Merkel Says German Multi-cultural Society Has Failed

Politics International Politics
21

[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]Look at these two profiles though:

  1. The person won numerous mathematics competitions in high school, graduated top of his class and then went on to attend an elite university, where he graduated with honours and later became a highly successful actuary;

  2. The person was often truant in high school, at which times he was involved in petty crimes. After dropping out of high school, he existed mostly on welfare and graduated to more serious crimes, before serving time in prison.

Would anyone seriously claim that if we knew that both were the children of immigrants in say, Germany, and one was of Arabic background and one was of Chinese background, that it would be a 50/50 shot for who matched which profile? Would anyone really claim that? Isn’t that what the German banker who started this whole controversy was on about, and that Merkel was continuing?[/quote]

Where I come from it would be different. You know what people in Vancouver think of all the Asian immigration over the past two decades? That it’s brought crime. Never had so many Asian gangs before. Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, etc. etc. Yeah, people in Vancouver relate to Chinese as bringing crime and gangs. Triads, dope smuggling, gambling, prostitution.

So the odds that in some areas whitey would think that the Chinese kid was more likely to get involved in crime is very good.

It doesn’t matter the race, the reaction is the same to immigration.

For what it’s worth, and it is worth something, the RCMP showed that immigrants did not form gangs in a greater percentage than white kids.

22

[quote=“cfimages”]Guy In Taiwan, there’s not much point trying to debate with you because you don’t seem to know very much about the Muslim world, nor are you interested in putting aside your obvious prejudices and opening your mind. I will leave you with a couple of basic demographic facts though.

The largest Muslim country is Indonesia so when you say “leaving aside those that aside in Indonesia” that like talking about the native English speaking world and leaving aside those in America.

Only about 20% of the Muslim world is from the Arab states which I guess is what all your oil references are about.[/quote]

Muslims in China also seem to defy guy’s stereotypes. You see Hui Muslims all over China running small businesses, working hard, and generally having respect for being clean living. And just cleaner. If I have to choose a place to eat I usually go to the Muslim place.

Rubiya Kadeer, a Muslim and an outstanding businesswomen, was also the richest woman in China until the CCP decided she was a dissident.

23

[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“cfimages”]Guy In Taiwan, there’s not much point trying to debate with you because you don’t seem to know very much about the Muslim world, nor are you interested in putting aside your obvious prejudices and opening your mind. I will leave you with a couple of basic demographic facts though.

The largest Muslim country is Indonesia so when you say “leaving aside those that aside in Indonesia” that like talking about the native English speaking world and leaving aside those in America.

Only about 20% of the Muslim world is from the Arab states which I guess is what all your oil references are about.[/quote]

Muslims in China also seem to defy guy’s stereotypes. You see Hui Muslims all over China running small businesses, working hard, and generally having respect for being clean living. And just cleaner. If I have to choose a place to eat I usually go to the Muslim place.

Rubiya Kadeer, a Muslim and an outstanding businesswomen, was also the richest woman in China until the CCP decided she was a dissident.[/quote]

And we’re yet to mention the prominent roles Muslims play in modern India (which actually has the 2nd or 3rd largest Muslim population in the world) in the fields of politics (three presidents, chief justice, vice presidents), film (numerous Bollywood actors), business (some of India’s largest IT and pharmaceutical companies), sport (cricket and tennis), music (including Academy award winners), science and education.

24

[quote=“cfimages”][quote=“Muzha Man”][quote=“cfimages”]Guy In Taiwan, there’s not much point trying to debate with you because you don’t seem to know very much about the Muslim world, nor are you interested in putting aside your obvious prejudices and opening your mind. I will leave you with a couple of basic demographic facts though.

The largest Muslim country is Indonesia so when you say “leaving aside those that aside in Indonesia” that like talking about the native English speaking world and leaving aside those in America.

Only about 20% of the Muslim world is from the Arab states which I guess is what all your oil references are about.[/quote]

Muslims in China also seem to defy guy’s stereotypes. You see Hui Muslims all over China running small businesses, working hard, and generally having respect for being clean living. And just cleaner. If I have to choose a place to eat I usually go to the Muslim place.

Rubiya Kadeer, a Muslim and an outstanding businesswomen, was also the richest woman in China until the CCP decided she was a dissident.[/quote]

And we’re yet to mention the prominent roles Muslims play in modern India (which actually has the 2nd or 3rd largest Muslim population in the world) in the fields of politics (three presidents, chief justice, vice presidents), film (numerous Bollywood actors), business (some of India’s largest IT and pharmaceutical companies), sport (cricket and tennis), music (including Academy award winners), science and education.[/quote]Hmm…perhaps the idea that Muslims do not contribute to their societies and the world is purely…delusional? GiT: I won’t hold it against you that you don’t have a Nobel prize nor that you are unlikely to receive one in the field of…anything. And that’s ok. I still value you as a human being, even if you aren’t as advanced as the less than .1% of people who are top in their fields, and even if you have chosen to be a GiT (guy in taiwan) for life instead of an acclaimed scientist. In fact, even if you continue to contribute little to society through not chasing the Nobel prize, I still think you’re swell.
I’m just giving you shit, but I hope you see the point: we could all hold people to incredible standards and miss what they contribute as individuals and as groups (less important, of course). I see little acts of kindness often here, and I’m sure there are people out in the world doing great things that you and I will never know about. Ever had a teacher you looked up to? A mentor? Someone who has inspired you for whatever reason? Let’s give people a break. When you get your Nobel prize and have achieved the standard you find so important, feel free to climb up on your pedestal-until then, stay down here with the rest of us :wink: .

25

suiyuan: Asking what the importance of a country is is not meaningless. I would say that we can very easily assess that the U.S. and the U.K. are incredibly important nations because of the sheer volume of scientific ideas, medical breakthroughs and innovations in tehcnology that have come from them in the past two hundred years. That you found eight Nobel Laureates from the Muslim world is precisely my point. Eight out of 1.4 billion. That works out at one per 175 million people. Now calculate the ratios for Christians or Hungarians. I don’t define importance as simply existing.

No, none of that is the intellectual equivalent of discussing who would win in a fight. It’s a matter of the very real fact that if certain societies hadn’t existed at certain times (including Muslims in the Middle Ages), we’d probably still be carving spears from stone, and the average life expectancy would still be a third of what it is today.

I wasn’t making up a new definition of any word. I was mocking the attitude that to call people, either individually or collectively, to take responsibility for themselves, is far too often regarded as mean, especially by many self-identifying liberals. It wasn’t anything to do with how I originally wrote it. It was to do with your deliberate obfuscation of what I wrote.

Who is ignoring the issue? The fact that a German banker gets pressured into resigning for pointing out some truths about German society.

Yes, the German government needs to look at itself. I think we’re both in agreement on that. Where we differ is that you don’t think that people need to take responsibility for themselves or their communities, and go on to explain how this entire issue has nothing to do with the immigrants themselves. Just because the Taiwanese police are lax in dealing with people who run red lights doesn’t mean that it’s the government’s fault if I run a red light and hit somebody. The buck ultimately stops with me.

I don’t believe for a second that you don’t discriminate. I just think you’re not honest about it. Are you telling me that if you needed a babysitter for your little kids you wouldn’t prefer a fifteen year old girl to a thirty five year old man? How about if you were walking down a street in a somewhat dodgy neighbourhood (or is that too much discrimination for you, and we have to ignore crime statistics?) late at night and you saw a middle-aged guy, nicely dressed, walking with his wife and two little kids versus a dozen adolescent males swearing and smoking cigarettes? Would you feel as comfortable in either situation in the two different hypothetical scenarios? Come on, tell me you would.

It’s not that you can’t follow any of what I’ve written. I could actually argue the complete opposite to what I’ve written (yes, I can be a sophist if I need to) using a mirror image of what I’d written. You would be able to follow it then. The reason has nothing to do with how it’s written or what my points are, unless you actually do have a problem with understanding an argument you disagree with (I may disagree with most of what you write, but I can understand it). The problem is that in your world view, you really want everyone to skip merrily off into the sunset together. I can understand that world view. I can follow it. I can actually stand outside myself and imagine that others do think differently to me. I don’t agree with what you’re saying, but I’m not doing the intellectual equivalent of deliberately putting my hands over my ears and screaming, “La, la, la…I can’t hear you…la, la,la. What are you talking about, it doesn’t make sense!”

