Im not from Europe. Can someone explain what are the Balkans exactly and why there’s “beef” between them?
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I think a very simplified explanation for the beef is that different people/cultures are divided up between country borders that do not overlap neatly.
So there is one group of people, who feel they belong to that group, divided between two countries. This causes tension between the group and the country they feel left in, supported by the other country making them stronger.
For example. One part of the war in the 90s was between Bosnia and Serbia. There are Serbian people living in Bosnia who feel they should be a part of Serbia. And Serbia wanted to move their border across Bosnia to include these people. Which Bosnia did not want.
Now there are also Croatians living in Bosnia. And they wanted to be part of Croatia. And Croatia wanted to include these Croatians as well. Problem was, there are also Croatians living in Serbia. So Croatia wanted a bit of Bosnia and Serbia, which both didn’t want. So now you have three parties. You see where this is going.
Now multiply this to 6 countries who all have “their people” living in parts of the others which they all wanted to claim and you have this entire clusterfuck of overlapping claims.
Nobody was really in it to dominate the other group of people. But because of all the overlapping claims, there was no clear solution. And this entire situation, despite the wars, really hasn’t been resolved fully.
So this cultural tension remains relevant today, although no wars are being fought about these claims now.
Perhaps for a bit of US context. Imagine that California becomes independent but California also wants some parts of Mexico and some parts of Oregon. The US believes they should get a small part of California back but also wants that same piece of Mexico that California also claims. Meanwhile, Mexico thinks it should get some part of Texas. And in all that mess, San Francisco decides that it would rather just be independent from everyone else than deal with this nonsense apart from that piece of Chinatown, they can stay in the US while Chinatown itself just wants to stay Californian.. Yeah, good luck solving this puzzle while keeping everyone happy and without physically moving people to other places.
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