“The multicultural society is an illusion of intellectuals.”

Die Zeit http://www.zeit.de/2004/18/Deutschland_2fSchmidt_18?page=all, nr. 18/2004, 22. April 2004

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Do you have more details about the quote "The multicultural society is an illusion of intellectuals." by Helmut Schmidt?

Helmut Schmidt22

Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982 1918–2015

Geoffrey Blainey book All for Australia

All for Australia (1984)

“I say multicultural society doesn't work. We're not living closer, we're living apart.”

Pim Fortuyn (1948–2002) Dutch politician

"Holland's high-camp hero of new politics" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/1393177/Hollands-high-camp-hero-of-new-politics.html, The Telegraph (4 May 2002). <br class="br">Context: If you try to discuss multiculturalism in the UK you're labelled a racist. But here we're still free to talk, and I say multicultural society doesn't work. We're not living closer, we're living apart.

“Multiculturalism and diversity are admirable qualities for a democracy but can only apply if all parties are committed to an open society.”

Isi Leibler (1934) Jewish activist

25 June 2014 https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Candidly-speaking-As-Europe-slides-into-a-Dark-Age-Jews-must-review-their-future-360566

“The task of the real intellectual consists of analyzing illusions in order to discover their causes.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

As quoted in Federalism and the French Canadians (1968) by Pierre Trudeau, p. 175

“All men are intellectuals: but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals.”

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist

Source: Selections from the Prison Notebooks (1971).

“With a democratic society, the concept of multiculturalism is difficult to reconcile. Maybe in a very long term. But if you ask, where multicultural societies have so far worked, you can get very quickly to the conclusion that they only work there peacefully where there is a strong authoritarian state there. So, it was a mistake that we picked up at the beginning of the 60's guest workers from foreign cultures into the country.”

Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015) Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982

Hamburger Abendblatt http://www.abendblatt.de/politik/deutschland/article290699/Wieviel-Anatolien-vertraegt-Europa.html, 24. November 2004

“Closed societies are now the flimsiest of illusions, for all the outsiders are demanding in.”

Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer

"Society, Morality and the Novel" (1957), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 726.

“What does cultural pluralism signify in the absence of economic pluralism? Perhaps the question seems meaningless. Yet the apparent lack of meaning signals the intellectual retreat. The economic structure of society—call it advanced industrial society or capitalism or the market economy—stands as the invariant; few can imagine a different economic project. The silent agreement says much about multiculturalism. No divergent political or economic vision animates cultural diversity. From the most militant Afrocentrism to the most ardent feminists, all quarters subscribe to very similar beliefs about work, equality and success. The secret of cultural diversity is its political and economic uniformity. The future looks like the present with more options. Multiculturalism spells the end of utopia.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: The End of Utopia (1999), pp. 39-40

“Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

“I think that the idea that a modern society would be able to establish itself as a multicultural society, with as many cultural groups as possible is absurd. One cannot make out of Germany with at least a thousand years of history since Otto I subsequently make a crucible.”

Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015) Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982

Frankfurter Rundschau, 12. September 1992, S. 8, zitiert in konservativ.de http://www.konservativ.de/epoche/139/epo_139b.htm und linksnet.de http://www.linksnet.de/linkslog/index.php?itemid=431

“The multicultural society is an illusion of intellectuals.”

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Helmut Schmidt22

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