Is multiculturalism a bad thing for Europe?

[kılıç_mehmet]

Kilic, I'm interested -- is your opinion informed by the Ottoman experience. Because I tend to agree -- after living abroad the deepness of minority and religious tribalism over hundreds and thousands of years means to create a modern nation state -- you cannot be tolerant of different cultural mores too much -- or the state itself will be dysfunctional. This is very hard for Brits and Americans to understand because their cultures are so dominant and so 'attractive' and clever in the way that they assimilate people they don't see that neither UK or US are actually 'multicultural'. They allow minorites to keep some of their original culture -- usually the most deeply held religious part ... while taking the rest of them. And I say this as a full throated member of the American tribe.

Well, the US isn't multicultural at all. I'd say its more like a place where the type of people who are willing to discard their old identities go to. They go and leave behind their old customs, their old names and tribes.
In short, they emigrate to the US to be assimilated, and the US requires them to be assimilated into the system for them to properly participate.

As for the UK, I don't know what exactly is so attractive about the British culture for people to assimilate into it, but I would say that their immigrants are not the kind of people that come to the UK to be assimilated, because the UK is nothing like America. America was founded by immigrants, and is a state that thrives on immigrants.
The UK on the other hand, not a nation state per se, as it does have a large number of native minorities, the Celtic people that live under different names and have had a love-hate relationship with their English overlords, is a country that has had its experiences with internal ethnic strife.
The recent implementations of multiculturalism on the other hand also seeks to reconcile the aspects of the foreign cultures that are incompatible with the native culture, something which alienates the natives, and gives the immigrants the bravado to act in ways that would force the government to grant them more special privilages.
And its to no surprise. If you were to give your child 100 dollars a week, wouldn't that child demand a 150 next week?
They simply have not humbled their recent immigrants. İmmigrants of different cultures ought to be humble in the lands they emigrate to. They ought to realize that this country has been founded by a certain majority, which has probably lived and died here for centuries. They should try to seek harmony, instead of division. However if the majority lets them do things their way all the time, the minorities will indeed act in ways that would resemble the actions of a spoiled child. And that's what multiculturalism does for Europe today.