Suchergebnisse

All Israeli governments since the beginning of the break-up of Yugoslavia have adopted a consistently pro-Serbian stand. Israeli public opinion has failed to respond to Serbian atrocities in a way comparable to the response in many other countries. The author argues that an important part of the explanation of this remarkable state of affairs, which puts Israel at odds with most of the western world and the Jewish diaspora, is to be found in Israel's history. Israel was set up at the price of turning the larger part of native Palestinian population into expellees or refugees. Its continued existence as an ethnic, Jewish state is predicated on not admitting the exiled Palestinians back. Collective repression and denial of these facts help explain the unwillingness or inability of Israeli society and its political establishinent to condemn the Serbs' war of expansion and "ethnic cleansing". (SOI : PM: S. 23)

The author analyses the role of religion in the formation of national identities in Central and Eastern Europe on the example of the Catholic Church in Poland in the 2Oth century. In Poland, like in most Central-European and Eastern-European societies, national identity developed against the state and was founded on certain elements of ethnic culture and tradition, the central position belonging to the Church. During communism, the Polish Catholic Church had the leading position in defending national identity, which identified Polishness with Catholicism. The Church also had a crucial role in the destruction of the communist system. However, it has found increasingly difficult to adapt to the new political conditions. As has been shown through the debates on abortion and religious education in state schools, the attempt by the Church to achieve the status of moral arbiter, above all democratic institutions, has resulted in new divisions. (SOI : PM: S. 143)

The conflict between the Croatian government and the Serbian minority in the UNPA zones in Croatia was deep and irreconcilable. The Croatian government tried, at any price to bring the UNPA zones under the authority of Zagreb while the Serbian secessionists wanted to separate the UNPA zones from Croatia and bring it under the authority of Belgrade and Serbia. The conflict between Croats and the ethnic Serbs in Croatia corresponds to the concept of a deeply rooted conflict as described by John W. Burton and Donald L. Horowitz. The author analyses the process of the negotiations between the Croatian authorities and the local Serbs from the UNPA zone East in the fall of 1995. The ethnic Serbs agreed to a compromise with the Croatian government after they had found themselves in a stalemate. By this term William Zartman understands when one ethnic group sees no other way out since all the military and political moves have been blocked for it. The author thinks this is the main reason why the local Serbs in Eastern Slavonia agreed to a dialogue, accepted the compromise and signed the Erdut Accord on 12 February 1995. (SOI : PM: S. 120)

Like other landmark historic events, the war on the territory of the former Yugoslavia has been explained by three types of theories: mythological, scientific and common-sensical, the latter making use of certain pseudoscientific arguments. The author claims that the theory blaming the media in all six republics of the former Yugoslavia for the outbreak of the war belongs to the latter type. The empirical data gathered on the eve of the war show that ethnic tolerance was highest in the republics which were later struck by the war: Bosnia and Hercegovma and Croatia. The author provides an alternative explanation of the role of the media in paving the way for the war. Only in Serbia did mass media in the circumstances of the prevailing authoritarian orientation of the population before the war, serve to the aggressive nationalist leadership for political mobilization which aroused in the Serbian people a feeling of imperilment and a sense of omnipotence. After the outbreak of the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina, the media have been only one of the elements in an ever-expanding spiral of hatred and violence. (SOI : PM: S. 187)

More than a decade has passed since the momentous events of 1989 that changed the world order and redefined the geopolitics of Central Europe. This is just the right moment to assess the results of these changes and discuss the future of that region. Based on the past comparative studies or those currently going on, we may say that Central Europe differs from the post-communist East (the former Soviet Union) and the South-East (the former Yugoslavia with the exception of Slovenia) and Albania. First, Central-European states overthrew their communist regimes earlier and in a more decisive manner than the USSR; second, the economic transformation of Central Europe, though not completely smooth, is nevertheless much smoother than the transformation of the member countries of the CIS; third, the post-communist societies differ in the pattern by which their systems of social stratification have changed after the collapse of their communist regimes; fourth, there are big differences between the Central-European post-communist states, including the Baltic states on the one hand, and the CIS members and Serbia/Montenegro-Yugoslavia on the other regarding their international orientation. The author highlights three significant events that are going to leave their trace on the regional geostrategic situation: NATO's eastern expansion, NATO's campaign against SKY and the election of Vladimir Putin for president of Russia. The regional geopolitical picture may become more stable with closer ties between the states of Central Europe and Germany. (SOI : PM: S. 11)