We’ve Been And Remained

We have something to show the occupiers.

Previously, Belarusian society was divided into those who are against and those who do not care. Moreover, as in geometric puzzles for schoolchildren, these circles were layered on top of each other, and the part where those who were both against and who didn’t care was the largest. Now everything seems to be simpler: everyone is against. We have one big circle. The whole country has the same views. Still, things have gotten even more complicated.

Recently, I can't help but read the posts by my friends and acquaintances on social media. They reflect, as in clear stagnant water, the current separation of our society, followed by feelings of guilt on both sides. The Belarusians who remained at large are those who left and those who remained. And both of them feel guilty.

“I didn’t want to leave, I’ve been holding on to the last,” one of my friends writes. “But when they arrested my friend and started raiding the addresses of one of our peaceful chats, I gave up and left. I'm ashamed. I don't want to have a new home country. I don't want to get assimilated here. I don't want to get a residence permit. I hope to wait out here for a couple of months and come back, but all my friends who left were also going to wait out for a couple of months and go home. Nobody has returned yet. They’ve accepted it. It’s even difficult for us to communicate because we can’t cope with guilt: our compatriots are in prison, and we drink beer and study the schedule of low-cost airlines, already planning a vacation at sea. Instead of mutual support and moral relief, each meeting ends with increased guilt. Sometimes I think that it's better to come back and go to prison. Then the duty to society will definitely be fulfilled. But I'm not going to prison, and that makes it even worse. I feel weak."

“I envy those who left,” my classmate writes. "They are taking our flags on the streets of their new cities as it was in that wonderful August. They are holding portraits of political prisoners in their hands, picketing Belarusian embassies and writing strong and truthful posts on social media. I am living with my head down. I'm trying not to look into someone's eyes on the street: a passer-by may be a security official who doesn't like me for some reason. I cleaned out the photos from the protests, deleted the correspondence, and left the local chat a long time ago. However, they say there are only announcements about lost and found cats that are being published there now. By the way, I am putting likes only for cats now. And I am ashamed that I am here, a few residential complexes from the prison where our heroes are imprisoned, and I am silent and doing nothing to free them.”

These two monologues are reflecting what is happening in our society now. Those who left are tormented, feeling guilty about being rescued. The rest are tormented by their own silence, especially remembering how they walked in a huge column under white-red-white flags. Sometimes those who left and those who stayed start to annoy each other giving birth to pointless Facebook discussions, leading to nothing but a few “unfriends”. And new pangs of self-criticism, feelings of guilt that devour the soul, lame try to live as if nothing had happened, tantrums at night, panic attacks. Injured people are trying to survive.

There is an expression "both are worse". So, in relation to the Belarusians, I can say the opposite: both are better. And the one who left, and the one who stayed, both are heroes, since they were marching together, hanging flags on their windows, putting the Pahonia national emblem on their backpacks and singing the “Mury” song in the evenings in their yards. By the way, they are not at all on opposite sides of the state border, this is an illusion. We are all now in exile, no matter where we are, whether in the center of Minsk or on the outskirts of Paris. After all, this is emigration: we are standing behind a wall of dirty, spat-on, thick glass that has covered our country, and we are trying to see our life through it, our streets, our yards, our past, and most importantly, our future. Because we don't have a real one. There is no country for us to be happy. There are no streets along which we were walking calmly and confidently, knowing that we were at home. There are no people who would smile at us and say: “Long Live Belarus!”. The soul hurts just as much, we are writing letters to the same addressees and already know by heart the postal codes of Homiel, Ivatsevichy, Zhodzina, Shklou. We are recalling the same moments common to the whole country. This means that we are still together. We stay together, no matter what anyone says.

It will be even strange to remember that we felt guilt toward each other when the flags will appear again in the windows and the “Mury” will sound in the evening yards, because none of us betrayed, sold out or renounced anyone. We’ve been and remained the same. We've just gotten a new experience: a sad, difficult and sometimes unbearable one. Free Belarus is impossible without it, unfortunately. So, everyone has paid the bills. Now it's their turn, the occupier's turn. And be sure, they will pay, one way or another. We have something to show them.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org

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