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The main concern of the "developed" THE [[world]] today is to contain the explosive potential of the rest, even if it means more and more marked by the neglect of elementary democratic principles. This oppositionfrontier separating its insiders from its outsiders, not the one between capitalism and socialism, is what defines the "new world orderdeveloped". The socialist bloc was a desperate attempt at modernisation outside the constraints of capitalism. What is effectively at stake in the present crisis of post-socialist states is the struggle for one's place: who will be admitted — integrated into those to whom [[human]] rights, [[social]] security and the developed capitalist order like apply — and who will remain the [[others]], the excluded.

Ex-Yugoslavia The main concern of the "developed" is perhaps to contain the explosive potential of the exemplary caserest, even if it means the neglect of elementary democratic principles. Every participant in This opposition, not the one between [[capitalism]] and [[socialism]], is what defines the bloody disintegration tries to legitimise their place "insidenew world [[order]]" by presenting themselves as . The socialist bloc was a desperate attempt at modernisation [[outside]] the last bastion constraints of European civilisation (capitalism. What is effectively at stake in the [[present]] crisis of post-socialist states is the current ideological designation [[struggle]] for one's [[place]]: who will be admitted — integrated into the developed [[capitalist "inside") in the face of oriental barbarism]] order — and who will remain excluded.

For rightwing nationalist Austrians Ex-[[Yugoslavia]] is perhaps the imaginary frontier is Karavanke, exemplary [[case]]. Every participant in the bloody disintegration tries to legitimise their place "[[inside]]" by presenting themselves as the last bastion of European civilisation (the current [[ideological]] designation for the mountain chain between Austria and Slovenia; beyond it, capitalist "inside") in the Slavic hordes ruleface of oriental barbarism.

For the rightwing nationalist Slovenes Austrians the [[imaginary]] frontier is Karavanke, the river Kolpa, separating mountain [[chain]] between [[Austria]] and [[Slovenia from Croatia]]; we are Mitteleuropa, while Croats are already Balkan, involved in the irrational ethnic feuds which really do not concern us — we are on their side, we sympathisebeyond it, but in the same way one sympathises with a third world victim of aggressionSlavic hordes rule.

For the nationalist Slovenes the frontier is the river Kolpa, separating Slovenia from Croatia; we are Mitteleuropa, while Croats are already [[Balkan]], involved in the [[irrational]] ethnic feuds which really do not concern us — we are on their side, we sympathise, but in the same way one sympathises with a [[third]] world [[victim]] of [[aggression]]. For Croats the crucial frontier, of course, is the one between [[them ]] and Serbs, between western [[Catholic ]] civilisation and the eastern Orthodox collective spirit, which cannot grasp the values of western individualism. Serbs see themselves as the last line of [[defence ]] of [[Christian ]] [[Europe ]] against the fundamentalist [[danger ]] embodied in Muslim Bosnians and Albanians.

Slovenia and Croatia moved fast and aggressively. Against the will of the West, they proclaimed independence and attained their [[goal]], including [[recognition ]] by the West.

On the [[other ]] hand, Alija Izetbegovic, the Bosnian president, behaved as a [[model ]] pupil of the West. He followed closely western suggestions and proceeded with caution, was always ready to give [[another ]] [[chance ]] to any [[formula ]] for a new Yugoslavia, abstained from provoking the Serbs even when the Yugoslav [[Army ]] was already fortifying artillery sites on the mountains around Sarajevo. And all this in [[exchange ]] for assurances that the West would keep in check the Serbs and prevent the Yugoslav Army attacking non-Serbs in Bosnia. He paid for his trust, and for playing a civilised [[game]], with the [[total ]] [[destruction ]] of his country.

When western promises proved [[void ]] and the army attacked, the West threw up its hands and assumed the convenient posture of a distant [[observer]], appalled at the [[outburst ]] of "[[primitive ]] Balkan passions".

What then, are these [[notorious ]] Balkan passions?

There is a story [[about ]] an anthropological expedition trying to contact in New Zealand a tribe which allegedly danced a terrible war dance in grotesque [[death ]] masks. When the members of the expedition reached the tribe in the evening they asked the village to perform it for them, and the dance performed next morning did in fact match the description. [[Satisfied]], the expedition returned to civilisation and wrote a much-praised report on the savage rites of the primitives.

However, shortly after, when another expedition arrived at this tribe and learned to [[speak ]] the [[language ]] properly it was shown that this terrible dance did not [[exist ]] in itself at all. In their discussions with the first group of explorers, the aborigines had somehow guessed what the strangers wanted and quickly invented it for them, to [[satisfy ]] their [[demand]]. In short, the explorers received back from the aborigines their own [[message]].

This is what has to be dispelled if we are to [[understand ]] what the Yugoslav crisis is about: there is [[nothing ]] entirely [[self]]-generated in these ethnic conflicts, the West was from the very beginning included.

Lord Carrington, [[James ]] Baker, Douglas Hurd, [[Hans]]-Dietrich Genscher et al, are today's version of the New Zealand expedition. They act and react in the same way, overlooking how the [[spectacle ]] of old hatreds erupting in their primordial [[cruelty ]] is a dance staged for their eyes, a dance for which the West is thoroughly [[responsible]].

Is it coincidence that what is [[being ]] described as the worst bombardment Sarajevo has experienced should have taken place before the eyes of the world attending the peace conference in [[London ]] this week? Or surprising that one participant at the alternative conference, being held simultaneously, should point out that there is a view "that if you don't use [[violence ]] you won't get the attention of the European [[Community]]"?

