course my understanding of the Iraq war is waaaaaaaay more sophisticated than what I let out with my gross simplification. It was just an example - granted, a sort of melodramatic one.
But let's not go there, Couchie... as you well know, all these threads about politics end up locked after people start throwing rotten eggs and vegetables at each other...


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## Delicious Manager

Almaviva said:


> I don't know. Does Australian law prohibit a Catholic priest or nun from wearing their religious garbs? Or an orthodox Jew? If not, then the Muslims should be allowed to wear theirs as well.


The trouble with the burqa is that it can hide the WHOLE face (no nun's habit or Jew's skullcap does this). This immediately creates alienation (in a society where such things are not usual) and, much more importantly, a security risk. One could not even tell in most cases whether it was a man or woman under a burqa, let alone whether it might be a terrorist suspect (no, I am NOT suggesting all terrorists are Muslim!). And make no mistake, Islam does NOT (repeat NOT) require the wearing of this piece of clothing - it is a purely cultural thing imposed on women by men who believe they should control them.


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## Art Rock

Two predominantly muslim countries, Tunisia and Turkey, have also banned traditional Islamic dress codes like head scarves (let alone burqas) in public schools and universities or government buildings, for decades already.


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## jurianbai

Azerbaijan is heading that way.


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## Almaviva

Delicious Manager said:


> The trouble with the burqa is that it can hide the WHOLE face (no nun's habit or Jew's skullcap does this). This immediately creates alienation (in a society where such things are not usual) and, much more importantly, a security risk. One could not even tell in most cases whether it was a man or woman under a burqa, let alone whether it might be a terrorist suspect (no, I am NOT suggesting all terrorists are Muslim!). And make no mistake, Islam does NOT (repeat NOT) require the wearing of this piece of clothing - it is a purely cultural thing imposed on women by men who believe they should control them.


I've said my piece already about this (passing judgment on another culture and assuming these women feel opressed therefore something should be forced upon them to "liberate" them) so I'm not restarting. I just would like to add that as far as I know, the number of incidents of terrorists concealing weapons under burqas amounts to zero, while there's been many deadly incidents of weapons being concealed under trench coats, with many victims. I wonder why trench coats haven't been banned yet in Western countries. Could it be, by any chance, because trench coats are not a feature of a minoritary religion? What about ski masks? Shouldn't we ban ski masks as well? They hide the face too, you know, and many criminals have used them to rob banks and commit other acts of violence.

All that I'm saying is that there definitely is a double standard, and the determining factor here is not any objective reality regarding whether these things are dangerous or not. It's just that they are drenched in strangeness / otherness and Westerns are weary of the culture that they represent. But people will rationalize their feelings of discomfort when faced to these strange cultures, and will say that the ban is because burqas are dangerous or opressive.

Headscarves are not dangerous. They got banned too in certain places. Danger is not the driving force here.


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## Almaviva

Art Rock said:


> Two predominantly muslim countries, Tunisia and Turkey, have also banned traditional Islamic dress codes like head scarves (let alone burqas) in public schools and universities or government buildings, for decades already.


Oh great. So now what the Tunisian dictatorship thought was best is the new standard for us. We should do like they did, huh?


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## Art Rock

Is it so difficult to see that this counters the argument that such a banning is anti-islamic?


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## Delicious Manager

Almaviva said:


> What about ski masks? Shouldn't we ban ski masks as well? They hide the face too, you know, and many criminals have used them to rob banks and commit other acts of violence.
> 
> All that I'm saying is that there definitely is a double standard, and the determining factor here is not any objective reality regarding whether these things are dangerous or not. It's just that they are drenched in strangeness / otherness and Westerns are weary of the culture that they represent. But people will rationalize their feelings of discomfort when faced to these strange cultures, and will say that the ban is because burqas are dangerous or opressive.
> 
> Headscarves are not dangerous. They got banned too in certain places. Danger is not the driving force here.


The security risk is not in people hiding explosives under their clothing (you can hide enough explosive to do devastating damage under just about ANY loose clothing), but about facial recognition. For security services on the look-out for known criminals/terrorists, a burqa covers the whole face, rendering the wearer unrecognisable. Ski masks will also do this, but I can't remember when I last saw someone adopting one as everyday garb; I think they are primarily restricted to ski slopes!

And of course criminals use all sorts of items to cover their faces, but again these items are not everyday wear. I think this part of your argument by itself actually reinforces the case AGAINST the burqa.


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## Almaviva

Art Rock said:


> Is it so difficult to see that this counters the argument that such a banning is anti-islamic?


Because in two Islamic countries (by culture, but with rather secular goverments) whose governments weren't interested in an Islamic uprising and thought that it should be best to undermine the public expression of that culture, you say that it proves that when Western countries ban burqas and headscarves but don't ban trench coats and ski masks, it has nothing to do with the fact that burqas represent a culture that makes Western countries uncomfortable?

See, my whole argumentation here in this thread is more an anthropological one. You haven't seen me saying that this is anti-Islam. I'm saying that these things are symptoms of intolerance towards other cultures, which is a very prevalent mechanism in all cultures. People always think by reflex (it takes a big intellectual effort to think otherwise or at least to cognitively acknowledge that it is otherwise even if emotionally one continues to feel it) "my culture is better than their culture; what my culture does is acceptable, what theirs does is oppressive/dangerous/ridiculous/shows wrong values" etc. Then this easily migrates to "let's force them to accept our way, it will be so good and liberating for them!"


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## Almaviva

Delicious Manager said:


> The security risk is not in people hiding explosives under their clothing (you can hide enough explosive to do devastating damage under just about ANY loose clothing), but about facial recognition. For security services on the look-out for known criminals/terrorists, a burqa covers the whole face, rendering the wearer unrecognisable. Ski masks will also do this, but I can't remember when I last saw someone adopting one as everyday garb; I think they are primarily restricted to ski slopes!
> 
> And of course criminals use all sorts of items to cover their faces, but again these items are not everyday wear. I think this part of your argument by itself actually reinforces the case AGAINST the burqa.


Well you must live in some city that doesn't have severe winters (London, I think?) because in New York City people use ski masks on the streets all the time during winter, and much more so in more Northern cities. I've walked the streets of Manhattan many times when the wind chill was down to single numbers wearing a ski mask. Fortunately police did not arrest me. See, it's not illegal to wear a ski mask while walking on the streets in Manhattan. Burqas aren't illegal here yet, but if one day they become illegal for security reasons, then I'd like to see ski masks being banned as well, although I sincerely doubt that the latter will ever happen.


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## Polednice

It always intrigues me when people talk about 'national identity' and it being eroded by immigrants - what exactly is national identity, and how is it affected by foreigners coming to live nearby?

I don't see myself as having any kind of national identity or attachment or patriotism. It seems to me that 'national identity' is just a subtle way of wanting to say: "this is our little patch of land, and we'd like to keep it just white people, thx."


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## Guest

I can't believe I've ventured only now into this thread. I'll try to be as non-inflammatory as I can.

Alma - you draw some parallels in your last major posting that I think are a stretch. You compare the punishment of a woman in a society for violation of religious decrees that are institutionalized to violence perpetrated by fringe members of society that go against common laws and morals. That the punishment of a woman for failing to wear a burqa is somehow on par with a Timothy McVeigh mass murder or a Colombine massacre is really hard to fathom. It definitely makes a difference whether the violence is committed by the mainstream institutional powers or a fringe group.

I don't buy that we, as a society, create Colombine killers. If that were so, then we as a society are guilty of all the ills that arise. Overeating is a problem in this country. But it is a problem, not because we create it, so much as there simply exists the means for someone to do it. In a famine-ravished country, obesity is less of a problem. In this land of plenty, it is a problem. Does the one cause the other? No. But we certainly make such a problem more easily achieved. Do we blame the farmer for the weeds that arise as he tries to raise crops? The propensity to commit violence is not bred by any particular affinity our country has to a particular weapon. What weapon did Timothy McVeigh use? Fertilizer? Fuel? Tools to do good under normal circumstances. Were we to ban guns in this country, do we believe that there would be no more Colombines? Do we really think that the normal stratification of individuals in a high school setting is the root cause of the Colombine killings? When have we not had that? Do you think Klebold and his partner were the first to ever be ostracized by others who thought they were better than them?

Violence in the U.S. is not institutionalized. We have laws to prevent it. Does that mean that it will not happen? Of course not - you create laws because you have a problem. I doubt anybody would even think to make a law prohibiting murder if murder never occurred (would we even know what it was?). But the measure of the morality of a society is not what ills exist in it, rather how that society deals with those ills. Racism exists, no doubt, to this day in the U.S. Racism was obviously apparent in Nazi Germany. But it is not hard to argue that the U.S. today is immensely more moral than Nazi Germany, as Nazi Germany institutionalized its racism and executed government policy to further that racism - with violence and genocide, whereas the U.S. seeks to eradicate racism.

