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Sensation, Which They Overlook 17:03, 28/02/2003, Dmitry Bondarenko, Charter’97 civil initiative’s coordinator  And so I’ve been browsing through the passed out materials in a bad mood. All of a sudden I almost felt an electric shock. In one of the brochures, on the 19th page I saw astounding figures. It turns out that if there was held a referendum on Belarus’ accession to the European Union 53,4% of Belarusian would say yes to it and only 8% would be opposed to the idea. That’s just as many as those, supporting the unification with Russia at the hypothetical referendum. I could no longer sit quiet and said aloud from the pulpit: “Dear countrymen! I’ve got a sensation here! Somehow the scholars missed it. There are 6 Russian TV channels in Belarus, BT and state newspapers, which boast of the nations’ friendship day and night and look what amazing data we have at the end!” Then I personally addressed professor Manaev from stage: “Dear scientists! We’d like to learn more about Belarusians’ opinion on their integration with Europe. Could you dedicate the same brochure to it as this one?” For a whole month I’ve been waiting to get the results of the new poll of our sociologists. Who knows, I thought, may be it was mere accident that Belarusians spoke in favor of joining EU in autumn? However, in late December there occurred an even greater sensation. It turned out that 61% of Belarusians are now longing to be part of the united Europe. Meantime, the number of those, willing to unify with Russia, remains pretty much the same – 53%. In other words, the European Belarusians outnumber the Russian ones. I realize that many of our countrymen’s brains are in a mess. But that’s not only the Belarusian phenomenon. For example, most of our Polish neighbors support Poland’s accession to EU. At the same time 40% of Poles, when asked which nation they consider to be their foe, answer “Germans”, who dominate the EU. Contradiction? Of course. But even in the head of one person there can dwell contradictory ideas. I myself want to travel to Vilnius, where my friends live, and my wife’s relatives in Nizhny Novgorod of Russia without any entry visas. But I can’t travel both ways without visas, though I really want to… But one thing astounds me most: why, despite all efforts of Russian and Belarusian medias, Belarusians totally ignore their persuasions and still prefer Europe to Russia? Once I came across the newspaper “Svobodnye Novosti Plus” with an article of the popular Radio Svaboda journalist Yuri Drakohrust, entitled “How to enter Europe”. At last, I thought, the journalists realized the sensation. Yuri now lives in Prague rather than some Saratov and so, I thought, will explain everything to us right away. But in reality things turned out different. The author warns us from looking westward. Belarusian citizens, he said, are quite smart, willing to both join Russia and Europe. And the author then draws a comparative analysis, concluding that the very slogan “Belarus to Europe!” presents great danger. First of all, Belarusians only pretend as though they are dying to get closer to Europe and secondly, the European Commission’s chairman Romano Prodi can require to shut MAZ and MTZ manufactures. And then the adherents of the European way of development (“Europeans at any cost”, as Drakohrust calls them) will have to use riot police against dismissed workers, though they will fail to stop them anyway. These conclusions are somewhat strange, I’d say. But what astonished me most was the way the professor of mathematical sciences Drakohrust makes his calculations. To put it plain the man simply exaggerates the number of supporters of integration with Russia and intentionally reduces the number of those, aspiring to join the EU. See for yourself. The author writes: “Simple calculations show this: 45% support deeper integration with Russia and accession to EU at the same time, while 19% uphold further integration into Russia without joining EU”. So, the author concludes that 45% plus 19% support integration with Russia in any of these forms. However, Yuri, it is incorrect to compare answers to totally differently posed questions. If you compare the number of those, who positively answered the question on voting at the hypothetical referendum on Belarus’ accession into EU, then it would only be correct to parallel it to the same hypothetical referendum on Russia-Belarus unification. As you know, 53,8% rather than 64% are ready to support such a union.
