Trey Smith
As horrific as some of the mass murders have been in the US over the past 20 years or so, all of them pale in comparison to the carnage that took place in Norway last summer. For example, while there was a total of 49 casualties (dead and wounded) during the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 or 70 casualties during the Aurora mass shooting last month, 77 were killed and hundreds were injured in the attacks perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik.
On Friday, Breivik was sentenced for his crimes. Unlike in the US where the majority of people would consider it a travesty of justice for him not to receive the death penalty, Norwegians appear satisfied that Breivik received an open-ended 21 year sentence. I refer to the sentence as open-ended because, as long as authorities believe Breivik poses a danger to society, he will remained locked up. Basically, he received a life sentence.
But there is something else remarkable about the Norwegian reaction to Breivik's heinous crimes: Many have called for increased emphasis on multiculturalism. This was the motivating factor for the killer's shooting spree. He opposes the embracing of multiculturalism and yet this is what so many of the survivors want the nation to encourage.
In the US, people rarely want to focus on any policy issues that are motivating factors for mass murder. Try to suggest that guns are too accessible, video games and other types of entertainment media promote too much violence or that racism is a plague in our society and far too many people don't want to talk about these issues. They simply chalk up each incident as a separate and isolated case of some crazed individual.
In Norway, their sentencing is more humane and they have set about to address one of the underlying factors. In the US, our sentencing tends to be more harsh and we steadfastly refuse to take a serious look at the underlying factors.
And which of these two nations faces the specter of many more mass shootings in its future?
I dont think "Multiculturalism" is good for Norway or any nation. People of different cultures are not used to living together. For most of history different cultures lived apart, but now we are trying to force these people together. When you mix cultures into the same society like this, you create ethnic tension caused by their differences. This tension may eventually turn to hate, and hate leads to tragedies like this.
ReplyDeleteIf Norway continued to embrace homogeny, maybe Breivik wouldn't have developed the hate that drove him to shoot innocent people.
Homogenous societies tend to be more successful (Japan, Korea, Iceland) and peaceful, because there is no ethnic tension caused by clashing cultures within society.
Many European nations have long been tolerant of immigrants, but as minority populations continue to grow, some Europeans are beginning to feel that their native culture is being eroded by the influence of foreign cultures (globalization). It already happened to the America's and if trends continue, Europe may be next.
If multiculturalism continues in Europe, I would expect right wing, anti-immigrant parties to continue to gain support, and eventually, violence to erupt.
My main point is that multiculturalism destroys culture in the long run by blending them all together. Multiculturalism defeats the purpose of nation states. We should embrace our differences, not eliminate them.
What advantage is there to multiculturalism?
Just my 2 cents
very well made point kai when but I can't agree. after all culture comes about due to such things as time and climate, culture changes with need. if it were a fixed thing then you'd have some agreement but I don't see it as so.
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