Unit 3It’s a Small World

LEAD-IN

…It's time for all of us to recognize that different cultures have different values. There is no denying the differences between the West and the Muslim world. That's the truth about world ethnicity, and no amount of politically correct wishful thinking will change that truth.

Countries that ignore that truth put themselves at grave risk of internal discord, subversion and civil war.

Either a country is united in its common culture or it becomes disunited in its multiculturalism…

James P. Pinkerton, Newsday.com

February 7, 2006

READING 1: Skim the text, word its message and answer the questions that follow

The End of Tolerance

Farewell, multiculturalism. A cartoon backlash is pushing Europe to insist upon its values.

By Stefan Theil

Newsweek International

March 6, 2006

The world has long looked upon the Dutch as the very model of a modern, multicultural society. Open and liberal, the tiny seagoing nation that invented the globalized economy in the 1600s prided itself on a history of taking in all comers, be they Indonesian or Turkish, African or Chinese.

How different things look today. Dutch borders have been virtually shut. New immigration is down to a trickle. The great cosmopolitan port city of Rotterdam just published a code of conduct requiring Dutch be spoken in public. Parliament recently legislated a countrywide ban on wearing the burqa1 in public. What's going on here? Weren't the Dutch supposed to be the nicest people on earth, the most tolerant nation in Europe, a melting pot for minorities and immigrants since the Renaissance? No longer, and in this the Dutch are once again at the forefront of changes in Europe. This time, the Dutch model for Europe is one of multiculturalism besieged, if not plain defunct.

This helps explain Europe's unusually robust reaction to the cartoon crisis, which continued with riots in Nigeria and Pakistan that have left over 100 dead. There were apologies, to be sure, for causing offense after a small Danish paper published a dozen cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. But on one point European leaders were united and bluntly clear: they would not tolerate any limits on European newspapers' rights to publish. "Freedom of speech is not up for negotiation," declared Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, summing up a consensus that has only grown stronger as the cries of outrage from the Muslim world grew louder.

Welcome to the end of tolerance, or at least to the nonnegotiable limits to what Europeans will tolerate. After decades of relatively unfettered immigration and cultural laissez faire when it came to accepting people of differing values and social mores, there are signs that a potentially ugly backlash is setting in.

But if Europeans aim to build multiethnic societies that play by their rules, they'll also have to get their heads around the fact that this new world will be multireligious, too—a fact that poses awkward challenges. Over much of Europe, for example, established Christian churches enjoy special state privileges and subsidies. Most mosques, by contrast, are hidden in converted shops or tenement apartments. In Copenhagen, a 15-year plan —to build a national mosque has become mired in red tape and local opposition. A German state recently passed a law banning a hijab2 in schools—but not yarmulkes or nuns’ habits.

Until such double standards can be abolished and a new equality established, Europe's new toughness will feel like forced integration. It's a form of creating a second-class citizenship. All the burden of change is placed on the immigrant. And if that's not to be the case, then Europeans will almost certainly have to accord Muslim faiths the same status accorded Christianity.

It's also clear that if Europeans want their immigrants to behave like Europeans, then they must be willing to accept them as Europeans, too. That's where many societies that long thought of themselves as culturally homogenous have problems. Being German can no longer be defined on ethniclines. It's an open question whether Germans, Dutch, or Danes will ever truly accept a multiethnic, multireligious "Germanness," "Dutchness" or "Danishness." But given the immigrant and demographic trajectories of Europe's future, there is little choice but to try.

  1. Burqa (burka) - a long, loose garment covering the whole body from head to feet, worn in public by women in many Muslim countries
  1. Hijab - the religious dress code which applies to both women and men. To observe Hijab women should wear a head covering in public.Just like women, men should wear loose, long and non-transparent clothing so as not to attract attention from the opposite gender to their physical appearance. The religion itself allows both Muslim men and women to wear clothes of their choice provided they comply with the tenets of modesty andavoiding clothes that are flashy or extravagant.