Fine, if you find my opinions unpallatable. However, I am not inarticulate, and I think you’re being highly disingenuous by claiming that.

yuli: I agree that bringing in people with German ancestry who, to all intents and purposes, were not even remotely German culturally was a big mistake. Still though, Turks in Germany could still have bucked the pressures applied to them by others. I’m sure some did, and to them, my hat is off. If some guy or his kid became a successful doctor, for instance, then that is to be not only applauded, but held up to all Germans as an example. This may sound odd, given what I have written so far, but I’m actually heavily pro-immigration so long as the motivation is betterment, not the perception of receiving entitlements.

cfimages: Despite what you might think, I actually have had contact with the Muslim world and I’ve been to four Muslim nations and was fairly unimpressed in most respects. When I said, “Leaving aside Indonesia”, I was talking about productivity. Indonesia certainly produces things (other than oil) that people use, but it’s still hardly on a par with Sweden in terms of its contributions to the world.

My points about oil are that if we take away oil, what is the entire Muslim world actually famous for? Where’s the Moroccan Nokia?

Mucha Man: Really, regarding the perception of Asians in Vancouver? Canadians I’ve spoken to seem to have regarded Asians as they seem to be regarded in most places: as good in school. The negative stereotypes usually involve things like driving ability and penis size.

Is the situation with the Hui in China because the Chinese government doesn’t have bad incentives set up though? Far be it for me to defend China, but the competitiveness of the place seems to force many people to become highly entrepreneurial. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the same Judeo-Christian (and by extention, socialistic) type imperative of looking after your brother and providing welfare.

cfi: Yes, but again, what is it about India that leads to those things? What is it about many Muslim nations, where they are in the majority and get to run the show as they please, both politically and culturally, that makes so many of them basket cases? Why is Pakistan not nearly as successful as India?

26

suiyuan: Is your last post supposed to be a repudiation of my philosophy? Not at all. It’s perfectly in line with my philosophy. I don’t regard myself as a great figure. When I die, I won’t be remembered as an Isacc Newton or Alexander. In fact, I’ll barely be remembered at all, and only by a handful of people for a few decades. That I won’t go down in history doesn’t mean that I can’t point out that the vast majority of humanity is effectively useless and pointless.

You confuse the idea of being “good” or “bad” or “nice” or “nasty” with being “worthwhile” or “not worthwhile”, or more precisely, “important” or “not important”.

27

I’m from Vancouver. The situation is better now than in the 90s but many people in the city have the impression that Asian immigrants bring crime. Actually if you include Indians in the mix then yes people’s perception is still that immigrants are driving up crime.

28

I can’t believe any German politician would intentionally scapegoat a minority just to gain political advantage. It just doesn’t sound like them.

29

Guy, so you see to be arguing that there is something about Islam that cuts across national and cultural lines and makes Muslims less able to integrate, less accomplished, and less desirable as immigrants. So what is it? What quality inherent in Islam makes followers less accomplished? If it’s this universal phenomenon, there must be a reason behind it.
by the way, China only has one Nobel Prize winner, out of 1.3 billion people. So the Muslims certainly beat them.

