Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
There was a nice op-ed by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post on 11/10. He contrasted France with the U.S.A. We have so much in common, both nations are defined by principles of the Enlightenment regarding individual rights.
But France went a step further, it's also defined by its history and culture, including the French language and the Christian religion. The US has almost no history and our culture has not quite been defined. As chauvinistic as we appear to ourselves about our version of English and our crazy quilt of Christian sects, it's nothing compared to most European nations.
France officially denies and ignores racial and ethnic differences. They say to their immigrants, "Our values are liberty, equality, and fraternity, and we're just not going to add diversity to the list." It's illegal to compile statistics based on ethnicity or religion in France. Notice that the domestic news reports on the rioting are oddly vague, they never exactly say who's doing the rioting, where their parents came from, or what religion they belong to?
It's popularly estimated that one out of every twelve people in France is a Muslim. I believe that's a greater percentage than Asian-Americans in our country, which we consider to be a sizeable and important community, but in France it's not permissible to count them. But just because nobody has a precise figure on the number of unemployed Muslims in France doesn't mean that there is no job discrimination. There are no official records of communities in France populated by immigrants, but over the last two weeks the whole world has seen them--because they are on fire!
We know it's possible for people of vastly different national origins, religions, cultures, histories, and colors to join together and become a nation--because we do it right here in the good old U.S.A. It's noisy and sloppy and occasionally gets nasty, but by and large it works. People complain because it's hard work and we have to put up with a lot of arguing and complaining and negotiating in order to get along with each other, but we manage.
Multiculturalism is like democracy: For all its flaws it's the best idea anyone has come up with. The French put their fingers in their ears and go "na-na-na-na-na" to avoid hearing difficult truths. The French way has failed. You can't make a problem go away by ignoring it and the same thing is true of people.
It's time to put the "English first" movement to bed and recognize Spanish as our second language simply because it is. Let's learn a little more about those 5,000 years of Chinese history and put Ramadan on our calendars. Let's be proud of the fact that we Americans have learned a lesson that the whole world needs to hear: multiculturalism works.
This will give the France-bashers a good excuse to justify their attitude. But somehow I don't think they'll be happy to pick up on it!
But France went a step further, it's also defined by its history and culture, including the French language and the Christian religion. The US has almost no history and our culture has not quite been defined. As chauvinistic as we appear to ourselves about our version of English and our crazy quilt of Christian sects, it's nothing compared to most European nations.
France officially denies and ignores racial and ethnic differences. They say to their immigrants, "Our values are liberty, equality, and fraternity, and we're just not going to add diversity to the list." It's illegal to compile statistics based on ethnicity or religion in France. Notice that the domestic news reports on the rioting are oddly vague, they never exactly say who's doing the rioting, where their parents came from, or what religion they belong to?
It's popularly estimated that one out of every twelve people in France is a Muslim. I believe that's a greater percentage than Asian-Americans in our country, which we consider to be a sizeable and important community, but in France it's not permissible to count them. But just because nobody has a precise figure on the number of unemployed Muslims in France doesn't mean that there is no job discrimination. There are no official records of communities in France populated by immigrants, but over the last two weeks the whole world has seen them--because they are on fire!
We know it's possible for people of vastly different national origins, religions, cultures, histories, and colors to join together and become a nation--because we do it right here in the good old U.S.A. It's noisy and sloppy and occasionally gets nasty, but by and large it works. People complain because it's hard work and we have to put up with a lot of arguing and complaining and negotiating in order to get along with each other, but we manage.
Multiculturalism is like democracy: For all its flaws it's the best idea anyone has come up with. The French put their fingers in their ears and go "na-na-na-na-na" to avoid hearing difficult truths. The French way has failed. You can't make a problem go away by ignoring it and the same thing is true of people.
It's time to put the "English first" movement to bed and recognize Spanish as our second language simply because it is. Let's learn a little more about those 5,000 years of Chinese history and put Ramadan on our calendars. Let's be proud of the fact that we Americans have learned a lesson that the whole world needs to hear: multiculturalism works.
This will give the France-bashers a good excuse to justify their attitude. But somehow I don't think they'll be happy to pick up on it!