Angela Merkel Quotes
Multiculturalism has failed, big time.
See {635841} for a similar sentiment.
Angela Merkel, German Prime Minister, First female Prime Minister of Germany, Description of the problems that Germany was having with Moslem immigrants, Quoted on Islamaphobia Web Site, February 15, 2006
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See {590863} for a similar sentiment.
She was referring to the Muslim immigrants who were then coming into Europe in large numbers. Europe in general, and Italy in particular, have never had the American experience of assimilation of large numbers of immigrants, and many Muslims came to Europe just for the economic opportunities but did not like or respect the culture or the values. Some even preached hatred of the Christian West and fomented terrorism. This was different from America where Muslim immigrants arrived and despite the difficulties of new immigrants most thrived and were able to assimilate yet maintain their religion and cultural customs. At the same time many American Islamic immigrants represented the more modern Islamic which valued freedom and pluralism and unlike most Muslim nations of today, appreciated the advanced, modernistic, tolerant Islam of 1000 years ago when tolerance and freedom of thought within an Islamic framework made some Muslim countries the most advanced in the world.
Although Jefferson was a strong immigration enthusiast, he and others were concerned about the ghettoization. The early German immigrants did not universally adopt English, just as today’s immigrants do not all. This was a concern of Americans since the first immigrations. Yet it has always occurred despite concerns about it. However, the second and third generations all become fluent and literate in English.
Input on the question of immigration, said while a scholar at Princeton
Most social and demographic changes many people fear will continue on a trend and assume the extrapolation will become reality. Few ever do, and the fears turn out to be just fears.
This is the origin of the “melting pot” term. Although British, Zangwill wrote this play for America and it was first produced in Washinton DC with Theodore Roosevelt in attendance. The theme was just the concept that most Americans think of relative to the large immigration of so many peoples to America.
This is a complaint similar to that made by anti-immigrant Americans. France, like most other countries of the world, has never had the large scale immigration of today, nor have they had such a large proportion of the same ethnicity at once—in this case, Muslim North Africans. There were never, before the last decades, enough immigrants of any ethnicity in France to have a choice of maintaining their traditional languages and culture and not learning French or otherwise assimilating. America, in contrast, had large immigrations of different ethnicities, and despite the erroneous beliefs of immigration opponents, these blocs of immigrants have wherever there was sufficient density—usually cities, they maintained their old language and other customs. However, their children and the next generation in almost all cases have abandoned the language and many of the customs of the old country. This was true of the Germans, the Irish, the Italians, the European Jews, the Russian Jews, the Scandinavians’, and the Hispanics with their different cultures.
Bourne was one of the first writers with a national audience to question the classic but never real “melting pot” theory of immigration and suggest the “salad” model though he never used the term. Also, the South was backward compared to the other states before the Civil War and the difference became greater after. The sensitivity of Southerners to their underdevelopment made comparisons such as these infrequent. The gap closed somewhat during the 20th century but comparisons which illustrate the relative inferiority of the South remain a sensitive subject,
- Born: July 17, 1954
- Nationality: German
- Profession: Statesman
Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German politician serving as the chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018. A member of the Christian Democratic Union, Merkel is the first female chancellor of Germany. Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union, the most powerful woman in the world and by many commentators since 2016 as the "leader of the free world".
