C. Doug,
Would you describe the Israelis (clearly different from "the Jews," I guess I have to make that plain) as civilized or uncivilized in their treatment of the Palestinians? Would you say that the Afrikaners who created apartheid were civilized? Were the Hutus who slaughtered their neighbors with machetes and axes civilized? Was Germany (by all accounts a civilized country) civilized when it embraced Nazism? Civilized is as civilized does, *not* as civilized claims to be. What civilized behavior, exactly, am I missing in the Balkans? When has good will and tolerance been the main political force there in the past decade or so?
Serbs, Croats and Albanians seem to be able to act in a perfectly civilized manner when they live in Cleveland (although their rhetoric sometimes leaves something to be desired, I have heard representatives of all three groups refer to at least one of the others as "animals"). They have no congenital mental defect so far as I can tell. Therefore, I conclude that their misbehavior in their traditional homeland stems from a politics which incompletely embraces the values of civilized behavior. They are, as evidenced by their actions, espoused opinions, and tendency to justify what is obviously prejudice with myths and ancient history, uncivilized. Again, they are hardly unique and any society can be turned this way. For example, many Indian Hindus have turned away from Gandhi's vision so much that they danced in the streets when their country made plain they had a nuclear bomb with Pakistan's name on it. The same people who embrace the highest standards of civilization can come to represent the lowest.
If one attempts to associate a people in deterministic way with uncivilized behavior, it's preposterous. No reasonable person would make such a claim. If one attempts to waive away the problems of the Balkans with a blanket excuse of "They're uncivilized," that's clearly wrong. Since I was not doing that, it's also moot. If one, in making brief the assessment that the region suffers from a seemingly intractable problem of ethnic prejudice and is therefore alienated from the best traditions of civilization, says that the people of the Balkans are "uncivilized," that is another matter entirely.
I would suggest to you that it is more difficult to read carefully and open-mindedly when one is on a high horse.
peace