The circumstances behind the death of a child may not matter to a parent - whether it was committed by the the government, or a fringe individual, the child is still dead. But as a society, it does matter. There is a difference, for instance, between an accidental death and a brutal murder, although to the family of the victim, the person is still dead. The victims of Colombine are just as dead as the girl stoned for not wearing a burqa. But Colombine was not the result of institutionalized policies and actual law, and as a matter of law, at least in the U.S., we do protect people from cruel and unusual punishment. Even if wearing a burqa was required of women in this country, our laws would prevent the punishment of death for such an infraction. We protect our citizens from disproportionate punishment. The same cannot be said in the country that kills a woman for not wearing a burqa, or thrusts young girls back into burning buildings to retrieve their head scarves.

There have to be adaptations to cultures if you wish to join with them. Multiculturalism is fine, so long as what you bring meshes with the new culture. Where there are discrepancies, the prerogative must go to the host culture. It is not within your rights to go and force the host culture to adapt to you. There is no equivalency between the burqa and the trenchcoat. One of the major means of identification in the U.S. is photo identification. If you want a passport, you need a photo. If you want a driver's license, you need a photo. What about a routinge traffic stop? The woman is wearing a burqa. If the cop is a man, she cannot remove the face-covering for him to verify that she is, in fact, the person holding the license. Must he summon a female officer to make the identification?

Yes, this particular controversy deals with a practice that is very religion-specific - but only because most other religions in this country don't require such attire. If it is an issue that these people want to move to better countries that will allow them to practice their religion as freely as they want, then there are alternatives in the Muslim world. There are several majority Muslim countries that are far less oppressive, and actually comercially very successful, that would welcome women desiring to wear burqas. But if it is the U.S. you want to come to, then you have to realize that it is not governed at all by Sharia law. There is no shutdown of all business 5 times a day for prayer call. We don't broadcast prayer calls over all TV stations, nor from loudspeakers for all the city to hear. We don't allow polygamy. We don't allow honor killings. We don't permit killing a person that wishes to convert from Islam. We allow the sale of pork and alcohol. We don't cut off hands for stealing. We don't pay blood money. We don't punish people for publishing cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. We grant women freedom to marry who they wish, vote, drive, get an education, go out in public with men they are not related/married to, get a job. We permit freedom of any religion so long as the practice of that religion does not violate our laws. We permit freedom of speech, freedom to assemble. We prohibit infringement of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. If any of these things is not what you would like, then I would suggest that you might want to continue your search for a new country of residence.


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> It always intrigues me when people talk about 'national identity' and it being eroded by immigrants - what exactly is national identity, and how is it affected by foreigners coming to live nearby?
> 
> I don't see myself as having any kind of national identity or attachment or patriotism. It seems to me that 'national identity' is just a subtle way of wanting to say: "this is our little patch of land, and we'd like to keep it just white people, thx."


National identity is real, whether you acknowledge it or not. It is more than just an issue of patriotism. It has to do with the society in general. The laws that govern a nation. The mores of the culture. They exist, even within a European Union that is more and more open to member nations. Nations are distinguished by their languages, their customs, their history, their form of government, their laws, their systems of justice, their liberties. You live in Western Europe, where a history that has weaved many neighboring countries together over centuries, whether by constant migrations of people, or shared nobility that frequently in-married, or simply a lack of major geographical separations, has made many of the distinctions more blurry. But go to Africa, and you will notice a major difference, and no doubt you will feel very distinctly British. It has less to do with immigrants eroding things. Immigrants only erode when they seek to change a nation's identity to that which it is not. For example, an immigrant from a majority Muslim nation who comes to England or the U.S. and joins the new nation and abides by the laws is entirely welcome. But one who seeks to bring incompatible laws to their new nation would be detrimental - seeking to restrict speech laws where it comes to insulting his religion, ignoring laws that prohibit honor killings, etc.

National identity has nothing to do with skin color. The U.S. has had citizens of all backgrounds for most of its history. Initially many had problems assimilating - either due to their own fault, or the fault of the rest of the citizenry - but they eventually also came to be seen as Americans. Skin color didn't matter always - just ask the Irish immigrants that left Ireland for the U.S. when their mother country was suffering from famine just how much of an advantage their white skin color gave them.


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## jurianbai

Almaviva said:


> ..........I just would like to add that as far as I know, the number of incidents of terrorists concealing weapons under burqas amounts to zero, while there's been many deadly incidents of weapons being concealed under trench coats, with many victims. I wonder why trench coats haven't been banned yet in Western countries. Could it be, by any chance, because trench coats are not a feature of a minoritary religion? What about ski masks? Shouldn't we ban ski masks as well? They hide the face too, you know, and many criminals have used them to rob banks and commit other acts of violence.
> ...........


I dunno in your area, but in here, wearing a helmet or even only a sunglasses to enter ATM box and bank, is not allowed.


