Geenstijl

Hallo witte mensen. We kregen bezoek van de stadsdichter van Minsk, Wit-Rusland, en ja wie zijn wij dan.

De Wit-Russische president Aleksandr Loekasjenko vindt de verkiezingen nog steeds een unaniem belachelijk groot succes, en is zeer tevreden met meer dan 80% van de stemmen. 80% van de bevolking denkt daar echter iets anders over en is al dagen achtereen op straat. Berichten over de dood van oppositieleidster Tikhanovskaya waren overdreven, maar ze is het land wel ontvlucht. Journalisten zijn nog altijd vogelvrij. Poetin stelt een vergaande integratie tussen Moskou en Minsk voor en Zwarte Piet is er verboden op Facebook en Instagram want de overheid zet alles op alles om het internet af te sluiten.

Maar goed: de stadsdichter van Minsk dus, na de breek. Luister dan!

**There’s a country called Belarus. **It’s a quiet beautiful place populated by quiet beautiful people. It doesn’t appear in the newspapers very often. It doesn’t make big loud headlines. Lots of people don’t know it exists, never heard of it, never looked it up on the map, never googled it.

History was hard on Belarus. Every war between our neighbours for hundreds and hundreds of years was taking its toll on our people. The Second World War took every third Belarusian with it just 75 years ago.

We learned to be humble and sympathetic. We learned to feel for others, to be kind to everyone, to help others unconditionally. We learned that peace is precious, it’s something to be treasured. We learned that freedom comes at an enormous cost of lives lost and homes ruined. We avoid violence. 

It takes a long time to make a Belarusian angry, 20 years to be precise. It also takes a lot of effort. Here’s a small guide on how to do that. 

You should take Belarusian’s country, claim it and its people for yourself. You should put its economy in a state of permanent coma, making it work only for you personally and your friends. You should build a huge, clumsy and corrupt bureaucratic system. You should tax people and small businesses mercilessly. You should spend those taxes on useless palaces and monuments, that will glorify you and intimidate others. You should start selling your country to your foreign friends piece by piece. You should put the whole agricultural sector on its knees, and make people who grow our food starve. You should make an army that will be used for your personal protection. You should make an ugly, ridiculous, crippled propaganda media machine and make it spread lies daily with a smile. You should also use the media to humiliate people publicly. You should make people feel shame when they say they’re from Belarus. You should make those who don’t agree with it all suffer in prison or disappear.

It took 20 years to make Belarusians rise. And it has been done beautifully. People in clothing with national motives in the streets, holding hands, carrying flags, singing and smiling, saying ‘Belarus lives!’ as a greeting. They created platforms and channels to spread the word of change, to make elections fair, open and honest, like it should be. They supported three brave women which had to enter the election arena not by choice, but because of losses and pain caused by people currently in power. 

So here we are, once again at war that we didn’t choose or started ourselves. But this time it’s not the enemy that came from the outside, it has been here for a long time. It’s the enemy of free speech, of choice, of the truth. It’s the enemy who puts uniformed men against their own family and friends. It’s the enemy, who cannot fight his greed and thirst for power. It’s the enemy that cannot stop himself anymore.

It’s hard to write an ending, because it’s hard to say now what tomorrow holds for us. I only have a fool’s hope that the future will be kind to Belarus. The only thing I’m asking from anyone is not to be quiet, to talk, discuss, share the news, translate them, create awareness, use any media means necessary to let the world know about our struggle.  We are Belarusians. And for the first time in years we stand tall and proud, because we know what we’re fighting for.

- Was geschreven: een meisje dat echt bestaat en wier naam en MSN bekend is bij de redactie -