Answer the questions:

  1. What is cultural laissez faire?
  2. Should the government have a right to restrict people’s clothing choices?
  3. “All the burden of change is placed on the immigrant” – is this entirely true? What concessions are necessary from each group?
  4. Should any religions be given special treatment by the state? (tax exemptions for churches)
  5. Should tolerance be legislated (either in terms of antidiscrimination laws or restrictions on behaviour that could be offensive)?
  6. What does it mean “to behave like Europeans”? Can someone respect European values while maintaining a foreign culture and religion? Are European values compatible with Islam?

READING 2:Scan the text to be able to describe the models of the population diversity management

The Melting Pot, the Salad Bowl, and the Confucian Ideal

James Farrer

January 31, 2008

Many political analysts concur that we are entering a multipolar world order. Some of them argue that the new world order will be a tripolar competition between Europe, China, and the United States, each struggling to gain and maintain influence over a set of second-tier powers and peripheral regions. Yet, this imperial competition will not simply take place in terms of foreign policy. Immigration and social policies directed at ethnic minorities are related to foreign policy and the management of foreign alliances. In other words, the different models of empire represented by America, Europe, and China are in part a reflection of the management of internal population diversity.

First, despite some academic rhetoric to the contrary, the United States remains a melting-pot1nation, bringing in millions of people and incorporating them into an Anglo-American civilization based on broadly shared liberal ideals—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Anti-immigration ideologues may challenge this view of a borderless American dream, but it remains the attraction for tens of millions of documented and undocumented immigrants hoping to stay in the United States.

Because of this widely accepted model of immigrant incorporation, most of the millions of immigrants do learn English (or their children certainly do), and there are few foreign political extremists among the largely assimilated U.S. immigrant populations. Similarly, American foreign policy also is based upon the principle that most people want the same things that Americans want: democratic, liberal capitalism. Things can go wrong when U.S. presidents misjudge the willingness of foreign populations to embrace the American dream, but it remains the consistent touchstone of American foreign policy, good or bad.

In contrast, European immigrant policies have generally represented much more of a "salad bowl"2 approach to immigrant incorporation—based on an ideal of multiculturalism and the coexistence of populations that retain their own customs and identities.Within individual European countries, it is hard to reverse the perception that immigrants, especially those from Africa and Asia, are social and political outsiders, and hard to persuade these immigrants that they can truly be "German" or "Dutch." Despite the diversity of its contents, the salad's "bowl" remains strong, based on the ideals of universal human rights and strong juridical and political institutions. The Enlightenment basis of European empire is very similar to the United States, but the political structure is obviously quite different.

Comparatively speaking, Europe's model of a multiethnic society is weaker in one sense (involving a weaker sense of social solidarity than the U.S. model) and stronger in another (based on a commitment to a cosmopolitan or supranational juridical order, including such truly global institutions as the International Criminal Court). Europe, by creating a salad bowl of nationalities scattered across national boundaries, allows for a much more expansive but also potentially explosive mixture of cultures. But it also presents an attractive model of a cosmopolitan international political order, based on supranational institutions without the requirement to assimilate to a common language and culture. To the extent this model functions within immigrant Europe, it may become attractive globally.

China, meanwhile, presents a very different model of dealing with ethnic and national differences within its own borders. Over many dynasties, the Chinese empire developed a civilizational model of imperial tutelage based on a principle of moral leadership enshrined in Confucian doctrines. The Confucian ideal implied that anyone could "become Chinese" by learning the proper behaviors and thoughts of a scholar.

In reality, however, the Chinese model of managing ethnic minorities and foreign nationals owes much more to the Soviet Union's model of a multiethnic socialist state than to Confucian principles. Similar to the USSR, the People's Republic of China recognizes 55 "national minorities," many living in designated"autonomous regions." Although China's minorities comprise less than 10 percent of the population, they occupy important strategic areas in western China. They are given special, separate, and sometimes advantageous status in social matters such as education and birth control, but they are culturally marginal and politically subordinate to the majority Han.

