Defying Gravity

Apparently, hurdle racing is a national sport.

When I saw the footage of a propaganda film showing Vasil Verameychyk being taken out of a plane in handcuffs and shoved into a minibus at the Minsk airport, my first thought was completely mundane: it’s good that he’s wearing a jacket, it’s so hot in Vietnam, they could have brought him in shorts, and it’s good in a jacket, he won’t freeze. It was impossible to think about anything else at that moment.

At that very time, social media feeds were exploding with dozens of posts from big experts who, after the fact, were giving Vasil advice: where are you going, you fool, Vietnam is a socialist country, on friendly terms with the Lukashenka regime, and it was clear that it would give you out, and you should have gone to another country — to Georgia, Albania or Montenegro, for example. Or to Moldova. Or somewhere else, the world is big.

In reality, the world only seems big. For Belarusians, it shrinks every day, like shagreen leather. Georgia signed an agreement with the Belarusian KGB on cooperation, and the families of Belarusians who fled there from persecution plan their annual “visa run” needed to reset their stay period separately, so that if one is not allowed back, the other has time to pack their things. We can recall the journalist Andrei Mialeshka, who lived in Georgia for several years and then was deported — thank goodness he was deported to Poland, where he came from. Or Raman Kislyak, who was denied asylum by the Georgian authorities. Serbia, a beautiful country with bucolic landscapes, which director Andrei Hnyot himself chose as a filming location, arrested him and intended to extradite him to Belarus. Despite the fact that Serbia is a candidate for membership in the European Union. By the way, returning to Vasil Verameychyk: can anyone guarantee that a person who is recognized as a threat to national security in an EU country will be allowed into a country that is a candidate for EU membership?

Of course, this seems unlikely — after all, recognizing a person who fought for Ukraine as a threat to Lithuania’s security seemed unlikely. Not to mention that a soldier wounded at the front and awarded the “Ukraine Above All!” medal would be denied entry into a country for which he literally, not figuratively, shed blood — that’s even more unlikely.

The world for Vasil was shrinking at a cosmic speed. Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania, the entire European Union — the doors were slamming shut in front of him one after another. Is it possible to seriously discuss where he should or shouldn’t have gone? Has none of us ever in our lives run without looking, escaping from robbers, riot police, hooligans, a past life? Obstacle running, across countries, cities, swamps, across borders — this is already our national sport. So did Vasil Verameychyk — he ran to at least stop somewhere for a while and catch his breath. And now that he is in prison, everyone is vying with each other to advise where he should have gone. As journalist Yauhenia Douhaya correctly wrote on Facebook, “the prize for the “most creative advice” about where Vasil should have gone is taken by those who do not understand why he did not go to the USA”. Recently, after the murder of Belarusian Liza in the center of Warsaw, I already wrote that there are no safe places left on the planet. You can become a victim of a murderer, a terrorist, a maniac anywhere in the world. But this applies to all of humanity.

And regarding Belarusians, I would formulate it differently today: there are no safe countries left for us on the world map. When I talked to Vasil's friends in Lithuania yesterday, I was simply bombarded with stories about how a girl who worked at Belgazprombank nine years ago, a dog handler who trained dogs for border guards twenty years ago, or an IT specialist who worked for some time as a system administrator at the district tax office were recognized as a threat to national security. Life, work, new social connections, plans for the future — everything collapses in one moment with the receipt of an order to leave the country. A bag with the most necessary things should have been standing in the hallway of Belarusians living at home for a long time, as well as those who fled. Because the starting pistol can fire at any moment and anywhere in the world. And another globe — personally for us — does not yet exist.

And at the same time, we still manage to live, work, joke, raise children and help each other, not feeling the ground under our feet, hovering in the air. Contrary to all laws. Defying gravity.

Iryna Khalip, exclusively for Charter97.org

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