Contesting Ideas on Peace : A Report & Some Reflections

Published By: Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group

Inter-state conflicts dominated the world for the better part of the twentieth century with the rivalry of two superpower blocs threatening nuclear doomsday in its second half. By contrast, the post-Cold War scenario has been witnessing a growing number of intra-state conflicts which has led to the crumbling of many nation-state and supra-national entities and continued bleeding of others till date. Since then, wars have been replaced by civil wars at varying levels in new theatres across the globe exposing the inability of the concerned nation-states to cope with new conflicts in conventional ways. The United States of America and Western Europe celebrated the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the German reunification and the Velvet Revolution in Prague as well as the not-so cushy revolutions in other former Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern Europe. But the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia ignited a cycle of civil wars in the Balkans, which forced Europeans to revisit the worst war crimes and crimes against humanity since the World War II. The flames of hatred that consumed millions of South Slavs and people of ancient Illyrian origins have been doused, hopefully for good. But the embers are still glowing. Will the latest cartographic jigsaw puzzle and pigeonholing of ethnic groups end war in the Balkans for good? Or, is this an endless journey from one dystopia to another, rather a daily dystopia ?

Author(s): Biswajit Roy | Posted on: Jan 02, 2018 | Views() | Download (88)


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