«Svaboda» newspaper: Milinkevich’s appeal to Lukashenka is aimed at changing present situation :: Charter'97 :: News

The situation at the Belarusian playground with the authorities playing with themselves and the opposition shouting at the grandstands has been described for years. Actually, nobody asked the parties to the playground and they never expressed the desire to join the game. In these terms, the open letter of A. Milinkevich to A. Lukashenka is a precedent in the newest Belarusian history, Ales Kebik wrote in the “Svaboda” newspaper.

Lukashenka, being an irrational policymaker, will respond to such gesture only in case he sees a chance for his survival in it. That is the case Milinkevich has relied on when he proposed his connections, his intermediation in the talks with the West. He assumes that the domestic situation in Belarus may be changed due to the geopolitical expediency, which under certain conditions will become a stronger factor than Lukashenka’s irrationalism. Building the North Korea’s autarkic model in Belarus is unfeasible and it means that sooner or later he will have to respond the West’s messages, no matter how autocratic he is and how disgusting the dialogue is to his mentality and to the preferences of his electorate.

Anyway, the competition has been offered by Milinkevich.It is a sort of game, football, for example, and not a conventional dumb confrontation or banal treason, which Milinkevich has been accused of by certain policymakers.

Only those, who are sitting in the dugout not far from Pleschanitsi and know where they will move tomorrow, what they will attack on and with what result, may call the open letter a treason. In other cases, any criticism of Milinkevich for his letter will be senseless and it is nothing else but the same shouting at the grandstands.

Definitely, the appeal of the ex-candidate for the presidency to the acting president is aimed at changing the present situation. And it is not so important in this context that, maybe, Milinkevich has been too quick because of a short term of his political life. On the contrary, such incentives do not presume fatuous games. The main thing is, that in the alternative Belarus not any other way can be noticed. We have very well learned to wait and to run after. But, it is well known, that those are a perfect waste of time.

So, what happened? Milinkevich manifested his oppositional potential and did not hide himself in the depth of his intellectual’s kitchen following the Russian dissidents’ classical tradition. This event has brought back to the Belarusian democratic public, at least, the idea of consistency and not full degeneration of its status. There are many routs in store for us. But, as in many other situations, the Belarusians, being united by the common idea of the country’s independence, should talk with each other. And no matter how far-off this conversation might be to think about it is necessary. Independence becomes a key word. It is doubtless that without Lukashenka’s declaration of independence there would not be any Milinkevich’s letter. Independence as the common value for both, the authorities and the opposition, gives the chance to the dialogue. It is to be admitted that Lukashenka’s dwelling on the subject of independence irritates the majority of his electorate and, along with it, allows opposition to rise from the dissident’s status to the status of a competitor. Isn’t it an invitation to leave the grandstands and to come to the playground?

We can talk as much as we can about a hypocritical nature of Lukashenka’s independence but there is no use to call his regime occupational and to imagine ourselves as warriors armed with machineguns.

Romance is romance, but Milinkevich as the majority of our oppositionist is, by no means, a member of the underground but a statecraft person and their natural desire is to participate in the state life and not to undermine it. The underground is originally alien to them. Paradox as it may seem, but it so happened that such key organizations of the Belarusian state system as the Union of writers and the most advanced school of the country, Belarusian lyceum, have found themselves in the underground. Their untypical roles and partisans’ rhetoric is a pure imitation. Clever people can’t stand that long. They start feeling that the situation is senseless.

Finally, if you please, Milinkevich may afford to play the part of such” traitor” for the history, who moved the situation in the country from its standstill. Those who do nothing ever make mistakes.