Zmicer Navicki: I Am Proud of Belarusians

The protest must continue.

Within the framework of Salidarnasts' special project "What's next?", auto journalist Zmicer Navicki said whether he feels disappointed after almost four months of protest and what the society's chance to win is in his opinion.

"I am proud of Belarusians"

- On August 9, I could not even imagine that the protest movement would gain such momentum and continue for so long. Therefore, there is no disappointment. Rather, I am proud of the Belarusians who still go out and defend their point of view.

And to this day, people behave as correctly as possible, peacefully going out to protest and doing without provocations. It is very cool.

Who unpleasantly surprised

- But, of course, I cannot say that I have not had a drop of disappointment. And it concerns not even the "siloviki," but all the heads of state institutions: the heads of housing and communal services, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, etc.

On the one hand, they do not seem to share the position of the country's leadership. On the other hand, they salute without thinking in situations where a human simply needs to be a human. They are very service people.

"If Tsikhanouskaya had returned to the country the day after she was taken out, everything would have been different."

- In August, I said that the protest missed its chance when on August 16, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets of cities, and I hold this opinion even now.

It seems to me that if Tsikhanouskaya had returned to the country the day after she was taken out, everything would have been different. I do not know how it would have ended, but I am sure that the whole country would have risen.

And so they gave a head start to the authorities, security forces and propaganda, and now we have a civil war in a latent form.

At the same time, of course, I cannot blame Tikhanovskaya. Relatively speaking, when they put a gun to your head and say that you and your husband will die and the children will be orphans, what kind of living person will not react to this? You have to be Mikaolai Statkevich in order not to be afraid of this.

"If you don't go out, it will be a loss"

- Is it rational for people to go to street protests every Sunday when hundreds of people are being detained? What are the options? If you do not go out, it will be a loss. The pressure from outside must be supported by the resistance inside Belarus.

Once it stops, then we will become another Venezuela. Literally and figuratively. All resources and money will be spent on security officials.

I am not a puppeteer who operates from Poland, but my opinion is that the protest should be continued further in one form or another.

Everyone decides for himself which form: someone hangs a flag on the window, someone takes a white-red-white umbrella and goes for a walk. Everyone should act to the best of their strength and capabilities; there is no need to demand the impossible from people.