ROBERT WISTRICH
Nationalism Reborn
The demise of Communism and the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989
presented Europe with a golden opportunity to unite and become a
great stabilizing force in the world today . Across the Continent, from
East to West, a new consensus had emerged in favor of democracy, plu–
ralism, human rights and the rule of law. For a brief, euphoric moment
there was a high tide in favor of the idea of European integration, the
hope that a common European purpose might yet assert itself beyond
the selfish interests of the individual nation-states . With the collapse of
the Berlin Wall, the common ideals of peace, security, freedom, and
prosperity suddenly seemed within reach of millions in the eastern half of
the Continent who had been denied this promise . Yet only four years
later, the idea of Europe is floundering in both East and West.
Let me quote the perceptive words of Czechoslovakia's President
Vaclav Havel , in an address to the Council of Europe: "Europe today
lacks an ethos; it lacks imagination, it lacks generosity, it lacks the ability
to see beyond the horizon of its own particular interests, be they partisan
or otherwise, and to resist the pressure from various lobbying groups.
There is no real identification in Europe with the meaning and purpose
of integration." Instead of a new dawn, we are seeing before our eyes
how in the whole of the former Yugoslavia an internationally
recognized multinational state has been subdivided according to the
dictates of fanatical warlords. To quote Haval again: "We talk and talk,
we drown in compromises, we redraw the maps, we read the lips of the
ethnic cleansers , and, with increasingly serious consequences, we forget
the fundamental values upon which we wou ld like to shape the future of
our continent." In its first great test since the end of the Cold War,
Europe seems not only to have failed miserably but to be opening its
back door to the demons of nationalist collectivism.
A new specter is haunting not only former Yugoslavia but all of
post-totalitarian Europe: the sanctification of the "ethnically pure state."
The quest for self-determination, in itself a noble and irreproachable
ideal, is beginning to threaten the integrity of individual states, the
inviolability of their borders and even the validity of all postwar treaties.
The bloody ethnic, tribal, and religious warfare in Georgia, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, the Balkans, and Northern Ireland has produced the
