Humanism, in the emerging mold of human rights, only became an apparent foil for the pursuit of big-power interests toward the end of nineteenth century, when humanists argued that Europe’s new nation states should be required to preserve minority rights. All major Western European powers agreed, and in the 1878 Berlin Treaty minority-protection requirements were imposed on the Balkan states emerging from the Russo-Turkish War in the East. But, demonstrating again that humanism is a fig leaf for the powerful, the same strictures were not applied to Europe’s old states, which would not be
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