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Zmitser Dashkevich: Belarusians Will Raise

Zmitser Dashkevich: Belarusians Will Raise
ZMITSER DASHKEVICH 
PHOTO: BELSAT.EU

What does the nearest future have in store for Belarus?

In the end of 2016, leader of the “Young Front”, former political prisoner Zmitser Dashkevich was acknowledged “Leader of the Year” at the ceremony of the “Champions of Civil Society” awards, held by the Assembly of Non-Governmental Organizations.

Zmitser Dashkevich has initiated patriotic actions aimed at defending the national white-red-white flag and obtaining the status of a historical-cultural value for it. The award in the nomination “Campaign of the Year” was also given to the company of enthusiasts, who, led by Zmitser Dashkevich, collected over 10 thousand signatures all around Belarus in the unprecedentedly short terms.

During the last year, according to the police charges, he destroyed “3,5 square meters of fertile soil” at the Belarusian-Russian border. He protested against opening the “Moscow-Minsk” mural on one of the city’s sky-scrapers, and against mounting the Lenin monument near the tractor plant, Radio Racyja reports.

- Any awarding ceremony is normally perceived as a show. What does it mean to you?

- Of course, no one thinks about any sort of awards when collecting signatures or holding actions. We got together with friends and did what we believed in our hearts was worth doing. I am contended that the society appreciated our efforts.

- Which of the actions listed above do you personally consider the most important and effective?

- Digging fox holes near Vetka is always on my mind and in my heart. It seemed that half the district gathered in the woods to get us – there were 5 lieutenant-colonels, with AK assault rifles! Others were wearing bullet-proof vests, and two pale teachers of the Belarusian language accompanied them, “to interpret”. Still, however, the campaign for obtaining the status of a historical-cultural value for our national flag was the most consistent. First, I intended to go alone and collect a thousand signatures. However, my friends and allies in the “Young Front” joined me and 6 people collected the said 10 thousand and a half signatures! It seems noteworthy that it all happened without any “grants”, most people stayed focused on their jobs or studies. This is even more remarkable at the background of some opposition organizations agitating to participate in the elections under the excuse of “we have no other option if we want to talk to the people”. How about raising and coming out to the streets themselves, to the subways, with the white-red-white flags?

Besides, the police made charges when we had flags with us. No flags – no charges. Such actions are thousand times more effective than any printed political programs! But no, they prefer waiting from elections to elections, when Yarmoshyna and Lukashenka will let them collect signatures “in support”…

- Still, it is not a secret that many in the opposition circles believe that “the time for the street Prometheus has passed”, “we cannot stir the modern society with revolutionary slogans”, and “people tend to listen to quiet experts, not loud street tribunes”. Besides, speaking on effectiveness – in the Ministry of Culture’s official reply to the submitted signatures, Deputy Minister Mr. Yatsko cynically stated that “there are no grounds to recognize the white-red-white flag”. Apparently, he is younger than 20 and doesn’t remember that the national flag used to be the state symbol in 1991-1995…

- This is the official-style cynicism and artificiality. We saw it as clear as a tear that the reformatting of the attitude towards the flag and the Belarusian statehood in general is taking place within our society. Even Lukashenka, after the notorious events, obviously tries on the “Crimea’s shoes” and starts realizing that the danger is coming not from the NATO, which he used to frighten the population with for two decades, but from the “fraternal” Russia. Russia appears capable of incorporating any territory allegedly to defend the “Russian-speaking”, “coreligionists” or whatever, despite all the international norms, laws, or accepted borders. Some of the presidential circles have already realized that if the “Russian world” comes here, it will be only the people they condemned for decades who would defend them.

As for the statements on the “necessity for evolutionary changes”… I have been engaged into politics for 15 years and I know for sure what hides behind such statements – over-compromising with the regime. I always stood against this. Of course, we – those who go to the actions, barricades – are sort of romantics. However, we went out to the streets, got cold, and collected 10 thousand signatures, in a “romantic” way. Is it really romance, or a serious deed? How should we call then, if I am not mistaken, 50 thousand members of the “people’s referendum”, who collected the same amount of signatures for themselves in a year and a half? Did each of them sign for himself?! And now they say “We should go and negotiate with “them” up there at the top”.

I am an adherent of Jesus Christ’s testament – “do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” Life will show who was right – the ideologists of the “evolutionary changes” and over-compromising with the regime, or the “dreamers” who not only went out to the streets but harnessed themselves into long-term, precisely aimed work.

- Famous journalist Vladimir Pozner used to say during the electoral campaign in the United States that “Hillary Clinton is predictable in good and bad things, while Trump isn’t.” And “America deserves Trump”. Paraphrasing that, does Belarus deserve Lukashenka?

- Absolutely! It may sound banal but all peoples deserve their governments and leaders. Surely, today no one believes that 80% or whatever they make up in the elections actually support Lukashenka. However, even if it’s 20%, all the rest shut up and keep silence! Herein, some manage to accuse the opposition of all the misfortunes! However, who raise the prices for fuel and for whom?! Who collapses the ruble threefold and says “your savings have been nullified”?! They accept without a word the clearly dumb law “on social parasites” – did anyone come out and speak up?! This silent criminal “compromising” is what let all these things happen in Belarus.

- We started speaking about the challenges of the time against the country. The Russian pro-imperialistic media started intensively hinting that the white-red-white flag and the language can be defeated only by their “weapons”. Instead of “cutthroats from the opposition”, “Maidan is calling” they speculate about “his man” Uladzimir Makei. Is everything really getting closer to the situation when, as said in one of the interviews, “if the Russian world comes, we will have to go to woods and combat”?

- A sane man is a case like this will try to use logical thinking. Why would Putin annex Crimea and start that slaughter in Donbass? Putin’s foreign policy as a complex phenomenon got stuck in Ukraine. And Putin has 80% of hungry in the literal meaning Russians voting for him, and they need to be fed with yet another “victory” in view of the coming elections. He has no economic achievements, “Hawthorn” kills more people than wars do. That is why he needs a blitzkrieg. Fortunately, Lukashenka’s personal interests of keeping the power now meet the interests of Belarus. It’s not him who said it’s better to be the first in province than the second in Rome.

- He also promised he would go to “guerrilla dugouts” to defend Belarus…

- Certainly. When we held trainings of “Vajar”, a real SWAT policeman in a black-and-green cap joined us, arrived from Minsk. So I asked – when Putin comes, whose orders your comrades-in-arms would follow – his or Lukashenka’s? He answered with no hesitation – most of them would go for Putin. I will give you an example of “our” generals, who graduated the academies of Moscow headquarters, and have the Russian flags in their offices!

Of course Lukashenka understands all this. However, he has been developing the system himself, not for a year or two, for decades! It cannot be changed in a couple of years. However, on the other hand, the conflict between Lukashenka and the Kremlin gives us, Belarusians, an opportunity to survive as a nation.

- How do you maintain your trust in the Belarusian people?

- Are those who openly follow the orders from Lubyanka can be called Belarusian people? They are the mankurts who repudiated their mother and the language of their Homeland. Recalling Nil Hilevich, “Belarusian people are great in their silence”. So far, we have been tolerating and the spiritual, national power is hiding in an ambush. However, the example of Kurapaty stands in front of my eyes, when thousands of Belarusians in late 80s raised to resist the bludgeons and the gas, the very first among the nations of the Soviet Union…Doesn’t it break the myth about the “tolerable nation”? We were liberated from slavery in the 1990s. It’s very sad but many of us wanted to return to being slaves. I don’t know how much time it will take, but, dialectically, the raise will follow.

- What could be a push for the national and cultural revival?

- It’s the Moses’ desert we are coming through. I remember deceased Pavel Sheremet who used to joke when the way started: “What can you, the Belarusian-speakers, do here?!” I also remember his prophetic article right before his murder – he wrote he reckoned the people who spoke Belarusian as heroes. Because, it is possible to resist to the imperialistic evil without machine-guns. The brightest example of return to the conscience and revival of one’s memory. I think this is happening to all of us, to a greater or lesser degree...

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