PERSPECTIVErnGhosts in the GraveyardrnThe Serbian Question, Againrnby Thomas FlemingrnThe bus from Budapest to Belgrade is full, and I am luckyrnto get a seat. We are a cosmopolitan lot. In addition tornthe two Americans (I am traveling with Bill Mills, or “Bratrn[brother] Bill” as he will come to be known), there are two Norwegianrnbusinessmen sitting across the aisle reading the Economist,rna sprinkling of Hungarians and Germans, and a group ofrnfriends returning to Belgrade from a vacation in the Orient.rnWhen we successfully clear Hungarian and Yugoslav customs,rnthe friends begin dancing and singing as if the bus were a gypsyrnwedding. “What’s the occasion?” I ask. “Oh, nothing,” saysrnone of them and bursts into hysterical laughter.rnContrary to my expectation of suriy Yugoslav officialdom,rnthe Serbian immigration agents are easygoing and friendly tornthe Americans. In fact, the whole project so far has been remarkablyrneasy. In Milan I received a visa after only an hour’srnwait. I was even met at the Budapest airport by an embassy representative.rnWhen I tried to thank him for his attention, herntold me that these days his job consists of helping journalists.rnHe did not have to tell me that they were the very journalistsrnwho were calling for air strikes against his country.rnWhat they expect out of me, I do not know. A dupe, perhaps,rna secret sympathizer, maybe even a muddleheaded pacifist.rnIn the old days, Yugoslavia had been the darling of Americanrnand European leftists, and the Serbs still cannotrnunderstand why they have become the enemy of the humanrnrace. No one in Europe has a good word to say for them. Overrnand over in the previous weeks my Italian friends had been askingrnme why I wanted to go to Serbia. Hadn’t I read what myrngovernment had been saying about them? Didn’t I believernwhat I had seen “with my own eyes” on the evening news?rnI am suspicious of unanimity, especially one that is manufacturedrnby the official press. I knew that in the limited timernI had it was impossible to grasp the complexity of the conflicts,rnand since everyone else was reporting only the versions given byrnthe Croats and Muslims, my small contribution would be to tellrnthe story as the Serbs tell it and to learn to see the countryrnthrough their eyes. I would be as honest and accurate as I knowrnhow, but objective? True objectivity requires the capacity torncompare perspectives, and I had seen no evidence of objectivityrnin any of the press coverage of Yugoslavia. Some day, Godrnwilling, I might learn to appreciate the other sides of the story;rnfor now it was enough to work my way into the skin of the Serbs.rnThe task is easier than it might be, since ordinary peoplernspeak their minds without hesitation. Waiting in line for thernbus, I struck up a conversation with a former pilot who warnedrnme not to believe what I was hearing from the embassy representative.rn”We’ll talk later,” he said, sensing the growing annoyancernof the official. The pilot is anything but a Serb nationalist;rnin fact, he is not even a Serb but some kind ofrnYugoslav. With a Montenegrin father and a Croatian mother,rnhe is married to a Croat who prefers to call herself Dalmatian.rnThey and their children live in the same house in Belgrade withrnhis sister and her Muslim husband. No, there is no trouble fromrnSerbs. In fact, Belgrade is swarming with Croatian and BosnianrnMuslim inhabitants, many of them refugees from war zones.rnThe pilot blames the politicians who now run all the new republics,rnincluding both Miloshevitch of Serbia and Tudjman ofrnCroatia. Although they were all communists, he points out,rnthat charge is only made against Miloshevitch (the only properrnway to spell it in Latin letters without using diacriticalrn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn