Chancellor Angela Merkel's declaration that Germany's attempts to build a multicultural society had "utterly failed" is feeding a growing debate over how to deal with the millions of foreigners who call the country home.What's that? You get a bunch of people whose values don't line up and their attempts to build a cohesive functioning society utterly fail? Huh, who could've seen that coming? Apparently there are a lot of people who DON'T see it coming even here in the United States, as they also say nothing about immigrants to the U.S. assimilating into American culture, learning English, etc. On that note, I am reminded of the old quote from Houston deejay John Walton:
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Merkel told a meeting of young members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union that while immigrants are welcome in Germany, they must learn the language and accept the country's cultural norms — sounding a note heard increasingly across Europe as it battles an economic slump and worries about homegrown terrorism.
"If you don't have borders and a common language, you don't have a country."
And the same goes for common values, too. Why must we continue to make the same mistakes over and over? Does the term balkanization mean anything to anyone?
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