Orange Sentiment

In the coming year, we will achieve what we have been dreaming of for decades.

All these years mandarins were bitter, champagne did not sparkle and seemed sour, congratulations sounded strenuous, and there was no hope. Every December, it was necessary to take ourselves out of the ocean of hopelessness by pulling the hair like Munchausen did in order to say or write something optimistic.

Each of us had our own difficult period of disbelief in the possibility of change and even mistrust - in our own strength, in our own people, in our own knowledge. Everyone has been through hellish Decembers in recent years. The New Year in prison. The New Year in the colony. The New Year in emigration. The New Year in isolation. The New Year in a foreign country. The New Year with empty pockets. The New Year in sickness and uncertainty. The New Year after the funeral. The New Year with no faith in the best. Each of us had our own unbearable New Year, and a lot of us had more than one. So had I. But I had to be optimistic because a lot of people were feeling much worse. I got used to that, life was livable.

However, last December, for the first time I didn't have this feeling of bitterness. Yes, there had been some losses, just like every other year. Mourning and condolences are unfortunately an essential part of our lives, just like the holidays. But for the first time in nine years, since December 19, 2010, which became the hump of our struggle, followed by destructing the people, families, beliefs, the air itself, so it was impossible to breathe - I did not have to pull myself out of hopelessness.

For the first time in almost a decade, there was a wonderful feeling at the end of the year that we had returned to ourselves, the same and fearless ones, that we now have much more strength than before, and that in the coming year we will really achieve what we have been dreaming about for years - decades. And it was not just a momentary feeling, accidentally created by the champagne under the Christmas tree, dissolving with the bubbles of the sparkling wine. It had been preceded by many things.

First, by the autumn political campaign. Collecting the signatures, many of us visited thousands of apartments and houses of Belarusians and made sure that the support of Lukashenka is close to a statistical error. Even the physiological reaction of 95% of Belarusians to this surname is close to an allergic one: people start coughing, spitting off, reflexively pronouncing foul words and expressions. Many of them are intimidated - but this is repairable. The main thing is that they are not off-target, the focus is right, the feelings are not lost.

Secondly, by the protest rallies, which resumed in autumn with regularity, worthy of envy. Just remember: the public discussion of the film "Lukashenka: Criminal Materials" on Freedom Square on November 8, meetings of free people on November 15 and 16, rallies to support independence on December 7, 8, 20, 21 and 29. Eight protests within two months, and that was within the two darkest, most gloomy and depressing months, when one wants to live under the blankets and not to go out into the street at all. Even if they were not as mass as they used to be, this is just the beginning - we are learning to walk again after injury. After a serious mass injury. At any minute, perhaps by the summer, we will get going again, won't we?

The third thing is the evidence of a participant in abducting and murdering politicians and journalists that appeared twenty years after. Everything that is said first-person - with dates, names, details - is the basis for the criminal case, which no one can wave aside. And let the world still call the main customer of crimes "illegitimate, but acting" - after the published evidence illegitimacy will not be his main problem at all. For even the champions of real politik wouldn't be able to get their tongue around to say "a murderer, however acting."

And, finally, fourthly, the people. Certainly, the people. The resistance veterans, whom they started to put in prison again, spent the New Year holidays in prison and came out at large with cheerful anger and a desire to continue their hard, unrewarding and unpaid work until the end. The young people, who in the last months of last year appeared everywhere and in large numbers, took to the streets, joined the opposition structures, the blogosphere; started to expose the crimes of the past and falsification of the last elections; they see their future not abroad, as before, but in Belarus. All of them, as it turned out, find a common language easily when they see a common goal. And the goal is there, quite close.

That is why there was no feeling of bitterness during these New Year days and nights, but only the holiday itself and the firm knowledge that everything will change this year. The Christmas tree was scattering pine needles, the champagne was sparkling, old friends were calling, loved ones were near and healthy. And the tangerines were juicy and orange again, and smelled of New Year in the right way, as it always happens when there is joy and changes for the better ahead.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org

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