Paris, anyone?

[MrGongGong]

So, for what it's worth (and being prepared for a load of links to things telling me that i'm talking nonsense)

What I think is that: It is a society where people from many different cultures live, work and interact with each other without there being a compulsion from the state (or elsewhere) for them to eat the same food, listen to the same music, do the same jobs or become homogenised into an externally defined 'national identity'.

Thinking about music for a moment Why do so many of the folks in here dislike 'crossover' or 'fusion' musics, yet be passionate about other things?

When one hears ignorant (and FFS they went to OXFORD they are supposed to know about these things ??? ) politicians going on about how somehow this has 'failed' and even worse talk about 'British Culture' as if it has nothing to do with the rest of the world, it strikes me as wilful misunderstanding and cheap politicking. It doesn't take a genius to point out how our culture has always interacted, borrowed and exchanged ideas with others.

[Beef Oven!]

So, for what it's worth (and being prepared for a load of links to things telling me that i'm talking nonsense)

What I think is that: It is a society where people from many different cultures live, work and interact with each other without there being a compulsion from the state (or elsewhere) for them to eat the same food, listen to the same music, do the same jobs or become homogenised into an externally defined 'national identity'.

Thinking about music for a moment Why do so many of the folks in here dislike 'crossover' or 'fusion' musics, yet be passionate about other things?

When one hears ignorant (and FFS they went to OXFORD they are supposed to know about these things ??? ) politicians going on about how somehow this has 'failed' and even worse talk about 'British Culture' as if it has nothing to do with the rest of the world, it strikes me as wilful misunderstanding and cheap politicking. It doesn't take a genius to point out how our culture has always interacted, borrowed and exchanged ideas with others.

Well that definition didn't come from Google!

[MrGongGong]

Well that definition didn't come from Google!

Morris / Moorish Dancing anyone?

When I worked with an ensemble of refugee musicians in Birmingham a few years ago the two Kurdish players were most surprised to see that "Kurdish" dancing seemed to be an example of "English Culture".

[Ian]

In the same way that all music is ‘crossover music’ to some extent all societies are multicultural to some extent. But in practice only music that crosses over in some predefined way gets described as such and it’s the same for societies. I think that multiculturalism would be a good term to use for a society where people live together in the same space but according to different rules - in other words you literally have laws that don’t apply to everyone. (I know I'm ahead of my time)

[MrGongGong]

- in other words you literally have laws that don’t apply to everyone. (I know I'm ahead of my time)

You mean like the way that some people in the UK are able to exempt themselves from freedom of information requests on grounds of their status?

[Penn Igor]

Getting back to the Paris theme of this section, I wouldn't like to suggest that the BBC is singing a biased tune but.....The BEEB leaves us in no doubt that the atrociies in Paris were carried out by "Islamist Terrorists". Fair Enough. But, I don't ever remember the mass killings in N.Ireland and on the UK Mainland ever being referred to as the work of "Catholic Terrorists", which of course they were. And that it was an open secret that they largely American funded. Am I missing something here?

[Ian]

Plus they still have over a thousand branches in the UK.

Does that really tell us very much? McDonalds is a chain of American style restaurants - apparently there are are other significant American-style chains as well as a few independents. But where I live there are many more Italian, Indian, Chinese restaurants than American style places - but they do all tend to be more independent. So it might well be that your local American cultural choice is a McDonalds, but the ‘one on every street corner’ rhetoric that I think is intended to imply that they are squeezing out multicultural alternatives is obviously way off the mark.

[Richard Barrett]

all societies are multicultural to some extent

Yes but some to a far greater extent than others. The UK, USA and Australia, for example, are on quite a different level of multiculturality from say Poland or Japan or Saudi Arabia.

My mention of McDonalds was in the context of talking about the normative tendency in globalisation and the difference between it and multiculturalism, not about the variety of fast-food outlets present in any particular place. I said nothing about "squeezing out multicultural alternatives" which is not to say that there is nothing to say (probably in another discussion) on this subject.

[HARRIET HAVARD]

Getting back to the Paris theme of this section, I wouldn't like to suggest that the BBC is singing a biased tune but.....The BEEB leaves us in no doubt that the atrociies in Paris were carried out by "Islamist Terrorists". Fair Enough. But, I don't ever remember the mass killings in N.Ireland and on the UK Mainland ever being referred to as the work of "Catholic Terrorists", which of course they were. And that it was an open secret that they largely American funded. Am I missing something here?

This is something I have certainly noticed. One can only come to the conclusion that there is a hidden agenda. And that that agenda is certainly anti MUSLIM.

[Ian]

You mean like the way that some people in the UK are able to exempt themselves from freedom of information requests on grounds of their status?

(Is there no limit to your whataboutist habit?)

Why, for example, can’t we have a society where, for example, it wouldn’t be illegal for a Muslim male to have more than one wife?

[Flosshilde]

But, I don't ever remember the mass killings in N.Ireland and on the UK Mainland ever being referred to as the work of "Catholic Terrorists", which of course they were. And that it was an open secret that they largely American funded. Am I missing something here?

Well, yes and no. The political objective - the re-unification of Ireland - was, I think, rather stronger than the social/cultural objective - the end of discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland, which was being dealt with - slowly - through legislation (although changing attitudes is/was rather more difficult). The IRA & its various offshoots weren't trying to impose a particular form of Catholicism or Christianity, so to call them 'Catholic terrorists' wouldn't really be accurate, whereas the killers in Paris were acting according to, and to try & impose, a particular view of Islam.

[MrGongGong]

(Is there no limit to your whataboutist habit?)

It was a JOKE

[Flosshilde]

Why, for example, can’t we have a society where, for example, it wouldn’t be illegal for a Muslim male to have more than one wife?

Because, if we do, we would also have to have a society where it would not be illegal for one of those wives to be stoned if they committed adultery.

[Richard Barrett]

Why, for example, can’t we have a society where, for example, it wouldn’t be illegal for a Muslim male to have more than one wife?

Presumably that was also a joke.

[french frank]

in other words you literally have laws that don’t apply to everyone. (I know I'm ahead of my time)

But not ahead of the erstwhile Archbishop of Canterbury who created an uproar by suggesting that there might be a place for Sharia Law (presumably a British version!) to be introduced into the UK.