[eklipse]

Originally posted by Troll:
Precisely what time period is it that you are referring to when you say that Europe was "monocultural"?

I may be slightly confused, but I think what Simey is trying to say is that on a particular Tuesday in the summer of 1949, one small village in southern France was monocultural. Apparently this is important for some reason.

[nath]

Originally posted by eklipse:
I may be slightly confused, but I think what Simey is trying to say is that on a particular Tuesday in the summer of 1949, one small village in southern France was monocultural. Apparently this is important for some reason.

That's it!! That's the monoculture!!

[nath]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
This website has some interesting viewpoints and statistics.

So it does!

'Vibrant Muslim communities have long contributed to the economic and social life of Great Britain.'

Just to recap, here's my original statement:

"we [Europe, the whole of Europe, all of the countries!] have always had a large and vibrant muslim population."

[Abu Bakr]

It is also important to remember that the US is highly multicultural and always has been because they got people from different places in Europe and created a "melting-pot". But Europe still was monocultural. For some obscure reason.

And I actually think Simey is right. There was very little "new" multicultural influence in Europe.

The problem for him is that was because Europe had always been multicultural hence making it difficult for any "new" multicultural influences to enter.

So he's wrong. I retract my original statement of him being right.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by nath:
So it does!

'Vibrant Muslim communities have long contributed to the economic and social life of Great Britain.'

Just to recap, here's my original statement:

"we [Europe, the whole of Europe, all of the countries!] have always had a large and vibrant muslim population."

And to reiterate, I think that is nonsense for two reasons. The communities that were large in peripheral places like Bosnia had no effect on the culture in the rest of Europe. And the communities in the rest of Europe were so small and isolated that they had no effect on the larger Western European cultures.

This only started to change within the last couple of generations.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Abu Bakr:
It is also important to remember that the US is highly multicultural and always has been because they got people from different places in Europe and created a "melting-pot". But Europe still was monocultural. For some obscure reason.

And I actually think Simey is right. There was very little "new" multicultural influence in Europe.

The problem for him is that was because Europe had always been multicultural hence making it difficult for any "new" multicultural influences to enter.

So he's wrong. I retract my original statement of him being right.

The US "melting pot" is somewhat different. It did put Europeans of different nationalities in close proximity to other Europeans with other nationalities. In Europe, you didn't have Swedes living side by side with Italians, or Germans living side by side with the English or Irish. So Immigrants to America had a different experience of European national differences than they had in Europe. In Europe, those differences can mostly only be seen on a map. In America, immigrants experienced them in their neighborhoods.

On the other hand, the US particularly in the 19th century began getting large scale immigration from much further away than Europe. In particular, Chinese and Japanese immigration. And of course, there was a longer experience with Native Americans and African Americans. So yes, the US has a longer experience of multiculturalism. Not always a happy experience, of course, but much longer than Europe's.

With respect specifically to Arab and Muslim immigration, it's also much less significant because Muslims are neither the largest nor the most prominent minority group in the US. The Muslim identity isn't in any way central to the American identity and isn't really changing American culture in the way it might be in Europe. It's just one more immigrant community among many. Indeed, if you don't live near Dearborn, MI or Arlington, VA, you would hardly be aware that it is here.

[Abu Bakr]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
The Muslim identity isn't in any way central to the American identity and isn't really changing American culture in the way it might be in Europe.

In what way is the "Muslim identity" changing the European one? I've heard this claim so often but when asked about it most just point to others that have said it instead of giving actual and valid examples.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Abu Bakr:
In what way is the "Muslim identity" changing the European one? I've heard this claim so often but when asked about it most just point to others that have said it instead of giving actual and valid examples.

You need to ask that question of Europeans. Certainly, these scholars seem to think the changing demographic in Europe is changing Europe. That seems logical. If, say, 10% of France's population is now made up of North African immigants, you would expect some changes to result from that.

But that is for you guys to figure out. I was just pointing out that Muslims are only about 0.5% of the population of the US, and aren't by any means the largest immigrant or minority group here. It changes the dynamic. So does the fact that the dominant US culture is already an immigrant culture.

[roberto blanco]

Originally posted by Abu Bakr:
In what way is the "Muslim identity" changing the European one?

[Abu Bakr]

Originally posted by roberto blanco:

To think that without us Muslims you wouldn't have D�ner Kebab is just frighting. How would you survive? On McDonald's? God help you!

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by Abu Bakr:
In what way is the "Muslim identity" changing the European one? I've heard this claim so often but when asked about it most just point to others that have said it instead of giving actual and valid examples.

Recently, a mosque in the UK complained that the nearby advertising boards carried "offensive" pictures of women clad in underwear (WonderBra ad or something like that).

European identity is such that nobody bats an eyelid at semi-naked women. So complaining about them (and having the complaint upheld) is changing the European identity.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
In Europe, you didn't have Swedes living side by side with Italians, or Germans living side by side with the English or Irish.

I just showed you that that is crap! Vikings (Swedes) settled in what it today Northern France in large numbers. Romans (Italians) colonised virtually the whole of Europe. Iberians (Spanish) went over the Pyrenees and lived with the Gauls. Just in France you had Swedes, Frenchmen, Italians and Spaniards living side by side before Christ even came along. And it's been that way ever since!

[Abu Bakr]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
Recently, a mosque in the UK complained that the nearby advertising boards carried "offensive" pictures of women clad in underwear (WonderBra ad or something like that).

European identity is such that nobody bats an eyelid at semi-naked women. So complaining about them (and having the complaint upheld) is changing the European identity.

Do you think that the Catholic Church would say something if it happened near one of their churches?

I also heard once that the Norwegians wanted to remove some H&M posters on their highways because of the increased accident rate(IIRC Anna Nicole was the model). So saying that nobody "bats an eyelid at semi-naked women" seems to be false

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
I just showed you that that is crap! Vikings (Swedes) settled in what it today Northern France in large numbers. Romans (Italians) colonised virtually the whole of Europe. Iberians (Spanish) went over the Pyrenees and lived with the Gauls. Just in France you had Swedes, Frenchmen, Italians and Spaniards living side by side before Christ even came along. And it's been that way ever since!

