"Multiculturalism is an Utter Failure"

[gratedenini]

They hate everybody man! They just didn`t get me--esp when I`d had a drink.

They are the most humorless nation I`ve ever been too.

I also didnt realise they hated the Dutch so much either.

All that said... they do have certain values which wouldn`t do our soceity much harm. My feeling was they were 20yrs "behind" us in certain areas... but in a "good" way for example they showed far more Family orientation as in eating together regulary, children respecting elders,greetin each other in a civil manner.

Our lass was quite shocked to see how youths "congregate" here and are generally a bit scary.

Simply unheard of there. Of course...there are certain areas of Berlin which are a bit rough... but in general.. its nowt like we see here.

Also... you got to say.. they do much better bread and cakes than we could dream of.

den

[eFestivals]

Rubbish. Nationality doesn't change due to a law, a law changes due to a change in nationality.

The law changes that occured in 1990, as well as many other amendments over the last 60s years, were due entirely to a reconstruction of national identity. This reconstruction has been ongoing since the dissemination of the essentialist national identity that was infamously realised during the first part of the 20th century. The UK didn't need to do the same because it fought nationalism of this kind and is economically supported by its former colonies. Your comparison isn't a valid one.

you just can't help making it up out of nothing can you?

There were no amendments. The 1913 law was in place till 1990 (Nazi changes excluded).

Edited October 19, 2010 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

Says the person who thinks that laws come before the law maker.

No, I'm the person who recognises that a law only changes when there's enough support for that change.

Which took the German people 45 years to bring about, and is clearly still far from having been fully accepted - which is why Merkel was able to make the comments that she has.

Edited October 19, 2010 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

The law on citizenship is not the embodiment of the view of the people, though.

True, but any law is a reflection of strongly held views within any democratic nation.

And of course in the case of Germany, there were stronger reasons than exist anywhere else for why the old 1913 nationality laws might have been amended long before 1990 - but they weren't.

The fact that they stuck to them despite the idea they embody being a large part of what led to the rise of Hitler and Nazism gets to show just how strongly the 1913 nationality law held public support.

And of course Merkel's comments get to show that there's still strong reactionary forces within the country which would like to see those old laws restored.

[worm]

you just can't help making it up out of nothing can you?

There were no amendments. The 1913 law was in place till 1990 (Nazi changes excluded).

[worm]

No, I'm the person who recognises that a law only changes when there's enough support for that change.

[worm]

And of course in the case of Germany, there were stronger reasons than exist anywhere else for why the old 1913 nationality laws might have been amended long before 1990 - but they weren't.

[eFestivals]

No Neil, you can't help but miss the point.

I only have your poor attempts at communication to go on.

And yes, they are poor if the below is what you meant. Particularly from someone who once claimed to be the world's only perfect communicator.

I wasn't talking about the 1913 law or any particular law for that matter. I was talking about amendments to culture, of which laws are part. Ergo, Germany was under a cultural process of reconstruction in relation to national identity.

But as the non-amendment of the applicable laws gets to show - and Merkel's comments get to re-enforce - it was a very slow process over 45 years (when there were exceedingly good reasons for instant rejection by all in 1945), and a process that is still a long way from being resolved.

If you paid more attention to actual, real, facts and didn't instead work off your fantasies we wouldn't be having this convo because you'd know that there was nothing like the rejection of this long-standing idea of what makes a German national that you're suggesting - there wasn't even much of a rejection of Nazi ideas by the population at large for many years after the end of the war.

[sifi]

No Neil, you can't help but miss the point.

I wasn't talking about the 1913 law or any particular law for that matter. I was talking about amendments to culture, of which laws are part. Ergo, Germany was under a cultural process of reconstruction in relation to national identity.

[eFestivals]

Germany wasn't a nation until 1989!

Now you're just show your lack of applicable knowledge by posting irrelevances.

[worm]

I only have your poor attempts at communication to go on.

And yes, they are poor if the below is what you meant. Particularly from someone who once claimed to be the world's only perfect communicator.

[worm]

Now you're just show your lack of applicable knowledge by posting irrelevances.

[worm]

I don't even know if it was reconstructing itself.

Edited October 19, 2010 by worm

[eFestivals]

No, this is precisely the point.

Germany has only been Germany since 1989, hence the law change in 1990.

Oh really? So you think that the east - with a huge lack of immigrants compared to the west - pushed for a loosening of nationality laws so that the immigrants they don't have could be German?

You're waaaaaaay off the mark matey. The 1990 changes were far more the result of the EU than they were any internal German sentiment.

Before then, it was undergoing a reconstruction of national identity.

yeah, you're so right - as their continued adherence to the 1913 laws got to show, despite (west) Germany having better reason than any country in the world to amend them.

This is all cultural Neil. It's all factual evidence to support reasons why there's a series of barriers to multi-cultural integration. For example, right wing sentiment in the political centre and divisions and inequality throughout territories.