Despite the collapse of the multiethnic Soviet Union, the Chinese have stood by this Soviet-style model of managing ethnic minorities, using a mix of force, Han colonization, and economic incentives to keep minority populations within the state, while still not abandoning the overt principles of respecting ethnic diversity. Similarly, foreigners living in China are treated as "special guests," but there are many policies geared toward limiting their influence on the majority Chinese population.

Foreign policy and internal ethnic and immigration policy are linked at a fundamental level. Nations that base their claims to leadership on universal principles will be judged on how they exercise these principles in internal policies toward foreign and minority populations. Successful immigrant countries will have much greater success projecting power in an increasingly globalized and mobile world. The American, European, and Chinese models of empire or influence are not incompatible. Notions of difference can be made to coexist with notions of universality, and this is what is happening in practice.

READING NOTES

Melting-pot-is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, with different elements "melting together". It is particularly used to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the United States.

The first use of the concept of immigrants "melting" into the receiving culture is found in the writings of J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. In his Letters from an American Farmer (1782) Crevecoeur writes, that the American is one who "leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world."

The salad bowl concept suggests that many different cultures combine like a salad, as opposed to the more traditional notion of a cultural melting pot. In Canada this concept is more commonly known as the cultural mosaic. In the salad bowl model, various cultures are juxtaposed — like salad ingredients — but do not merge together into a single homogeneous culture. Each culture keeps its own distinct qualities. This idea proposes a society of many individual, "pure" cultures, and the term has become more politically correct than melting pot, since the latter suggests that ethnic groups may be unable to preserve their cultures due to assimilation.

SPEAKING: TEAMWORK

In two teams brainstorm to answer the following questions:

  1. What are the three models of managing population diversity? Say, which of them in your opinion is the most viable. Give your reasons.
  2. How can immigrants be encouraged/helped to integrate into society while still maintaining their cultural and religious identities? What should governments do?

Draft a list of measures that should be taken to deal with the problem.

Ex.1Find words in column B corresponding to the definition in column A:

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A

a)to appoint (so) to a specified office or post, to assign

b)to give up completely (a practice)

c)a criterion by which something is judged or recognized

d)to strongly suggest the truth or existence of (sth not stated)

e)so different in nature as to be incapable of coexisting

f)to accept (a belief, theory) willingly; to include or contain (sth) as a constituent part

g)to continue to have (something); keep possession of

h)to take in or contain (sth) as part of a whole; include

i)to absorb and integrate (people, ideas) into a wider society or culture

j)a thing that motivates or encourages someone to do sth

k)be of the same opinion; agree

l)to consist of; be made up of

B

  1. concur with
  2. to incorporate
  3. to assimilate
  4. to embrace
  5. a touchstone
  6. to retain
  7. to imply
  8. to designate
  9. to comprise
  10. incentives
  11. to abandon
  12. incompatible

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Ex.2Fill in the gaps with the following verbs making necessary changes. Each verb can be used twice:

to incorporate, to embrace,to retained,to comprise,to designate,to imply, to abandon

  1. The Balinese Hindus ______the majority of the island's population in this Muslim-majority nation.
  2. Syria’s government refused to implement the Arab League’s peace plan by ______deadline.
  3. During a Republican presidential debate, several candidates ______the idea of the US using covert operations to help solve diplomatic problems.
  4. Even as his Arab allies ______him, Syrian President still has a strong bulwark to prevent his meeting the same fate as the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia or Libya.
  5. In two contested races, both incumbents their ______seatswith the sole newcomer.
  6. Italy's new government ______well-respected figures, but Prime Minister will have to act fast to pass unpopular major reforms.
  7. It's time to ______the UN convention on the rights of the child into UK law.
  8. Two reserved parking spots were specifically ______: one for the mayor and the other for the chief administrative officer.
  9. The words "arrested" and "charged" do not ______guilt.
  10. Italy ______the Women's World Cup volleyball title after the US was swept by host Japan in the last match of the tournament.
  11. Entry into the competition ______acceptance of these rules.
  12. There are five basic foods that every athlete should ______into their diet.
  13. The reasons why people ______religion are that they have intellectual doubts and want to do things religion forbids.
  14. Labor unions are starting ______some of the bold tactics and social media skills of the Occupy movement.

