From: cash@convex.com (Peter Cash)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: What is it with the Balkans?
Date: 15 Aug 92 19:49:27 GMT
Organization: The Instrumentality
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In article <1992Aug14.114504.15405@u.washington.edu> krzystek@milton.u.washington.edu (Jerzy Krzystek) writes:
>In article <...>, cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes...>

>You yourself in your first posting mentioned a 'long tradition' of racial and
>ethnic hatred, later made more accurate to the years 1918-1939 which is not
>that long compared to more than 1,000 years of the region's history.

>When I hear accusations of racial and ethnic intolerance in Eastern
>Europe, and specifically of the 'traditional Eastern-European
>anti-semitism' as being specific and endemic for this region of the world,
>I do not deny it. It was very true, and unfortunately still is in some
>parts. However, such accusations when spoken by people coming from Western
>European culture sound a little, well, hypocritical to me. 

I think we're largely in agreement on this--every region of the world has a
tradition of trouble, and nobody can point a finger at others with a clean
conscience. That's not what I was trying to do--though I admit it might
have sounded like this.

I do think that one can say without offending anyone that the Balkans are
(and have been) a pretty volatile place. This isn't because of any
psychological or cultural characteristics of the Balkan people--it's the
product of the geographical location of the place, and of historical
forces. The Balkans are a place where very diverse people have fought and
lived together for many years, a comparatively small place where many
different cultures and religions can be found. This makes for a tempestuous
history (and present).

>You seem, however, to mix up two different periods (a lot of people do
>that): before 1939 and after 1939, as if nothing happened that year.
>Although the pre-war antisemitism could be the fertile ground for the
>behavior of some parts of populations towards the Jews during the war, in
>my opinion most of this behavior was purely opportunistic. The Nazis
>showed the way, and by a general brutalization of the life in the region
>incredibly lowered the price of a human life. We have seen similar
>behavior in other parts of the world: two (or more) communities seem to
>live peacefully for centuries and then when there is some trigger (usually
>a war) they jump to each other's throats.

Maybe; I've tended to think it was the other way around, and that the war
merely crystallized the inter-ethnic hate that was already there. I must
admit that I don't know a whole lot about this period, though, and I may
very well be wrong.


-- 
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             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      |cash@convex.com
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Newsgroups: soc.history