Talk:Criticism of multiculturalism

[untitled section]

POV Fork? Tommrtn^Talk 02:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

One of the main issues seems to be almost completely missing from this article

There's a perception among many in Europe that during most of the 1970s and 1980s in many areas there was a kind of artificial multiculturalist pseudo-consensus imposed from the top down by politicians and publicly-active academics/intellectuals, which prevented problems of integration from even being publicly discussed in mainstream media. Only credentialled social science academics were allowed to publicly discuss such matters, and then mainly in academic journals using abstruse sociological jargon. If any "ordinary" person dared to try to express concerns about such matters as honor killings, female genital mutilation, extremist sentiments among immigrants, etc. then they would have been loudly shouted down as being new Enoch Powells and vile bigoted racists of the lowest type -- or even more likely, be kept from making their views widely known through mainstream journalistic channels in the first place.

Much of the bitterness surrounding multiculturalism and related matters in recent years is due to the way that the artificial top-down pseudo-consensus and attempted ban on public discussions collapsed when it became obvious that there were serious problems which could no longer be ignored, and many people's pent-up feelings and resentments found sudden voluble release. So the well-intentioned paternalistic measures intended to promote good feelings turned out to promote bad feelings in the end... AnonMoos (talk) 14:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S. See now the Telegraph articles [1] and [2] (also now [3] & [4]) (though the dissenters from the imposed top-down multiculturalism artificial pseudo-consensus are by no means uniformly right wing...) AnonMoos (talk) 03:35, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The perception of critics of "multiculturalism" as virulently right-wing and racist may have something to do with the fact that these debates and polemics almost exclusively centre on controversies about Muslims and dark-skinned people (and sometimes Romanies - generally with undercurrents of The Bell Curve and eugenics, in the form of the "marching morons"), with Islam all too facilely equated with fundamentalism and terrorism, and the latently anti-Semitic "Cultural Marxism"/Frankfurt School conspiracy theory (German equivalent: hysteria surrounding and alarmist denunciations of "Gender Mainstreaming") lurking in the background.

When 99.9% of the opposition to "multiculturalism" is tied up with spewing hateful bile with shades of thinly veiled racism and right-wing sentiments, talking points such as complaints about alleged censorship in the form of "political correctness" and "reverse racism", ranting and snarling about the "mainstream media", "feminazis" etc. it becomes hard to see the valid points, especially those that proponents of "multiculturalism" do not already acknowledge. If the critics of "multiculturalism" (including certain "new atheists") didn't so myopically focus on Islam (neglecting criticism of other religions and cultures, instead defending the allegedly "Christian" values of Western cultures), hate on "PC lefties" (in German: "linksgrüne Gutmenschen"), rely liberally on "I'm not racist, but ..."-type hedges, gush about "classical Western culture", show more or less open homophobia and transphobia and demonstrate glaring ignorance, bigotry and privilege blindness, in short, if they didn't behave like right-wing cranks and transparent bigots even when they identify as left-wing, it would be easier to take them seriously.

But I just see a lot of noise, hot air and blind anger mostly directed at less privileged people and hypothetical puppetmasters. As if left-wing feminists (for example) never criticised Islam, FGM, honour killings, or extremism among immigrants - opposition to Salafism, or IS, or misogyny in India, is so universal that it's kind of pointless to underline it again and again ...

Also, if the supposed "artificial pseudo-consensus" in favour of "multiculturalism" has been so dominant, how do you explain (for example) the French ban on face covering?

This article is a prime example of a POV fork. Where's the evidence? Where are concrete proposals? Where are the reponses to the criticism? Or are there none?

I suspect the real core of the problem is that "multiculturalism" is basically a strawman and does not originally mean what its critics generally take (or want) it to mean. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:02, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

You may not like the anti-multiculturalists, but some of them are somewhat thoughtful and sincere (though perhaps somewhat parochial and narrow-minded) people who were not originally very overtly political, but who have perceived certain specific problems for a long time, and came to feel that politicians were not listening to them and that open discussion of the issues was being squelched, and who eventually became somewhat embittered by this apparent artificially-imposed top-down pseudo-consensus. The flashy cause-jumpers and public political agitators who seize on the issues of the moment would not have been able to make much impression if there hadn't been a significant number of people along the lines that I've described to give them support. And I really don't know what Rush Limbaugh has to do with any of this... AnonMoos (talk) 19:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The book "The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age" by James Kirchik has some remarks relevant to the above (though referring to continental Europe, while I was mainly talking about Britain): AnonMoos (talk) 07:32, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

