Open Letter to Lord Timothy Bell

«We clearly understood that you came in Minsk for money. Everything that was hiding behind the inspired with confidence formulation “a specialist in Public Relations”, in reality appeared just a banal desire for making money on somebody’s misfortune», -- - reads the open letter of the Free Theatre headship to Lord Timothy Bell.

Mr. Bell,

Epistolary genre became an extremely rare way of communication during the last years. We are not talking here about e-mails, contenting dry business text, and not even, of course, about SMS-messages. Epistolary genre – it is a genre of a considerably detailed letter. In the modern world people resort to it, as a rule, in two cases: when they want that the expressed thought will be recorded, or with the purpose that the addressee will be able repeatedly reread the message in case he can not understand the matter of the letter. Very likely, both of those propositions were the cornerstones of our wish to write you this letter.

We knew your name for the first time when we saw a report on Belarusian TV. You in a company of another Lord – Lord Cecil Parkinson had a nice conversation with Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko about Belarus’ image. You articulated: “I had browsed through numerous of the Internet-resources with the information about your country and saw a lot of double-standard and hypocritical comments there. We have to work to fix it” . That phrase had us to pay close attention to the TV report and found out that you were a specialist in Public Relations and came to our country not just for rendezvous with Alexander Lukashenko but “to fix Belarus’ image” .

Frankly speaking, we did not quite understand the sense of your spoken out words. What was the meaning of it? Was it that somebody in the information space tried to embellish the Belarusian reality and hide the human rights violations? Or was it that some kind of plotters cast suspicion on the country of “flourishing democracy” and “political stability”?

Your passage was not understand by Irina Krasovskaya – a godmother of our younger daughter, whose husband Anatoliy together with the Vice-Speaker of the Parliament Victor Gonchar was abducted and killed because of their belonging to the Belarusian democratic forces.

Your passage was not understand by the family of Dmitriy Zavadskiy, who was abducted and killed because of the fulfilment of his professional duties, and who could not meet even his thirties birthday.

Your passage was not understand by the former Candidate for the President and now a political prisoner Alexander Kozulin, who serves now a five-year term sentence in prison and has outlasted the death of his wife there.

Your passage was not understand by thousands of Belarussian, who, for the last fourteen years, went through assaults and batteries, unfair trials, jail imprisonments, firing from the jobs, discharging from the universities only because they could not accept the injustice and violence, reigning today in the country.

But pretty soon all those people understood the sense of your passage. We clearly understood that you came in Minsk for money. Everything that was hiding behind the inspired with confidence formulation “a specialist in Public Relations” , in reality appeared just a banal desire for making money on somebody’s misfortune. Or how another English Lord – Lord Byron wrote in his poem “The Corsair”: “His heart was form’d for softness – warp’d to wrong; Betray’d too early, and beguiled too long…”

Right after your departure from Belarus, on March 25 a traditional annual action took place and was dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the Declaration of the Belarusian National Republic. The authorities suppressed that peaceful action with the use of the special military forces, and about a hundred of demonstrators were beaten up, arrested and sentenced. And on March 27 all around the country Militia and KGB officers detained independent journalists, searched their apartments, seized equipment and other data carriers, destroyed offices of “Radio Racyja”, “Radio Europe” and satellite TV-channel “Belsat”. More than thirty journalists went through KGB interrogations and confiscation of computers, Dictaphones and video cameras.

We must suppose that your words “we have to work to fix it” became the epigraph to the violent actions of the authorities. Those actions of Belarusian Militia and KGB were already nicknamed by the people “the first PR-action of Lord Bell”. But that kind of formulation would hardly stop you, - as thousands of victims of Chile’s junta could not stop “fixing of the image” of dictator Augusto Pinochet.

In February this year we with the Belarus Free Theatre went on tour in London and Leeds, and we were astounded by the depth of the concern British displayed for Belarusian problems. We had full houses even during public discussions after the performances, close attention of all without exception mass media, participation of the British Theatre and Movies stars in one of our shows, where they read letters of Belarusian political prisoners from the stage… Among Patrons of our theatre there are Tom Stoppard, who has become a member of our family, and Mark Ravenhill, who has come to rescue us at the first call. Harold Pinter and Mick Jagger, Alan Rickman and Diana Quick, Kim Cattrall and Henry Goodman, Michael Billington and Richard Wilson became our close friends… All these people when we meet them ask only one question: “How can we help you and your country?”. And we associate Britain precisely with these people. As well as we associate Britain with the words “Honour” and “Dignity”.

“We have to work to fix it” . This phrase can become constructive if to change the sense of the word “it” which you put into it. We, Belarusian, are trying almost fifteen years to fix the consequences of that irresponsibility, we participated with in the first in our national history presidential elections. During that time the whole new generation of Belarusian grew up, being brought up on the ideas of non-violent resistance. All that time tens of thousand of citizens came out in the streets, despite the violence and arbitrariness of the authorities, to declare their democratic pro-European choice. We are trying to do our very best to become the People and we will go to the very end, despite of who and how tries to stay in our way. As one of great British – Sir Winston Churchill said: “You Do Your Worst – and We Will Do Our Best”.

Today the European Union and the United States of America have a coordinated position about Belarusian problem, which is clearly revealed in the “12 demands of the European Union”. They include the basic democratic postulates – release of political prisoners, transparent elections, freedom of the mass media, economy liberalisation and so on. With the fulfilment of these demands Belarus will stop to be “the last dictatorship in Europe” and begin the process of forward entry into the European Union. From that particular moment the whole Continent will begin to explore an absolutely new and unknown before way of coexistence – life without dictatorship at all.

We were staggered that you, an educated person, did not have any desire to explain to the Belarusian government all the benefit virtues of that particular choice for Belarus. Instead of it you were preoccupied by absolutely different problem – how “to fix” the opinion of those who wanted to live as decent human beings and had the right for freedom of speech to criticise the violence and arbitrariness of the authorities. Of course, we forgot about the major point of it: Who will pay you for the explanation of the benefit virtues of the democratic choice for Belarus? Nobody pays for that kind of deeds, but people, who come forward as the initiators of the negotiation processes, stay in the history.

By the way, about the money. We hope, you are an adult, Mr. Bell, and understand, that there is no such column as “PR-technologies of Lord Bell” with eight figures sum in the Belarusian budget. It means, that for the money which you will, probably, receive for your job, you will have, anyway later, to give the detail explanation to the competent agencies, authorised by the Belarusian taxpayers.

Belarusian people always had a consciousness stereotype, which was formed by the British Literature and History – title “Lord” was steady associated with an adult educated man, with the impeccable reputation, good manners and irreproachable taste. You partially succeeded in debunking of that stereotype, even though, frankly speaking, Belarusian people did not have any desire to part with it.

Don’t you think that, may be, it doesn’t worth to disappoint the whole nation in romantic filling of the honourable title, and simply, finally, pay close attention to your own image and start to correct it for the better? Of course, we understand, that it will be difficult for you to do it, but, after all, you simply “have to work to fix it” .

At the end we would like to say thank you that you allowed us to recall and remember so forgotten epistolary genre. And for now, unfortunately, it is the only thing we can thank you for.

Nikolai N. Khalezin

Art Director of the Belarus Free Theatre

Natalia A. Koliada

General Director of the Belarus Free Theatre