by Thane on Sun Jun 13, 2010 3:11 am
LW wrote:
“In Belgium, the country is split by language – some speak Dutch and some speak French. The nation is seriously considering splitting in two because the two sides don’t get along. In the Netherlands, a party that wants to ban all immigration is increasing its presence in Parliament. In England, a new law says Britons can’t marry someone from outside the Union, unless that person is fluent in English. According to the government, this new rule will promote integration and remove cultural barriers. Very interesting. While American schools and colleges are infested with the cult of multiculturalism, other nations are emphasizing assimilation and thereby unity.”
Having been a listener and follower of the VWW for nearly 10 years now, I am seeing Lynn Woolley’s same old tired arguments regenerated and resurrected over and over again. Now he beats the anti-diversity, anti-multi-lingual drum again.
Belgium was never a “natural” country or nation. It was an artificial and politically expedient construct created in the 19th century in the aftermath of the rampages of Napoleon. No great power would let the other have it, so they cobbled together a new nation. Of course there has always been conflict between the French Walloons and the Dutch Flems, for centuries now. Lynn Woolley thinks this is a new story?
Is he going to drag out his Quebec argument yet again? In his world Canada and Quebec are in some dire crises of succession and dissolution. This was an issue that came and went 15 years ago and has been flaccid ever since. But to Lynn, this is still headline news, an imminent threat!
Lynn seems to stridently believe that there are not, and never have been any successful nations that are bi-lingual or multi-lingual. This is simply not true and he refuses to acknowledge the many examples, past and present, that are extant. All the great powers, military and economic, today are multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual. That list includes China, Russia, India, the nations of the EU, and last but not least the United States. The rest of the world (which Lynn has never visited) is desperately trying to learn English and in the ever-growing globalization of this planet, speaking only one language is a serious handicap, except in Lynn Woolley’s central Texas enclave of by-gone Norman Rockwell Americana.
Let’s take the opposite of Lynn’s thesis; that a culturally unified, non-diverse, and single language nation would therefore be stronger, better and happier. Japan is a fantastic example. Here we have a capitalistic democracy that has enjoyed a negative birthrate, declining productivity, declining influence in the world, increasing corruption, and has a popular culture often described as morally bankrupt, utterly atheistic and secularized, sexually perverse (if not inverted) and virtually value-free. Its non-diverse athletes barely even rank in the Olympics main contenders anymore. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Japan - exhibit A for the Lynn Woolley Institute of anti-diversity.
Man, go find a new drum to beat.
Sincerely,
Thane