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"There Was High Overwhelming Feeling Of Freedom"

"There Was High Overwhelming Feeling Of Freedom"
AFP ARCHIVE PHOTO

Why is it so important to hold the March of Dignity and Freedom on March 25?

One of the BNC leaders, poet and presidential candidate Uladzimir Niakliayeu remembered the celebration of the 75th anniversary of independence of the Belarusian People's Republic in an interview to Narodnaya Volia and compared it with today's events:

– I remember March 25, 1993 very well, as if it was yesterday. Freedom Day, the 75th anniversary of the Belarusian People's Republic. Then, people were singing on stage, dancing near the stage, buying and selling souvenirs behind the stage, but it is best remembered for the holiday procession. That energy, that power, that movement, the free flow of white-red-white, which seemed not to be stopped, it was sweeping over Minsk and over the whole Belarus. And there was a high overwhelming feeling of freedom. And we were breathing in freedom as if the spring air.

The idea was ahead, and not what it was framed in. And after 25 years, all the members of the organizing committee (I emphasize: all of them!) have voted for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Belarusian People's Republic in the same format, having filed a corresponding application in the Minsk city executive committee. They have agreed to insist on the march and the concert, not to yield. There was a vote to choose the people for holding negotiations with the government. We shook hands – and immediately thereafter, behind backs, some of them ran to the Minsk city executive committee and accepted the authorities’ proposal to abandon the march in return of the concert...

Some of them phoned later (BPF Deputy Chairman Yanukevich even argued with me on the air of Euroradio): you accuse us of meanness, betrayal, but this is an ideal, the most appropriate solution. I replied that it might have been, if you had informed us beforehand: "We have changed our mind, we have a different position. We are going to negotiate without you." Please do. But no, first they secretly ran over(for the power called them: "You are better than them"), and then they started to talk about reasonability.

— It is not the first time when you see it in politics, is it?

– Yes, it is not for the first time. And among the opposition it is always justified by some political logic. No one talks about moral reasons and they are neglected. However, not by all...

So the journalist Siarhei Navumchyk tactfully reminded journalist Yury Ziser that not only in the current, but also in the previous organizing committees there were people without any hatred. Among the members of the organizing committee for the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Belarusian People's Republic were Vasil Bykau, Ryhor Baradulin, Nil Hilevich... And let's imagine that Bykau with Baradulin and Hilevich agreed, shaking hands like, about something, and then one of them, let's say, Hilevich agreed on another thing behind their back. For example, let's say, about the concert, because they will sing his songs at the concert and he will get money for this. And who would shake his hand after this?..

While now they can even kiss it.

It is impossible to imagine members of the previous organizing committee in a similar situation. While for the members of the current one it is possible. That's the problem, and not the concert or procession, on which I personally (taking into account the conditions prevailing in the country and around it) did not particularly insist.

In the negotiations of the organizing committee with the authorities, the latter was in a weak position. In the sentence "To permit impossible to forbid" they couldn't put the comma after the word "impossible". That's why they started the negotiations. And if the members of the organizing committee acted in solidarity and dignity, we would have had all on the anniversary Freedom Day – a procession, a concert and a meeting. While now we have what we have. And let it be thanks to a coincidence, but now it seems that it's not accidental that Mikhalok with Kullinkovich and Volsky with Vaitsushkevich do not take part in the concert.

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