“
Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.
”
”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“
Keep your language. Love its sounds, its modulation, its rhythm. But try to march together with men of different languages, remote from your own, who wish like you for a more just and human world.
”
”
Hélder Câmara (Spiral of Violence)
“
Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture’s intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women’s rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity.
”
”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now)
“
Diversity is an aspect of human existence that cannot be eradicated by terrorism or war or self-consuming hatred. It can only be conquered by recognizing and claiming the wealth of values it represents for all.
”
”
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
“
Beneath the armor of skin/and/bone/and/mind
most of our colors are amazingly the same.
”
”
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
“
Where humanity
sowed faith, hope, and unity,
joy’s garden blossomed.
”
”
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
“
Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences, like love and weeping and laughter, common to all human beings.
”
”
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
“
In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn't translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.
”
”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations)
“
If the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the observation that we are all much more alike than we are unalike.
”
”
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
“
We ache with the yearning
that turns half into whole
and offer no excuses
for the beauty of our souls.
”
”
Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
“
Travel opens windows to a rich and diverse world,
which you can never see from your homeland.
”
”
Mouloud Benzadi
“
The glorification of hatred is predicated on a foundation of fear-induced ignorance venomous to haters and those they believe they hate.
”
”
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
“
The American identity has never been a singular one and the voices of poets invariably sing, in addition to their own, the voices of those around them.
”
”
Aberjhani (The American Poet Who Went Home Again)
“
Our greatest power as nations and individuals is not the ability
to employ assault weapons, suicide bombers, and drones
to destroy each other. The greater more creative powers
with which we may arm ourselves are grace and compassion
sufficient enough to love and save each other.
”
”
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
“
The acknowledgement of a single possibility can change everything.
”
”
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
“
We are not born to accommodate tyranny over our hearts, minds, bodies, or souls. We are here to confirm an abundance of love-inspired possibilities greater than such restrictions.
”
”
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
“
Too rich to be relevant to the world's poor, [Europe] attracts immigration but cannot encourage imitation. Too passive regarding international security. Too self-satisfied, it acts as if its central political goal is to become the worlds most comfortable retirement home. Too set in its ways, it fears multicultural diversity
”
”
Zbigniew Brzeziński (The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives)
“
We are living in an era in which billions of people are grappling to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding over the more destructive forces of war, terrorism, and political chaos that have characterized the beginning of the 21st Century.
”
”
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
“
It wasn't a romance; it was too perfect for that. With texts there were only the words and none of the awkwardness. They could get to know each other completely and get comfortable before they had to do anything unnecessarily overwhelming like look at each other's eyeballs with their eyeballs.
”
”
Mary H.K. Choi (Emergency Contact)
“
You are the hybrids of golden worlds and ages splendidly conceived.
”
”
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
“
We knew how to combine our strengths in order to overcome our weaknesses, and how to live off faith when nothing else was available.
”
”
Aberjhani (Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind)
“
The theoretical recognition of the split-space of enunciation may open the way to conceptualising an international culture, based not on the exoticism of multiculturalism or the diversity of cultures, but on the inscription and articulation of culture's hybridity. It is the inbetween space that carries the burden of the meaning of culture, and by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves.
”
”
Homi K. Bhabha (The Location of Culture)
“
Multiculturalism compels educators to recognize the narrow boundaries that have shaped the way knowledge is shared in the classroom. It forces us all to recognize our complicity in accepting and perpetuating biases of any kind.
”
”
bell hooks (Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom)
“
As we encounter each other, we see our diversity — of background, race, ethnicity, belief – and how we handle that diversity will have much to say about whether we will in the end be able to rise successfully to the great challenges we face today.
”
”
Dan Smith (The State of the World Atlas)
“
The point of diversity workshops, or multicultural talks, was not to inspire any real change but to leave people feeling good about themselves. They did not want the content of her ideas; they merely wanted the gesture of her presence. They had not read her blog but they had heard that she was a “leading blogger” about race.
”
”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah)
“
I like "multi-"...multiplicity, multicultural, multiplication etc. Any contribution to diversification and value augmentation is achievement.
”
”
Rossana Condoleo
“
We were, each of us… at a crossroads of public and private dynamics which had brought us to this frame-worthy moment. I thought of the different currents and crosscurrents of history which had formed, merged, broken apart, and reformed to create the opportunity for us to give something essential to each other’s lives.
”
”
Aberjhani (Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah)
“
Looking at my reflection tonight, I see a new girl staring back at me. She has big hair and big eyes and a big heart. Not only is she the perfect size and pretty...she is smart. -Mackenzie
”
”
Tara Michener (Summer Camp Survival)
“
Whatever grace might 'trickle down' from the higher regions of a given society to the lower is no more essential than that which rises and converges from
the opposite direction.
