Multiculturalism: a failure or an expensive sociopolitical phenomenon for the 21 Century?

[Kit Woolard]

The SLA website re-posted a comment on this issue from sociolinguist Ingrid
Piller several months ago. I'm not sure I fully understood  all the nuances
it was meant to capture, but here's the link for a starting point for
further discussion:

http://linguisticanthropology.org/blog/2010/10/21/multikulti-in-context/

Kit




Kathryn A. Woolard                          kwoolard at ucsd.edu
Professor                                   Phone: (858) 534-4639
Department of Anthropology, 0532            Fax :  (858) 534-5946
UCSD
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0532


> From: Bonnie Urciuoli <burciuol at HAMILTON.EDU>
> Reply-To: Bonnie Urciuoli <burciuol at HAMILTON.EDU>
> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 10:15:55 -0800
> To: "LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG" <LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Conversation: Multiculturalism: a failure or an expensive sociopolitical
> phenomenon for the 21 Century?
> Subject: Re: Multiculturalism: a failure or an expensive sociopolitical
> phenomenon for the 21 Century?
> 
> My personal response is they're talking to their voters.  Given that they
> are all politicians, why would we assume they have any form of nuanced
> understanding of the various historical and social inequalities that lead to
> the complexities that they blithely refer to as multiculturalism?
> 
> On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 1:24 AM, Balosa, David <balosa at lasalle.edu> wrote:
> 
>>                              Multiculturalism: a failure or an expensive
>> sociopolitical phenomenon for the 21 Century?
>> 
>> 
>> The French president Nicolas Sarkozy declares multiculturalism "a failure".
>> Also some world leaders such as the German Chancellor, The British Prime
>> minister, former Spanish prime minister, and the Australia's former prime
>> minister share President Sarkozy's opinion. As a response to these  world
>> leaders' assessment of  multiculturalism, no matter what your stand on
>>  multiculturalism is, would you agree with them or not?  I would rather make
>> an assumption that the international community may have miscalculated the
>> cost of multiculturalism accommodation rather than calling it  a failure.
>> Here goes their expressions on multiculturalism as reported by French 24 TV
>> channel news on February 10, 2011.
>> 
>> AFP - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday declared that
>> multiculturalism had failed, joining a growing number of world leaders or
>> ex-leaders who have condemned it.
>> 
>> "We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was
>> arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving
>> him," he said in a television interview in which he declared the concept a
>> "failure."
>> 
>> British Prime Minister David Cameron last month pronounced his country's
>> long-standing policy of multiculturalism a failure, calling for better
>> integration of young Muslims to combat home-grown extremism.
>> 
>> German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Australia's former prime minister John
>> Howard and former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar have also in
>> recent months said multicultural policies have not successfully integrated
>> immigrants.
>> 
>> Cultures contact as a phenomenon cannot be assessed in terms of failure or
>> success,  but in terms of resources to accommodates all entities and
>> identities involved.  Now, if these world leaders feel that multiculturalism
>> has been a failure, do they think that globalization will be a success?
>> 
>> I would like to read your reaction on these world leaders' assessment of
>> multiculturalism.
>> 
>> Please read the full story in the link bellow.
>> 
>> 
>> http://mobile.france24.com/en/20110210-multiculturalism-failed-immigration-sa
>> rkozy-live-broadcast-tf1-france-public-questions
>> 
>> David Balosa
>> ESL & Literacy Instructor
>> LaSalle University
>> University Ministry & Service
>> 215-224-1189
>> 5218 N. Carlisle Street, Philadelphia, PA 19141
>> balosa at lasalle.edu