Big Brother Pales Before Them

Local masters will make him look an amateur, given the scale of shadowing.

The country drowned in the dark. Sudden invasion could be expected from anywhere. There has never been such anxiety hanging over our peaceful land like in this feverish May. Especially in the main, Mahiliou direction. Meanwhile, as always, no regular troops were even spotted nearby. Either Putin summoned them for extraordinary maneuvres, or they were simply hanging around somewhere, with the in-your-face Pskov paratroopers.

So, it were the just mobilized officials who took on the defense. Reliable and non-unpretentious people. They burst out in an uneven chain in the chilly spring night, and hastily tried to dig trenches. Full-profile, as the party once taught them. However, the soil wouldn’t yield. The entrenching tools were lame. And the thing they did was so new for them. So, the result was embarrassing.

The brave ideologists gathered in a frightened herd, and cheered up the newbies with the constrained whisper: “Go, guys, come on! There’s nowhere to retreat, the triumphal arch is right behind us!”

The arc, not fully built yet, awkwardly but insolently outlined in the short-distant rear area. And farther, on the same big road, some vague people in the NKVD uniform, which appears so fashionable these days, could be spotted in the dim light of the lamp posts – nothing but the retreat-blocking detachment. However, it seemed the most frightening at the other side of the not yet enforced and barely outlined barrier. There, even the darkness itself easily took the form of an enemy. A vicious, devious, unbeatable enemy.

And the time suddenly made an awkward move. Surpassed the crazy rhythm of the anxious heart. And then the new day came, bringing vague hopes. And then there was the blast! The earth shuddered. The river went backwards. Horrid columns of black smoke went into the sky. The Sun went out. However, the ideologists weren’t at too much lost to prevent the panic: “These are our guys. They have just blasted the bridge.”

Well, if that’s our guys, no need to worry then. It means everything is going according to the plan, everything has been calculated and foreseen by the general strategy. The commanders are awake, the main bunker is functioning in due course. However, where is the enemy? And who he is, our common enemy, today?..

Oh, the field kitchen has just arrived. There has been an announcement all over the front: the mobilized will get lunch and dinner in accordance with the first strike ration – two sandwiches with hamsa, processed cheese and chewing gum "Dirol". Some female top official climbed bravely onto the tightly closed kitchen lid and read out the harshest order of the Chief of Staff. It repeated the renown Decree #1 word by word. And suddenly it became clear why there’s such an anxiety and who the enemy #1 is now. According to that female official, there are 250K parasites, ready for everything, gathered at this direction. Have there been nothing of the kind? Couldn’t there be anything like this?

In this case, where did this blasted bridge come from? It was unveiled with such pomposity, everyone seemed so proud of it. And the triumphal arc on the big road in honour of some victory – is it also a fantasy? And this odious decree – is it also a fiction?..

It hasn’t revealed itself in full yet, but everybody is sick of it already. It seems an innocent little decree – about some parasites or something. A private case. It doesn’t affect broad masses, allegedly. Some weird games of the local administration. Let them pamper their vanity, play a little. All this enthusiasm will eventually come into oblivion.

If only it was the case! We will see the summer pass very fast. And by September, it was strongly ordered to present “the pilot version of the database of the able-bodied population”. And even earlier, by the beginning of July, the Ministry of Labour is supposed to formulate the “list of reasonable excuses for the citizens’ non-employment”. There’s no need to explain how the officials can formulate such things. They can come up with such ornateness that any quiz game would appear too simple in comparison. Meanwhile, all sorts of executors will get such liberty that no ordinary citizens ever dreamed about.

Then they will create commissions with the right for practically uncontrolled collection of information. The constitution is not even mentioned in this process. In a word, the Big Brother pales before them. With regard to the scale and quality of shadowing the local masters will easily outshine him. This is the country that we got in the end of it all.

Back in the first years of this unique governance, it was stated that this country has a special way lying before it. The one that the Soviet people confidently followed, leading to empty shelves and stolen savings. Almost no one paid attention to this strange statement then. Now many suddenly realized – this was a highway to the Stalin times wilderness!

According to the Minister of Labor, those parasites who do not step on the correction path will be sent to the occupational therapy rehabilitation centers. However, it’s up to the court to take the final decision on that. What a relief! Have there been many cases when the local non-compromising court defended a person from the lawlessness of this system?

And with such a unique decree, the authorities will certainly know where interests lie. It’s no accidentally that its ordeal number was raised till #1. Speaking about the essence of the problem, they don’t give a damn about their own contemplations on some parasites. The government has other things to attend to. Of course, they will do their best to pull the money from somebody else’s purses. Because even a penny is never odd, given their appetites. However, their main concern lies in another direction.

By this decree they fix their right to collect “any information” about the citizens of the country they patronize. It doesn’t seem too hard to guess what it means in our conditions. And not only the opponents of the unleashed authorities could become the victims of their arbitrariness, but also those who insisted they didn’t do any politics. These arguments have no value when the regime goes wild.

As for the triumphal arc on the frontier where the brave officials infantry prepared to give a battle to the legions of parasites, it was laid not in vain. Such constructions usually symbolize victory. And who has any doubts that the victory here is inevitable? The crowdfunding campaign, announced in the entire region, for the construction of this archaic thing, was not accidental either. The desire to involve as many compatriots as possible in the shy games of the local administration is a dead-set symptom of readiness for some large-scale and extremely unpopular campaign.

They definitely considered the negative experience of the previous decree on social parasites, disavowed by the furious protests of the people. So, they are trying to organize promotion of the new masterpiece of the kolhkoz-administrative mind with no noise. Subtly. Carefully. Using the method of creeping bureaucracy. It looks like they are preparing a huge hunting operation this time. Thus, lifting a glass of champagne on the next New Year’s night, it would be reasonable to look around – is there any catch? Because, the decree which is coming into force is not that simple. It’s not a coincidence that they changed its number.

These authorities will come into their 25th year of rule already with untied hands.

Uladzimir Khalip, specially for Charter97.org