Uladzimir Matskevich: Big politics doesn’t have enough places for youth

Current opposition potential are those citizens who are to a certain degree independent from the state payments, uninvolved in the state governing bodies and are not working at the state enterprises.

 Prolonged slack in the circle of citizens with the opposition moods makes many people listen to those whose authority was maximum high as far as the beginning of the Belarusan sovereignty. Zianon Pazniak is one of such people, insisting that “under occupation regime and occupation dictatorship that pursues antinational occupation policy no opposition in its democratic sense can exist”.

“We can do a lot if we act in a reasonable way, with understanding of the situation. That is why all abstract judgments connected with the definitions and terms are good for scholasticism and academic discussion, but in reality we have to act. Pazniak is abroad now, so he can’t act”, - assumes Uladzimir Matskevich.

He finds certain logic in what Pazniak says about the possibility that there are people under governmental control within opposition: “Of course, we can speak only about some of the opposition. But in result of such speculations we can come to conclusion that we can make resistance to the current Belarusan regime only from abroad. While this is an illusion, as everything that is done from abroad almost has no influence on real situation in Belarus”.

Uladzimir Matskevich is very restrained in his evaluation of the foreign initiatives that were voiced by Uladzimir Baradach: “Because still, Baradach appeals to those who are in Belarus. He is correct in his strategy, but when it comes to tactics, Baradach is at a disadvantage. He missed good time to nominate his initiative and he didn’t have negotiations with the opposition leaders. So on the whole, this initiative was strategically correct; however, it turned out to be ill-timed”.

Uladzimir Matskevich sees no evident marks for sharp enforcement of the Belarusan opposition, but is “ready for slow and systematic work”: “There are very, very few new people within the Belarusan opposition. Some youth shows up, but there is no streamlined skill sharing, no studying and no communication. Thus, the youth is short-tempered, risky and spends its forces rather than accumulates them. And even the youth is not that numerous, as youth policy works well in the Belarusan regime. And it works namely to suppress the activity of the youth, to degrade it and to involve it in the initiatives of the state”.

The question of the personnel renewal within the opposition was always neglected, and today Uladzimir Matskevich “enjoys watching “Liberal club” as a certain personnel forge. It unites an active group of people, who beside some other functions can serve as an employment pool for very different structures”.

“The biggest oversight in dealing with youth and personnel pool is that we have no possibility to offer any work to them, - assumes Uladzimir Matskevich. – That is why time after time youth movements die out quickly. The youth comes and makes itself known, but we are not able to involve that youth in big politics later on. And all this because we have no development in the big politics – there are no free places for new leaders and for active people. And without the enhancement of big politics all the initiatives of the youth will break out and go out, people will come and go, and there will be no accumulation of activists. We have to think about it now. And the best thing we can offer for today is to support youth initiatives and to offer education to them. Not these countless and senseless seminars, where one and the same ideas are dragged out, but rather serious education for the youth which can become new opposition leaders”.