From the Pharaohs to the Greeks to the Romans. There hasn't been a break. Islam filled the gap. When Islam went squirrelly against science, Christianity picked up the ball and ran with it.
Does multiculturalism work?
- Thread starter china
- Start date
I've worked in multicultural and multi-ethnic environments all my life. Personally, I benefited from them all. However, I have, on occasion, found the British tiresome.
Multicultural Story #1
While sitting at an airport (aerodrome for the culturally aged), I struck up a conversation with a pleasant blue-haired lady.
When I introduced myself, she asked, "What kind of name is that?"
"Polysyllabic," I replied.
"Have you ever been back to Polysyllabia?" she enquired.
"Couldn't get a visa," I answered.
"Just like them!" she snorted.
Conjecture #1
The multicultural and multi-ethnic Pacific island nation of Palau's population is 1.9% "white". Few would argue that a full 2% would have negative consequences. However, arguing from the specific to the general is problematic. Few will forget the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the Polish province of Posen at the end of the Second World War. None would suggest that for Canada...
Multicultural Story #1
While sitting at an airport (aerodrome for the culturally aged), I struck up a conversation with a pleasant blue-haired lady.
When I introduced myself, she asked, "What kind of name is that?"
"Polysyllabic," I replied.
"Have you ever been back to Polysyllabia?" she enquired.
"Couldn't get a visa," I answered.
"Just like them!" she snorted.
Conjecture #1
The multicultural and multi-ethnic Pacific island nation of Palau's population is 1.9% "white". Few would argue that a full 2% would have negative consequences. However, arguing from the specific to the general is problematic. Few will forget the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the Polish province of Posen at the end of the Second World War. None would suggest that for Canada...
Poznan is a city not a province .The Germans didn't immigrate to the Polish city , the invaded it .
Poznań is a city located in the mid-west of Poland on the Warta river, 180 km from the German border, halfway between Berlin and Warsaw. It is one of the oldest and largest Polish cities, the capital of Wielkopolska Province. Poznań is the fifth most populated city in Poland (with its 600.000 residents) and seventh in terms of area.
Origins
Poznań residents are said to be frugal, hard-working and well-organized. These attributes must have manifested themselves equally strong in their ancestors as they were the ones to establish the Polish state here a millennium ago. Poznań is known as the birthplace of Poland and Wielkopolska (the Greater Poland, Polonia Major) is the area where the Polish state first emerged.
At the turn of the 8th century a fortified settlement was established in Ostrów Tumski (the Cathedral Island). By the 10th century the settlement grew to become one of the main centers of the Piast dynasty state. This is where Poland was formed by being incorporated into the Christian Europe in 966 when Bishop Jordan baptised duke Mieszko, Poland’s first ruler from the Piasts. Mieszko built a mighty stronghold on the island, the largest and most modern of the time with the first Polish cathedral within its ramparts, and founded the first bishopric in 968. Through time, the settlement has grown to be legally established as a town in 1253 when it became the residence of the king Przemysł II, granting Poznań town privileges.
…
Poznań is a city located in the mid-west of Poland on the Warta river, 180 km from the German border, halfway between Berlin and Warsaw. It is one of the oldest and largest Polish cities, the capital of Wielkopolska Province. Poznań is the fifth most populated city in Poland (with its 600.000 residents) and seventh in terms of area.
Origins
Poznań residents are said to be frugal, hard-working and well-organized. These attributes must have manifested themselves equally strong in their ancestors as they were the ones to establish the Polish state here a millennium ago. Poznań is known as the birthplace of Poland and Wielkopolska (the Greater Poland, Polonia Major) is the area where the Polish state first emerged.
At the turn of the 8th century a fortified settlement was established in Ostrów Tumski (the Cathedral Island). By the 10th century the settlement grew to become one of the main centers of the Piast dynasty state. This is where Poland was formed by being incorporated into the Christian Europe in 966 when Bishop Jordan baptised duke Mieszko, Poland’s first ruler from the Piasts. Mieszko built a mighty stronghold on the island, the largest and most modern of the time with the first Polish cathedral within its ramparts, and founded the first bishopric in 968. Through time, the settlement has grown to be legally established as a town in 1253 when it became the residence of the king Przemysł II, granting Poznań town privileges.
…
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No, I don't believe so. Western civilization made very little progress until the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and much of its history over the last 400 years can be understood in terms of Christianity retreating from making claims about the nature of the world in the face of the scientific revolution. The church had to lose its secular power before real progress was possible, it has been reactionary and retrograde and convinced of its own rightness through it all, and it still is. Just consider what western civilization's core values really are, like the value of the individual, civil and human rights like freedom of speech and assembly and belief, its democratic ideals, the progress of science and technology, and so on. You will find those nowhere in any Christian doctrine, you will find instead their opposites, that you should be satisfied with not understanding the world, that faith is superior to knowledge, that there are things you must not say, or even think, on pain of eternal torment, and all the rest of that BS. Western civilization's values are not Christian values.
That's an even worse option, as you know perfectly well, and a false dichotomy, and I'm sure you know that too.
For my study.....? HAHAHAAH .I have bin in Poznan few times ( Stayed in a Kopernik hotel) and have studied its history very extensively in Poland .
obviously you didn't retain anything. You are the epitome of the stereotypical "dumb fu cking Polack". It really is unbelievable sometimes.