30

[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]suiyuan: Asking what the importance of a country is is not meaningless. I would say that we can very easily assess that the U.S. and the U.K. are incredibly important nations because of the sheer volume of scientific ideas, medical breakthroughs and innovations in tehcnology that have come from them in the past two hundred years. That you found eight Nobel Laureates from the Muslim world is precisely my point. Eight out of 1.4 billion. That works out at one per 175 million people. Now calculate the ratios for Christians or Hungarians. I don’t define importance as simply existing.[/quote]Why don’t you calculate it for us? Seems that you are the only one using this as meaningful to determine a group of people’s worth. Do the math and come back to let us know who is important.[quote]I wasn’t making up a new definition of any word. I was mocking the attitude that to call people, either individually or collectively, to take responsibility for themselves, is far too often regarded as mean, especially by many self-identifying liberals. It wasn’t anything to do with how I originally wrote it. It was to do with your deliberate obfuscation of what I wrote.[/quote]Oh, so now you were mocking a position no one was taking. No wonder I didn’t know what you were talking about. [quote]Who is ignoring the issue? The fact that a German banker gets pressured into resigning for pointing out some truths about German society.[/quote]A few truths mixed with a whole lot of xenophobia. Do you really want to defend the statement “Muslims make our country more stupid.”? As a fun side note, I love that he said “more stupid”, inferring that he already feels his country is stupid :laughing: [quote]Yes, the German government needs to look at itself. I think we’re both in agreement on that. Where we differ is that you don’t think that people need to take responsibility for themselves or their communities, and go on to explain how this entire issue has nothing to do with the immigrants themselves.[/quote]I never said any of that. I just don’t want to see the issue confused with bigoted attacks or lofty parameters for what makes a certain group important. [quote]Just because the Taiwanese police are lax in dealing with people who run red lights doesn’t mean that it’s the government’s fault if I run a red light and hit somebody. The buck ultimately stops with me.[/quote]An interesting, but meaningless analogy. You like analogies :eh: [quote]I don’t believe for a second that you don’t discriminate. I just think you’re not honest about it. [/quote]I never claimed I don’t. Race and religion, though, are just two factors I don’t need to use. For example, I don’t know what race you are, but I am forming some judgments about you. :ponder: [quote]Are you telling me that if you needed a babysitter for your little kids you wouldn’t prefer a fifteen year old girl to a thirty five year old man? How about if you were walking down a street in a somewhat dodgy neighbourhood (or is that too much discrimination for you, and we have to ignore crime statistics?) late at night and you saw a middle-aged guy, nicely dressed, walking with his wife and two little kids versus a dozen adolescent males swearing and smoking cigarettes? Would you feel as comfortable in either situation in the two different hypothetical scenarios? Come on, tell me you would.[/quote]Hmm…again with the hypotheticals. Maybe someone else will want to play along…I’m not interested. [quote]The problem is that in your world view, you really want everyone to skip merrily off into the sunset together. I can understand that world view. I can follow it. I can actually stand outside myself and imagine that others do think differently to me. I don’t agree with what you’re saying, but I’m not doing the intellectual equivalent of deliberately putting my hands over my ears and screaming, “La, la, la…I can’t hear you…la, la,la. What are you talking about, it doesn’t make sense!”[/quote]It’s not that I can’t fathom your stance, it’s that you do not communicate it well. You can’t say “mean” to describe the reaction of self-described liberals to policies of taking away benefits-no one could follow that (and sarcasm is generally an easy way to loose people unless what you are saying is obviously sarcastic). You also use analogies that don’t make sense to try to make your point. You seem to be saying, through your analogies, that all judgments are equal-say a one-legged man is slow, may as well say the Muslims aren’t contributing. I prefer to just discuss the issue at hand-and several people have shown that Muslims do contribute, but you continue to use analogies. Not all judgments are equal. ‘One-legged people are slow’ is vastly different from 'one-legged people are stupid." You are sympathizing with the latter type of judgment.

31

zyzzx: I really don’t know. I suspect it’s something to do with a combination of two things. One is how fatalistic their religion seems to be, especially as summarised by the term “Inshallah” and that the very name of their religion means submission. It’s a very Weberian analysis, I know.

The second is that they seem to have a highly developed sense of pride, to the point of really shooting themselves in the foot. This seems to manifest itself in a really, really heightened sense of being agrieved over their relations with the West, specifically the U.S. and Israel (which may or may not be considered Western, but that’s beside the point), both formerly and presently.

Regarding China’s lack of Nobel Laureates, I would say two things about that. Firstly, China does kick goals in other areas. Secondly, I have no doubt that within twenty years, we’re going to see a massive increase in the amount of high-end manufacturing and innovation coming out of China. It’s already doing all sorts of interesting things with renewable energy as well as cars. I don’t quite know that it will surpass the scientific output of the West in that time (though it could if the West had to slash funding or made it very unattractive for innovators to base themselves there), but the scales will certainly tip at least a moderate amount in their direction. Almost by necessity, China will have to move away from being the world’s producer of cheap crap since it can’t continue to advance its people without going more high-end. I just can’t see it with the Muslim world generally. Sure, they’re trying to put together some interesting universities and so on in various parts of the Gulf, but it doesn’t seem like it’s on a large enough scale or that they could even implement such things on a societal level without radically changing their cultures. I think the one thing the West has going for itself against China and many parts of Asia at the moment is that the West has better institutions and methods for producing really great innovators. Much of Asia still seems to focus on working really hard in school, rather than working really smart in school. Perhaps, as they develop, Asian nations will put more of a focus upon quality of life. We’d better hope so in a way. Otherwise, when they’re working both hard and smart, they’re going to have it all over the West. I just don’t see the Muslim world being anywhere near being in that game. The West’s long term economic and military rivals (and role models, I might add, since it doesn’t have to be seen entirely in a negative light!) will not be in the Muslim world, which is why I think the whole War on Terror is a massive distraction that only hastens the shift in power from the West to the East.

I’m sceptical about the effects of Christianity on a society in many respects, although that said, whilst I really don’t like the Mormons, if everyone followed their example, they’d work a lot harder and be a lot more successful. They have both positive and negative aspects to their religion from an atheist’s perspective.

Yet my observations of people in the four Muslim nations I have been to (Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia, in that order) is that they seem to have an inordinate amount of time to sit around and drink tea, play backgammon or go to the mosque, or they’re involved in the tourism industry shaking down foreigners (which is not specific to Muslim nations, of course) and it’s hard to figure out who does the actual work there. It doesn’t strike me as a coincidence at all that Taiwan is quite developed, despite being an agricultural backwater a couple of generations ago. Walking around here, everyone is always busy. It’s go, go, go 24 hours a day here, which does have its drawbacks, but also provides lots of benefits. It’s a world away from the Muslim nations I’ve been to. For someone whose life ambition or family examples consisted of wanting to sit around doing bugger all (which, from my observations, seemed to be quite common), I should imagine sucking on the teat of European welfare would be vastly preferable to actually having to work hard in a country like America or Canada, which is probably why the latter possibly get the cream. That said, in Australia (which you’d think would be more in line with America than Europe), getting a class full of Chinese kids is a dream gig because they actually ask for more homework and want to impove their test scores and so hang on your every word, written or spoken. Aside from white trash, getting a bunch of Muslim kids would have to be one of the worst gigs because not only will they not do the homework, they’ll argue constantly with you about why it’s somehow not their fault, but is in fact your fault.

32

suiyuan: Nicely sidestepped. Again.

33

Guy in Taiwan:

As usual, you are painting a picture that shows only black and white, but of a world which is in countless shades of gray.

There are many Muslim uni students in Canada, and I found them to be more hard working than many of the non-Muslims, some of whom would spend considerable amounts of time drinking.

Most of them go on to become respectable professionals.

Countries such as Turkey are doing OK without oil. It’s the world’s 15th biggest economy and slated to join the EU.

Malaysia hasn’t squandered its chances to develop itself in a reasonable way.

Many of the entrepreneurs who are changing India are Muslims.

Many Gulf States have risen out of poverty due to oil and have diversified to finance and investment.

So, yeah, I’ve been to India and Indonesia and I know a thing or two about the 3rd world and the kind of self-defeatism you are referring to, but I have to say I find your ideas way overstated.

34

Taiwan was not an agricultural backwater a few generations ago. Even under the Qing it was wealthier than China which is why we have so many nice temples (locals could afford the best materials and craftsmen). The Japanese built up a prized infrastructure and by WWII the majority of the population was literate and had at least elementary school education.

Taiwan went downhill after the war because of KMT mismanagement and slaughter of the professional class, and only got back on it’s feet in the 60s. But it had a long history of trade, entrepreneurial and business acumen, high education standards, and so on. It also greatly benefited from overseas Chinese groups and the injection of the Shanghai business elite. In other words, Taiwan was primed to explode economically.

If you’re this ignorant about a place you live in I can only imagine how little you bother to understand countries you’ve merely visited.

35

Interestingly, even my German friends have problems with other Germans from other parts of the country. E.g. my Thuringian friend works in Swabia for a Bavarian company and says Swabians are so cold (that, for a German to say!!), and Bavarians are so-and-so. My friend from Mainz says southern Germans are so-and-so, and they all dislike former East Germans for their welfare, can’t get past the Commie past hump, even though “we” have subsidized billions to modernize East Germany, etc. And these are more serious criticisms than, say, a Californian making fun of a Midwesterner or Texan.
So if they can’t even get along with other Germans… well. lol

36

The same could be said about people in Milano or Mexico or Madrid - mostly Christians there, no? In certain latitudes, people who hang out in the heat of the day tend to stay in the shade, move little, and drink lots of liquid (the people doing the work at that time are usually the women in the houses). What does any of this have to do with Islam or failure to integrate culturally? :astonished:

You could actually say that it is the Germans who, for all their economic prowess, don’t seem the smartest cookies in the tin: they’ve had the Nazi experience to learn from and 50 years of guest workers in the country with various associated social problems - and yet, they haven’t figured out how to get along with the people they themselves invited into their country. :slight_smile: And now Merkel talks about Christian values that immigrants are expected to embrace. Like… tolerance? kindness? modesty? sharing? You really have to wonder who the people are who are most in need of such values…

Leaving such facetious speculation aside: i don’t have much tolerance for any of the organised religions that are involved in this kerfuffle - “opium for the masses” is about right - but i have even less tolerance for notions along the lines of “adherents to religion A are naturally better human beings than those who belong to religion B”. However appealing such ideas might be emotionally, they are nothing more than “prejudices” (judgements made before knowing the relevant facts) , i.e, a kind of obvious ignorance (not to fret: ignorance is curable).

