Merkel: multiculturalism has failed

[Infinite Chaos]

Maybe not on this board but certainly where 'education' of children is concerned.

In English please?

-- No.

Case closed.

I can do better than that and give you a link about the Olmecs of Mexico, using representations of the number zero before the birth of Jesus, with a proper number zero used by 357 AD.

Your "wevisionism" was as wrong as those muslims who think they "invented" the number zero. Certainly "zero" arived late in Europe but that itself courtesy of a Muslim mathematician. The Romans had long been cleared out by the time we had "zero"

 

[Republic_Of_Public]

In English please?

No sooner said as done:

In maths and science, key Muslim contributions such algebra and the number zero will be emphasised to counter Islamophobia.

Case closed.

OK, bye then.

Your "wevisionism" was as wrong as those muslims who think they "invented" the number zero.

Do I detect the glimmer of some kind of middle-ground? I'm not revising anything though, as the truth is what I used. And whilst Arabian numerical systems may have been our source for the number zero, though the Babylonians used it earlier, it certainly predates the Muslims.

 

[Djoop]

You can have blond hair and blue eyes, if you consider yourself Turkish first you can never be something else.

 

[Infinite Chaos]

In maths and science, key Muslim contributions such algebra and the number zero will be emphasised to counter Islamophobia.
New curriculum will 'make every lesson politically correct' | Mail Online

Where does the article say that Muslims "invented" the number zero? If you're talking about algebra - yes algebra has origins millenia ago but the modern principles definitely come from a Muslim scholar: as did the modern use of "zero".

How is that politically correct?

Would it be wrong to ignore that Archimedes was Greek?

Besides - the article doesn't say that Muslims invented the number zero - but that "Muslims contributed" - which they certainly did (among others including Chinese and Indian mathematicians.)

"Contribute" does not mean the same as "invent."

-- I'm not revising anything though, as the truth is what I used --

How is claiming that Rome had an understanding of the concept of zero not "wevisionism?"

Neither Rome nor Greece had any use or understanding of "zero." You stated they did so either you made yet another mistake or you're "wevising" European history.

You choose...

 

[Republic_Of_Public]

....the modern principles definitely come from a Muslim scholar: as did the modern use of "zero".

Oh right, so a learned Muslim had a go at algebra and maybe tarted it up a bit, so that 'counts' as being at least a co-inventor. The creator of the gramophone can't be credited with the invention of sound reproduction equipment either.

And 'Muslim contributions' suggest a religious element, of which there were none. The motivations were purely mathematical. But the agenda of saying 'Islam did that' for dogmatic reasons just clouds and perverts education for left wing purposes. ('Anti Racist Mathematics' was just the same....)

How is claiming that Rome had an understanding of the concept of zero not "wevisionism?"

Because although they never wrote zero, they had an awareness of things like base tens and knew what the value of nothing was. They just didn't see the point of having a numeral for it.

 

[Infinite Chaos]

Oh right, so a learned Muslim had a go at algebra and maybe tarted it up a bit

Why so bitter? Suddenly your personal agenda not satisfied anymore? I'd like your explanation of "tarted up" in this case please

so that 'counts' as being at least a co-inventor.

Where and who claims he "invented" algebra?

The creator of the gramophone can't be credited with the invention of sound reproduction equipment either.

Relevance?

And 'Muslim contributions' suggest a religious element, of which there were none.

Was he muslim or not?

The motivations were purely mathematical. But the agenda of saying 'Islam did that' for dogmatic reasons just clouds and perverts education for left wing purposes.

That's your agenda coming through again. You'd prefer a "wevision" of facts I take it?

-- Because although they never wrote zero, they had an awareness of things like base tens and knew what the value of nothing was. They just didn't see the point of having a numeral for it.

Link please?

My eldest son is at a maths specialist academy so your link would help his education and the rest of us all get our facts on how the abacus and a non existant value of "nothing" worked...
Looking at how mathematics with an abacus worked - not bothering with a numeral for something as enlightened as a "zero" is quite a theory...

 

[Republic_Of_Public]

Why so bitter?

Not bitter, just flippant.

Where and who claims he "invented" algebra?

Well, for that matter, who's 'he'?!

Was he muslim or not?

What, this Muslim bloke with the Muslim algebra, which kids must know was a Muslim 'contribution'? That Muslim you mean?

That's your agenda coming through again.

What, that work with algebra is purely mathematical?

Link please?

Aah, different story when it comes to asking a link of someone else! And seeing as all my links are supposedly so irrelevant anyway, a phone call to your son may be in order. If he seems to know better than the both of us anyway, why not call the specialist?

 

[Infinite Chaos]

Not bitter, just flippant.


Well, for that matter, who's 'he'?!




What, this Muslim bloke with the Muslim algebra, which kids must know was a Muslim 'contribution'? That Muslim you mean?




What, that work with algebra is purely mathematical?




Aah, different story when it comes to asking a link of someone else! And seeing as all my links are supposedly so irrelevant anyway, a phone call to your son may be in order. If he seems to know better than the both of us anyway, why not call the specialist?

All that, just to confess you were wrong?
No need to rouse my son from his bed to prove you were wrong either.

In case you need to explore maths too - look up "Khwārizmī" then look at Leonardo Fibonacci's later contributions.

Goodbye. [/thread]

 

[Republic_Of_Public]

All that, just to confess you were wrong?

All that to answer questions you mean?

No need to rouse my son from his bed to prove you were wrong either.

I thought not being bothered to prove it was all about one-upmanship again.

Goodbye.

Bye.

 

[Grant]

Just to be clear that nobody is being a "wevisionist" - could you point out a recognised mathematics source that backs your claim up that the Romans either had a concept for zero or for its use please?

As for algebra - the babylonians were way before Isalm but... from the same area of origin. Anyhow, I seem to remember that Egypt before this (again now a Muslim country) had algebra before the Babylonians.

Their is no doubt that anyone born in the Arab world has the potential, given the opportunity, to be as great as any person born anywhere else in the world. But the key part is "given the opportunity".

Are Muslims 'given the opportunity'? On the face of it, it seems not. There are too many books being banned, unpublished or untranslated. Freedom of thought and expression is being discouraged not only be religious leaders, but by governments as well.

It doesn't matter if a Muslim invented "zero" or not. There might be great mathematicians, poets, scientists, doctors, sports heroes, chess masters, etc. in the most impoverished parts of Asia and Africa but because they lack access to a well rounded education we, and they, will never know because they lacked the opportunity to realize their full potential as human beings.

It would seem that the mathematician who invented the zero did not do so because he was a Muslim but did so despite being a Muslim. Or possibly he was a Muslim lucky enough to be living in more liberal times.

 

[Tucker Case]

Immigrants never really assimilated at any time in US history. The myth of the melting pot is just that, a myth. At least in the short term. There are thousands of ethnic neighborhoods across the US that stand as evidence that the melting pot never really happened as people like to imagine it did.

What happens is the children of the immigrants become "bi-cultural", and they star thte process of assimilation and their children and grandchildren eventually become a part of the mainstream culture.

But the make-up of the nation, at any given moment in time, has always been more of a stew.

Whenever a lack of employment becomes an issue, the people who are different become scapegoats and targets for the anger of the populous. Thus, immigration issues and issues surrounding those "different" people will become the issues de jour.

It's happened dozens of times in US history and I also know it has also happened in European history many, many times as well.

And it'll happen again in the future. Whatever group is coming in force will be the "bad guys" who cause all the problems. :shrug:

 

[Diogenes]

Immigrants never really assimilated at any time in US history. The myth of the melting pot is just that, a myth. At least in the short term. There are thousands of ethnic neighborhoods across the US that stand as evidence that the melting pot never really happened as people like to imagine it did.

Amar Bose and Andy Grove come to mind as great examples of first-generation assimilation. Granted we have had millions of immigrants who were motivated less by their own short-term prospects than by the long-term advantages to their children, but I don't think that does any damage to the "melting pot" theory.

Back in the seventies, I took my two teenage daughters to visit some friends who had teaching contracts in Australia. Both friends were working in immigrant areas of Melbourne, and they described the immigrant families as leaning on their own children this way: "Me and Momma, we are from the Old Country, but you -- you are an Australian, and you WILL be a good one!"

Immigrants with that attitude are welcome in my neighborhood any time.

 

[German guy]

My take on it is that this was a statement to appease the uglier, more xenophobic side of Merkel's party CDU (Christian Democrats) after many CDU members have made statements lately that call for good integration and acceptance of Muslim immigrants.

Federal President Christian Wulff, for example, recently repeated a statement former Minister for the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (both CDU) had made a few years ago: "Islam is a part of Germany". Needless to say, the more traditional, right-leaning parts of that party felt the sky is falling.

Add to that that there has been an ongoing debate that the Merkel's CDU, allegedly a Christian-conservative party, has "lost its conservative profile" by moving directly into the political center in the past few years (they are all for ecology and subsidizing regenerative energies, they no longer oppose homosexual civil unions -- the "conservative" Minister for Family even said gays marrying are "living Christian values" --, they support nationalizing banks and bailouts, refuse tax cuts, start an "Islam conference" to have a dialogue with Muslim communities in Germany, yadda yadda).

Many experts suggested that genuinely conservative people no longer feel at home in the CDU, which may go so far they -- in the harmless case -- abstain from voting for the CDU, or -- worse -- finally turn to an extremist, populist right-wing party that has yet to come into existence. But hardly ever before, chances for such a party to be successful in the elections, were as good as they are today, now as the CDU has abandoned this demographic.

The Sarrazin debate a while back (I made a posting about that) shocked the CDU, because it suddenly made obvious there is a large potential for a populism that takes advantage of the abandoned right-wing attitudes (polls showed up to 18% of the people would consider voting for such a party, if it came into existence).

