19 March 2024, Tuesday, 9:19
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Pumpkin for Millionaires

65
Pumpkin for Millionaires
Iryna Khalip

Today is the last day of our universal "millionhood".

We easily deal with millions like it used to be with coins. Then everybody drank from one glass of a street lemonade machine. Soda without syrup cost a penny, with syrup - three pennies. Now everybody has its own glass and has millions, but the price of these millions along with the glass is just a penny.

On the other day I heard an interesting dialogue of two young cashiers next to a grocery store:

- Why don't you take your sub?

- What for? At least once a month you've got something like money. And if you divide it by 2 - it is a sad story.

- I can't act like that. I need money two times - it's better have two good days a month.

- Well, this is your decision, you earn Br3 million. I have only Br2.5 million...

The same evening my neighbour dropped into me, a physician with thirty years of experience rate: "You know, I have received my pay list. Four millions. In general, all my experience and the category give me money to pay the rent bill and buy some food. The worst thing is that I like my job. I will stay, anyway." When she tells me the number of patients she can consult during a day, I ache for both patients and doctors.

The next day, my friend said her son, a handsome man, defended a graduation thesis of the Biology Department at the university. He got married and is about to have a child, everybody's happy. But the job in his field, he's always dreamed about, has to be put on ice. He burnt a midnight oil to succeed and does not want to fall into regret. But now, unfortunately, young researcher can earn only Br2 million. He has wife and the child is about to be born, so he should forget about science. A stockman in the office which deals with Chinese shoes can get Br5 million. Well, everything will be fine in future, but now degreed biologist has to go to a warehouse to earn for diapers.

These are our fellow citizens, to be sure, these are you and me. Penny millionaires, three-penny characters, and as soon as the midnight falls our millions turn into a pumpkin. The salary of "three mils" will turn into "300 rubles" like it used to be in the USSR, quarter bonuses will be given in specie, nothing will change. Neither cashiers on the corner of the store nor neigbouring doctor and biologist-stockman will face changes. Nothing is about to change. NO-THING.

You know there was something I'd like to say to those cashiers: "You are to blame, girls. Is your salary the only thing you do not accept? If you are satisfied, well, here are your "mils". I guess you joined the BRYU, I do not feel sorry for you." Then I thought: how should I know whether those girls joined it? On the other hand, they would have participated in events. What if they secretly sew flags at night? It is unlikely, but what if? Or their moms and dads are cousins? I recalled how the neighbour's family had gone to the Square many times. She used to make up a legend: "If we are arrested, then we will say that we've been told about lots of single men in the uniform in the square; there is a female staff at work, so we came to meet them." Yes, they went there together.

Unfortunately, the formula about active people having a good life and passive ones who nickel-and-dime is not true. The situation is equally bad and we nickel-and-dime. But we got accustomed to console ourselves that everybody who did not care was to blame.

Of course, they are guilty. But this is the real world. Any dictatorship has a lot of satisfied people (given the number of bureaucrats and law enforcement bodies), there are even more people who do not care, and the vast majority are those who are not satisfied, but, in fact, can survive. They convince themselves that there is some charm in the dictatorship. Well, we have jazz parties in Minsk and it does not look like the dictatorship then. Well, “Duke” Ellington arrived in Minsk under communism, but the USSR became neither Europe nor America).

We have only one nation, as well as one country and the globe. And it makes no sense to refer to those who do not care: they are to blame for our situation, our millions which cost a penny. Yes, mostly they are the reason for it. But we did not take them into account when we went to all our Squares, were jailed, went on hungry strikes, left our hated jobs where we had to serve the dictatorship and raised money for political prisoners. We thought about ourselves. And that was right.

To believe in yourself, not in the masses. To print news of the "Charter" and put it in the neighbours' mailboxes. Not to be laze and to talk to cashiers and tell the same news. To take a single-person picket. To raise money for a parcel for political prisoner or at least write him a letter. To refuse to join the BRUY. To take the floor against a job sheet and Cleanup Days (subbotniks) at the meeting. You won't be executed. The list is endless.

It does not turn us into true millionaires. It will not destroy the dictatorship in a moment. But it will not let you become indifferent. Or make you stop being indifferent. Or even can increase the number of those who care. Only then this empty pumpkin can turn into the European country with no fear.

Iryna Khalip, especially for charter97.org

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