So why does the West accept the [[narrative ]] of the outburst of ethnic passions?

For a long [[time]], the Balkans have been one of the privileged sites of fantastic investments. Gilles [[Deleuze ]] said: "Si vous etes pris dans le reve de l'[[autre]], vous etes foutu" — if you are caught in another's [[dream]], you are lost. In ex-Yugoslavia, we are lost, not because of our primitive [[dreams ]] and [[myths ]] preventing us from [[speaking ]] the enlightened language of Europe but because we pay in flesh the price for being the stuff of others' dreams.

The [[fantasy ]] which organised the [[perception ]] of ex-Yugoslavia is that of the Balkans as the Other of the West: the place of savage ethnic conflicts long ago overcome by civilised Europe, the place where nothing is forgotten and nothing learned, where old traumas are being replayed again and again, where [[symbolic ]] [[links ]] are simultaneously devalued (dozens of cease-fires broken) and overvalued (the primitive warrior's notions of honour and pride).

Against this background, a [[multitude ]] of myths flourished. For the "democratic [[left]]", Tito's Yugoslavia was the mirage of the third way of self-management, beyond capitalism and [[state]]-socialism. For the men of [[culture ]] it was the land of refreshing folkloric diversity (the [[films ]] of Makavejev and Kusturica); for [[author ]] Milan Kundera the place where the idyll of Mitteleuropa meets oriental barbarism.

For the western realpolitik of the late 1980s, the disintegration of Yugoslavia functioned as a [[metaphor ]] for what might happen in the [[Soviet Union]]; for [[France ]] and Great [[Britain ]] it resuscitated the [[phantom ]] of the [[German ]] Fourth [[Reich ]] perturbing the delicate [[balance ]] of European [[politics]].

Behind it all lurked the primordial [[trauma ]] of Sarajevo, of the Balkans as the spark threatening to set all of Europe ablaze. Far from being the Other of Europe, ex-Yugoslavia was rather Europe itself in its [[Otherness]], the [[screen ]] on to which Europe projected its own [[repressed ]] reverse.

It is difficult, then, not to [[recall ]] [[Hegel]]'s dictum that [[true ]] [[evil ]] does not reside in the [[object ]] perceived as bad, but in the innocent [[gaze ]] which perceives evil all around. The main obstacle to peace in ex-Yugoslavia is not "archaic ethnic passions", but the gaze of Europe fascinated by the spectacle of these passions.

Against today's journalistic commonplace about the Balkans as the madhouse of thriving [[nationalism ]] one must point out again and again that the moves of every [[political ]] [[agent ]] in ex-Yugoslavia, reprehensible though they may be, are totally [[rational ]] within the goals they [[want ]] to attain. The only exception, the only truly irrational factor in it, is the West babbling about archaic ethnic passions.

There is one simple answer: the political crisis in Serbia. The determining factor of the Yugoslav [[tragedy ]] is the survival of the old [[power ]] [[structure ]] (the [[communist ]] [[bureaucracy]], the Federal Army) in Serbia and Montenegro. It prolonged its domination by putting on nationalist clothes. The [[moment ]] a truly democratic force were to gain strength in Serbia, the flames of that nationalist [[passion ]] would extinguish themselves in a couple of weeks.

It may seem that now the Serbian game is over, that the West has finally blamed the true culprit. The [[real ]] [[desire ]] of the West is nevertheless discernible in innumerable telltale details: the continuous compulsive [[search ]] for stains on the other side, in order to establish a kind of balance of [[guilt ]] where everybody is equally mad; the focusing of attention on humanitarian problems, which not only treats the [[conflict ]] as if it were a kind of [[natural ]] disaster but also helps the Serbs carry out their "ethnic cleansing"; the invention of ever-new excuses against military [[intervention ]] (the Balkan countryside as the [[ideal ]] ground for prolonged guerrilla warfare); the ridiculous [[rejection ]] of the desperate Bosnian plea to be allowed to buy arms and thus [[defend ]] itself because it would be pouring oil on the flames.

As Time magazine said recently: "Western weaponry would probably not be useful to Bosnians without special training…" The blatant [[racism ]] is unavoidable: how come Serbs in Bosnia can handle sophisticated weaponry, including Mig fighter planes? Why did the same problem not prevent the [[United States ]] arming anti-communist rebels in Afghanistan?

All the talk about the [[need ]] for more severe measures to stop ethnic cleansing continues to serve the [[purpose ]] of putting off the actual implementation of these measures. Consequently, there is no need for [[psychoanalysis ]] in order to understand what is actually going on in Bosnia, no need to reach for the death-[[wish ]] to explain the atrocities. The proper [[subject ]] for [[analysis ]] is rather the [[hysterical ]] [[split ]] that characterises the attitude of the West — the [[uncanny ]] [[antagonism ]] between its "[[official]]" politics (preventing ethnic cleansing) and its true desire (to allow the Serbs to finish their [[work ]] and then, after the fait accompli, to impose peace).

Meanwhile, Bosnia lingers on, still alive, yet already written off, treated as a kind of political Aids [[patient]], stigmatised as a mad place where [[people ]] kill each other for the sheer [[pleasure ]] of doing it.

Are we to blame them if in the end, they really will become [[Muslim fundamentalists ]] and resort to desperate terrorist measures?