One More Step And Here’s Provence

Fly, citizens, to Istanbul or Moscow.

I read the news: Montenegro's national airline, Air Montenegro, sent a plane to Israel on Monday to evacuate its citizens. The plane landed safely in Podgorica early Tuesday morning. In addition to Montenegrins, the airline also took citizens from Croatia, Albania, Slovenia, Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia out of Israel. The Montenegrin foreign ministry tweeted a photo of the crew with the caption "The country is proud of you!

It seems like a small event, insignificant in the context of the events in the world. But only at first glance. Montenegrins are teased by the whole of Europe for their leisurely way of life (something like "take it easy"). Expats in Montenegro first get angry when they cannot solve a simple bureaucratic issue for months, which is solved in a day in their countries, and cannot stand the constant sound of "polako" until they get used to it and switch to the same mode. Montenegrins never rush, they don't try to put off until tomorrow what can be done in a week's time, they don't understand why you should be in a hurry when you can relax and enjoy the mountains. Government offices there work until two o'clock in the afternoon at the most (often with a break for lunch), nothing is ever done on time. Time is as endless as the sky and no one tries to save it or use it rationally.

And this small and not at all prosperous Balkan country, where no one is in a hurry to get anywhere, sends a plane to evacuate its citizens the day after the Hamas attack on Israel. According to local officials, there are only 20 of them in Israel. At the same time, it evacuates citizens of neighbouring countries, who thankfully fly to Podgorica. And not only citizens of neighbouring countries, but also several citizens of the USA and Sweden took the opportunity to leave Israel. Another important detail: the fleet of Montenegro's national airline consists of two planes.

Two planes, one of which was used for an evacuation flight, to the detriment of regular flights and loss of profit. The operation to save only 20 citizens. Citizens of other countries are rescued without asking for their passports. Montenegro is proud of its pilots, and citizens take pictures with the national flag during the flight. They are proud too. The next day, when everyone is safe, they say "Polako" again and sit down for coffee, enjoying the mountains. But in the moment of danger, all "polako" is cancelled. The authorities react quickly, and no one calculates whether it is worth sending a plane to a hot spot for the sake of two dozen souls when there are only two of them in the whole country.

Meanwhile, for six days in a row, the Belarusian foreign ministry and its embassy - despite the fact that there are probably more than two dozen Belarusians in Israel - answered journalists' questions about the evacuation by saying that it was "working on this issue" and that all incoming information about Belarusian citizens who asked for help with the evacuation was "being collected and analysed". The decision has finally been taken: there will be no evacuation. But the Foreign Ministry will offer to fly its citizens to Istanbul, Tbilisi or Moscow, where they will have the opportunity to transfer to Belavia planes to return home. "One more step and here’s Provence".

Of course, Montenegro is not the only country to have evacuated its citizens. Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Portugal. There is no point in listing all the countries, because the main thing is neither their number nor the number of citizens evacuated from Israel. This is just another piece of the puzzle, which adds up to the complete and profound indifference of the Belarusian authorities towards their citizens. The main thing is not to give them a passport abroad, the main thing is to get into someone else's phone in search of extremism, the main thing is to arrest them for a photo with a flag. There is so much work, so many impossible tasks, that the authorities have no energy, no resources and no desire for nonsense like saving the lives of citizens. The citizens will do it themselves, they are not small. If anything, they can swim to Istanbul. The water is still warm, so they won't catch cold.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org

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