”
”
Aberjhani (Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind)
“
There is a great new work before us, which is to replace with true knowledge the ignorance that has destroyed human minds. We will construct unity in a world [which] has been brutally torn apart by false divisions of race, religion, gender, nationality, and age. We will heal with unconditional love those souls whose hearts have been disfigured by hatred and loneliness.
”
”
Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
“
We need to help students and parent cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community--and this nation.
”
”
César Chávez
“
Diversity is key where my casting duties are concerned. And as a casting director, I will always assemble multi-cultural ensembles. Always.
”
”
Cat Ellington
“
There was no way she'd allow him to see her do 97 percent of her normal activities. She was a monster. A monster who was flat as a board with no ass. In fact, the only thing she had going on in the curves department was an enormous cystic pimple on her chin that hurt when she touched it. Yeah, no.
”
”
Mary H.K. Choi (Emergency Contact)
“
It is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the Moon as to put a bone in your nose.
”
”
William A. Henry III (In Defense of Elitism)
“
What good are those wings if you can't use them to fly?
”
”
Jamie A. Triplin (Malia the Merfairy and The Lucky Rainbow Cake)
“
A fish only discovers its need for
water when it is no longer in it.
Our own culture is like
water to a fish.
It sustains us.
”
”
Fons Trompenaars
“
Although people all over the world pray in different ways, it is to each heart the most precious light.
”
”
Rabiah York Lumbard
“
I am the rainbow. Don't you see how my tail is a collection of all the colors from the sea, land, and sky?
”
”
Jamie A. Triplin (Malia the Merfairy and The Lucky Rainbow Cake)
“
You found what makes you special. Don't let anyone take that away from you best friend!
”
”
Jamie A. Triplin (Malia the Merfairy and The Lucky Rainbow Cake)
“
It is insufficient to only tell your children that racism and racists are bad. It is insufficient to simply explain “We love people of all colors.” It is lazy and near damaging to proclaim a love for all people but never make the leap of actually reaching out to people of color or adding tangible diversity to your life. In a world filled with empty rhetoric, our children don’t need to hear words from us without action.
They need to see us embody the beliefs we claim to hold dear.
”
”
Bellamy Shoffner
“
The instinct to tell our children that they are better than someone else’s children, based on nothing more than the color of their skin, is now a fossilized aberration that serves no useful purpose.
”
”
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
“
We who have the luxury of living in the West have an obligation to stand up for liberal principles. Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture's intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women's rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity. And we need to say unambiguously to Muslims living in the West: if you want to live in our societies, to share in their material benefits, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional. They are the foundations of our way of life; of our civilization - a civilization that learned, slowly and painfully, not to burn heretics, but to honor them.
”
”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now)
“
We are drawn to the Renaissance because of the hope for black uplift and interracial empathy that it embodied and because there is a certain element of romanticism associated with the era’s creativity, its seemingly larger than life heroes and heroines, and its most brilliantly lit terrain, Harlem, USA.
”
”
Clement Alexander Price (Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History))
“
Multiculturalism destroys the true diversity which nature requires for the continued evolution of the species through the natural selection process of differentiation and competition between specialized populations within a group.
”
”
Billy Roper (Hasten the Day: The First Year of the Balkanization of America)
“
The key word among advocates of multiculturalism became “diversity.” Sweeping claims for the benefits of demographic and cultural diversity in innumerable institutions and circumstances have prevailed without a speck of evidence being asked for or given. It is one of the purest examples of arguments without arguments, and of the force of sheer repetition, insistence and intimidation.
”
”
Thomas Sowell (Intellectuals and Society)
“
The city of Paris, France, became a place of refuge for biracial Americans during slavery and at the time of the Harlem Renaissance for black musicians, fine artists, writers and others seeking opportunities to practice their craft free from American racism.
”
”
Sandra L. West (Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History))
“
A book written within, contains ideas and thoughts from all over, where each page explains itself.
”
”
Oscar Auliq-Ice
“
When a country has a strong spirit, foreign and exotic influences do not debilitated that spirit, they strengthen it.
- German Literature in the Age of Bach
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges (Selected Non-Fictions)
“
One small step towards a language is one giant leap towards inclusion.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans)
“
Maybe it will just be easier for me and everyone else if I just called myself a Mermaid." Malia felt out of place in a world full of mermaids.
”
”
Jamie A. Triplin (Malia the Merfairy and The Lucky Rainbow Cake)
“
Obélix, mange et ne fais pas de commentaires! En Bretagne, il faut faire comme les Bretons!
