Comparing the Balkans with the Middle East

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Jun 7, 2015 at 12:55

Hello, Genghis.

I don't think anything that the Archduke could do would solve the Balkan problem, any more than the British monarchs were able to solve the Irish problem (which is still with us today, in Northern Ireland), much less the India-Pakistani problem, etc. All those people had to fight for independence. Even so, Slovenia didn't become independent until 1991; and Bosnia, where the assasination took place, is still only kep on the map by NATO and UN intervention; and Kosovo has yet to be recognized as independent by 44% of the world's nations.

The proposed division of Austria-Hungary is shown here. The Hungarians were dead-set against the deal; and I don't imagine the Czechs would have been enamored with the idea of an independent Sudetenland in 1916, any more than they were in 1938. Bosnia-Herzegovina were not even considered in the proposal. After WWI, Slovenia, Croatia, Vojvodinia and Bosnia-Herzegovina all joined with Serbia and Montenegro in what was essentially a "Greater Serbia" (the united "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes" was ruled by a Serbian king and later a Serbian dictator); so the assasin obtained his goals through the assasination. This Greater Serbia later became more inclusive under the Communist dictatorship of Tito; but shortly after Tito's death, a civil war broke out that lasted several years.

In all of the above, the current struggle in the Islamic world greatly resembles the 20th Century situation in the Balkans; but as Daniel pointed out in his 3 June update, the matter of calling the assasination and / or other acts during this conflict "terrorism" completely misses the point of the struggle -- which was Nationalism, not Terrorism. Deciding what parts of the struggle should be defined as "Genocide" or "Crimes against Humanity" likewise completely misses the mark. In the Middle East situation, there is a parallel situation: The bloodshed is not about "Terrorism", "Genocide", "Zionism" nor anything of the sort: It is about Islamic Imperialism, on the one hand, and Turkish and Persian Nationalism on the other.

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