OK, Troll. I am starting to think you are just trying to be obnoxious. Let's take this slowly:

Imagine a European immigrant to North America in, say, 1900. Say he is a Swede. He lives in Sweden with Swedes. It is true that he inhabits a continent with Italians and Irish. But the odds are very high he has never met one. People didn't take package holidays in 1900. At least, not average people. If he was a member of the gentry, then perhaps he did the Grand Tour. But that is very unlikely. He is probably working class, and they didn't do that. He grew up in Sweden, in a completely Swedish community. Everyone he knew was Swedish.

Now our Swede in the year 1900 gets on a boat and comes to America. Suddenly, our Swede finds himself for the first time in his life living in a community with Irish, English, Italians, Germans, and so on. He is for the first time in his life experiencing the diversty of the continent he left behind. But he is experiencing it in America, not in Europe.

You are taking the historical atlas approach to culture. Sure, the Normans were Vikings. But that isn't what we are talking about. People aren't little walking repositories of all the cultures that may have created the one they live in. You are talking about things which are of only academic interest. A Frenchman in 1900 wouldn't feel kinship with a Russian because they both have Viking ancestors. They don't have a culture in common. They don't share religion, language, political history, geography. The Frenchman is French. The Russian is Russian. Those were their identities.

If you want to keep playing this idiotic trace-history-back-far-beyond-people's-sense-of-national-identity thing, then there are no nations because we all came from a common ancestor in Africa. But that isn't realistic. It doesn't matter where a person's ancestors came from. What matters is the culture they were raised in. And those cultures in Europe were until quite recently highly localized, and within each one, quite monocultural.

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by Abu Bakr:
Do you think that the Catholic Church would say something if it happened near one of their churches?

It hasn't done so far, to my knowledge. Neither have they moaned about Toys 'R' Us selling Piglet dolls.

Originally posted by Abu Bakr:
I also heard once that the Norwegians wanted to remove some H&M posters on their highways because of the increased accident rate(IIRC Anna Nicole was the model). So saying that nobody "bats an eyelid at semi-naked women" seems to be false

I didn't mean the ugly women. Throwing up while driving can lead to a loss of vehicle control.

[Abu Bakr]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
It hasn't done so far, to my knowledge. Neither have they moaned about Toys 'R' Us selling Piglet dolls.

Well I've heard about it a couple of times in southern Europe.

I didn't mean the ugly women. Throwing up while driving can lead to a loss of vehicle control.

[SimpleLife]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:

If you want to keep playing this idiotic trace-history-back-far-beyond-people's-sense-of-national-identity thing, then there are no nations because we all came from a common ancestor in Africa. But that isn't realistic. It doesn't matter where a person's ancestors came from. What matters is the culture they were raised in. And those cultures in Europe were until quite recently highly localized, and within each one, quite monocultural.

I think this is one of the flat debates where everybody is "kinda" talking about the same thing but stumbles on the flowers in pattern of the carpet.

There is no such thing as a monocultural nation, except those that were greatly isolated (i.e., the japanese, the Inuit, the Australian aborigenes, etc.). Yet, there were always trades and communications and wars and refugees and rich people moving about; so there were always a couple of people from another ethnic group where they did not naturally belong.

Does that warrant either positions of this debate: no.

But reality is what it is; people have travelled for the longest times, but never at the level that the XIX and XX have known for North America, and then in other continents.

Stop arguing over nonsense guys. You use incompatible categories for something that happened on relative and variable scales.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by nath:
That's it!! That's the monoculture!!

I have to say, there are some old mono recordings that far surpass anything ever recorded in stereo.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by Tarambana:
I'll answer, though I never said we we....yada yada

P.S.: Oh, and regarding your previous comment about "fora" (which is easily understood by most people here in Spain, as latin is taught in every school), I'm glad you explained. I thought it was also right to use latin's plurals in english, so thanks a lot for the heads-up.

Yet, you must keep in mind English is my second language and I thrive to use it the best I can. I am sorry if the way I express myself in this foreign language make my ideas hard for you (or anyone) to understand, but rest assured, I do my best to be clear (in spite of limited time to participate here).

P.S.S.: In spanish is also deemed chauvinist and disrispectful to translate personal names to our own language: I'd never say "Jorge Arbusto" (George Bush), nor would I call Fernando el Cat�lico, "Ferdinand the Catholic", as you did. As a side note, teh right translation of the name "Isabel la Cat�lica", wouldn't be Isabella but Elizabeth. Yet I incurred in that same mistake (voluntarily) when I translated the name Boabdil el Chico ("Boabdil the Kid") to help Slimey's better understanding of that paragraph

Thanks for your exceptional reply on Judaeo-Christian relations in Spain.

When Latin words become part of the Englishman's vocabulary, they usually adopt characteristics of English words. I consider forums more correct as it is a more natural English plural and aswell is the most common form. 'Fora' is acceptable, and would be understood by most though I believe it sounds more stilted. A tendency for those who use the plurals like 'fora' is to pluralise words of Latin origin using standard Latin plural suffices which are incorrect even in Latin. One notable example is the frequent pluralisation of 'virus' to 'viri'. Virus, which means poison, has no plural in Latin.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by Dave Brasgalla:
I deem it acceptable. I'll take a little Latin over self-righteous and arrogant nationalism, bullying pomposity, snide condescension, and thinly-veiled intolerance any day of the week.

Cui malo?

I have nothing against Latin.

cui malo? incultus scientiae verborum est malus ipse.

I'm sorry for starting a random discourse. Please let us not continue this discussion.

[roberto blanco]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
And those cultures in Europe were until quite recently highly localized, and within each one, quite monocultural.

exactly the same thing could be said about quite a lot of american communities. not every city or town in the us is like new york or la.

'germantown' pa was probably more 'monocultural' in 1900 than berlin or especially london and paris at the same time. you wanna see 'monoculture'? - drive out to some town in rural wisconsin, kentucky or ohio some day. hell, they're so 'mono' they even call their sisters 'mom'.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by SimpleLife:
I think this is one of the flat debates where everybody is "kinda" talking about the same thing but stumbles on the flowers in pattern of the carpet.