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## Polednice

DrMike said:


> National identity is real, whether you acknowledge it or not. It is more than just an issue of patriotism. It has to do with the society in general. The laws that govern a nation. The mores of the culture. They exist, even within a European Union that is more and more open to member nations. Nations are distinguished by their languages, their customs, their history, their form of government, their laws, their systems of justice, their liberties. You live in Western Europe, where a history that has weaved many neighboring countries together over centuries, whether by constant migrations of people, or shared nobility that frequently in-married, or simply a lack of major geographical separations, has made many of the distinctions more blurry. But go to Africa, and you will notice a major difference, and no doubt you will feel very distinctly British. It has less to do with immigrants eroding things. Immigrants only erode when they seek to change a nation's identity to that which it is not. For example, an immigrant from a majority Muslim nation who comes to England or the U.S. and joins the new nation and abides by the laws is entirely welcome. But one who seeks to bring incompatible laws to their new nation would be detrimental - seeking to restrict speech laws where it comes to insulting his religion, ignoring laws that prohibit honor killings, etc.
> 
> National identity has nothing to do with skin color. The U.S. has had citizens of all backgrounds for most of its history. Initially many had problems assimilating - either due to their own fault, or the fault of the rest of the citizenry - but they eventually also came to be seen as Americans. Skin color didn't matter always - just ask the Irish immigrants that left Ireland for the U.S. when their mother country was suffering from famine just how much of an advantage their white skin color gave them.


Of course, I accept all those cultural differences, and I don't for one minute suggest that I could wake up in Africa and fit right in. But when people talk about national identity, they are invariably talking about something that they think is _immutable_ - unchanging, intrinsic to their nation, and apparently fragile and under attack. But as you pointed out, a nation's culture and history are almost always influenced by foreign invaders, settlers, and ideas. If national identity exists, it _has_ to change, and always be changing, so to try to defend any instance of it at one point in history is when it seems to be an excuse for xenophobia.

It's just like when people describe England (or Britain) as a 'traditionally white, Christian country'. Since when? Christianity was established around 600 A.D., and we wouldn't be the Brits we are today if it weren't for the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes fighting over the land, with the repeated invasions of the Vikings. Just because they were all white, they didn't share the same culture, and so different ideals melded with each other as much as if half of the invaders had been Indian or Chinese. Our national identity changed in the first millennium, it changed in the second, and it will change in the third. It doesn't need to be defended; there's nothing to defend.


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> Of course, I accept all those cultural differences, and I don't for one minute suggest that I could wake up in Africa and fit right in. But when people talk about national identity, they are invariably talking about something that they think is _immutable_ - unchanging, intrinsic to their nation, and apparently fragile and under attack. But as you pointed out, a nation's culture and history are almost always influenced by foreign invaders, settlers, and ideas. If national identity exists, it _has_ to change, and always be changing, so to try to defend any instance of it at one point in history is when it seems to be an excuse for xenophobia.
> 
> It's just like when people describe England (or Britain) as a 'traditionally white, Christian country'. Since when? Christianity was established around 600 A.D., and we wouldn't be the Brits we are today if it weren't for the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes fighting over the land, with the repeated invasions of the Vikings. Just because they were all white, they didn't share the same culture, and so different ideals melded with each other as much as if half of the invaders had been Indian or Chinese. Our national identity changed in the first millennium, it changed in the second, and it will change in the third. It doesn't need to be defended; there's nothing to defend.


Of course identities can, and do, change. But the question is where does the change come from? And can it/should it be opposed. Our own personal identities can change greatly over the course of our live, yet we do not cease to be who we are. But should someone else force the change upon us, we do lose our own identity. My own personal opinions and views can change and adapt over the course of my life, or remain absolutely the same, but I do not cease to be me. If you come and force your views on me, though, then I lose my own identity. So it is with nations.


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## Polednice

DrMike said:


> Of course identities can, and do, change. But the question is where does the change come from? And can it/should it be opposed. Our own personal identities can change greatly over the course of our live, yet we do not cease to be who we are. But should someone else force the change upon us, we do lose our own identity. My own personal opinions and views can change and adapt over the course of my life, or remain absolutely the same, but I do not cease to be me. If you come and force your views on me, though, then I lose my own identity. So it is with nations.


Of course forcing views and ideals on other people is wrong (though I'd add that it's wrong whether you're in your 'own' country or 'someone else's'). But I have never once been given any reason for the oft-cited notion that _immigration in general_ damages national identity. When people talk about it, they're not discussing a particular crowd of people who cause friction in a given area; they're suggesting that all immigration in a sense _dilutes_ 'national identity' and should be curbed. How do peaceful, integrating migrants affect others' national identity just by inhabiting the same land?


