Multiculturalism in Society

Its success in Germany and France is pitiful and yet these countries have been able to keep the lid on bad publicity from leaking out into the media over their treatment of immigrants or rather their poor treatment of them. After years of having the occasional riot or witnessing racial unrest in these countries it is still apparent that in spite of the “ Christian attitude that they those countries base their values on, immigrants are treated as second class citizens and have not been able to integrate well into society. A recent report from Germany calls on the immigrant integration as being a failure in the beginning of a new century.

Germany had skinheads knocking on the doors of Turkish immigrants forcing them out of their apartments in the eighties. France has its special camp and soup kitchen in Calais for those from the Maghreb that attempt to either swim across the channel or get smuggled across through the underground tunnel. Italy has had its Nigerian shanty town outside of of Naples where Africans have been poorly housed and are were not allowed to integrate into the city’s population. Have there been good examples of immigrant integration? There has been at a moderate level but nothing, which would be proportional with the educational level of the new European citizen. Many do not wish to disturb the status quo and get deported by creating agitation in those countries.

Many new immigrants brought trades with them the past century and earlier and that sometimes may have added to stigmas or an exaggeration of what working potential an immigrant would have or what their behavior would be under certain circumstances.So the Irish were associated with potato farming and working in the shipyards. The Italians became known for their landscaping and cuisine and the Germans for their industrial or technical abilities and their autos. These immigrants and others have attempted immigration and their presence added to an international flavour and multilingualism that gives rise to a multicultural ambiance.

In a city where these cultures meet and one can easily move through several immigrant neighborhoods, multiculturalism has been associated with tolerance and a healthy ability of accepting ethnic groups wholeheartedly into the society. However there is some naivety going on when we have recently heard that  these immigrants were imported into Germany to provide the labor needed for rebuilding. Since the country has been rebuilt, those politicians who gave the okay for immigrants to stay in these countries would probably have been very happy to have sent them home, Only home now for those people is now Europe and not those those less fortunate states of higher unemployment, poverty and standard of living.

Multiculturalism has been on Canadian lips since Trudeau talked about this along with multilingualism in Canada in order to promote the French language throughout Canada and make it the second working language throughout the country. In reality few will care to speak French where there are few native French speaking inhabitants. Multiculturalism has probably inflamed separatist hearts who see the policy as skirting sovereign issues on the need for recognition of a politically independent Quebec. Montreal has been a real symbol of multiculturalism where there are French and English cultural venues side by side and a good deal of positive attitude despite some separtist undercurrents to keep Montreal a place for different cultures to meet and expose their cultural venues.