Lies and Damned Lies

Any number of reasons (and warnings) were given for me not to come to Serbia. Among them that the Serbs are the new Nazis of Europe. We've all read that in the newspapers and seen it on CNN. It must be true.

On 23 June of this year I came to one of the most hated places in the world and found a beautiful (if poor,) friendly city. Even after the devastation one might expect from a bombardment, as our NATO countries did only two years ago, a lovely capital remains.

Over the last three days I have witnessed demonstrations in Belgrade because the former dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, is being sent to the Hague. I have talked with fellow journalists who demonstrated against Milosevic for over a decade -- even when he was supported by my own country and NATO -- before the former Yugoslavia (and especially Serbia) became one of the primary villians of the world.

These people, my fellow journalists, were beaten on the street by Milosevic's "Special Police." They have shown me their physical and emotional scars and asked where "we" (my country, NATO) were over those years of their protests and struggle.

I have no answer.

I have now seen videotapes of tens of thousands of people marching in the street against Milosevic a decade ago.

I look every day at news from Macedonia that the KLA and its new incarnation, ONA, is threatening to destroy that country, as it did Kosovo, and wonder that the "freedom fighters" sometimes called Kosovars are now being called "terrorists"

People here ask me why they are terrorists now that they are not fighting and killing Serbs.

I have no answer.

I am sitting in Serbia, one of the most villified countries in the world, and visiting castles here in Belgrade where they fought against the Turks, the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Nazis.

The most insulting things you can do, even in our "post-modern" world, is compare somebody to the Nazis.

That is what American politician and former Presidential candidate Bob Dole did to Serbia. That is what British Prime Minister Tony Blair did.

The Serbs I have met, whose parents died in concentration camps for fighting the Nazis, ask me why.

I have no answer.

While I was visiting the Tesla Museum here in Belgrade two days ago, I learned that one of his great friends was the American journalist and writer Mark Twain.

I stood with my friends, Dragan and Dragana Vicanovic, and was given a demonstration of wireless electricity -- something Tesla had developed in the 19th century.

Part of the documentation in the Tesla Museum is about how he had been involved with George Westinghouse in battling Thomas Edison over which form of electrical transmission would prevail, alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC.)

Tesla was the better physicist. AC won.

And then J.P. Morgan recruited Tesla to share his knowledge of other technologies, from radio transmission to rocking our planet with electromagnetism.

But Tesla was a foolish and naive Serb. He did not understand marketing. He died alone and penniless in the New Yorker hotel....

I met a young man in the Tesla Museum who was studying Physics in Germany. He brought back evidence from the Museum that Nickola Tesla, to whom we all owe so much, was a genius from Serbia. His professor and his class, he told my friend Dragan, apologized to him for the lies about Tesla.

When Dragan told me this I thought about our joke about lies, damned lies and statistics.

28 June is a religious holiday here in Belgrade. It is also the anniversary of a great battle from the 14th Century. That is the day a Serbian Knights stood as the vanguard against the Turkish invasion of Europe in a province called Kosovo...

Yesterday, 28 June, after Dragan returned from working on his magazine, Third Eye, we decided to go out for dinner. (Yours Truly had said he would cook but decided to buy a meal at a restaurant instead.)

There were more demonstations on the streets here.

We talked.

When we talked about the demonstrations I learned that the problem for most Serbian people -- and particularly those who opposed Milosevic over these years -- is that he is the only one being taken to the Hague. There are so many war criminals here, from various parts of the former Yugoslavia. "Why not justice for them?" I am asked.

My country, the United States, says it is a country of laws. We say we respect the rule of law. It would seem we would respect that internationally and allow the Serbia Constitution to prevail and have Milosevic tried and judged in his own country.

The Serbians I meet ask me why we don't support that concept.

Again, I have no answer.

Yesterday, 28 June, Slobodan Milosevic was delivered to the international tribunal at the Hague as a war criminal. It was the second lead in the New York Times and the lead story on the CNN Web site. The CNN story was written by Christiane Amanpoure.

The New York Times story says that Milosevic is the only former head-of-state in the history of the Hague tribunals to be brought before it. It says it without irony.

Christiane Amanpoure's story at CNN ends by saying that 50% of the "Yugoslav" people want to see Milosevic taken to the Hague.

That is when I lose it. Amanpoure is reporting from London, as her byline shows, not from the former Yugoslavia! I am sitting in the heart of the country and talking to people every day.

NO ONE I have met in the largest city in this country wants Milosevic sent to the Hague.

I have seen the protests on the streets here in Belgrade. I am living with people who could only be considered Leftists, who have shed blood fighting against Milosevic and one thing is clear: "Yugoslavia" wants to judge Milosevic. Yugoslavia does not want to leave it to the Hague.

That can only leave me to one conclusion:

Christiane Amanpoure is A LYING BITCH!

Pardon my French.

Tesla's Dream

As much as I wanted to write objectively about Serbia, about this former Yugoslavia, as we would have it, I could not.

There is too much passion here and too much passion in me. I have a difficult time tolerating lies piled upon lies.

• Nickola Tesla is a Croat, not a Serb.
• The Serbs collaborated with the Nazis.
• The Serbian people supported Milosevic.
• The KLA are "freedom fighters" not drug dealers.
• There is a plan for a Greater Serbia, not a Greater Albania.

So now let me tell you the truth: If you'd like to find a group of people who are suffering but enduring, who are laughing amidst the calumny, who are NOT Nazis or devils, come to Serbia.

If you want to find a loving people, who shrug off alll the lies told about them, come to Serbia. The most popular phrase here is "No problem."

If you want to find one of the world's most beautiful capitals, filled with some of its most beautiful women, come to Belgrade, in Serbia.

Against the warnings of friends and family, I have come to Serbia, where we dropped our bombs, and rather than finding a bitter people I have found a people willing to play music in the center of the city every day after the bombs were falling.

Geopolitically, the Balkans have been the cross-roads between Europe and Asia for centuries. As when I went to Egypt, I am finding a complex place -- because of the repeated conquerors -- struggling to hold onto its identity.

And I am seeing the result of "Empire."

Nickola Tesla believed that invention would change the world. While in Colorado and New York, that strange and eccentric genius -- a Serb -- looked beyond his time to a better future. One of Tesla's dreams, while working with J.P. Morgan, was transmitting video as well as sound. Today we call it television.

Tesla said that his inspirations came because of love for birds. While he lived at the New Yorker hotel during the end of his life, he was known to feed the pigeons in Central Park. And while he considered a new problem, he would wait for a white dove to appear at his window.

I did not know this story about Nickola Tesla until I came to Serbia. But I was waiting for my white dove...

I'm now wishing a white dove for you.

Travel Radio Channel

Search www.g21.net [ ] Our Link Partners the Web for