The Vertical Will Fall

The horizontal - never.

Minsk has already been flooded, and I keep thinking about what happened in Mazyr. I keep reading stories from the townspeople - about how they started bringing water to the town only the next day after the water disappeared along with the electricity. About how the generous state installed only six points where water was brought in a town of a hundred thousand people. About how the authorities were solely concerned with ‘preserving crops after the hurricane’.

I am reading - and remembering Novaya Baravaya. Do you remember how in the autumn of 2020 the water was cut off to the whole district? People were saved from thirst and unsanitary conditions not by the state, but by other Belarusians. Not the state was bringing drinking water to Novaya Baravaya, but Minsk citizens from all the districts. They were sending their phone numbers and addresses to the district chat room of the victims: come to us, take a shower, do laundry, bathe your children, even live here, we will be only glad. Unmarried Belarusian women were joking in social networks: ‘I'll take a single man from Novaya Baravaya for a stay, I guarantee plenty of water’.

I also have remembered the queues in that Minsk cafe, where Karpiankou broke the doors. I remembered the businesswoman Maryna from that queue, who came up with the ingenious slogan ‘the saving of small business is the work of other small business!’. I remembered Minsk citizens, who were travelling from everywhere to the Square of Changes to defend the memorial of Raman Bandarenka together with its residents.

One should only ‘pull the rope’, open the floodgates, give a signal to the memory - and the memories cannot be stopped. Rescuers, who transport Belarusians jumping into the Svislach, fleeing from the riot police, to the other bank. Neighbours posting notices in the entrances during the pandemic suggesting to go to a pharmacy or a shop if someone is sick or afraid. Lunches for ‘infectious disease’ doctors - some people cook, others deliver, third people eat and save the first and second. Mutual help as a way of life, not a day without a good deed and help to the neighbour, solidarity is a feature of the national character. The world admired the Belarusians, while impostors of all sorts were hissing with hatred, because they realised with horror: the Belarusians do not need the state as a source of help to citizens at all any more, they can cope with any misfortune, from a pandemic to a hurricane. They don't need neither budgets, nor expensive equipment - they will think up, buy and organise everything themselves. If not to interfere - it is possible to abolish all these ministries and departments, which, unlike citizens, are not capable of anything except making plans and reports and holding meetings of primary cells of ‘White Russia’.

This is what the authorities were destroying purposefully and cannibalistically. Because it is not marches of many thousands and not flags hovering over houses that are most dangerous for them. Citizens who do not depend on the state and its favours are the most dangerous for the authorities. Citizens who are capable of solving their own and other people's problems. Citizens who do not expect anything from the state, but take everything on themselves - and win. That is why the authorities imprison some people and push others out of the country.

Imagine for a second what would have happened if this hurricane had struck Mazyr four years ago. People would have rushed from all the regions and districts of Belarus towards Mazyr. All the highways would have been filled with convoys from different cities, bringing water, generators, batteries, camping cookers to Mazyr. They would have provided the townspeople with everything they needed. They would have removed fallen trees together. And then they would be drinking tea in courtyards and singing Volski's songs. Or Mikhalok's ones. Or Benka's. And everyone would know for sure: if something happens, they will come, save and help. From the next doorstep or from another city, but they will definitely come. The vertical will fall, but the horizontal - never.

That's what the ghouls have been busy with - destroying the horizontal, cutting ties, shooting chains. Arrests of friendly companies at a picnic, criminal cases against those who help families of political prisoners with food, prison terms for donations - all this is a purposeful campaign not so much against people, but against solidarity. A Belarusian should be lonely, intimidated and helpless - that's what an ideal citizen is in the view of Lukashenka and his entourage. Then there is a chance that this helpless and intimidated citizen will crawl to the state and ask for help. This is exactly what the authorities want.

And you say that Minsk was flooded. It's the ghouls who have their brains flooded completely and irrevocably.

Iryna Khalip, specially for Charter97.org

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