"A poll [in 2015] found that 41 percent of Swedes supported reducing the number of migrants allowed into Sweden. In a healthy democracy, a view held by 41 percent of the population in regards to an issue as critical as immigration would command representation from mainstream political parties. But in Sweden and elsewhere, the parties of the center right and the center left long ago decided to adopt a political consensus...Offering no room for legitimate dissent... Any call to reduce immigration, however modest, was portrayed as yielding to neo-fascism; any criticism of immigrants was cast as racist. ... Rising support across Europe for xenophobic, populist parties is partly the result of a constricted political discourse in which decent, ordinary people are told not only that plainly visible social phenomena don't exist, but also that voicing concerns about these allegedly nonexistent phenomena is racist. By stifling discussions on questions related to migration and national identity, European elites have only fed the monster they hope to destroy."-- ISBN 978-0-300-21831-2, p. 121

P.S. The book Go Back Where You Came From: The Backlash against Immigration and the Fate of Western Democracy by Sasha Polakow-Suranksy ISBN 978-1-56858-592-5 also contains discussions of the ultimate political futility of trying to ban all criticism of immigrants and criticism of immigration from the allowed topics for public debate (as was attempted in some European countries)... AnonMoos (talk) 05:17, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

All of the above is basically pre-2015, but here's something about 2015:

"The 2015 migration crisis was a shock, but the liberal consensus meant that open debate on immigration was stifled, says John Lloyd, author of the forthcoming Their Iron Indignation: Dispatches from Europe's Far Right Revolution:"

The EU, centrist governments and the liberal consensus meant that anyone who was against mass immigration was perceived as a racist and against foreigners. You simply did not say that kind of thing. Questioning immigration was seen as something that might damage the tissue of society, something that was not said in good company. It inhibited speech and maybe even thought. People who were critical had eight ton weights dropped on them.

It seems that some European elites keep trying to forbid all honest discussion and debate about immigration, but it keeps politically backfiring on them. Eventually they might notice a recurring pattern... AnonMoos (talk) 18:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Canada sourced statement

I keep having to add back t0 the article the sourced statement "Canadian multiculturalism is looked upon with admiration within the country, resulting in the Canadian public dismissing most critics of the concept" sourced to University of British Columbia. I believe this is very relevant to the topic at hand...must give proper weight to the fact Multiculturalism is often cited as one of Canada's significant accomplishments and a key distinguishing element of Canadian identity. This fact is not the same for the rest of the world and should be noted to give context to the criticism. What do others think as there is a slow edit war over. -- Moxy (talk) 20:55, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

References

Too general. Stats Can has highlighted many times, sentiments regarding this issue vary from region to region and in recent years have taken some sharp turns. See webpage>> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-attitudes-toward-immigrants-conflicted-poll-says-1.2826022 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.151.219.61 (talk) 20:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

SSCI2831

There seems to be important information about the critics made in Canada. The information used will be from a reliable source from:

1. http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOp/Researchpublications/2009-20-e.pdf

Missing information about criticisms made of multiculturalism in Canada will be added onto that particular section. -- 23:41, 1 April 2015‎ Cam&Thar2

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Orphaned references in Criticism of multiculturalism

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Criticism of multiculturalism's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "immi.gov.au":

• From Multiculturalism in Australia: http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/poa-2008.pdf
• From White Australia policy: "Fact Sheet – Abolition of the 'White Australia' Policy". Australian Immigration. Commonwealth of Australia, National Communications Branch, Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Retrieved 27 March 2013.
• From Multiculturalism: "IMMI.gov.au" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-12-10.

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I'm removing the Sneja Gunew paragraph from the lead.

Hi gang.

After a lot of thought and reading, I'm removing the paragraph on Sneja Gunew's work. It didn't really belong in the lead section of the article since it only tangentially referred to another way in which multiculturalism could be criticized. But after starting to move it to its own subheading I came to believe that it probably shouldn't be in the article at all. If someone out there feels extraordinarily strongly that Gunew should still be referenced, please put it in, like, an "Other criticisms of multiculturalism" subheader and give it some context.

Here's my line of thinking: ultimately, Gunew's book was not widely read or referenced, nor is the core concept original (nor did she claim it was). As such, it's not the kind of thing to drop in the lead section of an encyclopedia article. The way I read the book, it took some older arguments about how a lip-service nod to "diversity" can divert attention away from racism and oppression and reframed that argument in the context of postcolonialist critical theory. She talked about her experiences and hypothesized a bit about where agency lies. It's awesome, but it reads like what it is: an academic monograph by a postmodernist literature professor rather than social criticism as it's understood by a lay audience.

Cheers! Reve (talk) 07:37, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

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Regarding the revert

On the section for "Malaysia", the section stated that..

