Cameron calls multiculturalism a failure

[Alan]

MUNICH, Germany (AFP) – Prime Minister David Cameron condemned his country's long-standing policy of multiculturalism as a failure Saturday, saying it was partly to blame for fostering Islamist extremism.

In a speech to the Munich Security Conference, Cameron said many young British Muslims were drawn to violent ideology because they found no strong collective identity in Britain.

Signalling a marked change in policy towards ethnic and religious minorities, he urged a "more active, muscular liberalism" where equal rights, the rule of law, freedom of speech and democracy were actively promoted.

"If we are to defeat this threat, I believe it's time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past," he told the conference during a panel discussion attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But his remarks sparked a chorus of condemnation at home, with the Muslim Council of Britain expressing anger that the Muslim community was still being treated "as part of the problem as opposed to part of the solution."

Many criticised his timing, on the day that 2,000 members of the far-right English Defence League (EDL) held a rally in the ethnically mixed city of Luton to protest against the spread of Islam in Britain.

Cameron did not mention the EDL but a lawmaker for the opposition Labour party, Sadiq Khan, accused him of "writing propaganda for the EDL".

The prime minister's speech was the first of his premiership on Islamist extremism, a major concern for British governments since four home-grown suicide bombers attacked London in 2005, killing 52 people.

It echoed controversial comments made by Merkel last year, when she also called multiculturalism a failure, saying Germany had not devoted enough attention to the integration of immigrants.

Cameron, who took power in May 2010, argued that "under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream".

"All this leaves some young Muslims feeling rootless. And the search for something to belong to and believe in can lead them to this extremist ideology," he said.

The response, he argued, should be "a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism".

"A passively tolerant society says to its citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It stands neutral between different values," he said.

"A genuinely liberal country does much more. It believes in certain values and actively promotes them."

Cameron was careful to distinguish between Islam the religion and the political ideology of Islamist extremism, saying they "are not the same thing."

But Muslim groups in Britain reacted with a mixture of disappointment and outrage.

"It is disappointing," Faisal Hanjra, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, told BBC radio, adding that it did not appear to mark in shift in the approach to tackling terrorism.

"Again it just seems the Muslim community is very much in the spotlight, being treated as part of the problem as opposed to part of the solution."

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of British Muslim welfare group the Ramadhan Foundation, added: "Singling out Muslims as he has done feeds the hysteria and paranoia about Islam and Muslims."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110205/wl_uk_afp/britainattackssecurityislammunich

Finally some sense out of the U.K. Pity the damage is already done.

 

[w1z4rd]

A conservative party leader saying that multiculturalism has failed. LOL. In related news the beef industry has come out strongly against chicken meat.

I guess we should listen to these really intelligent conservatives (oxymoron), and give up in South Africa, because multiculturalism has failed and we are all going to start killing and murdering other cultures in SA at any moment now.

Trust conservatives to be so narrow minded.

 

[The_Assimilator]

A conservative party leader saying that multiculturalism has failed. LOL. In related news the beef industry has come out strongly against chicken meat.

I guess we should listen to these really intelligent conservatives (oxymoron), and give up in South Africa, because multiculturalism has failed and we are all going to start killing and murdering other cultures in SA at any moment now.

Trust conservatives to be so narrow minded.

I guess you missed the part where he called for "active, muscular liberalism"... or you just ignored it as liberals are wont to do when faced with things that don't jive with their biases. Hmmm, who's narrow-minded now?

And to claim that multiculturalism in SA has not failed... ridiculous.

 

[Ancalagon]

Well it has failed. Muslims dont want to integrate, they want Sharia law with all of the honour killings and forced marriages intact.

 

[DigitalSoldier]

A conservative party leader saying that multiculturalism has failed. LOL. In related news the beef industry has come out strongly against chicken meat.

I guess we should listen to these really intelligent conservatives (oxymoron), and give up in South Africa, because multiculturalism has failed and we are all going to start killing and murdering other cultures in SA at any moment now.

Trust conservatives to be so narrow minded.