There is no such thing as a monocultural nation, except those that were greatly isolated (i.e., the japanese, the Inuit, the Australian aborigenes, etc.). Yet, there were always trades and communications and wars and refugees and rich people moving about; so there were always a couple of people from another ethnic group where they did not naturally belong.

Does that warrant either positions of this debate: no.

But reality is what it is; people have travelled for the longest times, but never at the level that the XIX and XX have known for North America, and then in other continents.

Stop arguing over nonsense guys. You use incompatible categories for something that happened on relative and variable scales.

I'm impressed by your comment. By the way, because this thread was hijacked loooonnnng ago, I don't care that they are all OT. However, as the discussion of European migratory patterns and etc. has become the raison d'etre, for once you are, "On Topic."

Congrats!

[undotwa]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
I'm not sure if you're trying to be helpful, whether you're trying to show off your Latin skills ("We all know..."), or whether this is some lame set-up to discredit Tarambana before you make your on-topic point (even though Tarambana's English language skills far surpass those of many native speakers on these fora), but regarding "fora" as an incorrect plural:

The American Heritage Dictionary and Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (as per dictionary.com) disagree with you.

FWIW.

-s*

Fowler's Dictionary of Modern Usage: (a foremost authority in English usage)

"
1. Plural in ums (those marked * are not Latin nouns, and the -a plural for them would vilate grammar as well as usage): albums; anti-rrhinums; asylums; conundrums*; decorums; delphiniums; Elysiums; factotums*; [b]forums[b/]; harmoniums; laburnums; lyceums; museums; nasturtiums, nostrums, panjandrums*; pendulums; petroleums; pomatums; premiums; quorums*; targums*; velums*."

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by undotwa:
I have nothing against Latin.

cui malo? incultus scientiae verborum est malus ipse.

I'm sorry for starting a random discourse. Please let us not continue this discussion.

As the thread starter, I encourage you to continue. The original topic seems not to have been interesting enough to the posters.

Your discussion is at least as interesting as the others.

You have my blessings.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Well it is going to depend from country to country, isn't it? It also depends on how narrow or broadly you define monoculturalism.

For example, would you say that 19th century Britain was a multicultural country in the modern sense? How many Mosques do you suppose there were in Birmingham at that time? Or in the whole country? Shall we guess zero as a nice round number?

If, on the other hand, you define "multicultural" as saying that there was a small Jewish community in Britain at that time. Or that by the 19th century, Britain had finally legalised Catholicism, or that the Welsh and Scots aren't quite like the English, then I suppose you can say that Britain was multicultural. But in reality, you didn't see a lot of people of Pakistani descent in Britain at that time, and you know it. Also very few people of non-caucasian origin of any type. Using a sensible definition of multicultural, Britain was not multicultural until large scale immigration began in the 1950s -- and really not multicultural in any meaningful sense until the 60s and 70s.

That's just an example. The same can be said for most of the rest of Western Europe.

19th century Britain was not monocultural in this sense: In Scotland you had Scots Gaelic speakers, Scots speakers; in Wales yo had Welsh speakers; in England itself you had many different dialects. 19th century Britain had sizable Irish Catholic minorities, as a result of immigration from Ireland.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I have explained fully what I was saying -- and it is accurate. You are trying to score debating points on technicalities such as the geographical reach of Europe, which is much larger than the common identification of Europe.

In any case, your statement about Europe always having large and vibrant Muslim populations is bunk. Unless, you mean that people in Belgium had their cultural identity shaped by Bosnians.

Moslems have been in Europe since mediaeval times in countries like Spain, Russia and Greece to name a few. In fact, Moslem communities in Greece were very large until the Disaster of 1922, whence large population exchanges occured between Turkey and Greece (which effectively destroyed the Christian Greek communities in Constantinople and Western Turkey).

[Troll]

Originally posted by undotwa:
[B]Fowler's Dictionary of Modern Usage: (a foremost authority in English usage)

"
1. Plural in ums (those marked * are not Latin nouns, and the -a plural for them would vilate grammar as well as usage): albums; anti-rrhinums; asylums; conundrums*; decorums; delphiniums; Elysiums; factotums*; forums[b/]; harmoniums; laburnums; lyceums; museums; nasturtiums, nostrums, panjandrums*; pendulums; petroleums; pomatums; premiums; quorums*; targums*; velums*."

Oxford and Collins Dictionaries also disagree with you. Fowler doesn't actually mention the word forum. In any event, I think Fowlers is trumped by Oxford, Collins Merriam Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary. Both are fine but I still think more people say fora than forums.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by undotwa:
19th century Britain was not monocultural in this sense: In Scotland you had Scots Gaelic speakers, Scots speakers; in Wales yo had Welsh speakers; in England itself you had many different dialects. 19th century Britain had sizable Irish Catholic minorities, as a result of immigration from Ireland.

Those are very minor variations. But if you notice, even those small ones seemed very large to Britons at the time. People disturbed by the idea of Catholics are unlikely to be blase about Moslems -- if they ever met one, which by and large they would not unless they travelled out into the Empire. And if they did travel out into the Empire, they were not approaching Muslims (and Hindus, etc.) as anything remotely approaching equals. You can maintain a very moncultural society if you put race barriers in place.

Originally posted by undotwa:
Moslems have been in Europe since mediaeval times in countries like Spain, Russia and Greece to name a few. In fact, Moslem communities in Greece were very large until the Disaster of 1922, whence large population exchanges occured between Turkey and Greece (which effectively destroyed the Christian Greek communities in Constantinople and Western Turkey).

As I have explained repeatedly and at length, that made no difference whatsoever in countries where there were not Muslim communities. Until very recently there wasn't the same sense of European identity that would communicate experience across the geographical reach of the continent like that.

You all are being very ahistorical. Up until quite recently, Western Europeans regarded places like Turkey as being very far away and alien. I think you younger types seem to have a hard time accepting that modern cosmopolitan attitudes didn't exist until recently. Go talk to your grandparents.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by roberto blanco:
exactly the same thing could be said about quite a lot of american communities. not every city or town in the us is like new york or la.

