Pride Of Place.(Balkans)(Brief Article)

In the Balkans, everyone is a minority somewhere or other. Croats are a majority in Croatia, but a large minority in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a tiny minority in Serbia, where they still live in fear of their lives. Serbs may dominate Serbia, but in Croatia they would have a rough time these days--if nearly all of them hadn't already been chased out. Bosnian Muslims dominate in Bosnia, but only in 51 percent of it; the rest is practically deeded to Serb control under the Dayton peace accords. And Macedonia, the last to fall victim to ethnic strife, is a bewildering mixture of Muslim Slavs, Greeks, Turks, Egyptians, Romas, Macedonian Slavs, Serbs and Bulgarians. So many, in fact, that the word for a mixed-fruit salad in many European languages is "Macedonian."

All these myriad groups want their own ethnically defined nations, for self-protection as well as pride. All have vivid memories of oppression and glorious martyrdom. All have even greater reason to believe now, after a decade of violence, that safety lies only with their own kind-- and in numbers.

The reductio ad absurdum of all this is the historic struggle for self- determination ...