This week's Listener has an interview with Canadian intellectual John Ralston Saul, author of Voltaire's Bastards and The Unconscious Civilisation, two key critiques of neo-liberalism. While the short version in the hardcopy is interesting enough, the full interview (split into two parts - here and here) is even better, and well worth the read.
One of the interesting parts is on immigration. Saul rejects assimilationism, instead saying that
You have to be relaxed, you have to take the time, you have to give people the time to adjust. That is getting away from that awful purist nationalism of 'now that you're here, you're this'.
Language isn't a problem - provided there's enough basic competance to get by, their kids will take care of the rest. And neither are backward cultural attitudes, because fundamentally if (say) Muslim immigrants want to keep women out of public life, they have to persuade everyone else - and even the act of having to ask and of trying to persuade will change people (ideally by engendering respect for other citizens and positive attitudes towards democracy).
15 comments:
"they have to persuade everyone else - and even the act of having to ask and of trying to persuade will change people (ideally by engendering respect for other citizens and positive attitudes towards democracy)."
- Well all that cult attire wrapped over the heads of female students must have been authorised by the schools in Auckland. The burqa women who scurry around don't seem to have had anyone to "persuade." Persuasion is in the majority community that has accepted that those women should continue to be kept in separation as an underclass.
Posted by Bomber : 9/05/2005 07:28:00 PM
I don't have a problem with people retaining traditions, language etc from the old country but, I'm afraid, there are somethings that I simply don't think are ok or should be tolerated in a civilised society.
This is a good discussion of the issues by Theodore Dalyrymple. I agree with him.
Posted by Amanda : 9/05/2005 08:47:00 PM
Here's the problem of what happens if you don't demand that people don't adhere to social norms. Yet get into situtations like in northern europe where the groups are starting to gain enough power to seriously change the fundamental basis of why the groups were there in the first place and creating undue racial tension.
If you are coming to New Zealand you should subscribe to a basic set of beiliefs that are in common with the new zealand identity.
Posted by Stephanie : 9/05/2005 08:49:00 PM
It seems all a bit stuck up to me, mixed with a lot of sellable phrases rather like a self improvement book.
I guess just about everyone who rises to the publics attention must have done so by similar methodology.
Posted by Genius : 9/05/2005 08:53:00 PM
Saul is just another of a long line of anti-market corporate-baiters with a slick intellectual patter masquerading as serious thought but having no substance. It is the kind of patter that easily impresses feebleminded journalists and smug, ignorant left-wing politicians who know even less economic history and economic theory than Saul.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/05/2005 11:22:00 PM
damian_nz: The whole point of the continuation of the things most abhorrent is that you can't talk to them about it, eg. burqas, genital mutilations, forced weddings etc. If they lock them away and refuse permission to drive a car etc. there is no communication. Are we supposed to communicate through the males of the households? Are we supposed to communicate through the media - at which point it comes down to "racism" v. "multiculturalism" and the bad things continue. Saying that communication is important blah blah sounds rather trite to me. Very blithe.
It does just sound like bullshit. The only times I've heard Saul mentioned was by a particularly feeble-minded teacher who spouted it as mantra and at length instead of forming an opinion or argument of his own.
Let's see these cultural clashes for what they are. Time to adjust? Like the hard-core Islamists who are born and bred in England need some more time to adjust? If the immigration is too high to start with or is concentrated too highly it is the host people who will end up having to adjust rather than the other way around. If there are too many immigrants with different views then the host society becomes a minority view that they will tolerate without anyone changing for the better and creating permanent divisions where there could have been few if any.
There are many problems with what Saul seems to be saying.
Posted by Bomber : 9/06/2005 01:32:00 AM
zenskar:
And the argument is that Saul's followers repeat what he says at great length without engaging in the argument. Perhaps what you are doing? But since you are defending his theories in this forum it is fair.
Problems: It seems like he's saying "she'll be right" when there is evidence to suggest otherwise. I can only go on what has been said here that is why it is not articulated to your satisfaction most likely.
An example: "If people feel a woman wearing a burqa threatens their way of life then I put it to them that their way of life is far to fragile to deal with the demands of democratic and multicultural societies. " - Problematic because of what it represents in itself and in a wider context.
Firstly, the subjugation of women. You don't seem to care that the burqa exists to the extent of marginalising the experience for the victim by implying it is consistent with being "multicultural".
