Ethnic unmixing under the aegis of the West: a transnational approach to the breakup of Yugoslavia Ger Duijzings Published in: Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (Amman), 5(2), 2003, 1-16. [puďliĐatioŶs page Ŷuŵďeƌs added] [1] In this essay, the author revisits and further develops the argument put forward in his book, Religion and the Politics of Identity in Kosovo, which describes the processes of ethnic unmixing and ethno-demographic engineering that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia. Instead of analyzing these conflicts in terms of irratioŶal aŶĐieŶt ethŶiĐ hatreds, the author argues that the ǀioleŶĐe iŶ Yugoslaǀia had profouŶdlLJ ratioŶal diŵeŶsioŶs aŶd ǁas priŵarilLJ EuropeaŶ iŶ origiŶ. Its aiŵ ǁas to put aŶ eŶd to the forŵs of ŵidžiŶg, sLJŵďiosis and coexistence that have been intrinsic to Balkan life and to create political communities based upon the dominant European principle of the nation-state. SeĐoŶd, the author Đlaiŵs that the Wests ĐoŶĐeptualizatioŶs of these conflicts in ethnic terms actually strengthened processes of ethnic unmixing on the ground. Third, he makes the case that, based upon the secular and linguistically-based notions of ethnic and national identity in the West, the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo were perceived differently. Western reluctance to intervene largely evaporated when the issue was no longer violence in Bosnia, but violence in Kosovo, where the West stepped in on behalf of Kosovar Albanians. Finally, the author argues that, owing to the continued centrality of the nation- state, the concept of transnationalism – and not globalization – is the one that renders processes of ethnic unmixing in the former Yugoslavia most meaningful, even though the conflict could not have evolved in the way that it did without the conditions of a globalized world. Before Yugoslavia descended into war in the early 1990s, only half or less of the territory of this multi-ethnic state was ethnically homogeneous. Except for Serbia proper and Slovenia, the other republics (especially [2] Bosnia and Macedonia) and autonomous provinces ;Kosoǀo aŶd VojǀodiŶaͿ ǁeƌe ŵidžed, foƌŵiŶg ĐoŵpliĐated ethŶosĐapes of teƌƌitoƌiallLJ- dispersed groups that entertained multifaceted and ambiguous – sometimes conflictual, sometimes symbiotic – relations with one another. As a result of the wars of the 1990s, this situation has changed radically. Ethnic cleansing and other less violent, but equally efficient, foƌŵs of ethŶo-deŵogƌaphiĐ eŶgiŶeeƌiŶg haǀe siŵplified the look of the ƌegioŶ. Paƌts ǁith longstanding traditions of coexistence were appropriated by one of the contending groups aŶd eŵptied of otheƌs. These pƌoĐesses of ethŶiĐ uŶŵidžiŶg 1 seem to be irreversible: Bosnia is divided, for all intents and purposes, into three largely ethnically-homogeneous entities, Croatia has expelled most Serbs and Serbia most Croats. As we have witnessed more recently, Kosovo and Macedonia have not been spared these processes. Serbian efforts to massively cleanse Kosovo of its Albanian population have been followed – after