”
”
René Goscinny
“
Black is brave,
Woman is wonder,
Muslim is magnetic,
Asian is thunder.
Prejudice is plunder,
Biases are blunder.
Hate wreaks havoc,
when hearts are asunder.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood)
“
History has blessed us with all the freedom and advantages of multiculturalism. But it has also blessed us, because of the accident of our origins, with the linguistic unity that brings a critically needed cohesion to a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Why gratuitously throw away that priceless asset? How mindless to call the desire to retain it 'racist.
”
”
Charles Krauthammer (Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics)
“
There is a great deal of nonsense written on the subject of diversity and multiculturalism, but the fact remains that the great challenge facing our world is that of maintaining clear convictions and strong commitments while living in peaceful proximity with people with different convictions and commitments, avoiding brittle bigotry on the one hand and soggy relativism on the other.
”
”
Maria Poggi Johnson
“
Nothing about multiculturalism antagonized Rachel. She liked all kinds of food, clothing, cultural customs, and music. The one thing that held her aloof was a fear of offending through ignorance.
”
”
Ausma Zehanat Khan (The Unquiet Dead (Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #1))
“
...one could argue that it is reasonable to suppose that cultures that have provided the horizon of meaning for large numbers of human beings, of diverse characters and temperaments, over a long period of time - that have, in other words, articulated their sense of the good, the holy, the admirable - are almost certain to have something that deserves our admiration and respect, even if it is accompanied by much that we have to abhor and reject... We need only a sense of our own limited part in the whole human story to accept [this] presumption. It is only arrogance, or some analogous moral failing, that can deprive us of this.
”
”
Charles Margrave Taylor (Multiculturalism)
“
Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture’s intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women’s rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity. And we need to say unambiguously to Muslims living in the West: If you want to live in our societies, to share in their material benefits, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional. They
”
”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now)
“
Many live where they must, not where they choose, yet still endeavor to form lifestyle enclaves to whatever degree they are able. Simlarly, people now live within what we might call "cultural enclaves." Individuals with very different meaning systems - from cyberpunks to fundamentalist Muslims - can create and receive their own distinct cultural objects and confine their interactions to others who share their meaning systems. These interacting cultural groups may be labeled communities, and they may and do cross political and geographical boundaries, but they are built around sameness rather than around diversity. Their tendency is not to increase tolerance - the stated goal of multiculturalism - but to diminish it.
”
”
Wendy Griswold (Cultures and Societies in a Changing World (Sociology for a New Century Series))
“
Progressive thought is blind when it suggests that there can be no anti-white racism or an anti-semitism among the formerly oppressed or the young people in the projects because they themselves have suffered from this evil. They are the victims; they are exempt from the prejudices that affect the majority of the population. But the reverse is true: racism is multiplying at exponential rates among groups and communities, taboos are collapsing, and everything is explained in terms of physical characteristics, identity, purity, and difference. and this is a racism that is all the more certain that it is right because it is regarded as a legitimate reaction on the part of the persecuted. now we see the obsession with the pedigree and the old distinctions derived from slavery being revived, and prejudices accumulating in the name of racism. This is the end of the concept of humanity as union in diversity and the triumph of human species incompatible with each other.
”
”
Pascal Bruckner (The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism)
“
The political class has adopted inclusiveness and diversity as a political instrument, as a means of controlling a society it has set about reshaping. The “diversity machine” is a mechanism of state power that operates without anyone being permitted to notice its coercive nature. Therapeutic regimes are packaged in a way that disguises their resort to force; both the Left and establishment Right in the United States, which misrepresent political life, have helped to make this concealment possible.
”
”
Paul Edward Gottfried (Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Towards a Secular Theocracy)
“
The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today's races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals.
”
”
Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi (Praktischer Idealismus: Adel, Technik, Pazifismus)
“
Dominated by Zionism's particular concept of nationality, the State of Israel
still refuses, sixty years after its establishment, to see itself as a republic that
serves its citizens. One quarter of the citizens are not categorized as Jews, and
the laws of the state imply that Israel is not their state nor do they own it. The
state has also avoided integrating the local inhabitants into the superculture it
has created, and has instead deliberately excluded them. Israel has also refused
to be a consociational democracy (like Switzerland or Belgium) or a multicultural democracy (like Great Britain or the Netherlands)—that is to say, a state
that accepts its diversity while serving its inhabitants. Instead, Israel insists on
seeing itself as a Jewish state belonging to all the Jews in the world, even though they are no longer persecuted refugees but full citizens of the countries in which
they choose to reside. The excuse for this grave violation of a basic principle of
modern democracy, and for the preservation of an unbridled ethnocracy that
grossly discriminates against certain of its citizens, rests on the active myth of an
eternal nation that must ultimately forgather in its ancestral land.
