Uladzimir Matskevich: Soap bubbles have no future

Civil society and opposition structures need to be regularly cleaned from “soap bubbles” – organizations that appeared out of nowhere and are more famous outside Belarus than inside the country.

This was reported by Uladzimir Matskevich, the head of the Board of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”.

- Let us remember that the events of 2010 are already a part of history, despite the fact that people are still in prison. And insignificant events, as perceived today, can become big and significant in the future. And vice versa; what is seen as important now doesn’t necessarily leave its mark in history.

But we should examine the history in order to be able to connect really significant events back from history with the present, so that to act appropriately in modern situations.

Let me recall something that the older generation knows far too well: the history of the World War II and its impact on the world fates and the current appearance of the world. But older generations perceive the most significant battles as some events of inconsiderable importance for the history. The historians and ideologists made their best to blow up minor events to the battles of world importance.

On the opposition in Wikipedia

- When we are dealing with modern events, they have to be viewed in the historical context. For instance, if we want to know what Belarusan opposition looks like today we turn to Wikipedia as one of the most available resources for now. And we discover that in the Russian version of Wikipedia Belarusan opposition is represented by such names as Vasiĺeu, Karach, Koktysh, Fiaduta, while all the rest are historical rather than up-to-date political figures.

Thus, the man who lives outside Belarus can really believe that it is these people who embody Belarusan opposition today.

I do value ambitious young people, as without ambitions we can’t understand the mistakes of our predecessors. We’ve been criticizing opposition a lot and we put many hopes on the new generation to correct the mistakes of our fathers, who tolerated this regime and made their children fight against it.

Kicking up a row from outside and silence inside

However, when considering this situation, we have to ask ourselves if we can we indeed rely on the rising generation.

Blowing up minor procedures to the outrageous scale is not about ambitions, but sooner about inadequate self-judgment. It is really the youth who can manage to do what we didn’t and it is with the youth that our hopes are connected.

We shouldn’t necessarily act in the same way as our predecessors did when continuing their work. We should learn from their mistakes in order to win. But young people don’t do that today; they only pretend so. Moreover, they do it quietly, and it is only few of their fellow-fighters who know about their activity; however, when it comes to getting aid from the sponsors they let the whole world know about it. But when you ask them who knows about their activity in Belarus, it turns out that no one actually knows. Whereas they are thought of as some kind of fighters in the Western countries.

How to stay away from “soap bubbles”

In order for us to escape the mistakes of the Brezhnev times and not to waste time slipping into the same mistakes, we should place everything in order and give our adequate evaluation to everything.

Unfortunately, in today’s opposition still exist old structures, overloaded with mistakes and defeats. However, there also exist new, young formations and structures, and some of them have good chances of becoming really important. Still, without any “bubbling”, as soap bubbles can only last for short time.

That is why analysts, experts and researchers have to give their evaluation of the current state of affairs, in order to understand “who is who” in today’s civil society and opposition. These “soap bubbles” appear after every presidential campaign, but where are all those people now?

Sometimes, as it happened in 2010, there are far too much of such “soap bubbles”. And we have to clean civil society from them regularly by calling things by their proper names.

“Bubble giants”

These “soap bubbles” have certain features. If some structure is more famous abroad, it means that this structure is most possibly a bubble structure with sham fighters and leaders and, thus, cannot be trusted. The same way as we can’t trust those who don’t accept the experience of former generations.

It often happens so that really significant political figures make mistakes and waste their potential. Their place is occupied by the new ones, who once pointed out these mistakes. And this approach can only be welcomed. However, we shouldn’t forget that it doesn’t always happen so. Of course, in his time Zianon Pazniak lost the influence on the Belarusan People’s Front; he made a number of mistakes that removed him from among the most powerful people. His place got occupied by others, not comparable with Pazniak, though.

Even those who continue the work of their predecessors are not always successful. And those who start from nowhere are doomed to remain “soap bubbles”.