The Russians are preparing to supply Serbia with new military technology as do other rogue states. Greece is secretly negotiating with Iran. Serb leaders visit Iraq. Russians are meeting North Koreans. So do the Chinese. Russian aircraft breach NATO's airspace. The Europeans are hastily forming their own defence alliance and finally appointed Mr. PESC, the long awaited EU foreign policy supremo. The ramblings of a new cold war (the world against the USA) are clearly audible to the attentive ear. In the margins more minor players such as Israel position themselves to counter what they regard as dangerous liaisons between Pakistani, Afghani and Albanian Islamic fundamentalist, terrorist cum drug concerns (sometimes in the guise of aid organizations). Bin Laden is in the area. Every secret service, every crime organization, every terrorist group, every liberation movement, every weapons dealer, every drug pusher are here, eager not to miss the unfolding action. These wrangles will surely depress investors' appetites. They will not increase the pledges in bow tied donor conferences either. Good money (investments and international aid) rarely follows bad one (crime and weapons trading, for example). The Balkan countries stand to get a small fraction of the magnificent and magnanimous and generous promises made to them in the heat of the battle. The Balkan will be forgotten because it refuses to reform, because it is obstreperous. The number of officials visiting will decline. The journalists will beat a path to other blazes. The local politicians, pampered by the likes of Clinton and the CNN will revert unwillingly to their petty squabbles and ragged local papers. In a few months, it is will all seem like a mirage. It will all sink into the fertile soil of this luscious region, fertilized by countless bodies and bloody rivulets. The great togetherness will evaporate leaving behind the putrid fumes of re-emerging, centuries old, grudges and suspicions. The people will complain. The leaders will thieve and collaborate with organized crime. The criminals will prosper. The farmers will toil their land and intellectuals will conspire. It is the Balkans where nothing changes. And nothing ever will. (Article written on July 11, 1999 and published July 19, 1999 in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 4) Return The Dance of Jael