Several times in history, the Balkans were a predictor of the future in Europe: the First World War in a way started on the territory of later Yugoslavia, while the breakup of this multiethnic and multi-religious country heralded the growing nationalism and fundamentalism in other parts of Europe as well as the Middle East, from where millions of refugees want now to come to the increasingly xenophobic Europe. Such processes of division and hostility are in the West often described as Balkanization, a term that some use also to describe the current developments in Syria. At least in recent years, however, these processes have been undoubtedly due also to the increasing interference of international financial capital in the economic and political situations in the region.
