When the Covid pandemic occurred three years ago and caused, for a modern European man, a completely unknown situation of quarantine and border closure, the popularity of the otherwise excellent book by historian Jean Delimo "Fear in the West: from the XIV to the XVIII century. The Haunted City", in which this French historian described the collective fears of Europeans at the end of the Middle Ages and during the early modern period, of the plague, Turks, Jews, witches and all minority groups, which caused exclusivity, persecution and imprisonment within the community. And regardless of the fact that the end of the pandemic has been officially declared, the era of new wars and evident new power relations in the world, which was started by Russia's attack on Ukraine, continued by Azerbaijan's attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, and currently concluded by Hamas's attack on Israel and Israel's bombing of Gaza , has once again awakened even greater fears than those of the pandemic, which have been further intensified by the migrant crisis and the increasing number of terrorist attacks throughout the West.
As a result, Europe began to close itself more and more, this time mainly in fear of the Islamic world, which again has a tradition in early medieval history and the history of mentality, which was excellently described by the Italian historian Franco Cardini in the book "Europe and Islam".
For now, this fear has resulted in the new introduction of the Schengen border between Italy and Slovenia and Slovenia and Croatia, along with an increasing number of new border controls between other European countries. In Croatia, this de facto falling out of the Schengen world, which the country has just entered, became the key political news of the week, with the standard spats between Prime Minister Plenković, the opposition and independent journalists, although the topic is much broader than the internal political life in Croatia.
It is clear, as far as that is concerned, that it is politically impossible to expect Croatia to hermetically close the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, primarily for the reason that this would render the entire narrative of concern for Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina meaningless. Apart from the fact that it is ideologically impossible to decide, this potential closure would not even be possible to implement, on the one hand because of the long length of the border and the very small number of people in the state's repressive apparatus, and on the other hand because there is a whole series of paths and crossings that are impossible to control. And it is true that Croatia was offered the help of the Slovenian police and that Plenković's government simply does not have the political strength to admit its impotence.
However, as I have already stated, this is only one aspect of the problem, while the other two remain, no less important, and relate to the future of relations between the remaining post-Yugoslav states that did not join the European Union and European politics, and to the future of Europe without borders in as a whole, both as an idea and as a political project.
Because, if until these last events it was possible to push forward with inertia and a narrative that was clearly spent and symbolized by the hits of Toto Cutugna and the Scorpions, it is really no longer possible, since the story of a Europe without borders and a continent of peace sounds tragicomic in new circumstances of armored borders and European cities patrolled by the army.
The answer to the question of whether it is possible to get out of psychosis and collective fear or not will not be simple and is actually primarily on the left. The right certainly answered that question and gathered all the votes, among other things, in the recently held elections in two German provinces. The problem is that there is no such answer on the left, nor is it in sight, and those left-wing intellectuals who think and write about all this do not offer any concrete answers themselves. Including Slavoj Žižek, who did give an interesting and well-founded lecture in Frankfurt about the situation in Israel, which caused many people to be shocked.
When we talk about our responsibility and these areas and how we think about answering these questions beyond Europe itself, the matter is even worse, and that is because they are not even asked in public.
Because while a new world is clearly being created around us, and we know how much the collapse of the old cost us after the fall of the Berlin Wall, here we are still discussing the consequences of the collapse of the old, as if nothing that happens today fundamentally affects us, unless it manifests directly in our societies.
Repeating that kind of blindness to international circumstances twice would be too much, even for us.
This text, clearly, cannot answer these questions, but it can ultimately refer to the third book, authored by Edgar Morin, entitled "Thinking of Europe", with full awareness that the author is a man from the Marana community, i.e. those Sephardim who had to pay for the right to stay in Spain by changing their religion, even if it was only superficial.
Bonus video:
