After Nazi praising scandal, Canada’s House Speaker resigns

[FfFfFfFF 58,120]

@Dennis I asked you above if you still support Ukraine's 2017 law restricting minority languages as you did in my post from December - answer YES or NO, and then we'll continue the convo.

[Bronco 25,127]

2 minutes ago, Dennis said:

If you believe in what I quoted above, well then you could've said it from the start instead of arguing against me.

Cut the patronisation Dennis. 

I have argued this from the start. Every single post I've written in this thread has featured me explicitly criticizing you and @FfFfFfFF for arguing over a right that should be afforded to everyone. 

I fully understand what you are saying is hypocritical - and I do agree that it's hypocritical to say that some not all should be given the right to their own identity. 
But you have explicitly said you are indifferent to a law that erodes that right you have tried to convince me you support. And on that basis I have criticised you - because if you are indifferent to minority identity because of their skin colour then you do not believe in equality. 

[Dennis 8,391]

2 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

@Dennis I asked you above if you still support Ukraine's 2017 law restricting minority languages as you did in my post from December - answer YES or NO, and then we'll continue the convo.

Indifferent. I wouldn't mind if upheld or taken down.

What I criticize however is your belief that descendants of immigrants shouldn't be entitled to the same treatment you advocate for in favor of white european minorities.

So before you lecture Ukraine, re-examine your own stance and come to the realization that if you truly want people to be able to "preserve their language and culture" you do it in a fair way that includes ALL citizens regardless of whether their ancestors are indigenous or not.

So that answers your question. No point in rehashing this.

 

 

[bionic 50,111]

Not sure how this thread came to be about language but I am really struggling to 1+1=2 on the suggestion that protecting indigenous minority languages from extinction is remotely comparable to requiring migrants and their descendants to speak the language of the country they/their ancestors moved to

Can someone explain to me please

[Dennis 8,391]

3 minutes ago, Bronco said:

But you have explicitly said you are indifferent to a law that erodes that right you have tried to convince me you support. And on that basis I have criticised you - because if you are indifferent to minority identity because of their skin colour then you do not believe in equality. 

Once again, you misunderstand.

I would rather see a country that applies blind equality, even if it's not perfect, than see a country give privileges to some over others.

If you're French, go help everybody learn French in school. I'm totally fine with that. But if you're gonna create special rules for indigenous white people, you better do the same for descendants of immigrants, or you don't do it at all.

Does that answer your question?

If you want to spend tax payer money protecting "cultural" minorities. They can't be exclusively indigenous ones. Descendants of immigrants should be entitled to that very same right.

[FfFfFfFF 58,120]

2 minutes ago, Dennis said:

Indifferent. I wouldn't mind if upheld or taken down.

What I criticize however is your belief that descendants of immigrants shouldn't be entitled to the same treatment you advocate for in favor of white european minorities.

So before you lecture Ukraine, re-examine your own stance and come to the realization that if you truly want people to be able to "preserve their language and culture" you do it in a fair way that includes ALL citizens regardless of whether their ancestors are indigenous or not.

So that answers your question. No point in rehashing this.

 

 

All these mental gymnastics when your stance can only perfectly be resumed to plain and simple NO, but you cannot say it outright because it would be too hypocritical.  

[Dennis 8,391]

11 minutes ago, bionic said:

Not sure how this thread came to be about language but I am really struggling to 1+1=2 on the suggestion that protecting indigenous minority languages from extinction is remotely comparable to requiring migrants and their descendants to speak the language of the country they/their ancestors moved to

Can someone explain to me please

It's about the principle of "equal" application of the law.

That is if you have two endangered languages/cultures, one of them being a white indigenous European group, and the other being descendants of immigrants (say K---ds who fled the Arab world), you can't use tax-payer money to favor one group based on the notion that they're indigenous and not the other.

That creates unequal application of the law.

Think for example a law that gives exclusively homeless white people in America tax payer money to get out of homelessness. In its nature, that law is doing something good, helping reduce homelessness. But its application is discriminatory, and it doesn't extend that benefit to everyone. As such, such law would be bad. 