'germantown' pa was probably more 'monocultural' in 1900 than berlin or especially london and paris at the same time. you wanna see 'monoculture'? - drive out to some town in rural wisconsin, kentucky or ohio some day. hell, they're so 'mono' they even call their sisters 'mom'.

Absolutely so. But there still would have been a sense that the country as a whole was a place with many different groups. That's where the myth of the melting pot fit in. Everyone was supposed to become American. But there was an understanding that many differences persisted. Most notably, of course, religion. When the US was founded, it was with states largely divided by religion. For example, Virginia was largely Episcopalian, neighboring Maryland largely Catholic, Rhode Island was founded over a religious dispute with the Church in Massachusetts Bay.

The difference is that the United States once formed as one country contained all these groups under one government. In Europe -- especially northern and western Europe where the nation state took root the strongest, that wasn't the case to the same degree. Each state had one official religion. Countries (as they exist on the map today) with more than one religion tended to break up on those religious lines. For example, all those little German principalities. The sense of common European identity that today might make a Dutchman feel kinship with a Bosnian certainly didn't exist. But by the 18th century there was already a sense of American identity, and it was very strong by the 19th century. The US is a country. "Europe" is just a geographic continent made up of discreet countries, each with thier own strong identities and among which until recently there wasn't a lot of communication among ordinary people.

There also, of course, has never developed in the US the sense of what the Germans call Heimat. The US is a new country, and everyone (unfortunately, including Native Americans) can point to a specific period of recent history when their family moved to the place where they currently live. It's harder to build a solidly monocultural community when everyone is in a sense a newcomer.

Your point about small towns being monocultural applies anywhere. You can easily find exactly the same thing anywhere in Europe. Immigrant communities tend to be in larger metropolitan areas. Drive out in the country, and the numbers thin dramatically. For example, the town I grew up in in Suffolk was (and still is) completely monocultural (except for one family, the Lees, they owned the Chinese takaway). The neighboring county town has in recent years (i.e. about the last 20) become more diverse. But it is still basically lily white, not at all like where my brother lives in the Midlands, where since the 1950s there is a large Muslim population.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by Troll:
Oxford and Collins Dictionaries also disagree with you. Fowler doesn't actually mention the word forum. In any event, I think Fowlers is trumped by Oxford, Collins Merriam Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary. Both are fine but I still think more people say fora than forums.

Those dictionaries list fora as an accepted variation, which it is, but I believe it is incoherent with common usage and as well stilted. Stylistically speaking, it is very incorrect. I think you are deluding yourself in thinking that more people say fora. I have never seen a website which talks of its 'fora' - always forums. I have never met a man who speaks of fora. I have only occassionally seen it written.

Fowler does mention the word forums, did not you read the quotation I gave you? Search under -um. It is there.

Dictionaries are there to define meanings of words by listing all possible forms (including all possible forms); English usage dictionaries are there to define the correct usage of words. A dictionary will list the form 'fora' as a variation, but only because there are a few like you that insist in using it. A dictionary, which is there to decipher all written text, requires to list definitions of words in all forms, even if the form is stylistically or grammatically dubious. Therefore Fowler, as one of the most respected grammarians of our age cannot be trumped by a meager dictionary. Queen's English is pretty well defined by Fowler.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:

As I have explained repeatedly and at length, that made no difference whatsoever in countries where there were not Muslim communities. Until very recently there wasn't the same sense of European identity that would communicate experience across the geographical reach of the continent like that.

You all are being very ahistorical. Up until quite recently, Western Europeans regarded places like Turkey as being very far away and alien. I think you younger types seem to have a hard time accepting that modern cosmopolitan attitudes didn't exist until recently. Go talk to your grandparents.

I agree that a form of European identity is emerging, albeit very slowly. But you said Europe was not multicultural in the 19th century, which was certainly not the case. Greece, the example I spoke of (I only mentioned Turkey not as part of Europe but in relation to the population exchange with the Greeks; read my post more carefully), is part of Europe. In the 19th century, Greece was about 30% Moslem, 10% Slav, and 60% Greek. Is not that a multicultural country?

Poland had a HUGE Jewish population (they say something like 40% of Jews lived in Poland during the 19th century). Poland was very tolerant to the Jews who lived side by side other Poles in the major cities and occupying top government jobs.

I don't deny that our current multicultural attitudes arose in the 20th century, but there were certainly multicultural communities in Europe prior to the 20th century.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by undotwa:
I agree that a form of European identity is emerging, albeit very slowly. But you said Europe was not multicultural in the 19th century, which was certainly not the case. Greece, the example I spoke of (I only mentioned Turkey not as part of Europe but in relation to the population exchange with the Greeks; read my post more carefully), is part of Europe. In the 19th century, Greece was about 30% Moslem, 10% Slav, and 60% Greek. Is not that a multicultural country?

Poland had a HUGE Jewish population (they say something like 40% of Jews lived in Poland during the 19th century). Poland was very tolerant to the Jews who lived side by side other Poles in the major cities and occupying top government jobs.

I don't deny that our current multicultural attitudes arose in the 20th century, but there were certainly multicultural communities in Europe prior to the 20th century.

Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1829. 19th Century western Europeans did not consider the Ottoman Empire to be part of Europe, and certainly not a part of their culture. Today, Greece is 98% Greek Orthodox. It's 1.3% Muslim. Link As I hope you are aware, Greeks and Turks do not get along. If it was 30% Muslim as you suggest when the Ottomans ran the place, those Muslims either left or were forced out once Greece got its independence because they aren't there in those kinds of numbers now. The same Ottoman history is responsible for the recent bloodletting in other parts of the Balkans. If you want to see how well Orthodox Christians and Muslims get on, go look at the Balkans. And by the way, the Balkans were also not considered to be fully part of Europe. It was regarded as a wild and backward place on the edge of civilization. That's why it was such a shock to everyone that the First World War started there, and yet dragged the rest of the continent in.

As for Poland and the Jews, google Poland and Pogrom. Poland didn't exist as an independent country in the timeframe you are talking about. Russia was not the only place in Eastern Europe where Jews were periodically massacred. That's not usually considered to be a sign of a tolerant multicultural society.

