I Will Never Forget This. Or Forgive

For thousands and thousands of Belarusians, the parade is a now reminder of how the state arranged a feast during the plague.

I have always had some calm feelings towards the Victory Day. The same as my grandfather - a veteran of war, who reached if not the very Berlin, but was quite close to it.

Actually, most veterans I happened to know were not too enthusiastic or full of pathos about this date: for them, every battle they were lucky to finish alive was a small victory, so why boasting around because of some calendar page? In fact, for a long time it has been a quiet and happy holiday without excess odes or tantara.

However, my attitude has changed in the recent years. Not to the very concept of the holiday - rather, to its design. The hysteria which flared up in the neighbouring Russia every year before this holiday pushed many away from the celebration of this date. Including me.

Although, in my mind this holiday still preserved its inner light, no matter how perverted our eastern “brothers” became in their “victory obsession”. A year ago, I could not even think that all these “grandfathers fought” and “we can repeat it” weren’t the limit. That for our everlasting authorities ambitions and ideology would win priority over the people’s health.

After today’s parade, the May 9 date died for me. It died in an unequal fight with the state ruthlessness and recklessness. Now it will always be associated in my mind only with this parade, senseless and merciless. For thousands and thousands Belarusians, this parade will now always be a reminder of how the state arranged a feast during the plague, accompanied with misleading statements, like, how “not scary” this virus was, and the calls to “prove that Belarus is not some hysterical teenage girl, hiding her face under a mask, but a proud partisan republic.” And there were people who, having believed these words, went out to get infected themselves, and infect others.

No matter what happens next, no matter what gold they will promise to us, no matter what they blabber about the “state for the people”, only one thing will be standing in front of my eyes - this parade.

I will never forget this.

Or forgive.

Dzmitry Rastayeu, Solidarity