Multiculturalism in Europe

         This post will focus on multiculturalism in Europe. Britain is not the only European country with a large amount of immigrants; many of the other powerful countries within Europe have residents from all sorts of ancestral backgrounds.

Germany is a place where multiculturalism has been attempted, but their leader Angela Merkel believes that multiculturalism has failed, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX-NGfbvJtc . In this speech she says that forcing people from different backgrounds to live together has not worked, and that integration is not happening. Germany is a majority Christian nation, but there is a presence of Hinduism, Judaism and Islam too, with immigrants coming from the likes of Asia and Turkey. Merkel also claims that immigrants need to learn how to speak German if multiculturalism is ever going to work. I agree with this sentiment, the newcomers to a country should not have to lose their own cultural values, but I believe that they should make an effort to learn about their new country’s language and historical background, this is the only way integration will ever happen.

France is another example of a highly diverse country in Europe. A lot of people from northern Africa, and various other parts of Africa migrate to France; this is mainly because these places used to be French colonies. France is a relatively secular country, but there is still a large presence of Catholicism, and a smaller presence of Islam and other countries. These religious differences have caused conflict in parts of France, and ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy had his say on multiculturalism when he was the leader, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/February/Frances-Sarkozy-Multiculturalism-Has-Failed/. In this speech, Sarkozy mimics other European leaders, by saying that multiculturalism has failed in his country. He says that it only leads to violent extremism, and that the country letting immigrants in will slowly cause France to lose its unique identity.

Sarkozy makes a very valid point, but I believe the only reason these things happen is because we have not yet found an efficient way of incorporating diversity into our nations, is there anything we can do to make integration happen more successfully? I think we need to successfully integrate people together in small societies, through council-based projects. This grass-roots equality should eventually filter out to countries as a whole.