Just imagine, if the headline had been, “Merkel says Germans have failed to make their society multi-cultural”. Now that would have given us something to work with. And Merkel would have gotten some respect from me (not that she has any reason to care, but still… :wink: )

37

Well put.

38

[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]suiyuan: Nicely sidestepped. Again.[/quote]I am only ignoring your completely OT hypotheticals. There are rules on these forums about staying on topic, and I don’t want to guess what I would do if I had kids or what I would do if I ran into a bunch of kids smoking and cussing…it’s all just too weird to answer. It’s a nice way to sidestep the whole topic at hand, though. Would it really make you feel better if I said I prefer a teenage baby sitter? Would you then feel justified in your stereotypes of Muslims? Please… :unamused:

39

I’ll answer the teen question. If it was Taipei I’d walk past them. Taichung or Kaohsiung take a good look first. Vancouver, depends on the neighborhood. In west van I’d walk past them and probably say hello. In east van again check them out first. And here’s the clicher GiT, if they were Asian and in east van I’d probably be more likely to avoid them than if they were white because that is how the stereotypes work in Vancouver.

40

Mucha: Taiwan was certainly an agricultural backwater compared to say, the U.K., even when Taiwan was under the Japanese. It wasn’t an industrial giant in the league of the West, that’s for sure.

yuli: Given your thesis about hot latitudes, how do you explain Singapore, or even Vietnam for that matter? Not a lot of sitting around doing very little in those places. Any sitting around time seems to involve a textbook. Likewise, why have the Mormons prospered so much, despite living in a fairly hot and dry part of the U.S.? I thought I outlined what this had to do with Islam – I think there’s a certain fatal attitude bound up in certain religions or cultures, whereas others readily believe the ball is definitely in one’s court. I think Singapore is a very special example of this. What is it, exactly, that has made it so successful? Sure, we can talk about its geographical location for trade, but there were previously other cities in that vicinity that dominated trade in other time periods. There seems to be more to it than that though. Likewise, in terms of failure to integrate, I thought I pointed out that coming from a place where you sit around a lot, a different place that pays you to sit around a lot probably looks very attractive, and it doesn’t encourage people to get up and work. I suspect, whether accurately or not, people who migrate to the U.S. do so because they think if they’re smart and work hard, they’ll become filthy rich, whereas people migrate to a lot of European nations because they think it will be a bit of an easy ride. I’ve said many times that I think the German welfare state is a big part of the problem, yet it’s obviously not all of the problem or you’d see fairly equal numbers of old-German stock and other immigrants on welfare as Turks or other Muslims. That’s the elephant in the room.

Yes, I would agree that the Germans do seem to have really made a mess of this. They haven’t been too bright about how they managed it.

I understand that others have problems with using the terms “better” or “worse”. I think in the mostly post-religious West, it’s an interesting cultural hangover from Judeo-Christian days. It’s part of Nietzsche’s “slave morality”.

Germans have failed to make their society multi-cultural. For me, being multi-cultural, bi-cultural or even mono-cultural is not the issue though. It’s an issue of whether a society is successful or not. There are multi-cultural societies that are more successful than non-multicultural societies, and vice versa. Multi-culturalism in and of itself is neither a good nor bad thing, and as I’ve said before, I’m pro-immigration. It depends upon the kind of multi-cultural society you’re talking about and the degree to which they all share in some sort of meta-culture, which is the difference with the U.S. I’d say. U.S. culture is very different to that of many of the other English-speaking countries that were heavily colonised by British and European people. It’s really taken a very different course, and there are probably a lot fewer people (as a percentage of the population) whose ancestors were from the British Isles. I think it’s really an example of a kind of country that isn’t even so much multi-cultural as a real melting pot. I would also say the former Yugoslavia was a completely different kettle of fish to Singapore, despite both being multi-cultural.

Mucha Man: Are you actually saying you really would behave in such ways, or are you just saying that’s what you would do if you followed the stereotypes?