19 March 2024, Tuesday, 10:08
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

The Goof-Offs

41
The Goof-Offs

The people with identical video-cameras, wearing black jackets and black knitted caps can be spotted at every oppositional demonstration.

The exuberance of policemen, “lurkers” insolently taking pictures right in the faces of the people in the crowd, not of the deceased – this is the picture from the funeral of the singeing great Russian poet Boris Pasternak.

“The crowd was imbued with goof-offs,” – writer L.Chukovskaya would state in her diary. “The goof-offs”… This is how policemen in plain clothes were called in the USSR back in the 60s of the XX century.

I wonder, how are they called today? The people with identical video-cameras, wearing black jackets and black knitted caps, looking like robots, can be spotted at every oppositional demonstration in Belarus. Sometimes there are more of them than the actual participants of an event.

Many “goof-offs” are recognizable, as they were repeatedly recorded in the photos and videos. When the authorities change, they will face some hard times. However… in a democratic society, there will be certain demand for them, for other purposes, like fighting with terrorism. There will be no need for so many of them though. And no one will call them “the goof-offs” anymore.

Liudmila Mirzayanava, ucpb.org

Write your comment 41

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts