Lecture On Love At Collective Farm Club

Now, it’s time for the slides.

"There is no sex in the USSR!" That is what a colleague whose daughter studies at BSU writes. There is no sex, and now I know it for sure, because the university announced an action "For Beloved Belarus" on February 14. The BRYU is the author of the idea, while the performers those who comes to hand.

We'll hold a rally on Valentine's Day; a rally in support of exploited workers on Halloween; victory in the national competition on St. Patrick's Day. Let's not tolerate enemy ideology masquerading as fun holidays without any ideological content into the territory of our state, which is advanced in every respect. It is useless to forbid students to celebrate Valentine's Day: valentines are not white-red-white flags. One can hide the cardboard hearts in one's sleeve or in a sock if anything. Fighting valentines is a complete failure. So, the best thing to do is to try to lead this holiday and give it a reliable spirit of hurrah-patriotism. Well, here's to beloved Belarus, fellow citizens!

The university didn't force students to turn out their pockets for cardboard hearts. It was simply offered to bring valentines to the specially allocated places on the faculties and stick them to the map of Belarus. In this way, the ideologists explain, each student could declare his/her love for his/her hometown or village. Here is my village, here is my home, and here, in the center of the Homel region, I'll pin my heart to express my love for the urban settlement I escaped from. At first, I thought it was just the university's know-how. It's the largest gathering of students. The whole of Belarus is represented there, and all the scientific profiles - mathematicians and philosophers walk together. In general, it's the place on the map of Belarus which requires ideological control in the first place. So here's a pen with a map, get your valentines, you will not go to jail.

But it turns out that not only BSU was involved in this marvelous action. And not even only students. February 14, activists of the BRYU pestered the train passengers at the railway station and gave them red-green hearts. On the initiative of the BRYU, specialists at the Gospromnadzor exchanged the red-green hearts. We both took part in the patriotic action, and BRYU wrote a dozen progress reports. The employees at Minsk Civil Aviation Plant No. 407 had to send warm wishes to their management and colleagues on red-green hearts, and then take these signed hearts to the plant museum, where they were all pinned to a large red-green heart drawn on a piece of cotton paper. This symbolized love not only for the country but also for the home plant. Belnipienergoprom also glued white paper bracelets with red-green inscriptions on their hands. In general, they celebrated with much eclat.

All this national patriotic action reminded me of the old joke about a poster with the announcement "Lecture about kinds of love with slides", which hung at the door of the collective farm club. In the overcrowded club, the lecturer spoke somberly about man-woman love and homosexual love, while the attendees whistled and demanded slides. The lecturer promised slides later and then said: "And finally, love for the country. Now there will be slides!"

And there they are, slides: red-green hearts, the same coloring of posters "For beloved Belarus!" on almost every website of a state enterprise or university, forced smiles of BRYU activists on camera. Only a Russian pop choir of two years ago is missing, diligently chanting "I will hold my Beloved tight!" However, the choir is now too busy with songs of the same artistic level in the neighboring state, covered with patriotism even greater than ours.

It's a common thing in our country to replace a nice, senseless holiday with an ideological action. It is quite predictable and even bares almost no harm. After all, one does not beat in the kidneys of those who buy flowers and teddy bears for girls on this day, does not put those who send their loved ones e-hearts in jail for extremism, does not drag balloon bearers into a police van. One just push them gently toward a specially designed place where they can and must demonstrate their love for the company or the state to retain control over people. Otherwise, they might end up with a red heart in their hand one day and white stripes on it. That's it, sabotage, extremism, terrorism. So let them love their country, not each other.

And now t's time for the slides.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org

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