The original idea of naming the peninsula as The Balkan peninsula leaded to a new word and term , the Balkanisation. The meaning of this term does not refer just to the Balkans but it actually has a global use and significance.
"Balkanisation" of a given community is today predominantly a slur word, suggesting a narcissistic fragmentation of large collectives into ever smaller splinter groups that assert themselves in bloodshed and cruel hatred, in cunning moralism of purity and in ritual evocation of ancient herds.
Fredric Jameson, at his book Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism writes that If Balkanization means a particular kind of fragmentation where the fragments are mutually hostile and in competition with each other, then it is by no means clear that fragmentation and globalization are really opposites. Globalization may in fact enable and promote Balkanization.
One Internet search engine offered nearly eight thousand results of the term usage.
From the Balkanization of the world wide web, to the Chinese legal system, to the territories of Nigeria and Columbia, to the U.S. electricity grid,or the transit system in San Francisco.
Everything and everywhere seems to be in danger of becoming "Balkanized," with only a tiny proportion of these cases taking place in the Balkans themselves.
But getting back to the origins of Balkanisation one would wonder what could its dialectic opposite be? In which way and under which term could it be defined the de-Balkanisation?