In any case, none of these places were considered to be fully European until quite recently (if even now). Until My point does still stand. Large scale Muslim immigration in northern and Western Europe is very, very, recent. Until quite recently, Europe was a place people emigrated from, not immigrated to.

Let's make something clear here, when I said Europe was monocultural, it wasn't an invitation to the obtuse discussion of the geographic stretch of land that is the entire continent of Europe. "Europe" has always stretched geographically far beyond the cultural reach of western Europe. Europe geographically covers parts of Turkey and western Russia. Even the most ardent European nationalist will presumably concede that the European identity of those places has historically always been doubted whatever the geographic map might say. So when I point out that northern Europeans would not have considered those places to be their brothers, that may not be politically correct in the modern view, but it is an accurate statement of facts about attitudes that persisted until very recently. And nor, of course, was I referring to the different nations within Europe, let alone the ridiculous discussion that developed about the Romans.

I think what stuns me is that people would resort to that kind of nitpicky stupidity rather than just admit the patent reality that the large Muslim populations in countries like Britain, Holland, Germany, Sweden, etc. are very recent in origin. Don't you people talk to anyone over the age of about 40? Are people really that ignorant of their own recent history? Or that politically correct that they will argue something so counterfactual? How the hell can a country hope to accommodate and integrate large immigrant populations if people aren't willing to even admit that the influx is a new factor?

To me I think this PC, hide from reality attitude is largely why Europe does have a problem with intigration and particularly why it has a problem with a far right that shows rampant hostility toward Muslims. If you won't talk about an issue honestly it tends to come up in ugly ways.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1829. 19th Century western Europeans did not consider the Ottoman Empire to be part of Europe, and certainly not a part of their culture. Today, Greece is 98% Greek Orthodox. It's 1.3% Muslim. Link As I hope you are aware, Greeks and Turks do not get along. If it was 30% Muslim as you suggest when the Ottomans ran the place, those Muslims either left or were forced out once Greece got its independence because they aren't there in those kinds of numbers now. The same Ottoman history is responsible for the recent bloodletting in other parts of the Balkans. If you want to see how well Orthodox Christians and Muslims get on, go look at the Balkans. And by the way, the Balkans were also not considered to be fully part of Europe. It was regarded as a wild and backward place on the edge of civilization. That's why it was such a shock to everyone that the First World War started there, and yet dragged the rest of the continent in.

As for Poland and the Jews, google Poland and Pogrom. Poland didn't exist as an independent country in the timeframe you are talking about. Russia was not the only place in Eastern Europe where Jews were periodically massacred. That's not usually considered to be a sign of a tolerant multicultural society.

In any case, none of these places were considered to be fully European until quite recently (if even now). Until My point does still stand. Large scale Muslim immigration in northern and Western Europe is very, very, recent. Until quite recently, Europe was a place people emigrated from, not immigrated to.

Let's make something clear here, when I said Europe was monocultural, it wasn't an invitation to the obtuse discussion of the geographic stretch of land that is the entire continent of Europe. "Europe" has always stretched geographically far beyond the cultural reach of western Europe. Europe geographically covers parts of Turkey and western Russia. Even the most ardent European nationalist will presumably concede that the European identity of those places has historically always been doubted whatever the geographic map might say. So when I point out that northern Europeans would not have considered those places to be their brothers, that may not be politically correct in the modern view, but it is an accurate statement of facts about attitudes that persisted until very recently. And nor, of course, was I referring to the different nations within Europe, let alone the ridiculous discussion that developed about the Romans.

I think what stuns me is that people would resort to that kind of nitpicky stupidity rather than just admit the patent reality that the large Muslim populations in countries like Britain, Holland, Germany, Sweden, etc. are very recent in origin. Don't you people talk to anyone over the age of about 40? Are people really that ignorant of their own recent history? Or that politically correct that they will argue something so counterfactual? How the hell can a country hope to accommodate and integrate large immigrant populations if people aren't willing to even admit that the influx is a new factor?

To me I think this PC, hide from reality attitude is largely why Europe does have a problem with intigration and particularly why it has a problem with a far right that shows rampant hostility toward Muslims. If you won't talk about an issue honestly it tends to come up in ugly ways.

Listen - your reply is most offensive and condescending. I'm well aware of the fact that the current Moslem populations in Europe are recent. You claimed that Europe in the 19th century was not multicultural, which is absolutist especially when considering the geographical size of Europe. Northern Europe (as in Scandinavia) which was very isolated and cold was always very monocultural, but the further south you go (especially east) you see societies comprised of many different cultures in single state. Sure often these minorities would form their own isolated communities (like many still do today in our 'multicultural societies'), but very often in the growing urban centres you would see cities comprised of many different cultures, especially in Eastern Europe where you saw mixes of many different European races, Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish alike. You can also see how industrialisation accelerated multiculturalism in Great Britain during the 19th century with the large scale Irish migration.

I'm well aware of Greek indepence from Turkey, an ancestor of mine Constantinos Canaris was one of the great heros in liberating Greece from the Ottomons, who consequently after installing European monarchs in Greece became Prime Minister. Greece was, is and shall remain part of Europe.

You did not even read my reply on why the numbers of moslems in Greece fell greatly in the early 20th century (have you heard of the Great Population Exchange? Hundreds of thousands of Moslems were forced out of Greece, and at the same time Christians were forced out of Turkey). Greece was 'til the 20th century a very multicultural society (though not tolerant, they hated each others guts, much is the same today), a true melting pot of cultures. And aswell, never trust the statistics of the Greek government - the government exaggerates the Greek orthodox population (the Greek orthodox church is the official church and sways much influence. By exaggerating the Greek orthodox population, it gives the appearance of a more harmonious and monocultural Christian society) when really some 15% of the population are not Greek orthodox, but a mixture of Orthodox serbs, Catholics and Moslems.

I'm not stupid. I was speaking about Poland as a geographical area. Jews, except for a few isolated incidents, were well respected in Polish society and aswell integrated.

Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...Jews_in_Poland
"1862 Jews given equal rights in Poland. The privileges given to some cities, that Jews are not allowed to settle down there, are denounced."
"1880 World Jewish population around 7.7 million, 90% in Europe, mostly Eastern Europe; around 3.5 million in the former Polish provinces. "That's a heck of a lot of Jews.

I'm not saying 19th century Europe was multicultural like it is today, with its many isolated cultures. But with urbanisation, which drew peoples from many different cultures into a single city came the beginnings of some form of multiculturalism, especially in England and South Eastern Europe.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by undotwa:
Listen - your reply is most offensive and condescending. I'm well aware of the fact that the current Moslem populations in Europe are recent. You claimed that Europe in the 19th century was not multicultural, which is absolutist especially when considering the geographical size of Europe.

I think people quite deliberately misunderstood what I was obviously saying and read a word as absolutist when I was in fact quite obviously using it more colloqially to rebut an absurd misstatement. I was replying to someone in England claiming that "we" have always had large and vibrant Muslim populations in Europe. He's writing in a country that still doubts that it is even in Europe. He is writing in a country that didn't have large non-Christian minorities until the mid 1950s (the Jewish community is very small and pretty invisible). He is writing in a country that was shocked in the mid 50s to get immigrants from Jamaica, Trinidad, and so on. He's talking in a country who had politicians talking about "rivers of blood" because a few thousand blacks moved in. He is writing in a country that in fact didn't have a large and vibrant Muslim population until the mid 1960s, and really, not until the 1970s. It was an absurd statement.

It may be the case that the cultural fringes of Europe had Muslim populations where Christian Europe abutted the Muslim Ottoman Empire and North Africa. That makes no difference whatsoever to attitudes and experiences in Northern and Western Europe, whose people barely considered places like Bosnia to be European and who viewed the Ottoman Empire with great suspicion. And who frankly, regarded their own neighbors in Northern and Western Europe with equal suspicion. See World War I and World War II for details.

All this pointing to the geographical lines of continental Europe is simply ducking the fact that places like Holland, Sweden, England, Scotland, Germany and so on which have large immigrant populations today never had to deal with large scale immigration from other continents in recent centuries. I.e. not since the rise of the modern nation state. Prior to approximately the mid 1950s, they were by all reasonable definitions, monocultural. Their internal differences were domestic in origin, and mostly not handled well. Just talk to the Romany. However, what we have seen here is some very unreasonable definitions of the word monocultural that has grossly exaggerated the multiculturalism of those countries and some absurd back projection of modern cosmopolitan ideas of the European identity to times before it existed.

That's why I gave Troll the example of the Swede living in Sweden. It would have made no difference to his life or attitudes whatsoever if there were some Muslims living in Thrace. And it makes no difference whatsoever to a person living in Suffolk that a few sailors got together and turned a house in Cardiff into a Mosque. They probably had no idea that they were there. It made no difference to the overall culture of Britain. Go back more than 30 - 40 years and those northern and western European countries that today have large Muslim populations had no sense of themselves as being home to anyone other than people of the same background as themselves.

That. Was. All. I. Was. Saying.

And by the way, in the 19th century, the experience of empire was far more important to those countries than irrelevancies about Greece or Bosnia. By and large, northern and Western European's contacts with Muslims was as subjects, not neighbors. That should be ****ing obvious to anyone who doesn't have a romantic idea of how tolerant and multicultural Europeans really were.

[nath]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I think people quite deliberately misunderstood what I was obviously saying and read a word as absolutist when I was in fact quite obviously using it more colloqially

Well, let's have another look...

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:

Europe was until very recently monocultural.

Monocultural - one culture
Europe - check a map
Very recently - debatable, but say the last 50 years?

Your statement appears quite clear and it would be difficult to misunderstand it, deliberately or otherwise.

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:

I was replying to someone in England claiming that "we" have always had large and vibrant Muslim populations in Europe. He's writing in a country..[snip]

So what? My statement quite clearly referred to Europe as 'we', not Britain or England (whatever that is). Whatever you think about Britain's race relations or its relationship with the EU is merely another diversion.

What I said was...
"...most of Europe has had prior experience of terrorism, and because we have always had a large and vibrant muslim population..."

A lot of people (including yourself!) have used various sources to demonstrate that there have been both large and vibrant muslim communities in various parts of Europe for hundreds of years. That disproves your initial statement that "Europe was until very recently monocultural.". End of discussion.

(if only)

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by nath:
Well, let's have another look...



Monocultural - one culture
Europe - check a map
Very recently - debatable, but say the last 50 years?

Your statement appears quite clear and it would be difficult to misunderstand it, deliberately or otherwise.



So what? My statement quite clearly referred to Europe as 'we', not Britain or England (whatever that is). Whatever you think about Britain's race relations or its relationship with the EU is merely another diversion.

What I said was...
"...most of Europe has had prior experience of terrorism, and because we have always had a large and vibrant muslim population..."

A lot of people (including yourself!) have used various sources to demonstrate that there have been both large and vibrant muslim communities in various parts of Europe for hundreds of years. That disproves your initial statement that "Europe was until very recently monocultural.". End of discussion.

(if only)

I give up. It's basically impossible to debate things with sixth formers.

[nath]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I give up. It's basically impossible to debate things with sixth formers.

Well, I don't know, I think you'd manage.

Certainly a sixth former wouldn't have any difficulty understanding the sentence "Europe was until very recently monocultural".

By your standard, it's quite a remarkable sentence: clear, concise, and lacking any misdirection or 'wriggle-room'.

And as a brief skim through the last three pages demonstrates, it's completely untrue.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by Tarambana:

P.S.S.: In spanish is also deemed chauvinist and disrispectful to translate personal names to our own language: I'd never say "Jorge Arbusto" (George Bush), nor would I call Fernando el Cat�lico, "Ferdinand the Catholic", as you did. As a side note, teh right translation of the name "Isabel la Cat�lica", wouldn't be Isabella but Elizabeth. Yet I incurred in that same mistake (voluntarily) when I translated the name Boabdil el Chico ("Boabdil the Kid") to help Slimey's better understanding of that paragraph

�Tarambana!

