Fault lines

When a geographical area is located between or on the two sides of the border between two geological forces operating in different directions a fault line can open. But very often the landscape gets divided by numerous fault lines depending on position and material.

These considerations may be transferred to the cultural and political spheres. Here present Eastern Europe can be seen as an area between two different forces; the Western civilization and the emerging East European one. Also in this case there are more than just a single fault line. This means that the area is multifaceted with differences along different dimensions, differences with fault lines at different locations. Here some of these: The border between more and less authoritarian political systems runs along one zigzag line between the countries, the border between different cultural preferences along another, the border between different attitudes towards LGBT follows a third zigzag route both between and through countries. A further fault line with its own path runs between more and less oligarchic or should we call it feudal societies. A religious fault line between different parts of the Orthodox Church runs within several countries including Greece.

Importantly, some of these fault lines can be divided into parallel sublines dividing different degrees of a difference.

A politico-military fault line stretches along the Baltic States and Poland’s Eastern border to continue through Eastern Ukraine and north of Crimea and somewhere in Moldova. Clearly the Ukrainian part of this fault line is presently getting wider.

A further local extension of this fault line runs around Serbia in Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia. Also this part of the line seems to open further, right now especially in Bosnia.