In 2006, the forced removal of Hindu temples across the country has led to accusations of "an unofficial policy of Hindu temple-cleansing in Malaysia.

I update the section with the latest addition of..

This was followed with the protest for cross removal outside a church in the Malaysia's capital of Kuala Lumpur by a group of Malay extremist in 2015, as well with the frequent reports of alleged ‘religion conversion through identity document information’ of poor and illiterate indigenous villagers in Sabah of East Malaysia by the country National Registration Department (NRD) without their knowledge and consent.

Ms. Iryna then revert my edit and ask "how is this criticism of multiculturalism?" I think Iryna means that "what this going to do with something related to religion towards the multiculturalism". I want to explain that the first phrase (before my latest addition) already stated its meaning that "intolerance towards different race with different religion have been affecting the multiculturalism in the country". Given an example that as I am a Pagan and just a minority in the country said above together with other minorities like Buddhism, Christian, and Hinduism. As you know that Malaysia is a Malay Muslim majority country, what do you think if those the extremists from the majority attack the minority place of worship and forced the minorities to convert to the majority religion using "systematic tactics" just to make the country to be 100% Muslims? Isn't multiculturalism will be disappearing? Because based from my observation, once a person has been converted to Islam, the religion prohibited the person from practising any of his former adat (culture) that against the Islamic teaching, which will also be considered as a "sins". In my short explanation, can you imagine if all the Muslims in the country that is considered to be a Malay race mostly starting to follows the Arab culture (as happened today) just because they want to looked like a perfect Muslims while slowly forgetting their own culture (I give an example here). If that happened, will multiculturalism could still survived in that country in the future despite many of the minorities who are not Muslims are slowly vanished from the country (mostly because can't stand the present way of life in the country)? I bet no, the country will never be known as a multicultural anymore. Read this too. Molecule Extraction (talk) 15:19, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

@Molecule Extraction: I've just reverted your content again per WP:NOR. You're writing your own essay on the subject, not presenting what reliable sources say on the matter. I suggest that you actually familiarise yourself with Multiculturalism as a subject rather than creating WP:SYNTH in support of your own position of the meaning of 'multiculturalism'. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:26, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

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Add a section on Israeli critics of multiculturalism

I can think of prominent Israeli religious and political leaders who criticized multiculturalism, or are opposed to it at least in practice, most notably Netanyahu: https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-overheard-comments-netanyahu-lashes-eus-crazy-policy-on-israel https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-israel-immigrants/israel-to-jail-illegal-migrants-for-up-to-three-years-idUKBRE8520DX20120603

The Knesset passed the Nation-State of the Jewish People law, which states that "The fulfillment of the right of national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people" https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Read-the-full-Jewish-Nation-State-Law-562923 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drbogatyr (talk • contribs) 21:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Also Isi Leibler, he said "there is a need to act rationally and appreciate that a growing flood of Muslim migrants to Europe could lead to disaster and even ultimately undermine West European civilization." https://www.algemeiner.com/2015/10/04/balancing-compassion-and-security-on-the-mideast-migrant-crisis/

There are several far-right parties there, such as Yamina, Otzma Yehudit, etc, which are all very critical of immigration and multiculturalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drbogatyr (talk • contribs) 06:02, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Diversity and social trust - Putnam do not critics multiculturalism

Putnam complain that his research was twisted: "Robert D. Putnam’s research is being used to make the case that diversity is bad—and he’s not happy about it." https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/robert-putnam-says-his-research-was-twisted/30357

The page do the exact same mistake has taking only one part of the paper. I think we should keep the section but explain the situation. At least we should make it clear that Putnam is not against multiculturalism and do no critic it. He is actually quiet optimistic: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jul/18/communities.guardiansocietysupplement

Gagarine (talk) 18:37, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Gagarine: Well, is there a reason to have a black-and-white classification of critics and supporters of multiculturalism? It was rather clear in his 2007 E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and community in the twenty-first century article that Putnam supports diversity, but regardless his research found a lot of downsides that diversity can have if society does not tackle the core issues. So you could say Putnam critiques diversity, but he is not an opponent of it. --Pudeo (talk) 00:16, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

@Pudeo: It's why keeping the section is fine. But the section should be extended to give the full Putnam's arguments. This is only the premises and give a very partial picture. Gagarine (talk) 00:04, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

"Racial conservatism" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Racial conservatism. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 23:35, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Out of date

Pretty much all of the article's sources are pre-2010. There's an entire decade and a half of debate over multiculturalism missing. Eldomtom2 (talk) 21:40, 27 March 2024 (UTC)