Did you even read the article or just ignored everything because the statement was made by a conservative ? :wtf:

 

[Techne]

"A genuinely liberal country does much more. It believes in certain values and actively promotes them."...
Sounds like classical liberalism or even neoliberalism, something that can be supported I think. Then again, it is also a little conservative...."certain values"?

 

[Flanders]

I guess we should listen to these really intelligent conservatives (oxymoron), and give up in South Africa, because multiculturalism has failed and we are all going to start killing and murdering other cultures in SA at any moment now.

"...any moment now." Classic.

 

[Vox Populi Vox Dei]

On-topic: It's a fact that multiculturalism has been an abject failure in Western Europe with Muslims refusing to integrate and instead wanting to create their own Muslim communities and rejecting Western customs. If anyone is unaware, there was a minister in the UK (former Labour minister in fact) who said that Pakistanis are deliberately targeting white women to rape.

 

[w1z4rd]

On-topic: It's a fact that multiculturalism has been an abject failure in Western Europe with Muslims refusing to integrate and instead wanting to create their own Muslim communities and rejecting Western customs. If anyone is unaware, there was a minister in the UK (former Labour minister in fact) who said that Pakistanis are deliberately targeting white women to rape.

Its not being a failure, change takes times. Like it has everywhere else.

 

[blunomore]

But recently Angela Merkel said that Germany efforts at integration of the different cultures have failed (or something along those lines) ... so : quo vadis ?

 

[Alan]

The centre-right Policy Exchange called for the UK to open negotiations over the efficiency of the Strasbourg court and the ''judicial competence'' of its judges.

Failure to achieve substantial progress within two years should lead Britain to pull out and allow the Supreme Court to adjudicate on human rights cases, it said.

The call, in a report published today, comes as the Government is wrestling with a ruling from the Strasbourg court that prisoners must be granted the vote.

The highly controversial issue will come to a head in the House of Commons on Thursday when MPs will debate and vote on the issue.

Prime Minister David Cameron has said that giving prisoners the vote makes him feel ''physically ill'' but the Government must act or it will face compensation claims from inmates adding up to more than £100 million.

The Policy Exchange's recommendations are endorsed by former law lord Lord Hoffmann, who wrote in the foreword to the report that seeking to repatriate human rights law was ''worth a try''.

''International institutions which are set up by everyone become in practice answerable to no one, and courts have an age-old tendency to try to enlarge their jurisdictions,'' he said.

''And so the Strasbourg court had taken upon itself an extraordinary power to micromanage the legal systems of the member states of the Council of Europe (or at any rate those which pay attention to its decisions) culminating, for the moment, in its decision that the UK is not entitled to have a law that convicted prisoners lose, among other freedoms, the right to vote.''

The Policy Exchange report, written by Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, recommended that the UK should open negotiations with the Council of Europe to make ''substantial reforms to the way that the court is run and its caseload managed''.

''Such reforms would include new procedures to assure the judicial competence of new judges and the greater efficiency of the court,'' he said.

''The negotiations would seek to find agreed ways to ensure that the judges at Strasbourg give greater discretion to the domestic judges of each member state.''

Dr Pinto-Duschinsky said the negotiations should be limited to no more than two years.

''If such negotiations are unsuccessful, the UK should consider withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and establishing the Supreme Court in London as the final appellate court for human rights law.

''In that case, the UK would continue to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into its domestic law.

Contrary to what has been stated by some opponents of such a reform, it is our conclusion that there is strong evidence to suggest that the UK's membership of the European Union and of the Council of Europe does not require continued adherence to the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights should the UK opt for such a withdrawal

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...draw-from-European-Court-of-Human-Rights.html

Time to break away from the Euro trash comrade nutters

 

[w1z4rd]

I guess you missed the part where he called for "active, muscular liberalism"... or you just ignored it as liberals are wont to do when faced with things that don't jive with their biases. Hmmm, who's narrow-minded now?

Yeah, is that watered down conservatism? I can also string ambiguous words together and make them mean anything I want.

And to claim that multiculturalism in SA has not failed... ridiculous.