Maravillosos observaciones y muy interesante.

I'd also like to emphazise the translation point Tarambana makes. These kind of translations are disrespectful. There was a man called Ferdinando el Cat�lico but he was not called Ferdinand the Catholic.

Jorge Arbusto indeed

[Tarambana]

Originally posted by voodoo:
�Tarambana!

Maravillosos observaciones y muy interesante.

I'd also like to emphazise the translation point Tarambana makes. These kind of translations are disrespectful. There was a man called Ferdinando el Cat�lico but he was not called Ferdinand the Catholic.

Jorge Arbusto indeed

Glad you liked it.

[nonhuman]

Originally posted by SimpleLife:
There is no such thing as a monocultural nation, except those that were greatly isolated (i.e., the japanese, the Inuit, the Australian aborigenes, etc.). Yet, there were always trades and communications and wars and refugees and rich people moving about; so there were always a couple of people from another ethnic group where they did not naturally belong.

Actually, Japan was not historically a mono-culture either. There have always been two groups there, the Japanese (who are largely of Chinese descent) and the Ainu (the indigenous people of the islands). Like pretty much everywhere else in the world, there has been tension between these two neighboring cultures. I'm not sure what the current situation is between the two groups, but I do know that the influence of Ainu culture and genetics is still visible in some groups of people in Japan.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I think people quite deliberately misunderstood what I was obviously saying and read a word as absolutist when I was in fact quite obviously using it more colloqially to rebut an absurd misstatement. I was replying to someone in England claiming that "we" have always had large and vibrant Muslim populations in Europe. He's writing in a country that still doubts that it is even in Europe. He is writing in a country that didn't have large non-Christian minorities until the mid 1950s (the Jewish community is very small and pretty invisible). He is writing in a country that was shocked in the mid 50s to get immigrants from Jamaica, Trinidad, and so on. He's talking in a country who had politicians talking about "rivers of blood" because a few thousand blacks moved in. He is writing in a country that in fact didn't have a large and vibrant Muslim population until the mid 1960s, and really, not until the 1970s. It was an absurd statement.

It may be the case that the cultural fringes of Europe had Muslim populations where Christian Europe abutted the Muslim Ottoman Empire and North Africa. That makes no difference whatsoever to attitudes and experiences in Northern and Western Europe, whose people barely considered places like Bosnia to be European and who viewed the Ottoman Empire with great suspicion. And who frankly, regarded their own neighbors in Northern and Western Europe with equal suspicion. See World War I and World War II for details.

All this pointing to the geographical lines of continental Europe is simply ducking the fact that places like Holland, Sweden, England, Scotland, Germany and so on which have large immigrant populations today never had to deal with large scale immigration from other continents in recent centuries. I.e. not since the rise of the modern nation state. Prior to approximately the mid 1950s, they were by all reasonable definitions, monocultural. Their internal differences were domestic in origin, and mostly not handled well. Just talk to the Romany. However, what we have seen here is some very unreasonable definitions of the word monocultural that has grossly exaggerated the multiculturalism of those countries and some absurd back projection of modern cosmopolitan ideas of the European identity to times before it existed.

That's why I gave Troll the example of the Swede living in Sweden. It would have made no difference to his life or attitudes whatsoever if there were some Muslims living in Thrace. And it makes no difference whatsoever to a person living in Suffolk that a few sailors got together and turned a house in Cardiff into a Mosque. They probably had no idea that they were there. It made no difference to the overall culture of Britain. Go back more than 30 - 40 years and those northern and western European countries that today have large Muslim populations had no sense of themselves as being home to anyone other than people of the same background as themselves.

That. Was. All. I. Was. Saying.

And by the way, in the 19th century, the experience of empire was far more important to those countries than irrelevancies about Greece or Bosnia. By and large, northern and Western European's contacts with Muslims was as subjects, not neighbors. That should be ****ing obvious to anyone who doesn't have a romantic idea of how tolerant and multicultural Europeans really were.

As soon as you speak of Europe, you must consider every place within Europe. In South East Europe, Moslems were not subjects, rather neighbours of the Christians (which also was a mixture of Catholics and Orthodox Christians).

I agree with you about the Moslem populations in Northern Europe and Britain though.

[SimpleLife]

Originally posted by nonhuman:
Actually, Japan was not historically a mono-culture either. There have always been two groups there, the Japanese (who are largely of Chinese descent) and the Ainu (the indigenous people of the islands). Like pretty much everywhere else in the world, there has been tension between these two neighboring cultures. I'm not sure what the current situation is between the two groups, but I do know that the influence of Ainu culture and genetics is still visible in some groups of people in Japan.

True. Good point. I think the Ainu were just erased of the map (but I have not checked this). I used Japan because it is an Island, but I also used the example of the Inuit and that would be wrong because there were exchanges with other Firts Nations. Australia would seem a good xample, but I bet we could find traces of communication with other Islands too.

I understand the concept of monoculture as the norm of a huge majority in a siciety. But this thread is so beside the track imho that I do not believe it is worth the energy put in. I mean, eveybody is right, but the perspective is different.

Anyway. Was instructive though. Thank you all!

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by undotwa:
I agree with you about the Moslem populations in Northern Europe and Britain though.

Which was obviously all I was talking about and I don't think there is any need to be pedantic about this.

On the actual subject of the thread, talking about one of the countries were are actually discussing, there is an interesting AP article here

Germany Takes Steps to Integrate Muslims

BERLIN - Shop signs in Arabic and Turkish, storefront mosques and women wearing headscarves in the streets are evidence of how new arrivals have found a slice of home in Berlin's heavily immigrant Neukoelln neighborhood.

For years, Germans viewed such neighborhoods as a sign of a tolerant, multicultural society. But the Nov. 2 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh allegedly by an Islamic radical has raised alarm in next-door Germany, which is home to more than 3 million Muslims.

Fears that growing alienation between immigrants and majority Germans could lead to strife have prompted politicians including Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to send a message to Muslims immigrants: Learn German, fit in, commit to democratic rules.

In Neukoelln, where 80 percent of elementary school students are not German, some civic leaders say the debate underscores something they have said for some time: Immigrants are not going to conform to mainstream German society over time.

"Pointing out the problem doesn't make you a racist," said Leopold Bongart, who has taught German language courses in Neukoelln since the 1970s.

"We told ourselves that the process in many ways would take care of itself. That hasn't worked."

The government wants to counter the trend with a Jan. 1 legal change that presses immigrants and their children to take German language and civics courses, and makes it easier for authorities to deport Islamic hate preachers.

Days after someone firebombed a mosque in southern Germany, Schroeder warned Nov. 21 against letting Van Gogh's killing trigger a "battle of cultures" between Muslims and Germans. Muslims, he said, must do their part by standing up "for our legal system and our democratic rules of play."

***

But 40 years after Turks first flocked to then-West Germany to help power the postwar economic boom, many immigrants in the big cities continue to live largely isolated from mainstream German society.

"The main ethnic groups have built complete infrastructures, from kindergartens and stores, lawyers, travel agents, banks to doctors for old-age care," Neukoelln district Mayor Heinz Buschkowsky said.

[nath]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Which was obviously all I was talking about and I don't think there is any need to be pedantic about this.

Weird. Shame you didn't say that 3 pages ago. It wouldn't have been pedantic for you to explain that when you said 'Europe' you actually meant 'Northern Europe'.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by nath:
Weird. Shame you didn't say that 3 pages ago. It wouldn't have been pedantic for you to explain that when you said 'Europe' you actually meant 'Northern Europe'.

I did. Several times. You kept responding with irrelevancies about Bosnia and the like, which has little if anything to do with the countries were are discussing here.

From now on, just take it as read. If I refer to Europe, it's the colloquial usage, roughly contiguous with the present day EU, although I might differentiate between western and central Europe. If I mean the geographical entity Europe -- as shown on the map stretching to the Urals and to Istanbul, I'll say so.

Now, can we talk about the subject of the thread?

[voodoo]

Only a person who knows nothing about Europe and is totally out of touch with Europe would claim that Europe was anything but the geographical continent, stretching from the Urals south to Istanbul and west to the Atlantic ridge.

The EU is a totally different thing.

[nath]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I did. Several times. You kept responding with irrelevancies about Bosnia and the like, which has little if anything to do with the countries were are discussing here.

From now on, just take it as read. If I refer to Europe, it's the colloquial usage, roughly contiguous with the present day EU, although I might differentiate between western and central Europe. If I mean the geographical entity Europe -- as shown on the map stretching to the Urals and to Istanbul, I'll say so.

Now, can we talk about the subject of the thread?

Absolutely. I think the problem was that you said 'Europe' and then several members responded with information contradicting your post from various European countries. Maybe you should have gone back and edited your post to make it clear that when you said 'Europe' you actually meant a select group of Northern European countries.

Anyway, the subject of the thread...

I agree with a lot of what you've said, particularly about the US having much more success at integration. It's something to be envied by many European nations, the UK included.

My point, which I would maintain you deliberately misunderstood, is that many Europeans have experienced daily life alongside muslims who haven't really integrated seamlessly into the culture they are joining. It's a little harder to view someone or some culture as 'the other' (in the sense in which fundamentalist Islam has been 'othered' in the US) when it's part of your daily life. I always found the Western obsession with getting rid of head scarfs in Afghanistan amusing; maybe 30% of the women I see in my area on a daily basis are dressed in some kind of traditional head wear, so the prospect of my country seeking to 'free' women from such obligations half way around the world seemed a little bizarre.

The article regarding Germany is interesting and we are seeing similar steps in the UK regarding some kind of loyalty pledge (to the Queen!) and more emphasis on language classes. We can learn from the US experience in this respect, but at the same time the US is something of a unique case, being founded very recently by a wide range of cultures from a very early stage. I understand the US will be a white minority within 50 years, which illustrates how much finer the balance is between the various cultures than in many Northern European countries, and probably always has been.

[nath]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
From now on, just take it as read. If I refer to Europe, it's the colloquial usage, roughly contiguous with the present day EU, although I might differentiate between western and central Europe. If I mean the geographical entity Europe -- as shown on the map stretching to the Urals and to Istanbul, I'll say so.

It sounds rather like you want Europe to morph into whatever shape will fit the argument you are making at any given time!

I'm sure that's not the case though.


Tell you what, add this link to your bookmarks for future reference, then we'll all know exactly which countries are in Europe.

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/europe.htm

[Sherwin]

Hmmm... It seems we've been veering away from the thread subject a little, what with talk of multiculturalism and monoculturalism.

Let's put that one to bed: there's no such thing as multi-culturalism in modern Europe with regard to the relatively new (in size and belligerence, not token presence) Arabasian cultures coming in. There's a lot of multiple monoculturalism going on (immigrants not integrating and seeking to maintain their native culture rather than the one belonging to their hosts).

See how we got sidetracked from the issue at hand. Just a mirror of what happens in the real world with regard to this subject matter.
Is Western Europe finally waking up? No. There's only one way to escape the upcoming mess, and it's not an entirely palatable methodology.

[nath]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
Hmmm... It seems we've been veering away from the thread subject a little, what with talk of multiculturalism and monoculturalism.

Let's put that one to bed: there's no such thing as multi-culturalism in modern Europe with regard to the relatively new (in size and belligerence, not token presence) Arabasian cultures coming in. There's a lot of multiple monoculturalism going on (immigrants not integrating and seeking to maintain their native culture rather than the one belonging to their hosts).

WOW! A multiple monoculturalism! Imagine the number of definitions Simey could get out of one of those

Like I said, I'm skeptical of the extent to which we should force people to assimilate. We're usually asking them to come here remember, to do all the sh*tty jobs we don't want to do. A huge number of the new nurses and doctors coming into the NHS are 1st generation immigrants, and beyond obliging new arrivals to learn English and obey the law I don't really see what can be done. Do you have any practical suggestions?

Originally posted by Sherwin:
Is Western Europe finally waking up? No. There's only one way to escape the upcoming mess, and it's not an entirely palatable methodology.

***MacNN poster in hint at Final Solution SHOCKER!***
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