”
”
Shlomo Sand
“
So meaning is only a moment and a transition from absurdity to absurdity, and absurdity only a moment and a transition from meaning to meaning.
Oh, that Siegfried, blond and blue-eyed, the German hero, had to fall by my hand, the most loyal and courageous! He had everything in himself that I treasured as the greater and more beautiful; he was my power, my boldness, my pride. I would have gone under in the same battle, and so only assassination was left to me. If I wanted to go on living, it could only be through trickery and cunning.
Judge not! Think of the blond savage of the German forests, who had to betray the hammer-brandishing thunder to the pale Near Eastern god who was nailed to the wood like a chicken marten. The courageous were overcome by a certain contempt for themselves. But their life force bade them to go on living, and they betrayed their beautiful wild Gods, their holy trees and their awe of the German forests.
”
”
C.G. Jung (The Red Book: Liber Novus)
“
They were like an overconstructed novel, each representative of some cul-de-sac of idiolect and stereotype, missing only a handicapped person – No! At Berkeley we say handi capable person – and a Jew and a Hispanic, and an Asian not of the subcontinent, Louis always said. He had once placed a personals ad on Craigslist to recruit for those positions: Diverse social club seeking to make quota requires the services of East Asian, Jew, Hispanic, and handicapable individuals to round out Multicultural Brady Bunch Troupe. All applicants must be visibly identifiable as members of said group. Reformed Jews and ADHDers need not apply.
”
”
T. Geronimo Johnson (Welcome to Braggsville)
“
When everybody was, you know, pushing for multiculturalism in lead institutions, it really meant filtering a few people of color or women into university departments or newsrooms, while carrying out this savage economic assault against the working poor and, in particular, poor people of color in deindustrialized pockets of the United States. Very few of these multiculturalists even noticed. I am all for diversity, but not when it is devoid of economic justice. Cornel West has been one of the great champions, not only of the black prophetic tradition, the most important intellectual tradition in our history, but the clarion call for justice in all its forms. There is no racial justice without economic justice. And while these elite institutions sprinkled a few token faces into their hierarchy, they savaged the working class and the poor, especially poor people of color.
Much of the left was fooled by the identity politics trick. It was a boutique activism. It kept the corporate system, the one we must destroy, intact. It gave it a friendly face.
”
”
Chris Hedges
“
Because this report considered “commitment to multicultural social studies education” to be crucial, it called for “extensive staff development” which would “address attitudes”—i.e., indoctrination—and which would extend even to the schools’ clerical staffs and bus drivers.7 In short, the call for cultural “diversity” is a call for ideological conformity.
”
”
Thomas Sowell (Inside American Education)
“
A truly multicultural nation ruled by multiculturalists would not have Christianity as its unofficial standard religion. It would not have suits as its standard professional attire. English would not be its standard language or be assessed by standardized tests. Ethnic Studies would not be looked upon as superfluous to educational curricula. Afrocentric scholars and other multicultural theorists, lecturing on multiple cultural perspectives, would not be looked upon as controversial. No cultural group would be directly and indirectly asked to learn and conform to any other group’s cultural norms in public in order to get ahead. A nation of different-looking people is not automatically multicultural or diverse if most of them practice or are learning to practice the same culture.
”
”
Ibram X. Kendi (Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America)
“
Laurie piped up again. 'At State, everybody calls diversity dispersity. What happens is, everybody has their own clubs, their own signs, their own sections where they all sit in the dining hall--all the African Americans are over there? . . . and all the Asians sit over't these other tables? -- except for the Koreans? -- because they don't get along with the Japanese so they sit way over there? Everybody's dispersed into their own little groups -- and everybody's told to distrust everybody else? Everybody's told that everybody else is trying to screw them over--oops!' -- Laurie pulled a face and put her fingertips over her lips -- 'I'm sorry!' She rolled eyes and smiled. 'Anyway, the idea is, every other group is like prejudiced against your group, and no matter what they say, they're only out to take advantage of you, and you should have nothing to do with them -- unless your white, in which case all the others are not prejudiced against you, they're like totally right, because you really are a racist and everything, even if you don't know it? Everybody ends up dispersed into their own like turtle shells, suspicious of everybody else and being careful not to fraternize with them. Is it like that at Dupont?