And trickery is afoot. It is my contention that nobody knows what is really going on and everybody is just faking it anyway.
20 December 2012 Last updated at 03:04 ET
Economic success makes Poland destination for immigrants
By Paul Henley BBC News
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- Rapid change amid rapid immigration
Poland is Europe's least multicultural society, but could be on the cusp of becoming a destination for a new wave of migrants.
"When I first came here, I used to be scared to go out, always looking around in case the police caught me. I lived in constant fear."
Qui's story of being an illegal immigrant will be familiar to millions all over Europe. But he has come to a country that is hardly known as a magnet for migrants - Poland.
He is from Vietnam and part of one of Poland's biggest ethnic minorities. (The link began when both countries had communism in common.) ur son has a Polish name because we live in Poland, we love Poland and we feel tied to it”
Qui and Thiem Vietnamese immigrants
Qui works in the clothes trade in Warsaw. And these days, he has his own market stall, a family, an apartment in a concrete high-rise block on the outskirts of Warsaw… and peace of mind.
He is legal, having benefitted from an amnesty organised, earlier this year, by a government newly-aware that its economy needs people like him.
He says it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders.
Qui and his wife Thiem met in Poland and they are proud of their new status and of their host country.
"Our son has a Polish name", they say, "because we live in Poland, we love Poland and we feel tied to it". They talk of his future university education there.
Changing capital Venture a kilometre or two outside the historic centre of Warsaw and you do not have to look very hard to see how profoundly the capital is changing.
Paul Norris and his family emigrated from the UK
Bakalarska Market is a vast clothes, electrical and food retail centre run almost exclusively by non-Poles.
Music and voices from Vietnam, Bulgaria, Turkey, Nigeria, China, Ukraine and Belarus are proof of a nascent ethnic mix that would have been unimaginable until recently.
In the last two years, the number of applications for work permits in Poland has doubled.
Eurostat figures show only 0.1% of people in Poland were born abroad, the lowest figure in the European Union.
Before World War II, a quarter of Poland's population was Jewish, German or Ukrainian. But by 1947, virtually all those people had either been murdered or banished.
Stripped of their sovereignty as part of the Soviet bloc, Poles were left with their blood ties and their Catholicism to give them a sense of nationhood. And communism - as well as an entirely understandable persecution complex - helped keep the country in a kind of ethnic isolation.
But a long list of factors suggests the country's monoculture could soon be a thing of the past.
As most of Europe slows, economically, Poland picks up. It was the only EU member of 27 to avoid recession during the crisis of 2008-2009 and it continues to buck trends.
Continue reading the main story Find out more
At the same time, it has labour shortages exacerbated by the emigration of millions of workers.
The man in charge of immigration policy, Rafal Rogala, seems well aware there are changes in store.
"I feel proud", says the Minister for Foreigners, "that Poland is a destination country for economic migrants. We understand them perfectly because, up until now, we have been the economic migrants.
"Buried deep within us is this gene of openness toward foreigners. We understand the need to improve your fate and build a life elsewhere. Now it is a question of education, of getting our people used to the idea that we are a destination country for lots of foreigners who will want to live and work here".
Economic circumstances Mr Rogala admits that immigration might not be a matter of choice, given the economic circumstances.
He has reservations shared by western European politicians whose countries have already lived through an influx. And the British model is not one he is keen to copy.
In no way is he suggesting, he says, "that we want to become a multicultural society. Both Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy admitted that multi-culturalism had not passed the test".
The other end of Poland's new immigration spectrum is every bit as surprising as that represented by the family from Vietnam.
In Wroclaw, Poland's fourth city, 300km (200 miles) south-west of the capital, hundreds of expatriates from the world's richest nations came together for the Christmas party of the city's chamber of commerce.
American bankers networked with German PR officials and Danish software executives, all of whom have recently made Poland their home.
They compared large suburban homes, golf club membership, theatre visits and gourmet meals out.
Paul Norris arrived in Wroclaw from Surrey in England four months ago with his French wife, Catherine, and their two children. He is relishing his role as head of a fast-growing IT team at Credit Suisse's base there.
Emilie, 10, and Louis, 8, are enjoying Polish lessons at their international school.
Catherine might wrestle with the nuances of Polish life, but she, too, is glad they have made the move.
"I have met lots of really nice Polish people," she says.
"To start with, I thought they could be quite rude in shops, not particularly tolerant of foreigners. But I think they are quite private people and you have to understand them a little bit better.
"I have been reading about Polish history and they have been part of so many empires, people wanting bits of them. So it's no wonder the older people are as they are, a little defensive."
The family are discussing how long they will stay in Poland. They do not rule out the long-term.
Professor Krystyna Iglicka is an economist at the Lazarski School of Commerce and Law in Warsaw and advisor to the government on immigration.
"We need hard-working immigrants", she says, "eager to contribute to this nation. Ironically, we need exactly the same people you [the UK] got from us in the year 2004."
Just as western Europe got the ubiquitous "Polish plumber", she says, Poland got the Ukrainian nanny and the Belarusian builder.
And she hopes they are the front-runners of many more.
Thanks to its economic success, the face of Poland might never be the same again.
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