We are children of the Square

The last 20 years of our live are on the Square.

In 1991 we were standing on Lenin Square. In 1992 and 1993 we were standing on Nezalezhnastsi (Independence) Square, and there again in 1996, before the referendum. Later, when Belarus was deprived of a legitimate authority, there were different squares. People gathered in Yakub Kolas Square. In Kastrychnitskaya Square. They even came together to Bangalore Square. All kind of things happened, but there was always a Square in our life.

In 1991, when we came together in Lenin Square, today’s Kastrychnitskaya Square was called Tsentralnaya (Central) Square. But a generation has grown up, and they do not remember Lenin or Central Square. Thanks to this generation, the square officially called Kastrychnitskaya Square turned into Kalinouski Square 4 years ago. Or simply – the Square (Ploshcha).

In early 1990ies in Lenin-Nezalezhnastsi Square sometimes a hundred thousand people came together, which is more than nowadays. But the Square in 2006 has become the symbol which is respected by each of us on a par with “Pahonya” and white-red-white flag. Not only because paddy wagons took hundreds of people from it to prison. Not only because it was not an illusion, but a reality. Symbols simply cannot appear in comfort. They emerge in frosty nights, and not necessarily accompanied by a drone of paddy wagons’ motors, but when experience of long resistance, not momentary and intermittent one, is received. It was cold on the Square then, and tents could not save from cold, and leaders did not have a plan then, so they preferred to stay on the level of handshakes and pep talk, but for almost 5 days people survived on their own courage and the help of sympathizers. Some people brought warm clothes, some brought flasks with tea and throw blankets. Then the Square emerged. This is the Square about which no one has to ask: “Which exactly square is meant by you?” The square is waiting for us again. Lat time we have not finished what we should have finished – for the sake of ourselves and our loved ones.

My father’s childhood concurred with the war time. The childhood of my husband concurred with Khrushchev’s thaw. My childhood – with Brezhnev’s period of stagnation. The childhood of Natallya Radzina with perestroika. Palina Kurjanovich’s childhood took place in the first years of independent Belarus. But in 2006 all of us were standing on the square together. There are thousands of such people, they are of different age, but they are united by a desperate thirst for freedom. And it has smoothed away the boundaries between generations, as all of us are children of the Square now.

But 5 years have passed. And it’s time for us to grow up. And it means that we should bring to the logical conclusion the thing for which we came to the square then, on March 19. To win. To drive away the rotten cesspool of cowardly petty swindlers. To raise our flag over the square. To change the bald tyre. To realize that not only the Square belongs to us, but the city, and all other cities, and the entire country, and it means, the whole world. And at last we should start a new life, in which there is no place for fear. That’s all. And then we’ll cope with other problems.

Let’s be honest with ourselves. This is probably our last chance. And if it is not used by us, then we’ll have to sit on a bank of the river like an Indian and wait for the enemy's corpse to float by along the river. And have anyone wondered for how long should we wait? Indians say nothing about that, but these events could fail to come. They like sophisms, they say one cannot understand a person before walking a mile in his moccasins, but they do not say that it’s impossible to obtain moccasins before scalping the poor creature. But that does not suit us, unfortunately or luckily.

The only thing is good for us: to come to the Square and come to the victory. The Square is waiting for us. And our conscience has never left this square. It has been sitting on the stone called “the zero kilometers” for almost 5 years. We should return there. Or to come there for the first time. But it would be impossible to pass by, to go round. Not because the Square is a magnet, but because the Square is a place where conscience lives. And our future lives there as well.

To not listen for drama queens from the prosecutor’s office who say that it is illegal to go to the Square. It is an impudent lie. To come to the Square and defend our choice is not simply legal, it is necessary. This is our Square. This is our city. And this is our country. So we have no choice. December 19 at 8 p.m. – let’s defend our choice, our conscience, our future!