‘If Authorities Keep On Shouting ‘Wolf!’, It May Hear And Come’

An idea that has taken possession of the masses becomes material.

Yesterday they again recalled the “attempt” and told new chillingly horrid details of the conspiracy, writes the Telegram channel Letters to Daughter.

Everything is as usual: enemies surrounded from all sides, bullets whistled directly overhead. Well, it's a common thing, right?

And you know, I wanted to talk to you about this “usual” thing for a long time, but somehow I could not find the right moment. It seems to me that these counter-terrorism games are the most dangerous undertaking of the Belarusian authorities. Now I'm not talking about the people whom they decided to mark as figurants. And not about the huge risks to the society. I am now talking about the danger to the authorities themselves.

It seems to the authorities that there is nothing safer than to expose a conspiracy invented by them, and to catch terrorists according to a list drawn up in advance. Indeed, what are the risks if the attacker finds out about his criminal intentions post factum? However, by turning the idea of terror into a subject of everyday narrative, the authorities risk getting it as an attribute of everyday life. After all, a side effect of the fight against fictitious terrorists is that the authorities themselves convince people that the phenomenon is “normal”. And, as you know, “an idea that has taken possession of the masses becomes material”. If you shout “Wolf!” all the time, it can hear you and come.

I would like, of course, to be mistaken, but, perhaps, the authorities are trying to achieve this. They are trying to provoke the dissatisfied into some radical non-peaceful actions. We are sure that dealing with potential radicals will be easy. Because, on the one hand, there is all the might of the state “beauties”, and on the other, an unorganized and ungrateful people. The bosses will receive new medals, and the world community will be able to portray a victim of extremism and a fighter against terror. But this conviction of the authorities that the genie will be easy and simple to drive into a bottle may turn out to be a dangerous delusion.

Today, of course, is not Sunday, but, apparently, one cannot do without it. It won’t take long. On January 24, 1878 Vera Zasulich severely wounded Trepov, the mayor of St. Petersburg, with two shots in the stomach. Of course, she was immediately arrested. Where did the former teacher get the idea of how to organize the assassination attempt? Less than a week later, on January 30, police in Odesa came to arrest an underground printing house. Just a week ago, arresting underground printing houses was as dangerous as, for example, cutting off ribbons of seditious colors. And then the police were suddenly greeted with bullets. Then the wave of terror rose until August 4, the chief gendarme Mezentsev became a victim of the revolutionaries. And after that, the revolutionary terrorists decided that they were ready, and the hunt for the tsar began (which was a complete success).

In this old story, it is not even the scope and scale that are impressive. In this sense, people of the 19th century are not likely to impress people who live in the 21st. The speed with which everything happened is truly mind-boggling. It was worth Zasulich once to set an example, and literally in a few months in a country where no one even used the word “terrorist”, a real terrorist war began. By the end of 1878, shootings, killings, and political assassinations took place on average once a week. And, of course, most of the terrorists were arrested and many died. Because on the one hand there was rotten intelligentsia and students, and on the other, all the might of the Russian Empire. But the terror did not diminish from this.

The best, of course, that the authorities could do for themselves and for us is to stop before it's too late. Because the evil genie of terror first destroys palaces, but then it can reach the huts. (I mean, in the medium term, it bears a very big threat to society). But the trouble seems to be that they cannot. Not because they don't know how. It's just that during these months the authorities have driven themselves into a situation where, in order to stay in their place, they have to run with all their might.