A great article on Multiculturalism

[HOZ]

September 2001

“Multiculturalism: Fact or Threat?”

Dinesh D'Souza,
Research Fellow, Hoover Institution


One approach taken by multiculturalists to extinguish feelings of cultural superiority is to revise reading lists in our schools to minimize the influence of those they deride as "dead white males." A few years ago the novelist Saul Bellow set off a controversy when he said, "Find me the Tolstoy of the Zulus, or the Proust of the Papuans, and I would be happy to read him." In the storm of outrage that followed, Bellow was accused of racism. But the charge was unjustified. Bellow was not saying, after all, that the Zulus and Papuans are incapable of producing great novelists. He was saying that as far as he knew, they hadn't. But just by raising the possibility that some cultures have contributed more, if you will, to the dining table of civilization, he had violated one of the chief tenets of multiculturalism.

*******

In carrying forth their case, cultural relativists must account for the obvious fact that for the last half millennium, it has been one culture—the culture of the West and now of America—that has dominated the world. Prior to 1500, China was the preeminent civilization and Western civilization—then called Christendom—was a relative backwater. How did this backwater conquer the world? Multiculturalists explain it in terms of oppression. Western civilization, they say, became so powerful because it is so evil. The study of Western civilization, they insist, should focus on colonialism and slavery, the distinctive mechanisms of Western oppression. But colonialism and slavery are not distinctively Western at all. They are universal.

The British conquered India and ruled it for 300 years. But before the British there were the Persians, the Mongols, the Afghans, and Alexander the Great. Indeed, the British were the sixth or seventh colonial invader to occupy a large part of Indian territory. As for slavery, it has existed in all cultures. It was prevalent in ancient India, in China, in Greece and Rome, and in Africa. American Indians practiced slavery long before Columbus set foot here. In point of fact, what is uniquely Western is not slavery, but abolition. The movement to end slavery developed only in Western civilization. While people everywhere oppose slavery for themselves, never outside the West have slave-owners and potential slave-owners proclaimed principles condemning it, and expended blood and treasure ending it.

[Option84]

"multiculturalism bad, whites good." We get it, thanks. Next. Also, An article from 2001, real relevant.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by Option84

"multiculturalism bad, whites good." We get it, thanks. Next. Also, An article from 2001, real relevant.

Argh.....arteecal you not reed....from man called Dineesh. Dineesh...good'n Aryan name!


Feel free to reed'm arteecal and get'm edumacated and'm dizagrree.

[Option84]

I read the article. It basically proclaims that racism barely exists in in North America, only uses selected examples to suggest that all non-western literature is primitive and the west is "the only" society that has abolished slavery.

This segment from articles sums it up pretty well: "Slavery, even more than colonialism, was wrong and harmful to the people who lived under it. But paradoxically, and against the wishes of the slave owners, it also was the transmission belt that brought Africans into the orbit of Western freedom."

BTW: This is the same guy who wrote he Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and its Responsibility for 9/11, in which he states that the main reason for it happening is because of the teaming up of "Hollywood and the U.N. to foist an irreligious, sexually licentious, antifamily liberal culture—epitomized by Eve Ensler's play The Vagina Monologue" and "D'Souza's claim that Islamic extremists are inflamed solely by America's music videos and feminists". Straight from his mouth. More "Islam hates America for it's freedom" nonsense. This guy makes Fox News look tame.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by Option84

I read the article. It basically proclaims that racism barely exists in in North America, only uses selected examples to suggest that all non-western literature is primitive and the west is "the only" society that has abolished slavery.

This segment from articles sums it up pretty well: "Slavery, even more than colonialism, was wrong and harmful to the people who lived under it. But paradoxically, and against the wishes of the slave owners, it also was the transmission belt that brought Africans into the orbit of Western freedom."

I doubt your first sentence...at least for your first post. As for the rest, this article is the opinion of the writer. AND no it doesn't basically proclaim that racism barely exists in North America, it says....I conceded, of course, that racism exists, but I challenged Jackson to show me racism today that is strong enough to prevent him or me or his children or my daughter from achieving our basic aspirations—from going to college, starting a business, exercising the basic rights of citizens, etc. Jackson insisted that racism in America is as strong as ever, and that any appearances to the contrary are due to the fact that racism has gone underground....which I agree with. There is a whole lot more to this article which you have chosen to ignore.