”
”
Tom Wolfe (I Am Charlotte Simmons)
“
That evening she received an e-mail: YOUR TALK WAS BALONEY. YOU ARE A RACIST. YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL WE LET YOU INTO THIS COUNTRY. That e-mail, written in all capital letters, was a revelation. The point of diversity workshops, or multicultural talks, was not to inspire any real change but to leave people feeling good about themselves. They did not want the content of her ideas; they merely wanted the gesture of her presence.
”
”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah)
“
Cosmopolitanism must manage the contradiction between its ethos of transcending ethnicity and its need for cultural diversity, which requires ethnic attachment. Bourne resolved this by splitting the world into two moral planes, one for a ‘parental’ majority who would be asked to shed their ethnicity and oppose their own culture, and the other for childlike minorities, who would be urged to embrace their heritage in the strongest terms.
”
”
Eric Kaufmann (Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities)
“
Sonnet of Languages
Turkish is the language of love,
Spanish is the language of revolution.
Swedish is the language of resilience,
English is the language of translation.
Portuguese is the language of adventure,
German is the language of discipline.
French is the language of passion,
Italian is the language of cuisine.
With over 7000 languages in the world,
Handful of tongues fall short in a sonnet.
But you can rest assured of one thing,
Every language does something the very best.
Each language is profoundly unique in its own way.
When they come together, they light the human way.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans)
“
When an organization confuses diversity or inclusion with reconciliation, it often shows up in an obsession with numbers. How many Black people are in the photo? Has the 20 percent quota been met, so that we can call ourselves multicultural? Does our publication have enough stories written by people of color? Are there enough people of color on the TV show? But without people of color in key positions, influencing topics of conversation, content, direction, and vision, whatever diversity is included is still essentially white—it just adds people of color like sprinkles on top. The cake is still vanilla.
”
”
Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
“
When an organization confuses diversity or inclusion with reconciliation, it often shows up in an obsession with numbers. How many Black people are in the photo? Has the 20 percent quota been met, so that we can call ourselves multicultural? Does our publication have enough stories written by people of color? Are there enough people of color on the TV show? But without people of color in key positions, influencing topics of conversation, content, direction, and vision, whatever diversity is included is still essentially white - it just adds people of color like sprinkles on top. The cake is still vanilla.
”
”
Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
“
From the perspective of inclusive fitness, unfamiliar others are potential free-riders and, out of a concern that they will be exploited by others, people reduce considerably their altruistic attitudes and behavior in a general way in more diverse communities. This loss of trust is a symptom of a breakdown in social cohesion and is surely a forerunner of the sort of ethnic conflict that is always likely to break out if allowed to do so. This is undoubtedly the reason why multicultural nation-states are forever promoting tolerance and ever more punitive sanctions for the expression of ethnic hostility, even going so far to as to discourage the expression of opinion about the reality of ethnic and racial differences. Currently these measures are directed at the host population when they express reservations about the wisdom of mass immigration, but this will surely change as it becomes ever more obvious that it is the presence of competing ethnic groups that is creating the tension and not the expressed reservations of the majority population. The real danger for modern democracies is that in their zeal to promote multicultural societies, they will be forced to resort to the means that have characterized all empires attempting to maintain their hegemony over disparate peoples.
”
”
Byron M. Roth (The Perils of Diversity: Immigration and Human Nature)
“
Favoritism is Good (The Sonnet)
My favorite language in the world is Turkish,
Because its culture electrifies my scars.
My favorite language in the East is Telugu,
Because its music emboldens my nerves.
My favorite language in the West is Spanish,
Because it teaches me the worth of freedom.
Favorite ancient tongues are Arabic 'n Sanskrit,
For one embodies peace, another assimilation.
My favorite science of all is electronics,
For it empowers my imagination untainted.
My favorite philosophy is everyday curiosity,
It helps me transcend all sectarian intellect.
My favorite religion in the world is service,
Because it transforms an animal into human.
I don't care what you believe or don't,
As long as your behavior speaks compassion.
Favoritism is a civilized faculty,
when practiced beyond blood and border.
Problem is when you see nothing at all,
beyond the rim of your family and culture.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect)
“
Multiculturalism denies historical and scientific evidence that people differ in important biological and cultural ways that makes their assimilation into host countries problematic. It is also extreme in the viciousness with which it attacks those who differ on this issue. These attacks are accompanied by a very generalized and one-sided denigration of Western traditions and Western accomplishments, and claims that a collective guilt should be assumed by all Europeans (whites) for the sins of their forebears. In the semireligious formulation of this view, expiation of these sins can only come through an absolute benevolence toward the poor of the world whose suffering is claimed to be the result of the white race and its depredations. In practical terms this can only be accomplished through aid to Third World peoples and generous immigration policies that allow large numbers of people to escape the poverty of the Third World.