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## Il_Penseroso

science said:


> Evidently the word "multiculturalism" means different things to different people.


Yes, and that's the main reason of all crimes we can see or hear everyday in this so-called civilized generation ! Getting rid of all 'isms' and living in a real free world, it's just a dream ! But think about it !


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> I can't believe I've ventured only now into this thread. I'll try to be as non-inflammatory as I can.


Good post, Dr. Mike, with very good points, and yes, non-inflammatory, kudos.



> Alma - you draw some parallels in your last major posting that I think are a stretch. You compare the punishment of a woman in a society for violation of religious decrees that are institutionalized to violence perpetrated by fringe members of society that go against common laws and morals. That the punishment of a woman for failing to wear a burqa is somehow on par with a Timothy McVeigh mass murder or a Colombine massacre is really hard to fathom. It definitely makes a difference whether the violence is committed by the mainstream institutional powers or a fringe group.


Yes, I see a difference, for society at large. My point was that it's hardly a consolation *for the victim* and *the victim's family* whether or not the murder was committed by a fringe element or a mainstream element. But culturally speaking, I concede that it is different. My point was to say that our supposedly better culture also does generate violence, although in a more fringe way.



> I don't buy that we, as a society, create Colombine killers. If that were so, then we as a society are guilty of all the ills that arise. Overeating is a problem in this country. But it is a problem, not because we create it, so much as there simply exists the means for someone to do it. In a famine-ravished country, obesity is less of a problem. In this land of plenty, it is a problem. Does the one cause the other? No. But we certainly make such a problem more easily achieved. Do we blame the farmer for the weeds that arise as he tries to raise crops? The propensity to commit violence is not bred by any particular affinity our country has to a particular weapon. What weapon did Timothy McVeigh use? Fertilizer? Fuel? Tools to do good under normal circumstances. Were we to ban guns in this country, do we believe that there would be no more Colombines? Do we really think that the normal stratification of individuals in a high school setting is the root cause of the Colombine killings? When have we not had that? Do you think Klebold and his partner were the first to ever be ostracized by others who thought they were better than them?


Well, now, I respectfully disagree. Because, see, if the Columbine killings weren't culturally induced, what did cause them, then? Some sort of gene that codes for Columbine-style killings? If so, and since genes come in families, these kids' parents and other ancestors should have committed some Columbine-style killings of their own. These kids didn't seem to be psychotic, but rather, socially excluded, angry, and resentful, and immersed in a culture of violence with video games and guns. If the Columbine killings were not culturally determined, I don't see what is. They are actually the typical example of a cultural clash gone wrong. So it ain't so because other excluded kids didn't engage in Columbine killings? If this is what disqualifies the notion, then, again, any other cause can be disqualified because other people who were subject to the same effects didn't engage in Columbine-style killings. Even psychosis. There are plenty of psychotic patients who don't kill. Does it mean that when one of them does kill, it has nothing to do with psychosis because other psychotic people don't kill? No, sorry, the Columbine killings were the prototype culturally-induced killings. Timothy McVeigh by the way didn't seem to be exactly psychotic, although the Unibomber on the other hand did appear to be psychotic. So yes, some of these mass killings may come exclusively from deranged minds that were deranged from birth and just snapped at some point (genetically-induced delusional disorder or schizophrenia) but some others get deranged due to environmental experiences. Should we all blame ourselves as a society? Hardly. But we should know that as good as our culture may sound to us, it does produce its side-effects (like all cultures do).



> Violence in the U.S. is not institutionalized. We have laws to prevent it. Does that mean that it will not happen? Of course not - you create laws because you have a problem. I doubt anybody would even think to make a law prohibiting murder if murder never occurred (would we even know what it was?). But the measure of the morality of a society is not what ills exist in it, rather how that society deals with those ills. Racism exists, no doubt, to this day in the U.S. Racism was obviously apparent in Nazi Germany. But it is not hard to argue that the U.S. today is immensely more moral than Nazi Germany, as Nazi Germany institutionalized its racism and executed government policy to further that racism - with violence and genocide, whereas the U.S. seeks to eradicate racism.


I see these things as coming and going in waves. Yes, we did institutionalize racism at one point - remember slavery? Yes, the Nazis were rather evil, who wouldn't agree? But that wave has passed and today Germany upholds nobler values (although with the guest worker problem the Turks living there wouldn't entirely agree), as much as slavery here has passed. But who knows what the future holds? For all I know, our culture may deteriorate and we may become a drug-infested, gun-infested violent hell hole. Like I said, the Muslim countries have it pretty bad right now. But we shouldn't conclude that this is all that their culture will ever be. History is made in thousands of years, not in decades. Yes, our society seems to have more advanced and more civilized laws at this point in time - but it wasn't always so (we did use to burn some witches), and in the future it may again not be so.
Once more, I'm taking the anthropological approach here.



