Sasha, Don’t Intimidate Us With Homeland

When one has to escape, one will have to ask for a corridor to Rostov promptly.

The only thing I was surprised at first about the border closure story was the airport, which remained open. The rest falls within a clear scheme. It should not be a political one.

In 1935, when the USSR was finally covered with barbed wire on all sides and Stalin imposed the death penalty for any attempt to escape abroad, it was not only about politics but also hunger. The Soviet government was well aware that if another famine started, the whole Soviet people could rush on foot and barefoot abroad. Who will remain then to cut down the forest? Slaves must be chained to the master's fence.

The same thing is happening in Belarus now. Before Sasha 3% used to arrogantly speculate on "who needs you there; you will be picking strawberries at Polish farms with your diplomas". Now he suddenly realized: we are badly needed. Doctors, IT specialists, engineers, workers and students. The neighbouring countries have maximally simplified entry and employment for Belarusians. Who will cut down the forest? Who will pay with one's taxes the salaries for riot police? Who will pay the road toll? Who will pay for the increased utilities? And the hundreds of other useless taxes and fees? What about the electricity in all the residences, a banquet for the participants of the All-Belarusian Assembly, payments to the Belaya Rus? You must stay and pay.

By the way, if the psychopath, who has lost touch with reality, considers eighteen residences his personal property, his decisions do not seem surprising. To shit wherever he can, and especially where he cannot, is his basic reflex. He will not be allowed to go abroad even to the Olympics. Well, never mind, you will hardly go anywhere now either.

For years, European officials refused to recognize the dictatorship in Belarus just because of the free exit from the country. Yes, they used to say, the regime is authoritarian. Now, we are talking to you in Brussels (or Strasbourg, Berlin), you went abroad freely and will probably return freely too, which means that there is no dictatorship in Belarus. At that time, the prisons were not yet overcrowded with political prisoners. But even at the current level of repression, the open border still created an illusion for the apologists of realpolitik: "you can avoid repression, just leaving the country". Now, even the secret admirers of Lukashenka will watch their tongues: their last argument in his favour does not exist any longer. The Belarusians are forbidden to leave the country. They can stay and feel scared. Earlier, many people managed to escape to the Ukraine or Lithuania, fooling the KGB officers who came to arrest them and unsuccessfully knocked on the closed doors and leaving an abusive note on the table after the door was knocked down. Now a Belarusian must remember that the punishing hand will catch up with a person. There is no way out.

However, a Belarusian is not afraid of anything. He conquered the fear on the 9th of August when the first flash grenades exploded. Or on the 15th of August, when Aliaksandr Taraikouski was buried in Minsk. Or on August 29th, when women took to the streets to hold their march. Or on September 10th, when the miner Yury Korzun handcuffed himself in a mine in protest. It does not matter when it happened. The main thing is that the Belarusian is not the one who used to say a year or two ago "I'm afraid that the contract won't be extended" or "I have a daughter on scholarship, I can't take the risk". Contracts go to the trash. They are replaced by statements about the strike. Daughters "with a scholarship" go to protest. People who earlier determined contracts and free education as the main determinant of their lifestyle and the degree of their statements are now hanging out flags in their windows, taking to the streets and building couplings. Does Sasha aim to intimidate these people with the homeland?

However, he is afraid of the homeland. That is why he left the airport open. After all, when he has to escape, he should have a clear corridor to Rostov. There will be no time left to turn on the lights, computers, call air traffic controllers to work. So let the airport operate, just in case. He decided it for the sake of his safety.

It won't help. He would not have those ten minutes, which could allow to cross the Central, Southern and Midwestern states and run freely to the Canadian border. One has to be at least an O'Henry character for that. While Lukashenka is only a character in a dusty Soviet-era mural newspaper that had a column titled "They bother us to live".

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org