”
”
Byron M. Roth (The Perils of Diversity: Immigration and Human Nature)
“
We can choose to try to persuade people who are repeating demagogic talking points while choosing not to get into arguments with them.
Demagoguery about 'them' is undone by empathy. Generalizations about 'them' are complicated, and sometimes shattered, by experiences with individual members of 'them,' or even humanizing stories. Tell those stories, mention those friends, talk about those experiences, and just refuse to argue. Invite your interlocutor to meet 'them,' point out the individuals who don't fit the stereotype, and, if you are a member of their out-group, then resist your interlocutor's desire to treat you as an exception. Many of the people who explain how they came to reject demagoguery about some out-group say they were changed when they got to know (and love) people in that group, or when they discovered that people whom they had long loved were members of the out-group. Just bear witness to the glory of diversity and pluralism.
”
”
Patricia Roberts-Miller (Demagoguery and Democracy)
“
It is quite unfathomable why the EU leadership fails to anticipate these potentially catastrophic possibilities, and fails to respond to popular concerns with more moderate immigration policies. One possible explanation for these perverse policies that has been put forward by highly regarded scholars, such as Samuel Huntington, is that the current leadership of the EU is composed of left-wing authoritarians who are enemies of the Western liberal tradition. According to Huntington, “Multiculturalism is in its essence anti-European... "and opposes its civilization. The official repression of dissent and pursuance of unpopular policies by undemocratic means suggests that such ideologues wish to turn the EU into a centrally controlled empire similar to the Soviet Union. If that is the case, then their current policies make a good deal of sense, in that they flood the continent with people who have lived under autocratic regimes and never lived in democratic republics. Such people may well be willing to tolerate repressive regimes provided they can maintain a moderate standard of living and their own traditional religious practices. As Hunnngton points out, imperial regimes often promote ethnic conflict among their minority citizens to strengthen the power of the central authority, with the not unrealistic claim that a powerful central authority is essential to maintain civil order. But if that is the case, then Europe will be transformed into an authoritarian and illiberal multiethnic empire, undemocratic, economically crippled and culturally retrograde. Is it any wonder that so many see Europe as committing suicide and its end coming "not with a bang, but a whimper?
”
”
Byron M. Roth (The Perils of Diversity: Immigration and Human Nature)
“
Now consider the writers we turn to during events promoting diversity—events such as Multicultural Authors Week and Black History Month. These writers usually include Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Amy Tan, and Sandra Cisneros. We go to these writers for the black or Asian perspective; Toni Morrison is always seen as a black writer, not just a writer. But when we are not looking for the black or Asian perspective, we return to white writers, reinforcing the idea of whites as just human, and people of color as particular kinds (racialized) of humans. This also allows white (male) writers to be seen as not having an agenda or any particular perspective, while racialized (and gendered) writers do.
”
”
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
“
From Alan Thein Duening:
Picture North America from space. Look at the upper left and start an imaginary line on the rugged coast of southern Alaska. Climb the ridges that encircle Prince William Sound. Cross the snowy teeth of the Chugach Mountains and descend through kettle-pond country to the feet of the towering Alaska Range. Rise again to the bitter heights and turning southeast along the crest, clip the corner of the Yukon Territory. Enter British Columbia and veer east through its folding north.
Turn your line south when you reach the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. Follow the divide down the thousand-mile spine of British Columbia, across Montana, along the buttressed ridges of the Idaho border and into Wyoming as far as Jackson Hole.
There, leave the divide and turn westward toward the coast. Following the swells and benches that limit the Columbia Basin, dip southward into Utah and Nevada, then northward again around the high desert of central Oregon. When you approach the Cascade Mountains, veer southwest through the tangled topography of northern California to the crest of the Coast Range. Just north of San Francisco Bay, descend to the shores of the Pacific.
The line you have drawn is an unfamiliar one. You won’t find it on maps. But it shows a geographical unit more real, in ecological sense, than any of the lines governments draw. You have drawn a biological region, a bioregion. Specifically, you have outlines the watersheds of rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean through North America’s temperate rain forest zone with a fifteen-hundred-mile belt of rain forests along the coast.
The unity of this diverse bioregion is the movement of its water; every ounce of moisture that the ocean throws into the sky and the sky hurls down on the land inside this region’s borders tumbles toward the rain forest coast. If it does not evaporate or get trapped in underground aquifers along the way, water will reach that dripping shoreline through one of several hundred swift, cold rivers. Most likely, it will travel through the Columbia or the Fraser rivers, home to the Earth’s greatest population of migrating salmon.
