I think I finally have a sense of the difference between Croatia and Serbia.  As I write this,  I am sitting on the deck of a river boat in the harbor at Belgrade; and the commercial energy of this place is many times that I felt anywhere in Croatia.  Serbian armies battered the hell out of Croatia to an extent that the infrastructure can’t be mended completely for a long time.  A bridge spanning the Danube is crowded with all sorts of vehicles, including trains that run every five minutes... both directions.  These people obviously have places to go and things to do.  In Vukovar, Croatia, almost half of the people can’t find employment, so half the people who are out and about meander rather than rush.  Partially renovated building sit waiting for owners to get enough material and money to continue work. Hundreds of homes that were partially destroyed in the war have been left to crumble.  Many lots where houses once stood are nothing but weed patches.  Here in Belgrade, everything seems finished... all crisp corners and fresh paint.  I think I remember that NATO bombed the city in the mid-90s.  They’ve obviously recovered.  Later today I’ll learn from Serbs themselves what they think happened during the “Homeland War.” 

I wrote the first paragraph before actually going about Belgrade, and when I rode around the city on a tour bus in the middle of the day, a beautiful young Serbian woman showed us bombing damage done by NATO, and it’s true that the damage to buildings was/is extensive; but the difference is that the targets were military buildings and not residences or nonmilitary targets.  Belgrade is beautiful and alive with people who seem to be meaningfully engaged in the life of the city.  I had a conversation with Slobodan Stetic who prefers not to talk about the possibility that Serbia was at fault.  He wants the blame for the war to be shared equally by Croatia and Serbia.  He says correctly, I think, that it is governments that go to war, not people; but he avoids acknowledging that governments are run by people.  He admits that Slobodan Milosevic is not a nice guy and that he had grandiose dreams about an enlarged Serbia that could happen only if other republics of the former Yugoslavia could be annexed.  He stops short of acknowledging that Milosevic was actually the monster that he was.  Mr. Setic and I didn't even discuss Kosovo and the genocide there for which Milosevic was responsible.

What do I think.  I believe Serbia and Croatia will not only survive but that they will reconcile.  I talked with young people of high school age, and they seem to want to get on with their neighbors and with their lives.  Who could possibly look at the faces of these young people and not believe things will get better.  Ironically, they wanted to know if I believe President Obama will be reelected for a second term.  They obviously know more about American politics than the average American high school student knows about any other country, even our closest neighbors in Canada and Mexico.

These are the faces of the Serbian future.