Colleagues From The Planet Nibiru

I'm going to discuss the signs of Lukashenka's life.

Russian liberal colleagues took away my weekend.

"Please, could you come on the air? Could you do an urgent commentary? Will you join our stream? When can we call you for an interview?" The messengers were red-hot, the requests pouring in as if something life-changing had happened overnight. Either Prigozhin had conquered Minsk, or Lukashenka had voluntarily surrendered to the people and confessed in the square, or a nuclear bomb had exploded somewhere in Komarovka.

It turns out that the excitement of the liberal colleagues has to do with the fact that Lukashenka recently signed the "Law on Amendments to the Law on Mass Media". The law on amendments to the law sounds nice. But it is somehow disrespectful to read all these numerous pieces of paper that have neither value nor meaning. There is something about the possibility of banning the activity of foreign media on the territory of Belarus in case the countries where these media are registered behave badly towards our long-suffering occupied territory. And also for unfriendly actions towards the Belarusian media. That is, if Azaronak is not allowed to Lithuania, then the Lithuanian websites can be blocked. It's nonsense, but it doesn't even look like real news, just an information column for those who have nothing to do and nothing to read on hot summer weekends.

I thought there were no such people with nothing to do. It turns out there are quite a few of them. My dialogues with colleagues have been phantasmagoric.

- What do you mean, there's nothing to say, Iryna? The new law changes a lot for foreign media!

- It changes nothing.

- But will you at least tell our audience how it will work?

- I will not.

- Why not?

- Because laws don't work here in principle.

- Why don't you care? Foreign media won't be able to work in Belarus anymore.

- And they already don't work in Belarus.

- What about China, Russia?

- I don't really care. If you're wondering if Kiselyov and Solovyov's people have any problems, call them. I don't care about them.

That's how we talked, and that's how we parted, extremely dissatisfied with each other. My colleagues are dissatisfied that they lost their speaker and wasted their time. And I am not even that dissatisfied, but a little confused. All of us - journalists, former political prisoners and relatives of current political prisoners, writers and musicians, scientists and businessmen - seem to have spent a lot of time in the last three years giving interviews, streams and broadcasts, explaining in detail, pointing our fingers and spelling out the developments in Belarus. And people seemed to listen to us and even understand us. But as soon as Lukashenka draws a squiggly line on a napkin, all understanding ends. "But he said/signed/promised/threatened that he would change the working conditions for journalists/rules for visiting public baths/timetables for city transport". It sounds like "they said it on TV, so it must be true".

And it seems that we all live in completely different universes that don't interact with each other in any way. We seem to speak similar or even the same language. We like to meet each other, hug each other, drink to each other. But we do not understand each other at all. It is as if some of us live the old-fashioned way on Earth and some of us live on the planet Nibiru.

No, of course I will join every air. If necessary, I will cancel a meeting with my female friend or a walk with my son to tell again and again about Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk and Mikalai Statkevich, about Daria Losik and Pavel Seviarynets, about Alena Lazarchyk and Viktar Babaryka. Every iron should broadcast the stories of our political prisoners and the evidence of their humiliation, and I am ready to shout into the iron as much as I can to make people hear. But wasting my own and other people's airtime to talk about another trace of Lukashenka's life on a piece of paper is not good enough.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org

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