An Introduction, Pt. II: A Disconnect

Disclaimer – This is neither a justification nor an excuse for current attitudes and actions; it is a very simplistic, watered down mechanism in which to understand the region, its history, and its attitudes.  It’s the International Relations in me that can’t help but write this one.

The Balkans is “not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.”  Any student of European history knows this quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck made to the Reichstag.  A couple years later, at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, he said, “Europe today is a powder keg and the leaders are like men smoking in an arsenal…  A single spark will set off an explosion that will consume us all…  I cannot tell you when that explosion will occur, but I can tell you where… Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans will set it off.”  On June 28, 1914, thirty-six years after Bismarck’s prediction and sixteen years after his death, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria ignored threats against his life and visited Sarajevo.  He was met by Black Hand member, Gavrilo Princip.

The rest is history.

The Western world views this region both romantically and dismissively.  These views have held the region hostage for centuries.  On one hand it falls in love with the concept - not reality - of Ancient Greece, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire, the exotic nature that is the crossroads between Eastern mysticism and Western Enlightenment.  On the other hand is held a centuries’ old notion that Southeastern Europe is not a part of Europe or a European concern.  What happens in the Balkans is the Balkans’ problem.  The weakness, the instability, the territorial infighting; it is never worth the bones of their soldiers or the time for serious policy analysis.

Southeastern Europe is less than two hundred years removed from its Ottoman yoke.  Under Ottoman rule, the region was known as Rumelia, meaning “Land of the Romans.”  Although the region was ethnically heterogeneous, ethnicity was not the driving force behind how the empire’s subjects were governed.  Everyday identity was governed by religion.  Religion separated whether one was allowed to ride a horse.  Religion governed what taxes one paid, where one could live, what occupation one could pursue, and what type of education one could be given.  Populations moved through the land not as Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, etc but as Roum (Romans, Orthodox Christians).

The wars for independence were just the opening battles of a much larger war, one that is ongoing to this very day.  As new nations formed from the wastes of Ottoman Europe, the war to establish - and project - a new national identity, to claim ancestral lands, and to seek recognition and legitimacy from major powers began.  Borders diminished and swelled, nations and kingdoms were formed and dissolved.  Religious classifications and identifications evaporated while national identities burgeoned.  Rumelia, with an ethnically heterogeneous population, descended into chaos as populations sought to make desired land ethnically homogeneous to further territorial ambitions.  19^th century Rumelia saw massacre after massacre by all sides, be it Roum or Turk, Christian or Muslim, to achieve homogeny or revenge, in the hopes of solidifying claims to villages, cities, and ports.  Alliances were made to curb the territorial ambitions of another; backroom deals made on how to divvy the spoils.  The 20^th century was no better.  Before World War I came the Balkan Wars.  After came a disastrous military campaign by the Greeks in order to claim more land from a dissolved Ottoman Empire; its consequences, from the burning of Smyrna to the “Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations,” are ingrained into their culture, memory and written history. 

World War II.  Churchill’s Iron Curtain.  The Greek Civil War.  Further population exchanges.  The Turkish invasion of Cyprus.  The dissolution of the Soviet Bloc.  The dissolution of Yugoslavia.  The repression or total denial of minority groups in the Balkans.  The Bosnian War.  The genocide in Kosovo.  Today.

So what is the point?

We cannot hope to understand the Balkans if we cannot be troubled to take it seriously.  We cannot condemn Balkan nations for erecting fences and shutting its borders through only Western eyes.  Stability has never come cheap here and has far too many times been paid for in far too much blood.  People and their respective governments see another descent into instability.  People and their respective governments see another descent into Muslim rule.  People and their respective governments see their borders and lands being carved up.  People and their respective governments are still fighting this very day to have their identity recognized by the outside world.   Time and time again it never makes complete sense to the Western world.  I have encountered more than one volunteer that has metaphorically lifted one refugee with his right hand while he damned a Balkan nation with his left.  I have talked to more than one volunteer that has summarily rejected the very real fears and insecurities that dwell within a number for Greeks, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbians, Hungarians, Romanians, etc as mere childishness.  I have read more than one article dismissing the needs of Greeks while asserting that the refugee crisis is the only concern here.  All of these were from Westerns, whether they be American, British, or German.

I suppose all I am saying is that we can reject the fear but first we must understand it.  Everyone shouldn’t lose here and no one should be discounted.