Uladzimir Matskevich: It’s time to understand Belarusans have their own place in the world

It’s enough to repeat the motto that our nation wants to get on in the world. We should foster Belarusan attitude towards everything that we do.

It is rather a declaration of Belarusization as seen by intellectuals, who held an expert international conference lately. It is an open secret that traditionally Belarusization is understood as revival of Belarusan language and endless polemics with those who don’t speak it. Uladzimir Matskevich, the philosopher and methodologist, the head of the Board of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”, told about the different kind of Belarusization.

- The narrowed interpretation of Belarusization as exclusively popularization of Belarusan language hampers the relations, communication and understanding between people, experts from different spheres. If Mass Media, advertisements, street signs are in Belarusan it is great; however, there are still non-textual, non-lexical elements featuring Belarus: art, architecture, streets.

When we talk about religious revival at the post-Soviet area in the 90s, the churches and temples have been restored with no hint of Belarusan architecture. Why can’t we introduce Belarusan manner to the modern architecture and connect them to Belarusan tradition? We do need Belarusization here.

Simple things

If we consider any field, any area (food, car industry) – it is obvious that we need Belarusization there; while we are obsessed with the language, which only irritates people who don’t speak it and stops further spread of Belarusization on other spheres.

The place we live in

It is often hard to tell what country we are in on the Belarusan territory, some parts being similar to Russia and some to Northern Ukraine. Two contradictions occur in Belarus: on the one hand, we emphasize our uniqueness; on the other – when starting something new, we tend to adopt it from abroad, wiping off this uniqueness. The way we preserve our legacy, rebuild our old towns, reconstruct and develop new cities, organize “Dazhynki” festivals suggests yet one more time that we need Belarusization.

What is Belarusization then?

It means not only to speak Belarusan, but to think over each minor thing in the way a Belarusan would. We should care about things Belarus possess – swamps, potato pancakes, technics, optics, BelAZ, and a lot more.

How to avoid the trap

The trap we can fall in consists in the way we treat globalization – the process we cannot stop. How to combine our Belarusan distinctness and globalization? How can Belarusans find their place in the world? Let’s start getting used to the fact that Belarusans have their own unique place in the world and assume globalization as a common fact for all the countries in the world. However, this globalization should have a Belarusan tinge in it, which is, actually, the base of our reflection, elaboration, and presentation to the world.