This place, defined by water running to woodlands, has no perfect name. You can call it Rain Forest Province, the North Pacific Slope, or Cascadia… Natural units of place such as this have always mattered more to people than has humanity in general or the planet in its entirety. Indeed, history is unequivocal; people will sacrifice for villages, homelands, or nations, even giving their lives. But humans seem unwilling to sacrifice for their planet, despite the fact that it is now suffering proportionately greater losses from social decay and environmental destruction than most countries at war.
”
”
David Landis Barnhill (At Home on the Earth: Becoming Native to Our Place: A Multicultural Anthology)
“
From Alan Thein Durning:
The extreme disruption of ecosystems will end. The question is whether people will end it voluntarily and creatively, or whether nature will end it for them, savagely and catastrophically... Humanity’s failure to act in defense of the Earth is conventionally explained as a problem of knowledge: not enough people yet understand the dangers or know what to do about them. An alternative explanation is that this failure reflects a fundamental problem of motivation. People know enough, but they don’t care enough. They do not care enough because they do not identify themselves with the world as a whole. The Earth is such a big place that it might as well be no place at all.
If places motivate but the planet does not, a curious paradox emerges. The wrenching global problems that the world’s leading thinkers so earnestly warn about- crises such as deforestation, hunger, population growth, climate change, loss of cultural and biological diversity- may submit to solutions only obliquely. The only cures possible may be local and motivated by a sentiment- the love of home- that global thinkers often regarded as divisive and or provincial. Thus, it may be possible to diagnose problems globally, but impossible to solve them globally. There may not be any ways to save to world that are not, first and foremost, ways for people to say their own places.
Here is the hope: that this generation becomes the next wave of natives, first in this place on Earth and then in others. This newfound permanence allows the quiet murmur of localities to become audible again. And that not long thereafter, perhaps very soon, the places of this Earth will be healed and whole again.
...AJ Auden said, “We have spent thee past 250 years in restless movement, recklessly skimming off the cream of superabundant resources, but we have not used the land in the true sense of the word, not have we done ourselves much permanent good. It’s high times that we settled down, not for a hundred years, but for a thousand, forever.
”
”
David Landis Barnhill (At Home on the Earth: Becoming Native to Our Place: A Multicultural Anthology)
“
He accused me of hiding the letter. He accused me of being too empathetic. And he accused me of not acknowledging the potential danger. But he was wrong, wrong and wrong
”
”
Missy Michaels (Loyal)
“
All through history every culture on earth has produced its distinct literature - American literature, British literature, Latino Literature, Arabic literature, Turkish literature, European literature, Bengali literature and so on. I am none of these, because I am all of these - Naskar is the amalgamation of all of world's cultures. Naskar is the first epitome of integrated Earth literature - where there is no inferior, no superior - no greater, no lesser. Soulfulness of Rumiland, heartfulness of Martíland, correctiveness of MLKland, sweetness of Tagoreland - merge them all in the fire of love, and lo emerges Naskarland - merge them all in the fire of love, and lo emerges lightland.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science)
“
AI can translate info, not inkling,
AI can translate facts, not poetry.
Till a tongue transcends lips to soul,
Translations are but soulless forgery.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science)
“
Each language leaves a distinct mental imprint,
Inaccessible by the fanciest of translator.
Translation gives a glimpse into the head,
Language is highway to the soul of a culture.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science)
“
AI can translate info, not inkling,
AI can translate facts, not poetry.
Till a tongue transcends lips to soul,
Translations are but soulless forgery.
Each language leaves a distinct mental imprint,
Inaccessible by the fanciest of translator.
Translation gives a glimpse into the head,
Language is highway to the soul of a culture.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science)
“
Number of Ingroups If only one ingroup is present, it dominates social life. It provides the only source of norms, identity, and social support. Collectivists may have relatively few ingroups, but they identify very strongly with them. The ingroups of collectivists provide social insurance, protection, and a relaxing atmosphere. The presence of many ingroups encourages individualism. For example, the separation of church and state in the United States automatically creates more than one ingroup and is a premise upon which multiculturalism and democracy are based. It is also the foundation for social movements because each ingroup can potentially become a social movement. Multiple ingroups are especially important in large urban centers, where the social controls of small ingroups are often weak. The social structures of these communities are loose, and several of the factors we have discussed converge to put more emphasis on personal responsibility and less on norms. With more ingroups and looseness there is an increase in social diversity, tolerance for deviance, and multiculturalism. Thus the factors that make cultures loose and allow many choices favor individualism. Conversely, collectivism is maximal in tight cultures, where there are few choices.