> then I would suggest that you might want to continue your search for a new country of residence.


I agree. Like I said a few times during this debate, a country has a right to only admit as immigrants those who get approved and meet certain criteria and certain qualifications. So, we should definitely avoid granting immigrant visas to extremists whose ideas are incompatible with our society. The problem in my opinion is, once we *do* grant them visas by whatever failure - maybe we don't screen them properly, that's another matter - and if we get them to come, live legally here, acquire US citizenship by naturalization, have offspring that by definition acquire US citizenship, etc, then we can't throw the baby with the bath water and start treating them differently from how we'd treat any other citizen - we're supposed to be a land where people should be free to practice whatever religion they want to practice. If the practice conflicts with the law (such as in your example of the police stop and verification of driver's license) then the law of the land should prevail (like I had said already in my very first participation in this thread, complimenting that judge in Australia who dismissed the burqa lady's idea that she had the right to refuse a breathing test on the grounds that she'd have to remove her burqa to take it). But if a legal immigrant or citizen is practicing her religion in peace and not infringing any laws, then the government should have no say in what kind of garb she wears. Aren't conservatives for small government and for no governmental interference with a citizen's private life?


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## Almaviva

See how these things start?
http://news.yahoo.com/muslim-man-sues-wa-employer-firing-over-beard-221450280.html

This is why this type of discrimination is wrong:

"There's no policy that can go against the law of the land," said Arsalan Bukhari, executive director of the Washington state chapter of CAIR. "Civil Rights Act trumps any (company) policy."
Bukhari said companies need to accommodate someone's religious beliefs unless it's an "undue burden."
Mary Fan, a law professor at the University of Washington, said that there are very limited exceptions to the protections provided by the Civil Rights Act against employers impinging on a person's religious grooming.
"If the company is worried about customers who don't like people who have beards and look Muslim - that's exactly what the law is set to protect against," she said."


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## kv466

If only we were all so concerned about a global identity as we are about national, perhaps we wouldn't be on the brink of so much extinction...we're all together in this and bog only know who can save us now


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> See how these things start?
> http://news.yahoo.com/muslim-man-sues-wa-employer-firing-over-beard-221450280.html
> 
> This is why this type of discrimination is wrong:
> 
> "There's no policy that can go against the law of the land," said Arsalan Bukhari, executive director of the Washington state chapter of CAIR. "Civil Rights Act trumps any (company) policy."
> Bukhari said companies need to accommodate someone's religious beliefs unless it's an "undue burden."
> Mary Fan, a law professor at the University of Washington, said that there are very limited exceptions to the protections provided by the Civil Rights Act against employers impinging on a person's religious grooming.
> "If the company is worried about customers who don't like people who have beards and look Muslim - that's exactly what the law is set to protect against," she said."


Private companies can absolutely have their own dress/grooming standards. The company I work at has dress standards. Dress standards that have absolutely nothing to do with constitutional rights and laws. Nowhere in the Constitution does it regulate what I can and can't wear. Private institutions can have such things, provided they apply them equally among all employees. If the company had a written policy stating that employees were to be clean shaven, and that policy existed at the time the person was hired, it was their responsibility to know, and abide by, that policy. I find it interesting that the individual had a relative who also worked for the company, but wouldn't comment on whether he shaved.

What if such an individual wanted to join the military? I believe they require men to shave. Multiple Muslims join the military, and this isn't an issue. Where I lived in California, there were numerous followers of the Sikh religion. Their religious beliefs require that the men not cut their hair. So what if they wanted to join the military? The short haircuts required of new recruits? Is that religious discrimination? No. It is a policy that applies to all. No one religion is singled out. And there is no mandate to join the military, or to work for the particular security company in question. I think there are people who go around and force situations where they can then cry religious discrimination - the fact that CAIR is involved here I think makes that point. Remember the Muslims that tried to fly a while back and made all kinds of bizarre requests and actions that drew attention to themselves and resulted in their ejection from the plane? A staged outrage to give them cause for a lawsuit.


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## Timotheus

I understand Europe's opposition to immigration. They have a long history of individual cultures with their own traditions. But it makes no sense in the US. People descended from the English are a minority here. Having immigrants is part of our national identity. And Hispanic immigrants are learning English faster than previous immigrant groups:



> In point of fact, though, all the evidence suggests that Hispanics are learning English very rapidly -- more rapidly than the Germans and other groups did at the turn of the century. There's also no evidence that the rate of Spanish retention is higher than the rate of retention for other groups. This was the clear finding of an extensive study by Alejandro Portes and Lingxin Hao of 5000 second-generation Hispanic children in San Diego & South Florida. Overall, they found that 95 percent of the children speak English well and that 40 percent speak no Spanish. (In fact the rate of retention is far lower for the second-generation Cubans than for Mexicans, and a far larger proportion of the Cubans -- 83 percent -- prefer use English among themselves. That should lay to rest Huntington's claim that Miami offers an example of the bilingual future that's in store for America if we don't take action.)


http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000684.html

Also I found this while searching for the above reference and thought it was funny:


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## Delicious Manager

Timotheus said:


> I understand Europe's opposition to immigration. They have a long history of individual cultures with their own traditions. But it makes no sense in the US. People descended from the English are a minority here. Having immigrants is part of our national identity.


Europe is not opposed to immigration; it just needs to be controlled to levels the country can afford (both in social and financial terms). People of all races and religions have been intermingling all over Europe for 2,000 years (so we have a 1,600 year head-start on the 'New World'!). If the truth be known, I expect that a minority of people in the UK are descended from the original Brythonic inhabitants of these islands (white 'English' supremacists eat your hearts out!). The UK is probably the biggest mongrel nation in Europe, possibly the world.


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## Ukko

Delicious Manager said:


> Europe is not opposed to immigration; it just needs to be controlled to levels the country can afford (both in social and financial terms). People of all races and religions have been intermingling all over Europe for 2,000 years (so we have a 1,600 year head-start on the 'New World'!). If the truth be known, I expect that a minority of people in the UK are descended from the original Brythonic inhabitants of these islands (white 'English' supremacists eat your hearts out!). The UK is probably the biggest mongrel nation in Europe, possibly the world.


Being semi-isolated, the British Isles should be easier-than-average to analyze culturally. Who were the people the Celts found when they came to Ireland. Were they the same people the Celts met in Scotland? Who were the people that the west-European Celts found in England when they came there?

One need not contemplate 'Danes', Angles and Saxons (that isn't much of a 'melting pot' anyway) to wonder at the 'uppitiness' of WASPs.


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## TxllxT

_Homo Sapiens_ Cain killed his brother _Homo neanderthalensis _Abel.


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## Delicious Manager

Hilltroll72 said:


> Being semi-isolated, the British Isles should be easier-than-average to analyze culturally. Who were the people the Celts found when they came to Ireland. Were they the same people the Celts met in Scotland? Who were the people that the west-European Celts found in England when they came there?
> 
> One need not contemplate 'Danes', Angles and Saxons (that isn't much of a 'melting pot' anyway) to wonder at the 'uppitiness' of WASPs.


As far as I know, they were the Brythonic tribes. Danes (as in Vikings), Angles and Saxons, yes. But don't forget the Romans and Normans too - and the multicultural/multiracial people they brought with them (the first black people in the UK - probably Moors from North Africa - arrived over 2,000 years ago). That little stretch of water seemed to protect us less then than it did in WWII.


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## Guest

Delicious Manager said:


> Europe is not opposed to immigration; it just needs to be controlled to levels the country can afford (both in social and financial terms). People of all races and religions have been intermingling all over Europe for 2,000 years (so we have a 1,600 year head-start on the 'New World'!). If the truth be known, I expect that a minority of people in the UK are descended from the original Brythonic inhabitants of these islands (white 'English' supremacists eat your hearts out!). The UK is probably the biggest mongrel nation in Europe, possibly the world.


I don't know - all of Europe experienced a great deal of population flux over several millenia. Just think of all the different groups populated the area - from the Mongols to the Moors, to who knows who else. Especially when a large portion was part of the Roman Empire, and you would have people from all ends of the empire moving about. Or think about the huge flux of populations that moved through the fertile crescent - let's face it, with the exception of some very remote regions on this planet, the places that have temperate climates with fertile ground have received quite a bit of foot traffic.


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## Ukko

DrMike said:


> I don't know - all of Europe experienced a great deal of population flux over several millenia. Just think of all the different groups populated the area - from the Mongols to the Moors, to who knows who else. Especially when a large portion was part of the Roman Empire, and you would have people from all ends of the empire moving about. Or think about the huge flux of populations that moved through the fertile crescent - let's face it, with the exception of some very remote regions on this planet, the places that have temperate climates with fertile ground have received quite a bit of foot traffic.


According to 'the latest scientific analyses', this applies to the Americas. The Amerinds are historically - well, pre-historically - not just one (or even two) peoples.


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## Guest

Hilltroll72 said:


> According to 'the latest scientific analyses', this applies to the Americas. The Amerinds are historically - well, pre-historically - not just one (or even two) peoples.