READING 3: READ THE TEXT AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS THAT FOLLOW

DISUNITED EUROPE: The European unity anddiversity

Northern and Southern Europe are very different places. Even on this broad scale, Europe is thus an extraordinarily diverse portrait of economic, political and social conditions. The foundation of the European project was the idea that these nations could be combined into a single economic regime that would mature into a single united political entity. This was, on reflection, a rather extraordinary idea.

Europeans, of course, do not think of themselves as Mediterranean or Northern European. They think of themselves as Greek or Spanish, Danish or French. Europe is divided into nations, and for most Europeans, identification with their particular nation comes first. The European Union was designed to create a European identity while retaining the nation-statewhere the individual identified his fate with the fate of the nation.

During the generation of prosperity between the early 1990s and 2008, the question of European identity and national identity really did not arise. Being a European was completely compatible with being a Greek. Prosperity meant there was no choice to make. Economic crisis meant that choices had to be made, between the interests of Europe, the interests of Germany and the interests of Greece, as they were no longer the same.
The nation-state was real. We could see this earliest and best not in the economic arena, but in the area of foreign policy and national defence. The Europeans as a whole never managed to develop either. The foreign policies of the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland were quite different and in many ways at odds. And war, even more than economics, is the sphere in which nations endure the greatest pain and risk. None of the European nations was prepared to put the bulk of its armed forces under the command of a European government nor were they prepared to cooperate in defence matters unless it was in their interest. The unwillingness of the Europeans to transfer sovereignty in foreign and defence matters to the European Parliament and a European president was the clearest sign that the Europeans had not managed to reconcile European and national identity.
There was another impulse behind the idea of Europe. Most of the European nations, individually, were regional powers at best, unable to operate globally. They were therefore weaker than the United States. Europe united would not only be able to operate globally, it would be the equal of the United States. If the nation-states of Europe were no longer great individually, Europe as a whole could be. Embedded in the idea of Europe, particularly in the Gaullist view of it, was the idea of Europe as a whole regaining its place in the world, the place it lost after two world wars. That clearly is not going to happen. There is no European foreign and defence policy, no European army, no European commander in chief. There is not even a common banking or budgetary policy. Europe will not counterbalance the United States because, in the end, Europeans do not share a common vision of Europe, a common interest in the world or a mutual trust. Each nation wants to control its own fate.
The Europeans like their nations and want to retain them. After all, the nation is who they actually are. The question, then, is simple: Given that Europe never came together in terms of identity, and given that the economic crisis is elevating national interest well over European interest, where does this all wind up? The European Union is an association, at most an alliance and not a transnational state. There was an idea of making it such a state, but that idea failed a while ago. As an alliance, it is a system of relationships among sovereign states. They participate in it to the extent that it suits their self-interest or fail to participate when they please. In the end, what we have learned is that Europe is not a country. It is a region, and in this region there are nations and these nations are comprised of people united by shared history and shared fates. The other nations of Europe may pose problems for these people, but in the end, they share neither a common moral commitment nor a common fate. This means that nationalism is not dead in Europe, and neither is history. And the complacency with which Europeans have faced their future, particularly when it has concerned geopolitical tensions within Europe, might well prove premature. Europe is Europe, and its history cannot be dismissed as obsolete, much less over.
  1. What is a nation-state?
  2. How did creation of the EU compare to the idea of retaining national identity?
  3. What was the clearest sign that the Europeans had not managed to reconcile European and national identity?
  4. What prevents Europe from regaining its place in the world?

READING 3: WORKING WITH TWO TEXTS