”
”
Harry C. Triandis (Individualism And Collectivism (New Directions in Social Psychology))
“
Every American carries with them the story of an immigrant— undocumented and visionary.
”
”
William Castano-Bedoya (We the Other People: The Beggars of the Mercury Lights)
“
Light is but another name for integration.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World)
“
In recent years, Belgium has emerged as a prime destination for international students seeking high-quality education in a diverse and multicultural environment.
”
”
Study in Belgium without IELTS 2024
“
I have but one law - I don't exist. I don't have a homeland, I don't have a native tongue, I don't have an origin culture - for you are my home, your tongue is my tongue, your culture is my culture. Those who still want to learn about my origin, could easily find out where I come from and all that nonsense, but as for me, my existence is rooted in you - that's all you gotta know. Nothing else matters, nothing else must matter. I repeat, nothing else must matter. For an earthbound species, I am native of earth - for an interplanetary species, I am native of Milky Way - for an intergalactic species, I am a native of the cosmos - for a lifeform beyond time and space, I am but a speck of carbon-based electrochemical memory.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Either Right or Human: 300 Limericks of Inclusion)
“
They ask me,
why do you speak for so many cultures,
when you are not born in those cultures?
So I asked the sun,
why do you share your light with earth,
when you are not born of earth?
The sun told me,
o ye of little mind, don't you know,
light is not mine to give!
Light is the intrinsic right of life,
I am merely accessory to the motive.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat: Pani, Agua, Water, It's All One)
“
I exist when you exist;
You exist, therefore I exist.
Shared existence is only existence,
Scared existence is existence ruined.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat: Pani, Agua, Water, It's All One)
“
Islam may soon become the majority religion in countries whose churches have been turned more and more into tourist sites, apartment houses, theaters, and places of entertainment. The French scholar Olivier Roy is right: Islam is now a European religion. How Europeans, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, cope with this is the question that will decide our future. And what better place to watch the drama unfold than the Netherlands, where freedom came from a revolt against Catholic Spain, where ideals of tolerance and diversity became a badge of national honor, and where political Islam struck its first blow against a man whose deepest conviction was that freedom of speech included the freedom to insult.
”
”
Ian Buruma (Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance)
“
Each heart is a shelter for another,
Each life is sanctuary for another.
Blasting all traditions of divide
into cinders with knowledge-dynamite,
we shall emerge as each other's keeper.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Yaralardan Yangın Doğar: Explorers of Night are Emperors of Dawn (Sonnet Sultan))
“
The cultural databases that underpin this book have been extended to include not only more cases and more country data from more respondents but also a whole wealth of cultural measurements of competences, dilemmas and their reconciliations, servant leadership across cultures, innovation paradigms across cultures, and multicultural and remote team effectiveness.
”
”
Fons Trompenaars (Riding the Waves of Culture, Fourth Edition: Understanding Diversity in Global Business)
“
I don't write on multiculturalism,
I am multiculturalism.
The only nationalism I care about,
is tribalism ending multinationalism.
Either you'll know me as a national hero
of every nation, or you won't know me at all.
So long as a single human calls me foreigner,
I'll conclude, I've achieved nothing at all.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets)
“
I am too alive to be bound by ideology,
I am too human to be bound by border.
Too civilized to pledge flagly allegiance,
I am the ultimate geopolitical defector.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets)
“
First, on a multicultural team, you can save time by having as few people in the group work across cultures as possible. For example, if you are building a global team that includes small groups of participants from four countries, choose one or two people from each country—the most internationally experienced of the bunch—to do most of the cross-cultural collaborating. Meanwhile, you can leave the others to work in the local way that is most natural to them. That way, you can have the innovation from the combination of cultures, while avoiding the inefficiency that comes with the clash of cultures. Second, think carefully about your larger objectives before you mix cultures up. If your goal is innovation or creativity, the more cultural diversity the better, as long as the process is managed carefully. But if your goal is simple speed and efficiency, then monocultural is probably better than multicultural. Sometimes, it is simply better to leave Rome to the Romans.
”
”
Erin Meyer (The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business)
“
World Gospel (The Sonnet)
So long as there is selfishness,
There is no Christmas.
So long as there is occupation,
There is no Hanukkah.
So long as there is cruelty,
There is no Ramadan.
Till we end militant atheism,
There is no Humanism.
Till you conquer superstition,
There is no Diwali.
So long as there is division,
There is no Vaisakhi.
So long as there is inequality,
There is no Fourth of July.
Till we abolish hate from earth,
At half mast all flags must fly.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets)