IMO I see this happening in the US. We are moving away from the "melting pot” society and moving towards a “multicultural society”. I live in a mixed nationality home, we observe my wife’s holidays but we live our lives and rear our children to be American.
We hear cries for “Diversity”: Diversity in the schools, Diversity at work. Do we really want a country of multi- nationalism? Will it make for a health society or will it bring resentment?
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/05/16/making_excuses_for_bigotry/.............................
Welcome to Politically Correct World, where acts that would merit unequivocal condemnation if committed by white males are viewed in a very different light when the offenders belong to an ''oppressed group."...........................
ON APRIL 30, American journalist Chris Crain became the victim of a hate crime in Amsterdam: While walking in the street holding hands with his partner, he was savagely beaten by seven men shouting antigay slurs...........
.............Crain's attackers were reportedly Moroccan immigrants.............
''There's still an extraordinary degree of racism in Dutch society," Long opined to the gay news service PlanetOut. ''Gays often become the victims of this when immigrants retaliate for the inequities that they have to suffer."........................
The irony, of course, is that one of the principal reasons for the recent anti-immigrant backlash in the traditionally tolerant Netherlands is the fear that the influx of immigrants from deeply conservative Muslim cultures will threaten the country's liberal attitudes on social issues, particularly the rights of women and gays. (Pim Fortuyn, the maverick anti-immigrant Dutch politician assassinated in 2002, was openly gay.) This fear is shared by some immigrants -- notably, the Somali-born politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali
.................
The tension between two pillars of the modern left -- multiculturalism and progressive views on gender -- is not new. It has been particularly thorny in many European countries where, in lieu of an American-style ''melting pot" approach, immigrants have been traditionally encouraged to maintain their distinct values and ways.
.......Even feminists often balk at breaking the multicultural faith. A 2001 article in Labyrinth, a feminist philosophy journal, lamented that concerns about the oppression of women in the Third World could perpetuate ''the stereotype that 'brown' men abuse 'brown' women more than white men" and cause ''Third World" people to be perceived as ''more barbaric" than Westerners......
.............Misogyny and gay-bashing -- religiously motivated or not -- still exist in Western societies as well, though at least they are widely condemned by the mainstream culture. We should be able to say, loud and clear, that the modern values of individual rights, equality, and tolerance are better -- and just say no to multiculturalist excuses for bigotry.....