Perhaps not in Orania.

 

[w1z4rd]

But recently Angela Merkel said that Germany efforts at integration of the different cultures have failed (or something along those lines) ... so : quo vadis ?

Religious conservatism will do that to you. I imagine a staunch Christian would feel like the system has failed.

 

[Cloudster]

So so typical. Anything that goes against Wizard's myopic version of the world is bad. And yes he is intelligent - he graduated with a first from Oxford University. Something that you could probably never achieve.

On-topic: It's a fact that multiculturalism has been an abject failure in Western Europe with Muslims refusing to integrate and instead wanting to create their own Muslim communities and rejecting Western customs. If anyone is unaware, there was a minister in the UK (former Labour minister in fact) who said that Pakistanis are deliberately targeting white women to rape.

Okay, so would you suggest that different cultures should stay seperate?

The bottom line here is that getting over all this crap where we find reasons to hate each other or not to hang out is definitely the way to go.

Someone posted (in this thread) that multiculturalism has failed in this country, well ... it has only failed the close minded fools who don't want to come out of their shells and experience interaction with people from different backgrounds.

 

[Vox Populi Vox Dei]

Okay, so would you suggest that different cultures should stay seperate?

The bottom line here is that getting over all this crap where we find reasons to hate each other or not to hang out is definitely the way to go.

Someone posted (in this thread) that multiculturalism has failed in this country, well ... it has only failed the close minded fools who don't want to come out of their shells and experience interaction with people from different backgrounds.

No...

Eastern Europeans and Asians (Chinese/Japanese) seem to do well integrating into Western society. As do sikhs and Hindus.

They don't want special privileges - they want to better themselves.

They don't cry racism or get "offended" so easily.

They don't have visions of destroying the West.

 

[blunomore]

Religious conservatism will do that to you. I imagine a staunch Christian would feel like the system has failed.

Are you alleging that efforts at integration in Germany has NOT failed?

 

[Alan]

wow epic fail here from the comrades as usual. For crying out loud learn the actual meaning of the word before mouthing off.

read the article it's lead to separation and a lack of integration. People from other cultures separate themselves from mainstream society. They have their own areas, their own schools and often hold onto aspects of their culture that run contrary to the values of the host country. It prevents integration and creates an environment for extremism.

For example with Muslim immigrants( it happens with others too) in the U.K you'll find many areas were extreme elements of their religion/culture like 'family honour attacks' and other extreme elements of Sharia have flourished because these people are separated from the rest of society. They live in their own little enclaves much like Orania.

 

[TJ99]

wow epic fail here from the comrades as usual. For crying out load learn the actual meaning of the word before mouthing off.

read the article it's lead to separation and a lack of integration. People from other cultures separate themselves from mainstream society. They have their own areas, their own schools and often hold onto aspects of their culture that run contrary to the values of the host country. It prevents integration and creates an environment for extremism.

For example with Muslim immigrants( it happens with others too) in the U.K you'll find many areas were extreme elements of their religion/culture like 'family honour attacks' and other extreme elements of Sharia have flourished because these people are separated from the rest of society. They live in their own little enclaves much like Orania.

+1 It seems like many people here don't even know the meaning of the word. Multiculturalism is the opposite of integration.

 

[alpha777]

perhaps we need to apologize to those white girls in the UK groomed and raped by Pakistani men? Or should we tell them that their sacrifice will be worth it in the long run as all things take a bit of time.

 

[Ancalagon]

Okay, so would you suggest that different cultures should stay seperate?

The bottom line here is that getting over all this crap where we find reasons to hate each other or not to hang out is definitely the way to go.

Someone posted (in this thread) that multiculturalism has failed in this country, well ... it has only failed the close minded fools who don't want to come out of their shells and experience interaction with people from different backgrounds.

And this is exactly why it has failed in the UK and Europe - Muslims do not want to integrate, they do not want their daughters marrying non Muslims or even the wrong kind of Muslim. They, not the Britons, are the reason it has failed. Muslim clerics living in the UK, on benefits, still call for terrorist acts.