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How rapidly—and tragically—the celebration of freedom occasioned by throwing off the yoke of Communist rule in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was succeeded by a wave of ethnic/nationalist conflicts, expressed at its violent genocidal extreme in the identity war in Bosnia, in which ethnic cleansing became policy. Tragic, but predictable, for the loss of enemies is destabilizing, and the chaos left in the wake of the departing Communist enemy provided fertile soil for hate-mongering demagogues to exploit centuries-old hostilities.
The revival of hostility among existing groups with a history of conflict is not surprising. Nor, given the long-standing history of anti-Semitism in these nations, would it be surprising to see the revival of anti-Semitism in post-Communist eastern Europe, if there were Jews there. The fact that anti-Semitism has revived so powerfully in the absence of Jews demonstrates the power of the paranoid dynamic and the associated need for enemies. When the real enemy disappears, the need for enemies becomes intensified, and in the absence of real enemies they will be created.
There is a readiness in the human psyche to fear strangers and seek comfort with the familiar. Under duress, stranger anxiety and fear of the other mount, and the paranoid capacity to project hatred is mobilized. Such anxiety is produced not only by unknown persons, but also by unfamiliar places, foods, and sounds. Significant others—parents, teachers, peers—sponsor “suitable targets of externalization” for the developing child, and “group-specific externalizations” tie the children together (Volkan 32). The strangeness of some things (and the comforting familiarity of others) take on political significance as the child grows into adulthood.
This fear of the stranger and projection of hatred upon the other are the psychological foundation of the concept of the enemy.2 The crystallization of the shared comfort of the familiar is the psychological fo