Tsikhanouskaya: Unity Day Is A Façade Hiding The Slow Destruction Of Independence

The Day of Unity of the Peoples of Belarus and Russia is merely a façade behind which lies the slow destruction of independence, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said. According to her, relations between Minsk and Moscow are not friendship but the price Lukashenka has been paying for 30 years out of Belarusians’ pockets to stay in power.

“On 2 April, the regime marks what is perhaps its most cynical so-called holiday — the ‘Day of Unity of Belarus and Russia’. But the truth is that this ‘unity’ is only a signboard behind which everything has always looked the same: the slow destruction of our identity and independence.

The Kremlin likes to repeat the same thing: ‘We are one people.’ But for some reason, that people is always ‘Russian’. For them, the Belarusian language is simply a dialect of Russian. Our distinct culture is merely rural colour, and our true history is just a small addition to their rewritten and all-encompassing ‘great Russian’ story. This union has never been viewed by Russia as equal, because it was created for the gradual destruction of our identity and independence. So that Belarus could eventually be dissolved into the ‘Russian world’ they dream of. As Karel Havlíček Borovský said, Russians often call everything Russian ‘Slavic’ so that later they can call everything Slavic ‘Russian’.

But Belarusian history is not Russian. It is European: the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, cities with Magdeburg rights, Skaryna, our schools, literature, and the tradition of self-government. None of this has anything to do with being simply a ‘younger brother’.

The fact that Russia is now everywhere in Belarus is not friendship, but the price Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been paying for 30 years out of Belarusians’ pockets so that he can stay in power. But Belarusians are paying for it with their security, sovereignty and future. Belarusians do not need this kind of unity. We need a Belarus that decides for itself where to go, whom to be friends with and how to live. A Belarus where our language, our choices and our dignity are respected.

We are the worthy people of Belarus, and we will never be younger brothers. Because we know who we are”, Tsikhanouskaya said in a statement.

The Day of Unity of the Peoples of Belarus and Russia is marked on 2 April. On that day in 1996, Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Boris Yeltsin signed the treaty establishing the Community of Belarus and Russia. A year later, the treaty on the Union of Belarus and Russia was signed.