Secondly, cultural groups that do not change oppressive practices. Groups, esp. cult groups, that do not convert to other forms and refuse their members to marry outside of the cult can only grow in number given the pressure to breed within the cult, while everyone else outside the group that is liberal enough to convert to their cult will decline in number. Therefore the cult group cannot be reformed from inside given the impetus of the outsiders to tolerate it - even support it as you seem to. Too bad? Burqas are good?
A colleague says "A Doubter's Companion" is quite good - but he's a lefty...
Posted by Bomber : 9/06/2005 01:47:00 PM
Plenty of religious movements/cults apart from Islam deny the basic rights of their followers - most fundamentalist "christians" deny the right to a sexual identity for instance.
If you think that immigrants should be prevented from following a belief system that you consider oppressive - do you think that estblished NZ belief systems sholuld be also suppressed? For instance that Destiny Church should be banned?
Or do you think that different standards apply to settled New Zealanders than to immigrants - and how does that differ from racism?
Posted by Rich : 9/06/2005 03:00:00 PM
Rich, it's simple enough - NZ already has more than enough geezers who think their wives and children are their personal property. We don't need to be importing more of them from overseas. Don't see what racism has to do with it.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/06/2005 05:37:00 PM
No man, this is the cultural relativism argument in a nutshell. A necessary part of living in a pluralistic society is that other people will have values and beliefs that are different to yours, by definition. Now it's not as if there were some independent arbiter that we could check to see who is right. The only way to sort it out is through the free, open, and reasonable interaction of those values and beliefs.
Posted by David Cauchi : 9/06/2005 08:02:00 PM
"The only way to sort it out is through the free, open, and reasonable interaction of those values and beliefs."
Nice theory, shame about the practice. Check out the article Make Tea Not War linked to above - if one group is imprisoning or murdering its daughters to prevent the free, open and reasonable interaction of values and beliefs from affecting said daughters, those scumbags have got to go, or better still, never be allowed in in the first place.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/06/2005 11:55:00 PM
Milt: there are lots of people in NZ with beliefs and attitudes I don't like. We don't however, ban them from holding those beliefs - ther is no "thoughtcrime" in NZ law. We do have laws criminalising, for instance, holding someone against their will. To me this is a reasonable standard.
Why is it reasonable to apply a *higher* standarde to immigrants and say that that for them, there *is* an offence of "thoughtcrime" that will get them banned or deported?
Posted by Rich : 9/07/2005 10:06:00 AM
It's particularly rich that Saul in the Listener article quotes Canada as "on the leading edge of how to build a society with a consistently evolving set of citizens and cultures". In fact, Canada is a good candidate for evolving a set of countries, as Alberta and BC secede from the multiculi, grasping but economically woeful East. And societies aren't 'built' - they are biological/economic entities which react quite well to Darwinian incentives and penalties. Now let's drop into the equation the Athabasca tar sands (in Alberta, natch) which have a production cost south of $20/bbl, an oil market price of north of $60/bbl and suddenly we have a Nincentive. A twofer, in fact - there is more oil in Athabasca than in Arabia, so we get no more Peak Oil witterers for a while, and in addition we get the delicious prospect of betting on how many countries Canada will become, and how long that will take. The thread started off with a non sequitur about majority opinion ruling. Majorities of economic wealth count too, you know....
Posted by Waymad : 9/07/2005 11:02:00 AM
"Why is it reasonable to apply a *higher* standarde to immigrants..."
Because unlike our fellow bozos that were born here, we get to choose immigrants, and we already have to discriminate between candidates to get the most useful ones - eg, try not speaking English, having no qualifications and no money, and applying to immigrate here. You'll be discriminated against promptly and unmercifully in favour of people who speak English and have quals and/or money. I don't see any reason not to further discriminate on the basis of "applicant thinks it's ok to beat his sister to death for dating a whitey".
Posted by Anonymous : 9/08/2005 03:33:00 AM
Immigrants get to choose to come here also, and you may have noticed they aren't coming - that means less money to pay the super for all those NZ First voting coffin-dodgers in Tauranga.
Were it practical, I would advocate a fully open border policy.
Unfortunately it isn't - largely because people would just exploit it to bring in cheap labour. I think we should give a work visa to anyone who can get a bona-fide skilled job (simply defined as one paying more than average wages) and residence to anyone with one years skilled work behind them (based on tax records) and a cleanish police/health record.
Posted by Rich : 9/09/2005 09:42:00 AM
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