We Belong to One Karass

Next year we should fight, bear risks, and win.

In 2017 some people had a wedding, bore a child, or got a diploma. Others experienced their first participation in a protest, first arrest or the first search. Someone, imagine, celebrated the centenary of the October Revolution. Well, it happens. And this year, among other things, mean to me ten years without Kurt Vonnegut.

When I was a freshman I read Cat's Cradle. From the very first chapter I was shocked, attracted and dragged like a puppy by the described religion called Bokononism. It states that the humanity is divided into teams - karasses. Wampeter is in the center of every karass. This is the axis the karass is formed around. Everything can serve as wampeter - a tree, a stone, a book, an animal, an idea, a melody. The karass does not involve any national, departmental, professional, family or class barriers. If a community is merged into one or more of these traits, it is a false karass, or granfalloon. It is impossible to discover the boundaries of your karass, as it is impossible to unravel Divine Providence. And finally, the key phrase I still remember: "If you find your life tangled up with somebody else's life for no very logical reason, that person may be a member of your karass."

Since then I have been using this principle to learn whether a person belongs to my karass. Once, about fifteen years ago, Valeriya Novodvorskaya and I talked on the phone about a common acquaintance known in the political sphere then. And she described him in one phrase: "He does not belong to our karass." And everything became clear to me.

You and I belong to one karass. Freedom is our wampeter. We are not trying to find the boundaries of our karass. We know that it is endless. There are millions of people around the world who strive for freedom and who fight for it. There are no boundaries and limits for us. There is no doubt that Valeriya Novodvorskaya belonged to our karass. I met people from our karass in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Iraq. And every time I had a feeling that I met my lost brother or sister.

But it was really great to meet new people of my karass. People who live nearby, in my country. People who speak the language I speak and who can act shoulder to shoulder in front of the riot police. A year ago it seemed to me that we knew each other at least by sight. But this year it turned out that our karass was even larger than we could imagine. This year we have met incredible people!

Let's recall poet Jan Hryb, the very 81-year old man with a cane. The riot police dragged him into a paddy wagon and he defended himself with that cane. And he managed to escape, after all. Then he told journalists about his daughters, he called them "my angels". He told the story how one of them hit a riot policeman with a pack of milk - the only thing she had in her arms - to save her father from arrest. He told how he built a house on his own, and the way he worked as boilerman and watchman when he retired. He also told about his collection of poems and its name: "On My Land" He belongs to our team.

As well as a young girl from Dzyarzhynsk, Hreta Sabaleuskaya, is the national flag hero. She spent three days without food and sleep in Uzda RUVD for participation in the action of September 8. And Svyatlana Botvich from Vitsebsk, young and witty, working as cleaning lady in the kindergarten came to the March of Angry Belarusians and said "I can't stand when people are abused. And one-legged disabled Mikalai Krychko, who participated in March of Non-Spongers on March 11 in Pinsk. Activist of the Young Front, Siarhei Palcheuski, arrested in March on the denunciation of the mythical "Frau A." and now fighting for freedom in Ukraine, for our common wampeter. This is a huge karass!

Of course, next year is the time for us to fight, risk and win again. Unfortunately, our Father Frost or his Lappish brother Santa Clause will not put freedom for us under the Christmas tree. Although, as one of the heroes of the same Kurt Vonnegut used to say, "a man who whips little reindeer is capable of anything." But we will not wait. We will be those who put presents under the tree for our loved ones. And we will agree to gather together on March 25 on the Square. And we will congratulate our karass with the centenary of the BPR, no matter how far we are from each other. We think about the same things, don't we?

Iryna Khalip specially for Charter97.org