"Slavery, even more than colonialism, was wrong and harmful to the people who lived under it. But paradoxically, and against the wishes of the slave owners, it also was the transmission belt that brought Africans into the orbit of Western freedom."

Would you like to debate this point? Would any African-American really want to trade places with someone in Harare?

[comrade]

Has the West really abolished slavery? To the best of my knowledge sweatshops for Western goods are still thriving around the globe, with the differences between sweatshops and colonial times slavery appallingly minimal.

[Option84]

Yes, but ironically who's to say that Africa would be any less "free" if it wasn't colonized by the Western nations?

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by Option84

Yes, but ironically who's to say that Africa would be any less "free" if it wasn't colonized by the Western nations?

Unless you can prove that they would be MORE free we are at an impasse But then again you have ignored the debate point.

Did slavery bring Afriican-American into the orbit of Western Freedom or not?


Also please remember.....American sailors did not go into the wilds of Africa to get those million or so slaves. They bought them. They bought them from Muslim and African slavers.

[Option84]

Exactly my point. What exactly is the difference between the "orbit of Western freedom" and pre-colonial Africa? Who is to say which is better. All hypothetical at this point.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by Option84

Exactly my point. What exactly is the difference between the "orbit of Western freedom" and pre-colonial Africa? Who is to say which is better. All hypothetical at this point.

Did slavery bring African-American into the orbit of Western Freedom or not?

Hypotheitical points do not equal reality. Africa is what it is now and so is the West. Africa was primarily colonised long after the British Empire banned slavery and it's trade within it's realm. The American never colonized africa. Though former slavs did come back to make Liberia.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by Option84

Exactly my point. What exactly is the difference between the "orbit of Western freedom" and pre-colonial Africa? Who is to say which is better. All hypothetical at this point.

Here is one article written on this subject in the Sunday Time by David Bullard. Bullard was fired for this very unflattering piece. Free Market

Imagine for a moment what life would be like in South Africa if the evil white man hadn’t come to disturb the rustic idyll of the early black settlers. Ignored by the Portuguese and Dutch, except as a convenient resting point en route to India. Shunned by the British, who had decided that their empire was already large enough and didn’t need to include bits of Africa.
The vast mineral wealth lying undisturbed below the Highveld soil as simple tribesmen graze their cattle blissfully unaware that beneath them lies one of the richest gold seams in the world. But what would they want with gold?
There are no roads because no roads are needed because there are no cars. It’s 2008 and no one has taken the slightest interest in South Africa, apart from a handful of botanists and zoologists who reckon that the country’s flora and fauna rank as one of the largest unspoilt areas in a polluted world. Because they have never been exposed to the sinful ways of the West, the various tribes of South Africa live healthy and peaceful lives, only occasionally indulging in a bit of ethnic cleansing.
Their children don’t watch television because there is no television to watch. Instead they listen to their grandparents telling stories around a fire. They live in single-storey huts arranged to catch most of the day’s sunshine and their animals are kept nearby.
Nobody has any more animals than his family needs and nobody grows more crops than he requires to feed his family and swap for other crops. Ostentation is unknown because what is the point of trying to impress your fellow citizens when they are not impressible?
The dreaded Internet doesn’t exist in South Africa and cellphone companies have laughed off any hope of interesting the inhabitants in talking expensively into a piece of black plastic. There are no unsightly shopping malls selling expensive goods made by Asian slave workers and consequently there are no newspapers or magazines carrying articles comparing the relative merits of ladies’ handbags.
Whisky, the curse of the white man, isn’t known in this undeveloped land and neither are cigars. The locals brew a sort of beer out of vegetables and drink it out of shallow wooden bowls. Five-litre paint cans have yet to arrive in South Africa.
Every so often a child goes missing from the village, eaten either by a hungry lion or a crocodile. The family mourn for a week or so and then have another child. Life is, on the whole, pretty good but there is something vital missing. Being unaware of the temptations of the outside world, nobody knows what it is. Fire has been discovered and the development of the wheel is coming on nicely but the tribal elders are still aware of some essential happiness ingredient they still need to discover. Praying to the ancestors is no help because they are just as clueless.
Then something happens that will change this undisturbed South Africa forever. Huge metal ships land on the coast and big metal flying birds are sent to explore the sparsely populated hinterland. They are full of men from a place called China and they are looking for coal, metal, oil, platinum, farmland, fresh water and cheap labour and lots of it. Suddenly the indigenous population realise what they have been missing all along: someone to blame. At last their prayers have been answered

Would anyone like to offer an alternative?