So this statement by Merkel, as well as similar statements by Bavarian Prime Minister Seehofer (CSU, the CDU's Bavarian sister party), are probably not much more than desperate attempts at appeasing this demographic.


Fortunately, these rhetorics have not yielded according policies yet -- and not even the rhetorics are coherently pointing to the right bottom:

Only a few sentences after Merkel made this statement about "Multikulti" and "Christian values", she again voiced Schäuble and Wulff by adding that "Islam is a part of Germany", insisting native Germans have to accept that and deal with it, and reminded that immigration is necessary (although we should look more for skilled immigrants than unskilled and poor immigrants). So even these statements sound harsher when looked at them out of context.

Not that I am justifying them, but I am not too worried. I'd rather see Merkel making such statements, but doing sound policies regarding immigration and integration, than the other way.

On a side note, the Green Party (with chairman Cem Özdemir, a 2nd generation immigrant with Turkish background) is skydiving in recent polls: Some even saw it surpassing the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), with well above 20% of the votes, which allows speculations about future Green Party chancellors. In the two states of Baden-Württemberg and Berlin, where there are elections next year, chances are very good for Green-SPD coalitions headed by the Greens, and the first Green state Prime Ministers in German history.

 

[German guy]

To be fair, it seems the debate is making progress, despite the ugly derivations following the Sarrazin publishings:

In the past, maybe only 15 years ago, there would often not happen much: Conservatives rejected the idea that Muslim immigrants will ever become German, and clinged to the idea that the "Gastarbeiter" will leave again eventually. And the left, whenever someone pointed to existing problems regarding integration of Muslims, just shouted "shut up, Nazi! I don't want these problems to exist, thus they don't exist!"

Now the center-right CDU (Merkel's party) has cautiously taken many steps to tell their supporters the immigrants won't go away again, that we must accept them. They started a dialogue (the famous "Islam conference" by CDU hardliner Schäuble) and focus on questions of measures to improve integrational success (like in the education system, language classes and so on). The left, in return, after Schröder's (SPD) government reformed the citizenship law in 2001 to make it easier to become formally German, has come to react less knee-jerk and now generally accepts that some problems exist, and should be addressed.

So despite the often ugly ****storm in the yellow press, and its occasional leaps into the political sphere, it seems to me there is real progress going on, even though it's rather silent and not as shrill as the populist musings we often read about these days.

 

[ecofarm]

Interculturalism (melting pot) is what society needs; we keep the good and for the bad, dilution is the solution. Multiculturalism is merely the failure of society to integrate.

I like biodiversity and language diversity as much as the next guy, but society needs to understand each other intimately.

ps. GermanGuy, I'm near an urban area working on some computer modeling. I fell ill earlier this week and have another day in bed mostly (I feel fine, just exhausted and can't eat much).

 

[German guy]

Interculturalism (melting pot) is what society needs; we keep the good and for the bad, dilution is the solution. Multiculturalism is merely the failure of society to integrate.

I like biodiversity and language diversity as much as the next guy, but society needs to understand each other intimately.

I think the bad no longer is a problem when everybody, natives and immigrants alike, have prospects in our society, and they are allowed to achieve if they just take efforts. If this is a given, everything else will fall into place on its own: When immigrants are given the chance to get well-paid jobs after being provided with the chance of benefiting from our education system, they will take efforts to learn German, identify with our society and do their best to fit in, all on their own.

In order to make this possible, existing discrimination has to be minimized (why should they even try, if we don't accept them, even when they do their best to fit in and achieve?), and according education offers have to be made (like language classes), but immigrants also need to understand that they are expected to take advantage of the possibilities they are offered. IMHO.

 

[Diogenes]

Interculturalism (melting pot) is what society needs; we keep the good and for the bad, dilution is the solution. Multiculturalism is merely the failure of society to integrate.

I like biodiversity and language diversity as much as the next guy, but society needs to understand each other intimately.

All things in moderation. Biodiversity is fine, up to a point: cancer cells and other pathologies that threaten the life of the host organism are not welcome and must be eliminated. Every society needs a common language and every member of the society should be proficient in it; aside from that, hobbyists are welcome to form groups to preserve or invent new languages.

Cultural diversity is fine up to a point, but no society can expect to survive if it tolerates different civil laws for different groups. In particular, Muslim demands for Sharia law to apply in their enclaves in non-Muslim countries cannot be tolerated.

 

[ecofarm]

In the recent Kenyan Constitution (Aug 4, 2010), Sharia courts are upheld. They existed before English colonialism and were allowed to continue existence both under the British and in an agreement with Kenya's first president, Kenyatta. Their jurisdiction is limited to "inheritance, divorce and personal status". Obviously, no criminal charges are brought before these courts. Further, the court is only utilized if both parties profess to be Muslim and both parties volunteer to use the court. Lastly, any decision by the Sharia court can be appealed in the magistrate's court.

What's the big problem with that? It's no different than two parties, in a non-criminal case, agreeing to arbitration with an appeal clause to magistrate. In the US, our divorce cases do not all go to state court and neither do our inheritance disputes.