28 March 2024, Thursday, 22:05
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About Us and Them

About Us and Them
Andrei Sannikov

Unlike them, we have a country.

I live in Minsk. Moreover, I was born, grew up, studied and worked for a long time in the very centre of the city.

In Soviet times, we did not have any particular identity, as, for example, Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Moscow residents were hospitable (so it was believed), while Leningrad residents were prim and cultured.

We did not boast of anything. We were hospitable, friendly, conscientious and hard-working, and of course, patient.

We were.

I also remember 'fire victims' wandering around the entrance halls, most often minor and unfortunate criminals. Realizing that their stories about burnt houses and property were probably lies, we still gave them something to eat, some clothes and money.

And we had no arrogance. Like I was from the capital and hard to approach.

In times past, Minsk had compass: respect for elders in the profession, reverence for talent, pride in one's people- Pesniary, Prokop (a football player, Sasha Prokopenko), Gremyakin, Shitkovsky (hockey players), Nikolai Seleshchuk (artist), Stefania (actress), Uncle Rygor (poet) and many, many others.

They were native because they were genuine, honest in their field. That's why people knew and loved them far beyond the borders of Belarus.

Even when, in the late sixties, the people from the countryside were taken to Minsk to reach the one million population required for the subway construction, the role of the capital city remained. And the values did not dissolve in the flow of new Minskers. Knowledge, professional skills, and respect for people were honoured.

I am writing about Minsk because I know my city. I am sure residents of Grodno, Brest, Mogilev, Vitebsk, Gomel, and Belarus as a whole can say the same about their cities.

A healthy attitude to life, people was common. No, there were many other things, like in any other society. However, I do not remember such belligerent, aggressive and spiteful individuals seizing power in the country as they do now.

The bottom followed its laws and had no plans to surface and run the whole country.

And yes, Minsk has always, at all times, had a "point" of cleanliness: clean streets and yards.

So how did the "coming boor" become a reality and settle in my country? How did it happen that not only ignorant people but proud of their stupidity and exulting in the possibility to do their physiological crap in the society have seized the power in Belarus?

The bottom has surfaced after all.

From the very first days of Lukashenka's presidency, it was clear that these same individuals had come to power. And since then, their nature, habits have not changed. They did not turn furious all of a sudden.

The atrocities of 2020 were already discernible in 1994, clearly visible during the "referendum" on symbols in 1995, another rigged "referendum" in 1996 that made swines usurpers, and all doubts disappeared in 1999 after the political assassinations of regime opponents.

The cavemen in power paved the way from usurping power to Nazi atrocities and bullying of the people with our connivance.

The inability and unwillingness to immediately cut the cavemen down turned into a tragedy for the entire nation.

Attempts to justify the boorish people with some pretended higher considerations, economic or geopolitical ones, have only strengthened this power.

The desire to see colour in the unceasingly black boorishness, play the "above-the-fray" game added power to the regime and provided it with additional arguments for repression.

But even dancing under our national flag, cynically set up by cavemen, finally convinced the authorities that the people could tolerate everything.

We have not tolerated it and will not do it in future either.

In 2020, all the people witness the thing very few people realised in 1994 - this power was criminal.

Last year decided they would not be in Belarus under any circumstances.

They don't have a country, after all. They have never had one. This is the power of boorish occupiers.

They demonstrate it desperately, with the hatred of a drunken tram caveman.

Even their reaction to our flag is akin to one of the night evil creatures to the dawn...

They have abandoned the country in which they still live, declaring themselves the heirs of Hitler and Stalin's occupiers.

They have long become uninvited guests, eating and drinking at someone else's expense. It is high time to kick them out.

You and I will surely have the strength to get rid of them. Unlike them, we have a country.

Long Live Belarus!

Andrei Sannikov, Facebook

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