"Belarusians Will Again Have A Chance For Change"

The book "Belarus by Natallia Radzina", the lessons of 2020 and the future of the country were vigorously discussed in Bialystok.

The presentation of the book by the famous American writer Yuri Felshtinsky "Natallia Radzina's Belarus. Journalist against the dictator" took place on February 27 in Bialystok. The event in the Belarusian hub "Novaya Zyamlya" gathered a full hall, and the meeting lasted more than 2.5 hours.

The presentation was attended by the editor-in-chief of the site Charter97. org Natallia Radzina, three-time Olympic medalist, world and European champion in swimming Alexandra Herasimenia and coordinator of the civil campaign "European Belarus" Dzmitry Bandarenka.

The event was moderated by the head of the hub Nadezhda Solovyova. She began the meeting with a quote by Natallia Radzina, put in the epigraph of the book: "There are no heroes, there are you and me - people who think, understand, sympathize and support each other. And it depends only on us what will happen next". Nadezhda Solovyova asked Natallia Radzina to describe the main idea of the book:

- This is a book about Belarus. The main theme is the struggle of Belarusians for freedom. The world should know that we fought and are fighting for our independence, and the fight against Lukashenko's regime began not in 2020, but much earlier, literally right after he came to power in 1994.

What concerns the epigraph of the book, these are words from my article, which I wrote in the first hours after my release from the KGB prison in 2011. I felt that Belarusians needed to say it. I have often been told that I am a heroine. But I believe that there are no eternal heroes, and each of us makes choices in our lives every day. You can't do a heroic deed once and then be proud of it for the rest of your life. We should remain decent people, stick together, help each other, remember that we are the people, and then, I am sure, we will come home.

Olympic medalist Alexandra Herasimenia believes that the book "Belarus by Natallia Radzina" unites all Belarusians who are fighting the regime:

- Everyone who made the right choice added his part to this struggle. My part is in this book, which tells how I met Natalia, what path I was on in 2020.

With Natalia, we met a few days before the war started. We knew each other in absentia, but we had never seen each other. I was living in Kiev, Natalia in Warsaw, finally we arranged to meet. We talked about the war starting, everyone understood it, but no one believed it would happen. Natalia persuaded me not to return to Kiev, to stay in Warsaw, and promised to help me. The war started, and the first person who met me in Warsaw was Natalia. I am very grateful, because many people come to a foreign country, they don't know anything, and Natalia was a great support.

With Natalia we have common values, views on what is happening in Belarus and its future, we are sure that we will return to our country and may still need it.

Natallia Radzina joked that the phrase "need your country" can be perceived in different ways and told how at one of the conferences of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, held in Vienna, she talked to the OSCE representative on freedom of speech Miklos Haraszti. Belarus' representative to the OSCE Valery Voronetsky walked by and said: "Natalia, we need you in Belarus." Harashti quickly replied, "You need her in prison."

The unique presentation of the book in Bialystok was made unique by the huge number of questions from the audience. Natallia Radzina was asked about her family, because the book tells about the history of her family and her work as editor-in-chief of the website "Charter'97". Dzmitry Bandarenka was asked about the lessons of 2010, possible scenarios of the change of power in Belarus. Aliaksandra Herasimenia talked about the choice made by Belarusian athletes in 2020.

The head of "Radio Racyja", chairman of the Belarusian Union in Poland Jaugen Vapa said that he had already read the book "Belarus by Natallia Radzina" and found an interesting detail in it. Despite the fact that Wapa grew up in Polish Podlasie and Natallia Radzina - in Belarusian Kobrin, as children they read the same book - "Nikoli ne zabudzem", which tells about the children of the war. Vapa asked how the book influenced her and asked Natalia to go back to her childhood and remember the time when the USSR collapsed:

- I remember the hard years of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but despite the fact that it was quite difficult, everything was in short supply, including food, I remember this time as a good one. Nobody in my family was sad about the collapse of the Soviet Union, on the contrary, they were waiting for it to finally collapse. I was 12 years old when the Union collapsed. My father told me the news, and I ran all over the entrance, all floors, calling neighbors and informing them about it.

Really, I read such books as "Nikoli ne zabudzem". Yes, we didn't like the Soviet Union, but from childhood not the worst principles were laid in us. I don't remember all that Soviet propaganda anymore, but what remains in my memory is that we were taught to be honest, that we should fight. "Life is worth fighting for the truth" - this I also knew from my childhood. Then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, books that told the truth about the Soviet Union appeared in the school library. I read books about Soviet repressions by Anatoly Rybakov, went as far as Solzhenitsin, read a lot of Ogonyok magazine, where the truth about communism, repressions and other terrible things was told. Then I realized that I had to do everything to prevent it from happening again.

Answering the question about why Belarusians for a long time did not consider freedom a value, Natallia Radzina pointed out that after 2020 the situation has changed:

- Now, despite the revanch of the dictatorship and the war, Belarusians understand perfectly well how valuable freedom is. Belarusians are already different. What we used to complain about - "society does not understand how important democracy and freedom, human rights, language are" - has changed today.

