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Jan Malicki: We are going to prepare the personnel for new Belarus

Jan Malicki: We are going to prepare the personnel for new Belarus
Jan Malicki

Belarus should be ready for a change of the government.

Jan Malicki – is a co-founder and a director of the Kastus Kalinouski scholarship program  at the Institute for East European Studies of Warsaw University. The program was established after the repressions in Belarus in March 2006. The scholarship has become a lifeline for those Belarusian students and graduates who were expelled from universities or arrested for political reasons. Nearly a thousand of students received the Kalinouski scholarship and got the opportunity to get higher education in Poland.

Today, the program has changed its format: Polish universities intend to train specialists who will be able to head the new Belarusian government after the change of power.

Jan Malicki explains how this will be happening in an interview with Natallia Radzina, the editor-in-chief of charter97.org.

- In Belarus, they were surprised to hear that the Kalinouski program is closing. What do you think about it?

- The program has not been closed, it has just slightly changed. I see it as a necessity – current situation requires changes.

Ten years ago, Kastus Kalinouski scholarship was created as a purely political program, basically as an aid from the Polish authorities to the Belarusian students expelled from universities for political reasons. In 2006, the scholarship was granted to 244 students that were expelled from universities for the participation on the Square demonstrations. In the next year – the number was 80, then 60, then 50. In the past year, we have taken only 20 students.

It is necessary to objectively assess the reality: the number of students repressed in Belarus is decreasing and this is good. Of course, it would be much better if there were no political persecutions in the country at all.

In recent years, we have expanded the format of the program: it will cover not only the excluded and persecuted students, but also, for example, children of political prisoners. Therefore, we had the idea to reform the program, so it would be preserved and not closed as superfluous. We decided to prepare the staff for a democratic Belarus.

- But what should the children of opposition activists do? They will not be able to study in Belarusian universities, especially for free. And today, students in Belarus are frightened to such an extent, that one could hardly find a reason for expelling any of them.

- Perhaps, that is true, I do not deny it. Also, to be clear: I do not belong to those who believe that if Lukashenka is not currently sentencing opposition to prison, he is a democrat.

I do not belong to these people! And I live in Warsaw, not in Brussels, so I understand very well that Belarusian students are frightened, that they do not do anything to protect their rights, and therefore they are not thrown out of their universities. But the program has specific requirements, and therefore we had to come to this decision.

The main thing is that the Kalinouski program still exists. If suddenly new repression start, we will return to its previous format.

- This is very important.

- Yes, but I also would like to note that the Kalinouski program is not encouraging the protests. The program is just providing support to those who are persecuted by the government for political activism.

If there are new cases of students being dropped out of university for political reasons in Belarus, we will create the conditions to take those students. In the meantime, we will prepare “high quality staff”.

By the way, did you know that over the 10 years, we have accepted 900 scholars from Belarus, but we got only 300 diplomas? Where are the rest?

- Indeed? And where?

- It's simple. A large number of scholars are eliminated in the first stage. They cannot adapt to the new conditions, cannot withstand the difficulties. But it's not my problem. My role – is to help if needed, but if the student does not do anything, there is nothing I can do.

- What differs a Belarusian student from a Polish one?

- If you look at all ten years of the program, I would say that a Polish student, who does not have a scholarship, is more hardworking than any other student with a scholarship. Such a simple pattern.

I also want to draw your attention to the fact that in the first set of the Kalinouski program, which had 244 people, three-quarters of those people were excluded from the universities. Moreover, there were no any strict examinations and qualifications when we were accepting those students – we just took them practically directly from the Square of demonstrations. And they even were arguing with me, everyone wanted to study in Warsaw and Jagiellonian University.

In 2006, under the windows of the building where we are sitting now with you, there was a demonstration and protest tent camp of the students of the Kalinouski program, who were assigned to study in such cities as Wroclaw, Torun, Gdansk, Poznan. All of them demanded Warsaw and Krakow! I was unable to explain to them that these universities are very demanding, and it was a problem. I conceded, but now I regret it. As a result, three-quarters of those university students have not completed their studies.

When I was reprimanded for it by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, I replied: the Republic of Poland has helped those, who needed help. Those, who failed in studying in Poland – failed due to the personal reasons; and we and the program itself were decent and appropriate.

- Hence then, the rules for admission to the program were changed?

- Yes, we have introduced the qualification exams and the situation has improved significantly. A special commission, composed of competent people and researchers, at an early stage has been assessing whether a person can fit into the Polish education system. This saved us from a lot of mistakes, but, of course, the number of people qualified under the program objectively reduced.

But let us get back to the main topic of our conversation. While the program is still functioning, there is no need to create a new one. Out of the more than 900 students – only 300 got university degrees (among them 3 doctorates and 180 masters’ degrees). I could complain that there are just a few degrees. In fact, when I was a director of the program, it was believed that we will release hundreds of qualified staff, who will govern the State after the fall of the regime. But this plan has failed. And the updated training program should be the next step.

- How do you plan to train new personnel for Belarus?

- We will take active and democratically minded people on the internships. For sure we will not be training staff for Lukashenka. Let Lukashenka himself educates his workforce, he does not need my help.

The foundation of the program will be the training of staff for democratic pro-European Belarus. We will take people who have already graduated and have some achievements. Let us see the results a year later.

- So will you educate and train Ministers for a new Belarus and transfer the experience of Polish reforms to them?

- First of all, let us turn to the most important area for the rebuilding of the state - the so-called transformation, but in the broader sense of the word. Transformation can be political, social, economic. It can address a lot of areas: economics, management, international relations, political science, history, journalism (by the way, it seems to me that journalists are more often trained in Poland than in Belarus). We will teach them to manage not only the economy, but also the state itself – all things that are covered in the National School of Public Administration (Krajowa Szkoła Administracji Publicznej), everything that you need for a successful cooperation between the state and society.

I shall repeat what I said 10 years ago, before the start of the Kalinouski program, when we all believed that soon the power in Belarus will change. If it happens that a democratic, pro-European Belarusian state will be build, there should not be a situation that the new government will have to recruit those officials who were under the Lukashenka’s regime, as there will be a lack of a new qualified personnel. In each area, up to the army. Of course, this program will not cover the military education, but in all other important areas ​​Belarus must have new young professionals educated abroad.

Otherwise, the new democratic government will have same problems as Ukraine had during the democratic transformation.

- Maybe, we also should invite Leszek Balcerowicz?

- (laughs) You decide. But just beware of Saakashvili reaction. Do you know about the dispute between Saakashvili and Balcerowicz? Leszek Balcerowicz is involved in the consultations, but as we can see, he acts very carefully. He received an offer to become a prime minister of Ukraine, but he refused. He took a cautious position of the president’s adviser. I do not know, whether he is cautious because of the situation in Ukraine, or simply because he has not such a courage, as he had in Poland.

I see the new program for Belarus like this: those people who will be elected – should be already prepared. We will accept only people who are below the age of 39 years. Each will have a professor, a certain number of lessons, the theme for the thesis paper. Until now, all the programs that I kept under such conditions, such as Government's program for young scientists (Program Rządu RP dla Młodych Naukowców), gave very good results.

In any case, I do not see the threat that support for Belarus will decrease - on the contrary, it will increase. Last year, the ministry reduced funding for the program for the reason that there is no exclusion of students from Belarus. Everyone we took were sent to the annual course of the Polish language. This year, I am distributing them to schools. The help that I have taken, is redirected to Banach's scholarship, which also operates in Belarus, for example, for Yakub Kolas National State Humanities Lyceum students, who, incidentally, were the best of my students. All of them received Banach’s scholarship.

You asked me why some of the students have completed their studies in Polish universities, while others have not. None of the graduates of the Kolas Lyceum have been expelled from the university for 10 years of the program. They were the best grantees.

- That means, that children who managed to withstand their studies in the Belarusian „underground”, were able to appreciate the opportunity that they were given by the Polish government?

- This, of course, is not entirely an underground. I'm a man of a “Solidarity”, I have been in hiding and in prison. When you use the word “underground”, it means only one thing - no one knows about it. If you get caught by authorities – you go to jail. Lyceum named after Yakub Kolas is not an underground, because everyone knows about this school, its director and students. At the same time, by the decision of the Polish government, the Lyceum is considered to be a repressed institution. Moreover, Lyceum graduates came under the category of those excluded from high schools, convicts, repressed; so we started accepting them to our program.

Returning to our question: children just want to learn and at the Lyceum gives very good education. It has good contacts with the Polish Lyceums; hence, Belarusian Lyceum students, who came to Poland through the Kalinouski program, were more aware of the Polish education system.

- It is great that in Poland the personnel for a new Belarus will be prepared. Belarus has not become part of the Polish prometheism at the beginning of the XX century; will it become now?

- Before the war, Belarus had not been included in the scope of prometheism policy, as there were no independent Belarusian state. The move prometheism consisted of leaders of countries that had lost independence and wanted to join it. Belarusian officials did not want to. There were Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, even Karelia and Turkmenistan. It is worth remembering that the aim of the prometheism was to build independent democratic societies of the Eastern countries.

Now we do not relate our program to the policy of prometheism, as it may worsen the situation. In a broad sense, this is a help in the preparation of a democratic society. After I gave 300 university degrees, I no longer affect these people. Then they are free. For example, I cannot recommend them to come back to Belarus and do something there. For obvious reasons, these people now will not get the positions they deserve. Lukashenka's regime is against the Kalinouski program.

Will they build a new Belarus after the change of the government? I do not know. I am sure only in one thing: the chances that they will help Belarus are greater if they stay in Poland than, for instance, in France, Germany or the United States. From there they would have never return. And from Poland – there is just one step to Belarus. Almost everyone can easily visit Belarus, there is no problem of contacts with relatives and friends.

As we know, in Germany and France, they are not only not interested in Lukashenka, but also they do not know where Belarus is. And here every Pole knows a lot about the situation. You probably will not find a person who would not know the location, president and problems of Belarus.

- So probably, it is worth to create here a Belarusian government in exile and to prepare a package of reforms for the transition?

- It is the task of the Belarusians. But I think that such a possibility was 10 years ago. It had to be done then. Now, I think that there will be no such enthusiasm. Ten years ago I was surprised, that a political center was not formed after the dispersal of opposition demonstrations.

Perhaps, there were a several reasons for that. Even Syamyon Sharetski was asked about his intentions to move to Poland. But he was not interested. Poles do not have the right to form your government – this is the task of Belarusians. All we could do – is to create a Kalinouski program, which is now turned into a training program for government personnel. Not anti-state personnel, but namely the state personnel.

- You speak so enthusiastically about Belarus. Why do you have such enthusiasm for our country?

- I do not have any property in Belarus, which I would like to return to myself (laughs). As we used to joke in 2006 – when the power changes, I will become a honorary citizen of Minsk. And an honorary citizenship gives the right of a funeral at the expense of the town, so I would better not have it.

If you can do something – do it. I could complain that I gave only 300 university degrees, but signed 900 documents for providing assistance to the persecuted. If you tell me that there were people who were cheating on the program, I will answer, that it is better to help the 5% who were cheating on the program than not to help at all to those 95% that really needed this help.

One of my distant relative was an officer of the regiment 77 of the Belarusian town Lida. He is now buried at Katyn. But this is not the reason. Only scientific interest and the human factor matter. It is always better to do good than to do nothing.

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