Hat tip Instapundit
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."
Added at 1230 CT: Here is the original AFP story that contains the quotes cited above and much more. Wow. Sarkozy gets it. Whether he'll DO anything about or not I don't know, but he understands that if you settle in France, you're supposed to become French.
It implies a lot of things. First and foremost that there is an alternative to multiculturalism, if as yet undefined. Second of all, that the local, western culture is *superior* to the imported cultures.
And that it is not the dominant culture that needs to be flexible and adapt to the imported cultures, but that it is the imported cultures that must change and integrate into their new common culture.
#2
The lefties will just change the name as they did with Manmade Global Warming to Climate Change and keep on doing the same old stick, indoctrinating your kiddies in the state monopoly schools.
#3
Are they still burning cars in the Moslem Ghetto slums around Paris? Have the Moslems adapted to the French Fries and frog legs on the menu?
How does the crepe suzette go with the burqua and the Napolean brandy this morning?
How do Moslems do in the Armed Forces of Western democracies? What's wrong with say forty percent Moslem in a US Marine Corp platoon?
You have to know who your friends are. You have to know who you can trust with the baby. " Hope and change" is bullshiite. Not everybody's values are equal. Not all religions are equal either. Some people see nothing wrong with being a shaheed. You like hot dogs and stuff down at the Deli?
You like bacon and scrambled eggs? You like seeing a big Pork section at the Supermarket? What's your final existential position on Red beans hamhock and cornbread?
How many Moslem Police in your home town?Do you want to keep it that way or get a free scholarship to Harvard? How many Moslems wearing burquas teaching grades one thru' three in your local public Elementary?
If even the French are saying it...think how multiculturalism will be acceptable in rural Missouri. What's wrong with a highschool Football team.....and all Moslem.... playing against an all Baptist team from across the county? Good game...but what about AFTER the game?
Moslems? Oh, yeah, we have so much to learn from Moslems.
Give me ten reasons why Moslems are as American as the Mississippi River. How about nine? No.. .Eight? Give me one then.
#6
"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"
-brilliant line. This country should heed that. Good job Nic.
#10
Here's the Sarkozy quote that got me (from the AFP article I cite in the post above):
"If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France," the right-wing president said.
Note the AFP sneer of 'right-wing'.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/11/2011 13:35 Comments ||
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#11
I doubt the sneer is sufficient to detract from the self-evident common sense of the balance of the sentence. In fact, it gives the term "right-wing" a certain patina of reasonability and patriotism in the eyes of most readers.
UK and France in the same week? Perhaps, my children will be able to visit Europe.
I was shocked to enter a coffee bar in Paris, europe cup was on, France vs. Portugal, I could not believe how enthusiastic the clientelle was cheering against France. If they were Portugese then I am a bag of legumes.
(reviewing the playoff bracket, they had no horse in the race so to speak, just cheering whoever played against France)
#15
Agreed, They really do taste like chicken. Decorum demanded taking them at a fancy soirée, not something worth repeating.
Posted by: Fire and Ice ||
02/11/2011 17:18 Comments ||
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#16
Frog legs are also considered a Southern dish here in the States, JFM. My mom from Georgia liked them.
I think of them the way I think of chicken wings - too many bones, not enough meat. When I eat meat, I want some actual meat in there somewhere.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/11/2011 18:05 Comments ||
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#17
Same could be said for rabbit. I will admit if I had to live off of rabbit I would make Watership Down look like a Barney Dinosaur storyline.
Multi-culturalism is not an ends it is a means of social engineering. In another era it would be called propagandizing the locals to colonization. Hopefully more on that after dinner.
[Arab News] A Turkish woman was acquitted for a third time on Wednesday of being involved in a 1998 kaboom that killed seven people and maimed more than 120 in Istanbul's 17th-century spice bazaar.
But the long-running legal case against sociologist Pinar Selek is not over yet. A higher court could still reverse that verdict.
Selek, now 40, has been accused of aiding and abetting Kurdish rebels who allegedly planted a bomb that caused the kaboom. She was tried alongside a man who later claimed he was tortured by police and forced to testify against Selek.
Selek was acquitted of the charges in 2006 and 2007, but an appeals court overturned both verdicts and ordered new trials.
On Wednesday, a lower court again found Selek not guilty, but a higher court must decide whether to uphold that ruling.
"Let's hope this verdict will be upheld and the case will finally end," the Anatolia news agency quoted Selek's father and lawyer, Alp Selek, as saying.
Selek, who could be imprisoned for life if she is convicted, has maintained her innocence throughout her 13-year ordeal.
During that time, she spent two years in police custody and claimed she was tortured. But she has since been allowed to leave Turkey and now lives in Germany.
