Germany Ends Multiculturalism. The French Are Nervous.

The First Essential Scary Truth

The theory of Multiculturalism was all the rage back in the 1990’s. The idea of many cultures coexisting with respect and without assimilation in a larger national framework is a utopian vision of what post-modern nations can achieve if we can only get along.

Certain countries have made the Multicultural ideal their public policy. Canada, the UK, Indonesia, the Netherlands and most of the EU etc. are a small sampling of these nation states. The US has elements multiculturalism ingrained within our national consciousness. ‘The Melting Pot’ (or ‘Gorgeous Mosaic’) is something American students are taught from Kindergarten on. Even TV got into the act with the Schoolhouse Rock episodes of the 1970’s.

But does Multicultural Theory work? The debate rages from the Arizona frontier to the salons of the Upper East Side. For every academic and community organizer who pushes for understanding an the bending of our culture to those of the latest immigrant groups, there are two US citizens who want to Constitutional Amendment to make English the national language and force those same immigrants to come fully into the American culture.

Whatever the case, Multiculturalism appears to becoming a sort of Tower of Babel for the 21^st Century. Earlier in the week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a speech in Bavaria “the approach to build a multicultural society — to happily live side by side with each other — this approach has failed, utterly failed.”

While Merkel was repudiating the last 30 years of German public policy, Horst Seehofer, president-minister of Bavaria was quoted by STRAFOR, as saying his Christian Democratic Union Party and Merkel’s Christian Democrats were “committed to a dominant German culture and opposed to a multicultural one.”

Although I am not afraid of a beer hall putsch in the name of German led European Culture, I understand the French are preparing their army to surrender.