* NISEPI presented to the press no data as to how many of the surveyed support both integrations and how many support only one of the variants. If you desire to compare the number of those, who answered the question about three integration scenarios after Putin, you can only draw parallels with the number of respondents about the three integration variants of Belarus and EU. However, NISEPI for some reason never conducted a poll on that… So things look really strange. Today Belarus is facing the danger of a loss of sovereignty. Everyone keeps talking about potential referendum on prolongation of Lukashenko’s term and incorporation (as Vasyl Bykov once put it) of Belarus into Russia. Leading Belarusian politicians in opposition voice statements in support of the integration of Russia and Belarus after EU principles. Exactly as the renowned professors and journalists recommend to do it, referring to the public opinion. However, distinguished representatives of independent research centers and no less distinguished Belarusian journalists must realize that they not only study the public opinion but also form it. How about we solve problems one by one, as they emerge? The chairman of the European Commission, Italian socialist Romano Prodi presents no real danger to the MAZ workers. However, MAZ can well become property of the Russian tycoon Deripasko. This danger, on the contrary, is quite realistic. In this case thousands of workers will be ruthlessly dismissed. Russian oligarchs know how to count money and will never keep odd personnel at their enterprise. I fear that the dismissed workers will take to the streets under anti-Russian slogans and their rally would get dispersed not by the Minsk OMON, which will by then fight in Gudermes (Chechnya), but Moscow “Alfa” instead. That would be a true threat to the Belarusian-Russian friendship. Indeed, our way to the European Union will not be so easy. That’s for sure. We’ll need to conduct heavy economic reforms and even give up some of our sovereignty. But isn’t it better to lose part of the sovereignty and introduce euros together with Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia, than to get Russian rubles with such “independent” countries as Tatarstan, Chechnya and Yamalo-Nenetsk autonomous region. Today even the Ukrainian president Kuchma, who meets with Putin ten times a year, claims that Ukraine’s main goal is to enter the European Union and NATO. Meantime, the Belarusian elite keeps quiet or plays with the Russians a dangerous and pointless game of “EU type integration”. West and Europe are expecting a clearcut and comprehensive message from the Belarusian democrats – “we want to be part of EU and NATO”. Given there’s no this message, the Belarusian nation will remain on the backyard of Europe. This was confirmed by one of the main architects of the European security, leading strategist of the ruling US Republican Party Bruce Jackson, who said literally the following: “Now the choice remains with Belarusians. You’ve got time till the end of 2007. Then the cement of the new European borders will cool down”. Excerpts from Yuri Drakohrust’s article “How to enter Europe?” (“Svobodnye Novosti Plus” #2(17), January 30-February 13, 2003): Cross-allocation of answers to the questions “How would you vote at the referendum on Belarus’ accession to EU?” and “Some time ago Russian president Vladimir Putin proposed to the Belarusian incumbent Alexander Lukashenko to pick one of the three integration scenarios. Which one of them would you prefer?” (NISEPI poll, December 2002, 1478 people surveyed).
The figures in the central parts of the table stand for the percentage of respondents, which selected some variants, answering both questions. For instance, the figure in the upper corner means that 36% of all polled citizens supported both Belarus’ accession to EU and unification with Russia after the EU model. Numbers in the bottom line and right column mean the totaled percentage of those, who answered one of the questions (61% want Belarus to join EU, while 46% support the idea of unification with Russia under EU type, etc.) Simple math shows that 45% support deeper and tense integration with Russia and Belarus’ accession to the EU at the same time; 19% want further integration with Russia without joining EU and 16% prefer to be part of the united Europe, having nothing to do with Russia. However, the most upsetting can happen in case our “Europeans” miraculously get a chance to attain their goal at any cost. What will they do if the European Commission’s chairman Romano Prodi tells them that they should shut down MAZ and MTZ? What will the politicians, who will no longer be part of opposition by then but will bear instead full responsibility, tell the workers? Tell them about Great Lithuanian Dukedom, burn down the Russian flag and Russian money, as they are used to doing right now? Take a guess what will happen to them under the conditions of democracy? And no riot police forces would help them out. If Russia loves Belarus so dearly, how about she bears greater responsibility for the troubles, faced by Belarus on her way to Europe. Many Belarusians, so heartily dedicated to Russia, will feel at ease due the inevitability of it. Belarusians are wise people and always fall in Russia’s footsteps.
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