If you're gonna spend tax-payer money on helping endangered languages, you can't do it solely for languages deemed "indigenous" to the land. What about descendants of immigrants who fled oppression elsewhere and have become citizens here and created a new community here do they get to receive taxpayer money to preserve their culture? Do they get the same right? @FfFfFfFF said no because "they came from somewhere else".

My position is, do it for both or do it for neither.

[FfFfFfFF 58,120]

@Dennis In what country the hypotetical situation described above happens, when the state needs to choose between perpetuating an indigenous language vs an immigrant language? We should talk on a case-by case basis and concrente examples instead of creating generalities out of thin air.

[bionic 50,111]

1 minute ago, Dennis said:

It's about the principle of "equal" application of the law.

That is if you have two endangered languages/cultures, one of them being a white indigenous European group, and the other being descendants of immigrants (say K---ds who fled the Arab world), you can't use tax-payer money to favor one group based on the notion that they're indigenous and not the other.

That creates unequal application of the law.

Think for example a law that gives exclusively homeless white people in America tax payer money to get out of homelessness. In its nature, that law is doing something good, helping reduce homelessness. But its application is discriminatory, and it doesn't extend that benefit to everyone. As such, such law would be bad. 

So you think the US should give just as much funding to promoting migrant languages (i.e. German, Italian) as it should to protecting Native languages from extinction?

Why should (because its been used in this thread already...for example) France care about protecting a dying Arab language (are we talking about Kurdish??) when it already has its own dying languages that need protecting... and protecting those languages actually protects the history of France..?

I accept its an unequal application of the law but the law is not perfect and the unfortunate restraints of governmental reality mean that in terms of cultural/linguistic/historic protection the natives will win out over migrants who moved to France.

If the language is at risk (for example because it is a minority language in a country where the government is actively trying to destroy it) then usually a charity or non-governmental organisation will put effort into protecting it. These are usually funded in part by government's foreign aid credits. 

[Bronco 25,127]

12 minutes ago, Dennis said:

I would rather see a country that applies blind equality, even if it's not perfect, than see a country give privileges to some over others.

Blind equality in this case is the deliberate erasue & continued systemic state oppression of minority culture though. Because we aren't talking about a state refusing to grant additional privileges to some, we are talking about states taking action to surpress minorities. 

It shouldn't need explaining that there is no equality to be found in the surpression of minorities. 

Do you know of European history outside of WW2? Because you're coming across like you don't understand the contexts of these regions or worse you're being deliberately ignorant of this simply because you clearly dislike another user.
Like you keep referencing Breton as if Bretons are just white french people who speak a different language. Not as if they are a regional minority that has faced deliberate systemic oppression & discrimination that led to suffering and death simply for the fact they were a minority.  

 

[Dennis 8,391]

13 minutes ago, bionic said:

So you think the US should give just as much funding to promoting migrant languages (i.e. German, Italian) as it should to protecting Native languages from extinction?

Why should (because its been used in this thread already...for example) France care about protecting a dying Arab language (are we talking about Kurdish??) when it already has its own dying languages that need protecting... and protecting those languages actually protects the history of France..?

I accept its an unequal application of the law but the law is not perfect and the unfortunate restraints of governmental reality mean that in terms of cultural/linguistic/historic protection the natives will win out over migrants who moved to France.

If the language is at risk (for example because it is a minority language in a country where the government is actively trying to destroy it) then usually a charity or non-governmental organisation will put effort into protecting it. These are usually funded in part by government's foreign aid credits. 

Okay I have to apologize for confusing you, because there's 2 debates that sort of morphed into one and I can see why you're confused. The Ukraine 2017 law is not about "native languages close to extinction" though.

It's about Russian, which is spoken by hundreds of millions of people. Romanians have a whole state with Romanian as state language, and Hungarian, likewise.

How can you say that Russians in Ukraine are more deserving of this special treatment than Arabs in France? By any objective metric, neither of these two languages are close to extinction, so what's the reasoning behind a preferential treatment? @FfFfFfFF used the argument that "Russians, Romanians, Hungaries" are native european ethnicity, whereas Arabs are not. That's what I take issue with. Arab Europeans, descendants of Arab immigrants should be treated fully equal.

When it comes to the other debate, I agree with you about the need to protect endangered languages, as long as you do it in equal manner, that is if the 1M Kurdish people (who don't have a state for themselves) who live in Western Europe are also entitled to the same rights, i'm good with that. 

[bionic 50,111]

5 minutes ago, Dennis said:

Okay I have to apologize for confusing you, because there's 2 debates that sort of morphed into one and I can see why you're confused. The Ukraine 2017 law is not about "native languages close to extinction" though.

It's about Russian, which is spoken by hundreds of millions of people. Romanians have a whole state with Romanian as state language, and Hungarian, likewise.

How can you say that Russians in Ukraine are more deserving of this special treatment than Arabs in France? By any objective metric, neither of these two languages are close to distinction, so what's the reasoning behind a preferential treatment? @FfFfFfFF used the argument that "Russians, Romanians, Hungaries" are native european ethnicity, whereas Arabs are not. That's what I take issue with. Arab Europeans, descendants of Arab immigrants should be treated fully equal.

When it comes to the other debate, I agree with you about the need to protect endangered languages, as long as you do it in equal manner, that is if the 1M Kurdish people (who don't have a state for themselves) who live in Western Europe are also entitled to the same rights, i'm good with that. 

We could have a whole conversation about the organisation, enforcement, and dismantling of colonial empires that would explain why the often forced relocation of Russians/Romanians/Hungarians to Ukraine is different to the often voluntary relocation of Arabs from the (former) French Empire to France, but I'm not sure how relevant that would be to the Canadian House Speaker applauding a Nazi.

I don't think we'll be seeing Saudi Arabia, Japan, or Russia spending any money on protecting Gaelic or Breton any time soon- why would they?

[Bronco 25,127]

3 minutes ago, bionic said:

We could have a whole conversation about the organisation, enforcement, and dismantling of colonial empires that would explain why the often forced relocation of Russians/Romanians/Hungarians to Ukraine is different to the often voluntary relocation of Arabs from the (former) French Empire to France, but I'm not sure how relevant that would be to the Canadian House Speaker applauding a Nazi.

 

The relevance is that Dennis and FfFfFf clearly don't agree on yet another post lol and old arguments are being dragged up

[FfFfFfFF 58,120]

13 minutes ago, Dennis said:

Okay I have to apologize for confusing you, because there's 2 debates that sort of morphed into one and I can see why you're confused. The Ukraine 2017 law is not about "native languages close to extinction" though.

It's about Russian, which is spoken by hundreds of millions of people. Romanians have a whole state with Romanian as state language, and Hungarian, likewise.

You seem to be the one who is confused, as minority languages in Ukraine are faced with assimilation and have a threatened status. The goal is to push the Ukrainian language onto ethnic communities through Ukrainian-only education, what do seriously think the result will be or what did the lawmakers expect?

Also I don't actually care about Russian , but Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian etc are a different issue, what did these countries do wrong to be punished for?

The fact that the languages are official in other countries in irrelevant when said communities are made to forget their own language and identity, and do not say ''they can just leave their home and the places where they lived for generation'', this is soft/hard ethnic cleansin*.

[Dennis 8,391]

3 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

You seem to be the one who is confused, as minority languages in Ukraine are faced with assimilation and have a threatened status. The goal is to push the Ukrainian language onto ethnic communities through Ukrainian-only education, what do seriously think the result will be or what did the lawmakers expect?

Also I don't actually care about Russian , but Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian etc are a different issue, these countries do wrong?

And where was your outrage about France teaching in French only? Non-existent.

Because obviously you're talking about this for political reasons, you're only interested in tarnishing the image of Ukraine.

If you wanna force countries to create curriculum for all different ethnic minorities, do it equally or don't do it at all. Go have France and Germany do it. Go have Spain do it. You know the Arabs in Spain lived there for centuries. But that's not of interest to you.