Balkan Deadly Line

Balkan people throughout their history have suffered from a kind of geopolitical fate. This fatality has to do with the fact that for centuries the Balkans have been a border zone between East and West worlds that clashed without mercy between them in this area. The clay of this historical drama is deeply rooted in history. When the Roman Empire split into two parts, the partition line was placed between the Balkans. Later, when the political distinction between Rome and Constantinople took on religious character, the line was turned into the border between Latin and Orthodox Christianity. The Balkans became a bloody battlefield of religious dogmas, which seemed never to end. Local Balkan rulers tried to exploit this clash on account of their power, passing from time to time in the Latin camp in Orthodox. This, in time, brought birth to religious pluralism in the Balkans, which, even today, can be seen in all that people in this region do. When the Ottomans came, the situation became even more complicated, but what didn't change from past centuries was the cross-border geopoliticale of the Balkans. In the centuries to follow, after the Ottomans came, the greatest battles of Western kingdoms against them were fought in the Balkans. At the end of the Ottomans' attacks against Europe, European offensives began, ending somewhere in the Balkan mountains. This was repeated many times during history, until the 20th century, major European states in the West and Russia in the East managed to create their own areas of influence in the Balkans, in the form of national states that were born one after another, such as Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and the end of Albania at the beginning of the 20th century.

When everyone finally believed that the long history of the Balkans, like a cross-border zone between East and West, was ending, old fate resurfaced in a new form. The three winners of World War II, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, in Yalta, decided to repeat the story, making the Balkans once again a line of division between them. Greece and Turkey were left in the area of Western influence, while Bulgaria, Romania and Albania surrendered to Soviet Russia. Yugoslavia, meanwhile, was defined as a common area of influence. When communism collapsed, the Liberal West declared the end of History “, and this in the Balkans was interpreted as the possibility that this region would finally leave behind the fate of being a line between two worlds and become part of a single, Western world, through integration into the structures of the European Union. Today, this hope seems to have faded, largely. The reasons are very clear: the Atlantic Alliance is going through a serious rift, while the European Union is in its biggest crisis since creation. This crisis has made almost worthless the European Union's enlargement policy, which envisioned the full involvement of Balkan countries in its structures. French President Immanuel Macron himself, recently said France would reject any kind of European Union enlargement before a deep reform of its institutional functioning is achieved. The news becomes even worse from the fact that no one in the European Union is clear about how this reform will take place and how long it will take. All of this is added to the calls of right-wing populists around the European Union, which require keeping the Balkans out of the borders of this Union. All this situation has fostered hopes of new powers in eastern Europe, primarily Russia and Turkey, which consider the time has come to restore their old influence in the Balkans. The Russians hope to do so by exercising their influence on the Orthodox states of the Balkans, primarily Serbia, in the nationalism of which there has always been a powerful prorus component. Today, this component is fueled by hatred against Western powers, which in the spring of 1999 intervened militarily against Serbia to stop the campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, which then Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was exercising on Kosovo Albanians. Russia constantly makes sure that this component is active, and it does so both through statements with panslavist overtones, or through concrete support of the Serbian state's positions on Kosovo in different international mechanisms, such as the UN Security Council.

Meanwhile, Turks, their influence in the Balkans, want to extend it through investment in money and other measures of soft power in re-enhancing the philosophy-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-Soviets to Muslim populations in the region. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has openly expressed the desire for leaders of these populations to share with him his views on the world. Not to be overlooked is the influence of Arab money, which is primarily poured into religious projects. As many young people in Kosovo, Albania, Northern Macedonia and Bosnia head west in search of economic perspective, glass minarets funded by countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia are raised in their villages daily. Many other young people, influenced by the salaphs interpretation of Islam that dominate these mosques, have taken up arms to fight in Syria and Iraq, under the flag of I SIS or other terrorist organizations. In Kosovo and Albania, the main barrier facing sausage is ethnic Albanian nationalism, which the nation, state and society conceives separate from religion. Political elites in Kosovo and Albania continue to insist on the idea that the West remains the only geopolitical orientation for Albanians. Of course, to have effects, the idea must be conveyed by concrete decisions and actions that empower liberal democracy, rule of law, improve the economy and education systems.

In conclusion, it could be said that if the Western Balkans were to come under the umbrella of the Russo-Turkish-Arab influence, then in the years ahead in its fragile democracies the old line of division between two worlds would be re-opened. Consequently, citizens of these democracies will have to live once again with political and ideological turmoil experienced by their ancestors for centuries. In the end, the bill of these riots will have to pay the West itself!