Game over for hockey player

Our dear mister Lukashenka! Cordial thanks to you!

Thank you for taking upon yourself our work, and giving us, relatives of the political prisoners, human rights activists, independent journalists and oppositional politicians, a respite. You have determined the fate of the sanctions yourself. And you have also cancelled the Ice Hockey World Championship yourself.

Now we do not even need to convince European officials and diplomats with a necessity to impose sanctions against the Belarusian regime, and we do not need to explain to the functionaries of the International Ice Hockey Federation that a championship in a country where dissenters are being murdered and imprisoned is impossible. The ambassadors who left, and their governments, will do everything themselves now. And notably, it has been done at the instigation of Lukashenka. We can relax for some time at last.

Now I would like to answer back to my colleagues, who have started to menace Europeans that the sanctions would take Lukashenka directly to Russia. Dear friends, we do not need such horror stories. Russia does not give a damn about Lukashenka and his regime. Now Russia has completely different problems, including the problems with legitimacy. But unlike our parochial country leader, Putin likes to be liked. He wants very much the election in Russia to be recognized as legitimate. And the Russia-EU summit to be held in the format of friendly tea party of the equal, and not to be accompanied by perplexed winks and sighs of Europeans: “What is this horseman doing here at the table with us?” He wants to be called an Alpha male, and not a petty FSB dictator. Putin will not fight for his Slavic brother, all the more so as he has already forced out almost everything he wanted from his dimwitted brother. And what is left, could be easily received with a subtle motion of the hand and with a ring of a handful of coins. And this hand is never short of coins. So Putin would not run with a red flag to fight for Lukashenka. Putin’s interests are far more diverse.

Long ago someone had an idea that the Belarusian opposition is not able to change the ragtime, however a putsch in the state machine is quite possible. They say, a lobby inside Lukashenka’s structures has been formed, and such people want to visit Europe, and in general live in a civilized way, spend money with gusto, and not treble every time at the sight of the enraged dictator, not to have fear that they could become the next victim and be imprisoned and stand a show trial for corruption. According a legend of some political analysts, these people secretly hate Lukashenka, and are almost ready to overthrow him, and only one thing is left: to agree upon who will be the first to say: “Over all of Spain, the sky is clear”, and after that the regime is sure to collapse. I was always trying to prove the contrary: Lukashenka is hated by al his slaves, and there is not a single state servant from top to bottom whose attitude is different. They hate him for their own state of humiliation, but the delightful sound of champing near the manger influence them like the sound of a magic pipe of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. And to crawl away from the manger, to shake off crumbs from their suit jackets and recall their dignity becomes impossible. Champing paralyzes their will.

But now I am ready to agree: it’s true, anti-Lukashenka’s lobby really exists, and it is headed by Lukashenka himself. No one else is so masterful in being his own worst enemy and sawing off the bough on which he is sitting. He is doing that himself, and with a sincere hate for himself. One should really hate oneself and dream of one’s downfall to cancel the world championship and push towards the sanctions by one silly move! His bow is creaking and wobbling, ambassadors have left for their home countries, the ice for the phantom hockey is melting, and we can finally drink a cup of coffee and work a crossword puzzle. I have no doubts that very soon and very successfully smart Lukashenka is going to finish what he has started.

Iryna Khalip for charter97.org