‘Act Of Mockery Was Committed By Bad Weather’

The Belarusian told how Minsk residents squeamishly were sidestepping the red-green flag torn off by the wind.

A reader of the website Charter97.org from Minsk told how Belarusians feel about Lukashist symbols:

“I read online that the Lukashists weekly arrange trials of Belarusians for "mockery of state symbols". People are punished for tearing off red-green rags. Of course! People called these rags “sunset over the swamp” after 2020, quite correctly. The authorities put them everywhere - on stores, factories, residential buildings. Only toilets are still without these flags. All this causes natural irritation even among apolitical residents of the country.

On this occasion, I recalled one vivid episode. I became a witness there. One autumn morning, after quite windy weather, I was walking to my office past the Euroopt store. I saw some strange moves of passers-by from a distance: having reached a certain point, they were suddenly stepping aside, going around the place and, accelerating their pace, disappearing around the corner.

At first, I thought that maybe some deep puddle formed there after a downpour. In fact, there was a puddle, but not so deep, and a linen symbol of the Lukashist regime torn from the building was laying there. This time, the act of “mockery” was committed by bad weather, and people, seeing a wet rag, squeamishly bypassed it and tried to leave the scene as quickly as possible. By the way, they did the right thing, since they won’t draw up a protocol for the wind, but for a random onlooker - it’s easy.”

The reader writes that the situation with the symbols of the Lukashist reminds him of the times of the Third Reich:

“When you see how these ‘masterpieces’ of heraldry are full of colour here and there, newsreel footage from Nazi Germany in the 1930s immediately pops up in your memory: red flags with a swastika hang everywhere, a distraught crowd greets their leader Adolf. Lukashenka largely adopts his idol - he, too, having come to power, replaced the national symbols with his own invented ones. I hope that the same shameful ending awaits the local ‘Fuhrer’...”

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