Yes it's cultural, due to a culture of them believing that 'german blood' is necessary for someone to be German. Which is completely at odds with the cultural revisionism which you wrongly claim to be a strong force within German society since 1945.

[eFestivals]

BECAUSE THERE WAS NO GERMANY!

wrong. There were two germanies.

There was one with an ideology that said immigrants should be welcomed and integrated, but which had very few immigrants for that idea to effect, so whilst it had that ideology it wasn't anything that can be said to be active.

There was another with an ideology that said to be German you had to have 'german blood', and via that ideology didn't allow the many immigrants it had to become German. This ideology is still exceedingly strong, as shown by the politicians who play up to it.

You were wrong to claim that Germany had been about non-integration until the recent changes in law Neil.

yet both the facts of law and the fact of the reality get to show that Germany was all about non-intregation.

You were wrong to say this because there was no unified Germany to base your statement upon.

Yet there was still a German people, who based their attitudes to immigration on a 1913 law.

It was undergoing a reconstruction of national identity.

Yet on the basis of your idiot words, that was a process that couldn't start to happen until 1990 because there was no Germany.

Plain and simple!

Yep. So I wonder why the plain and simple has passed you by entirely, and in place of that 'plain and simple' you instead have your irrelevant fantasies?

[worm]

Oh really? So you think that the east - with a huge lack of immigrants compared to the west - pushed for a loosening of nationality laws so that the immigrants they don't have could be German?

[worm]

wrong. There were two germanies.

[eFestivals]

What are you bleating on about?

You said this.....

You can't say this because i) 'Germans' were not a distinguishable entity as national identity had been disseminated up until 1990 ii) there was no such thing as a 'strict German decent'.

This is what I've been having a go at. And citing some law from 1913 does little to validate it.

i) I was talking specifically about FDR.

ii) there was a law until 1990 that said there was.

What was the public-at-large's view of that 1913 law, in both the east and the west?

It's a question I don't need to answer, as I know the answer. The answer is proven by the fact of the exclusion of immigrants from being accepted into German society, and the fact that that exclusion is still happening today despite the law changes since 1990.

Stop posting utter bollocks.

[eFestivals]

Therefore, it was divided.

as a state it was divided.

With its attitudes to immigrants by the people of those states it wasn't.

Glad you finally get it.

I've always got it.

Whereas you are posting patently wrong bollocks.

Not interested in semantic discussions Neil. You stated things about Germany as if it were homogenous when it was divided.

Not with its attitudes to immigrants it wasn't.

[worm]

The answer is proven by the fact of the exclusion of immigrants from being accepted into German society, and the fact that that exclusion is still happening today despite the law changes since 1990.

[eFestivals]

So we agree that it has f**k all to do with the law then.

No.

It's generally the case that laws reflect the ideas within any society. This is certainly the case with the retention of the 1913 law in the FDR until 1990.

And once a law is in existence, then at least some people's views come to mirror that law but wouldn't have done without there being that law.

It's the same self-serving basis that all of philosophy is based upon, so I'm more than a little surprised you have such a problem in recognising it as that. Then again, you operate rules for philosophy which you won't allow for anything that you apply your bullshit ideas of philosophy against, so it's really not surprising at all.

And you've also qualified yourself by telling us that you mean the societies pertaining to the FDR, rather than Germans. Good.

was there a different view of these things in the DDR?

Nope, as the greater racism which operates (in what was the DDR) nowadays than in what was the FDR gets to show.

However, no one's arguing that multi-culturalism has worked.

how could they?

For it to have worked German society would have to have first implemented it. They've barely started to implement it.

We're just looking for reasons as to why it isn't working, and your rubbish about 'Germans being less hung up about fellow nationals being of strict German decent' due to some law change in 1990 is simply rubbish.

The reason it's not working is because it doesn't much exist.

And that's because so many Germans from both east and west still adhere to the ideas of nationality that were enshined in that 1913 law.

So not rubbish at all. As ever, you reject facts for fantasy.

[worm]

No.

It's generally the case that laws reflect the ideas within any society. This is certainly the case with the retention of the 1913 law in the FDR until 1990.

Edited October 19, 2010 by worm

[eFestivals]

The simple fact is this, the law is not sysnonymous with society.

The simple fact is that within Germany - east, west, or combined - in regard to nationality laws it is.

Further, Germany has been undergoing a vast cultural change, which has seen national identity being reconstructed.

That will be "being reconstructed" without there being any reconstruction of course. As proven by the attitudes of Germans as a whole.

Who is and who is not German is hard to establish when you don't yet know what being German is.

All very well if it's relevant. Is it? Nope.

They knew (and still know ) who a German is - that's someone who has 'German blood'.

[worm]

The simple fact is that within Germany - east, west, or combined - in regard to nationality laws it is.

Edited October 19, 2010 by worm

[gratedenini]

Which one of you is The Gingerbread Man...and which is The Fox?

All I know is you`d never get across the river cos you`d be arguing about it!

Until The Baker arrived ... Oafish.

My Piscean imagination is in overdrive!

den (totally lost..again)