I can say that Belarusians have become a nation. We should complain less that we are not like that. We are as we should be, we are Europeans and different from Russians, we are a normal nation capable of achieving independence and freedom for our country. With such an attitude one should do everything in one's life.

Dzmitry Bandarenka said that Belarusians need to be competitive and strong in the changed world:

- Today we are in tough times. The Americans whom we hoped and talked about "great USA", "human rights" and "democracy" are behaving differently today. Therefore, we need to be strong as a nation, and only then we will be able to talk to our neighbors and other nations as equals. If we are "memorizers", "tolerators", victims, expecting someone to take pity on us, it will lead to serious consequences. Today we have to be competitive.

Alexandra Herasimenia is the greatest swimmer of Belarus both in the 20th century and in the 21st. All her career she has competed against the best athletes in the world. Imagine, there are probably about 50 pools in Belarus and 2.5 million in the United States, and Herasimenia was winning. Natallia Radzina is also constantly in a competitive environment. The Charter'97 website has always been one of the top three most popular websites in Belarus - it was second, third, first again.

So we need to be competitive. In 2020, Belarusians showed that they are a nation. Yes, it was a peaceful protest that has not yet ended in success. However, we have shown that we are a force to be reckoned with. We have tens of thousands of people who have gone through prisons, job layoffs, emigration. This means that there is someone from whom to choose deputies, mayors, create a government, army and police.

Natallia Radzina was asked, if she were to enter politics, whether she would be able to bear the responsibility and be ready to make difficult decisions as a politician.

"I can withstand it, I'm strong"," replied the editor-in-chief of Charter97.org.

Could Belarusians have achieved freedom earlier, during the protests in 2010? Natallia Radzina believes that even today there may be a window of opportunity for change:

- This is a book about the fact that there is a chance for change in the most difficult situation. You have to see them and take them. 2010 was a year of chances. I didn't even have the thought of leaving Belarus, I knew I had to be on the Square. When I was beaten up, I returned to the editorial office and continued working. At about two o'clock in the morning my mother called me and told me that they were looking for me in my apartment and were coming to the editorial office.

I had nowhere to run, I stayed at my workplace and tried to write as much as possible so that it would be on the "Charter'97" website. Then the doors of the editorial office were broken in, I was taken to the KGB prison, and the journalists were taken to police stations.

I believe that there are always chances, and they should be used. Even today, I am sure we will have new opportunities during this war. There were chances in 2022, which I have to tell Ukrainians about today. After all, at that time Belarusian volunteers and the Kastus Kalinowski Regiment appeared, it was necessary to create a real Belarusian army on the basis of this regiment. Belarusians were not prepared for operations on the territory of their country.

But despite everything, I am sure that we will have new chances.

Answering the question about the lessons of the 2020 protests, Natallia Radzina and Dzmitry Bandarenka spoke about the mistakes of the so-called "leaders": the protests were held on weekends and on the outskirts of Minsk, there was no call for a strike, and Tikhanovskaya refused to take the oath as president of Belarus.

A question was asked about the restoration of justice and lustration in the new Belarus. Natallia Radzina believes that those who committed crimes should be punished:

- I think that lustration is necessary, but I don't think it can be broad and affect all those who worked for Lukashenko's regime. After all, we will have no people left. However, those who committed crimes, held high positions, worked in the penitentiary system, headed law enforcement agencies, their deputies, heads of departments - all will have to be held accountable and go through lustration.

Dzmitry Bandarenka cited the example of lustration in other countries and expressed the opinion that Belarus will have its own scenario:

- Much depends on who will replace Lukashenko. I think it is most likely that the siloviki themselves will remove the dictator and the most odious figures. Then these people will become part of the transitional government together with the opposition. This will determine what kind of lustration will be. The experience of Latin American countries shows that lustration sometimes starts after 20-30 years. There is Lithuanian experience, where one of the principles is that people at a certain point must confess that they cooperated with the authorities. After that they can hold some positions, but there are restrictions. We have talked to people from Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, who are responsible for lustration, but it's hard to say at the moment what the Belarusian version will be.

At the end of the meeting Dzmitry Bandarenka told about unknown Belarusian heroes:

- Today there are hundreds of people in prison, whose situation is worse than that of political prisoners. These are officials, judges, prosecutors, law enforcers who refused to follow orders. Most of them are not under political articles, they are accused of "treason against the state". They sit in terrible conditions, but they are the heroes who refused to fulfill criminal orders. Among them are colonels, lieutenants, special forces and OMON officers. These people are in prison. If we take our common capital, these people are part of it, heroes who made their choice.

I graduated from the Belarusian Institute of Physical Culture and have always said that the two categories of the most cowardly people in our country are athletes and law enforcers, because they are completely dependent on the state. The year 2020 happened - Belarusian athletes stood up against the regime. Stars, Olympic medalists, world champions, but the military and police could not unite. Perhaps it will happen next time.

At the end of the presentation everyone could buy the book "Belarus by Natallia Radzina" for a symbolic donation for the politically repressed, get an autograph and be photographed with the participants of the meeting.

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