The Balkanization of the West : The Confluence of Postmodernism and Postcommunism

Passionate, vigorous and uncompromising this book takes the lid off the confused Western response to the Balkan war. The author raises a series of timely and acute questions about the future of postmodernism and postcommunism. The author claims that the Balkan war has de-railed the movement for unification in Europe. The Islamic world has seen that the West is quite willing to bomb Muslim targets, from Iraq to Somalia, but absolutely unwilling to wage a `just war' to save the Bosnian Muslims. He concludes that the Balkan war is a key catalyst in the unravelling of the West.

In this passionate, vigorous and uncompromising book, Stjepan Mestrovic argues that, instead of reacting immediately and authoritatively to the horrible crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia, the world has acted the voyeur—passively watching, monitoring, observing, but taking no action to end the killings. The Balkanization of the West takes the lid off that confused Western response to the Balkan war.

The demise of communism that began in 1989 coincided with widespread discussion of postmodernism. But instead of leading to the end desired by postmodern theorists, namely tolerance, it has led to the genocide we are seeing in Ex-Yugoslavia. Furthermore, the brutal, current Balkan War may be a harginger of similar savagery about to erupt in the former Soviet Union, especially in its Southern frontiers and against its Muslim minorities. Mestrovic analyzes how postmodern media contributed to the current state of voyeurism to the point where genocideis tolerated. By attempting to solve the current Balkan War through pure negotiation and other "rational" means derived from these Enlightenment narratives, the west has placed its credibility on the line. Indeed, the current Balkan War is depicted by opinion-makers in the information media in frankly apocalyptic, post-modern terms, as the end of the EC, UN, NATO, American leadership, and civilization itself. Thus, the "real" war in the Balkans has been reduced to mere metaphors and euphemisms—Balkan tribalism, ethnic conflict, ethnic cleansing—while these same metaphors, paradoxically, seem to apply to the once seemingly unified West.

The Balkanization of the West is aimed at a wideand interdisciplinary audience, and will be of great interest to all those who seek a thorough and complex evaluation of the ongoing events in the former Yugoslavia.

The collapse of communism at the present fin de siecle coincided with widespread interest among intellectuals in a phenomenon known as postmodernism, itself a confluence of apocalyptic themes found in the previous fin de siecle (Mestrovic 1991) and the fun-culture uncovered by David Riesman in his Lonely Crowd (1950). This text argues that the media have reduced the world to a collective voyeur passively watching, monitoring, and observing crimes against humanity in former Yugoslavia. The Balkan war has produced the Balkanization of the West with the Western powers seemingly paralyzed by internecine warfare.