It takes time for historic events to reveal their consequences. It took nearly 80 years for the unnatural creations of Trianon, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, to selfdestruct. It took some 80 years to realize that it is the legacy of Trianon which is destabilizing and balkanizing Central Europe. By now we see that Trianon did not eliminate the causes of the 1914 murder in Sarajevo and we also realize that no unjust solution can stand the erosion of time, and Trianon did not provide justice.

But what is justice? In this relativistic age, – when my terrorist can be your freedom fighter, when the life of one UN or NATO soldier can be more valuable than that of a thousand Bosnian or Kosovo civilians, and when the Chechen or the Kurd nations are less deserving of self-determination than some others, – it is desirable to remind ourselves of what justice is. On the pulpit of the Notre-Dame Cathedral, Father R. P. Gratry has put it this way: "Every nation's homeland is sacred. If you destroy one of them, you mutilate the entire human race."

Therefore, the main mistake of 1920 was that it attempted to satisfy the desires of a Benes and a Clémenceau, instead of attempting to apply just principles to solve the nationality problems of Central Europe. Unfortunately, this approach has not changed during the last 75 years. The only thing that changed are the names of the architects of injustice. Today, the goal of international efforts is to appease a Milosevic and a Yeltsin, instead of establishing some general principles and applying them to everybody. The principles of a permanent solution, must involve self-determination through plebiscites, autonomy for ethnic minorities and a Danubian or Central European Federation as the ultimate goal.

The United Nations should declare that all national minorities anywhere in the world (exceeding some minimum number, say 100,000) have the right to hold UN supervised plebiscites and receive cultural and linguistic autonomy, if the majority so desires. It should make no difference how these minorities evolved, how long they lived in the particular area, or what their language or religion is. Regardless of all that, they all have the right to maintain their heritage and the right to determine their own cultural destiny. Once cultural autonomy is guaranteed, the main cause of tensions between Central European neighbors will also diminish.

When the Hungarians enjoy the same autonomy in Romania as the Romanian minorities in Hungary, when the Serb, Russian, Turkish, Albanian, German, or any other minorities of the region, are also treated equally, the tensions will disappear and the rebuilding can start.