She was not in court for Wednesday's verdict.
Turkey's judicial system has been criticized for repeatedly trying people for the same crime, and Selek's case is being watched internationally because it comes at a time when Turkey hopes to become a member of the European Union. To do that, it would have to comply with the EU's judicial regulations.
Emma Sinclair-Webb, a Turkey researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Wednesday she believes Selek's case shows that Turkey's judicial system is flawed.
"The trial of Pinar Selek is a perversion of the criminal justice system and abuse of due process," Sinclair-Webb said.
The case also has been complicated by contradictory reports regarding the cause of the deadly kaboom in Istanbul in 1998. Authorities disagree whether the blast at the historic spice bazaar was caused by a bomb or a gas leak.
On Wednesday, Selek's father said he cried tears of joy when he heard the latest verdict.
"A 13-year-old legal battle is not easy. How many times have we come and gone to this courthouse?" he said.
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Posted by: Fred ||
02/11/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] No sex here please! As Belgium hits eight months without a government this week, a boycott on sex is being suggested as a way out of the nation's longest political impasse. "Until there's a new administration, Hervé, you can just put that thing away!"
"When a situation's dire and nothing's moving, either you become a cynic or you react with humor," said Marleen Temmerman, the Belgian senator and gynecologist who threw up the notion. "I'm cynically going with humor!"
Speaking in her Ghent office, Temmerman said her call for "no more sex until a new administration" dates back to a trip to Kenya last month where she got wind of another novel bid to break the deadlock -- a boycott on shaving.
That was from Belgian actor Benoit Poelvoorde, star of early 1990s mockumentary "Man Bites Dog" and recent movie "Coco After Chanel."
"Let's keep our beards until Belgium rises again," he urged on Belgian TV. Ummm... Again?
Temmerman said "the men loved it and that was when Kenyan women reminded us about their sex strike" in 2009 to demand a political solution. "Within a month a deal was done there."
Colombian women likewise in 2006 staged a strike "of crossed legs" to press gangsters to give up their guns. And in ancient Greece, Aristophanes' play Lysistrata sees women boycotting the marital bed to end the Peloponnesian war.
In Belgium, feuding politicians from the Dutch-speaking north and the francophone south have been squabbling to strike a coalition government deal ever since elections last June 13 failed to produce an outright majority.
As fears mount of a lasting divorce between the two language communities, the figurehead sovereign, King Albert II, has named a succession of special envoys to bridge the divide, but all efforts have floundered.
"People are growing increasingly angry," said Temmerman. "We had to act."
Current go-between, caretaker finance minister Didier Reynders, is due to end a mediation mission next week amid public anger and fears for Belgium's economic future if no solution is found.
The gynecologist, also involved in health projects in Africa, said she has been flooded with positive calls and e-mails over the sex ban.
Asked for response in a busy Belgian shopping mall, Florence Willems said: "Why not? We may as well! We don't know what else to do to get a government."
With policy at a dead end and projects put on hold as a caretaker government deals with daily business, citizens have taken initiatives but see no response.
"Despite all these often novel forms of pressure, a solution seems a long way off," said political scientist Pascal Delwit in the daily Le Soir.
Talk-shows and comics compare the situation in Tunisia, where street protests downed the regime, to events in Belgium, where popular frustration is going unheard.
"The birds are singing, the grass is green, all is quiet here, nothing has changed," said breakfast-hour comic Thomas Gunzig after a mass protest in Brussels last month organized over Facebook by a group of students.
As Belgium headed towards the dubious record of becoming the world's country longest without a government -- currently held by Iraq in 2009 at 289 days -- 35,000 people erupted into the streets waving Belgian flags and shouting "Shame!" at the politicians.
Asked whether the sex boycott could impact, Temmerman said: "I don't think many women are going to practice abstinence, or that it'll have an effect, but it's better to laugh."
As for herself? "My husband's in Kenya at the moment so it's easy."
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Posted by: Fred ||
02/11/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
I've got an idea: why not just shave, have sex, and then break up the country? The world won't mourn the loss of Belgium.
#5
They probably figure that if middle-aged and older men no longer have to shave or have sex, they will be so much more relaxed and happy that they will be amenable to reaching an agreement.
#7
"When a situation's dire and nothing's moving, either you become a cynic or you react with humor," said Marleen Temmerman, the Belgian senator and gynecologist who threw up the notion
Isn't pregnancy and essential part of how a gynecologist earns his money?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[An Nahar] No sex here please! As Belgium hits eight months without a government this week, a boycott on sex is being suggested as a way out of the nation's longest political impasse.
"Let's keep our beards until Belgium rises again," he urged on Belgian TV.
