Bajrektarevic A. Europe of Sarajevo 100 years later: Was history ever on holidays? (From WWI to www. 9/11 or 11/9?)

Abstract: Some 20 years ago the genocide of worst kind was taking place just one hour flight from Brussels. That time, assassination of different kind from the one of 1914 has enveloped Sarajevo. While massive European ignorance turned Bosnia (and the Union of different peoples – Yugoslavia) into a years-long slaughterhouse, the Maastricht dream was unifying the Westphalian world of the Old continent. Today, two decades later, Atlantic Europe is a political powerhouse (with two of three European nuclear powers, and two of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, P–5), Central Europe is an economic powerhouse, Russophone Europe is an energy powerhouse, Scandinavian Europe is a bit of all that, and Eastern Europe is none of it. No wonder that as soon as serious external or inner security challenges emerge, the compounding parts of the true, historic Europe are resurfacing again. Formerly in Iraq (with the exception of France) and now with Libya, Sudan, Mali and Syria; Central Europe is hesitant to act, Atlantic Europe is eager, Scandinavian Europe is absent, Eastern Europe is bandwagoning, and Russophone Europe is opposing. Did Europe change (after its own 11/9), or it only became more itself?

Keywords: