Home. Street. Victory

Those who have stayed at home today will take to the streets tomorrow.

Nothing irritates the regime more than a citizen who stays at home. Perhaps even a citizen who protests and takes to the streets with a placard does not arouse as much hatred of the crazed regime as one who stays at home. And if the whole family is also staying at home, they are undoubtedly the worst enemies ever. They must be fought with. And it is better to do it in the right way, so as to resolve the issue once and for all.

All sorts of clever tricks are invented for this purpose. The mandatory wearing of masks in public places is cancelled. The buses where drivers have not removed the requirement to wear masks in public places are not allowed to run. Excursion plans are being drawn up for schoolchildren so that they don't have to stay at home during the vacations, otherwise it looks a lot like a strike. Packs of artists with concerts, entertainers and creative evenings are being brought in, just to make sure there are more mass events. Everything is for the good of the man, especially the beds in intensive care.

At first I put it all down to the meanness of the regime. Later, to his progressive dementia. Then to a maniacal passion for murder. But that doesn't seem to be the only reason. The first and foremost thing that makes Lukashenka react so inadequately to calls to stay home is memory and fear. The memory of the last spring and the fear of its repeat.

He remembers perfectly well that during the first wave of the coronavirus, the Belarusians were much smarter than the authorities. No one believed in the shrine cross, which was carried by helicopter over Minsk to propitiate the virus, nor in the bathhouse with vodka, which Lukashenka recommended as the best cure for Covid. Belarusians haven't been watching TV for a long time, but they read the news on the Internet. They saw what was happening in Italy and Spain, China and the United States, and drew conclusions. They organized the quarantine and the online education courses for children, they themselves transferred the offices to remote work. The business immediately switched to contactless delivery, the ordered products and goods were left at the door, and were paid for online. The Belarusians themselves, contrary to the state, organized the quarantine, purchased masks, and managed to come out of that first wave without thousands of losses. And then, in early summer, after the people's quarantine, huge crowds, which Belarusian streets and squares had never seen before, took to the streets. Everyone came out, even those former indifferent ones.

It is no secret that for many years the regime relied on such people, i.e. on the indifferent ones. The backbone of the regime was not really the supporters of Lukashenka. Even in 1994, when Lukashenka was really elected, they were in the minority: the illusion of national support was created by a simple protest vote, when the main thing is not "for", but "against". By the end of the century, however, there were very few people who genuinely supported Lukashenka. A roll-call could have been made in half an hour. Yet, the indifferent were holding the regime on their shoulders, like the atlantes. Those who did not care who was in power, or what they were doing, as long as they did not come any closer than within a gun-shot. I don't touch you and you don't touch me - that was the way millions of people lived. In the spring of last year, they found themselves face to face with the pandemic, and they realized that they had been wrong for a quarter of a century: they had thought that Lukashenka simply did not care about them, just like they did about Lukashenka, but it turned out that it was not so. It turned out that all that time he had been only pretending to be deeply indifferent to his compatriots, while in fact he had been diligently and even enthusiastically leading them to the brink of the abyss. And he would never take a single step to keep anyone from falling into that abyss.

The people finally understood that and poured out into the streets. There, in the streets, they learned a lot - about the innocent victims and the riot police bootlegs, and that the Belarusians are proud to have their own flag, and it is not at all the red-green one. They realized that they are indispensable to their country. Then the realization of the need to sweep away this moronic, slavering power came. There came solidarity. August came.

That is why the regime is furious today. It remembers perfectly well that the Belarusians, who had stayed at home voluntarily in spring, took to the streets in summer. There were hundreds of thousands in Minsk, and millions across the country. They had neither experience, nor knowledge, but now they have both in large quantities. And if they come out again, with their experience, knowledge, and anger, gained during the year, it will be quite a different protest - deadly for the dictatorship. So the cause-and-effect relationship is very simple here: those who are staying at home today will take to the streets tomorrow and sweep this regime away at last.

Let us also remember it.

Iryna Khalip, specially for Charter97.org

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