Yes - the problem is, back then, there was no nation with a fixed economy that offered social programs to its citizens which were being swamped by people entering the country illegally, adding huge burdens to already overtaxed systems.


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## Curiosity

Tottenham riots: Multiculturalism at it's best.


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## sabrina

I love multiculturalism as it opens new opportunities, though I think it is so delicate and it easily generates mistakes. Here are some examples.
I consider a mistake of the RCMPs (Canadian police) allowing policemen wearing a turban instead of the traditional uniform of the RCMPs. If a man with a turban asks me to stop my car, I might run frightened of who he might be (LOL).
Bank machines in Canadian provinces should only display messages in English/French. Once, I tried to use one that had a Chinese page frozen on its screen. I was not in China town...it was somewhere in Toronto.
Burka and other similar astonishing garments should be limited to home use/mosques. There are some human beings, females I guess, that are covered completely in an opaque black cloth. I first saw one of these in the elevator. Another lady (like me) was so confused, she didn't manage to press the button for her floor. I was embarrassed too.
Sorry for my ignorance, but I realize women might not be allowed for religious service in mosques. 
If people don't agree to the Western culture why do they come to live here? There are some democratic Muslim countries that would better understand them. 
I was astonished learning that Sharia is recognized in London, UK, brrrrrrr.

Humans are complex, or better said too complicated animals that generate wars, riots, terrorism, crusades, genocides.
Happily, there were others that wrote music so beautiful, that it makes our life wonderful.


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## Lenfer

I think it's important to define what you mean by "multiculturalism". I think that all people come from a different cultural background but we all share a "higher" culture. This would be music, literature, theatre, dance, art and later cinema. all culturals have their own in some shape of form. Then we have celebrations, food, drink and drugs again all societies have there own and a culture that accompanies them.

So to me multiculturalism is the existence of these cultures within morden society. A lot of this has dissapeared over the past 50 years or so as more and more people become "commercialized" they lose their traditions and culture.

Multiculturalism is *not* in my opinion an excuse to let people away with stupid and or barbaric behaviour. If you see a man hit a woman in the street or dictate how that woman should dress and where she can go and with whom, you don't shurg and go and put it down to culture.

This not multiculturalism this is chauvinism and if soicety's job to put an end to it. Doing nothing while certain people contuine with their inexcusable behaviour be it chauvinism. racism, sectarianism, homophobia or xenophobia is lazyness and or stupidity if you ask me.

L'enfer :tiphat:


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## Guest

Government, in my opinion, has as its primary function the governing of how people interact with one another. Initially, when humans were hunter gatherers and subsistence livers, they moved frequently and had looser interactions with those outside of their family or clan. As human interaction increased - agriculture established, allowed people to stabilize their lives, and start producing more than they needed, allowing trading for other goods - you needed systems in place to govern those interactions. You had to establish what interactions would be tolerated, and which ones would not. Primarily, to ensure that one's liberty was not trampled by another. Various societies have different systems to achieve those ends. Some have decided on more rigid control, some have chosen to allow as much individual liberty as can be achieved while still guaranteeing the rights of others.

When you move to a new society, you are acknowledging their government and the bounds they set on person-to-person interactions. So long as whatever traditions and practices you bring to the mix are in harmony with that society's governing laws, they should be allowed. As referenced above, while women's rights may not be viewed as important, in most Western countries, they are. And thus, moving to one of these countries requires you to acknowledge those rights. 

We are blessed in this day and age with an enormous amount of versatility in choosing where we live. While there are definitely limitations - whether they be economic or legal - I believe humans are freer in this day and age to change their location than ever before. Sure, in the past you might have been able to just start walking, there were other obstacles to migration that don't exist now. But there are more clearly defined governments now that regulate how you can interact with others in whatever society you find yourself in. Sometimes we have to modify our own tolerances if the benefits of a society outweigh any downsides. For example, a devout Muslim coming from an oppressive Muslim society might relocate to the U.S. and disapprove of the sale of alcohol and pork products. However, he feels that those issues are not enough to outweigh the sudden increase in individual liberty that he could not find in a nation that was more in line with Muslim doctrine. But they must acknowledge that that increase in liberty also requires more tolerance on his part - his wife may have more rights than she did in their previous country, he may have to modify some of his practices to fit in with the new society. The same goes for any group that wishes to participate in an established society.

Besides that, the different traditions that are uplifting can definitely add variety and beauty to their new adopted society.


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## Flamme

I really dont see how islam can be stopped in their quest of conquering the world...Multiculti always existed just wasnt called that name but race nation and religion mixing was present since the dawning of humanity...


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