Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
When does multiculturalism work?
Do you think that the distinction made between multiculturalism in an immigrant country like America and non-immigrant countries like those in Europe is a valid one? What do you think about these writers‘ claims about when multiculturalism works and when it doesn’t? How would Slovakia fit into this schema? Does the article help give some clues as to how the situation might be improved here?
Having multiculturalism in a city demonstrates the city’s development and acceptance. The paradox is that after a certain period of time the multicultural city would evolve into a separate culture which would be composed of the various cultures. I think it is great that well developed cities respect people from other places of the world. If more and more cities and countries become multicultural, then the world population would become somewhat identical, this on the contrary, isn’t desirable; as I think people and traditions should be different, but at the same time respected and treated equally.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Slovakia being multicultural is that this nation is very unaccepting and stubborn. There are lots of extremists and racist people who are just too moronic to understand the issues they cause. Thus, making the people who visit Slovakia perceive it as unaccepting and unrespecting. For Slovakia to become multicultural it would require an enormous development of mentality of its citizens, which in my opinion is a truly visionary concept. Countries like the U.S., Britain and France have plenty of experience and history of dealing with immigrants and foreign people. On the other hand, Slovakia has zilch experience with such circumstances. However, this isn’t the main reason for such impertinence – the main reason is that the government and the people don’t and won’t do anything about it because they have to attend to more “important” issues.
Another problem with multiculturalism is that it requires all cultures to accept each other and cannot be one-sided, which can call for some problems in areas with a higher amount of culture variety, which clash amongst each other.
The interview proved that multiculturalism is a complex issue which needs to be approached from different perspectives. The distinction in multiculturalism made between America and Europe is definitely a valid one. I would go even further and divide the Western world into three categories. First of all, there is the immigrant society in America where people of different ethnic backgrounds respect each other in most cases. As one of the authors points out, president Obama is the proof himself. Secondly, we should consider the old democracies in Europe, such as Germany, France, or Great Britain. Immigrants from all over the world come to these countries in search for better paid jobs, schools of higher quality, and basically a better life. They often do get what they’ve been looking for, but they also have to face prejudice, racism, and the problem of assimilation. Then there is the last category. It is the former communist bloc which includes Czech republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and some of the Balkan countries. In this part of Europe specifically, people of different ethnic backgrounds are not present in significant numbers.
ReplyDeleteSadly, the first thing that comes to my mind in connection with multiculturalism in Slovakia is Anders Breivik and his manifesto. He used statistics about immigrants to choose the best country to live in in Europe. Obviously, the one with the fewest number of immigrants would win. Slovakia was “the lucky” one. In my opinion, the lack of ethnic diversity stems from the isolation the people in the communist bloc had to go through. One or even two generations had almost no chance of being in contact with different cultures. The consequences of this reduced interaction prevail until today. The people are not willing to accept even the smallest amount of diversity, and therefore Slovakia has still remained unattractive to immigrants. As Andrej mentioned, they often have to face extremism and racism. The article indicated what needs to be changed, so that the multiculturalism could thrive in Slovakia. The change has to be initiated by politicians and people of high influence in general. Basically, the whole community needs to mobilize and cooperate afterwards. It is undebatable that multiculturalism would help the country on all fronts.