Viktar Ivashkevich: “There’s no prohibition on Freedom Day rally”
- 19.03.2008, 10:06
The organising committee for celebration of Freedom Day has decided that people will gather on March 25 at 6 p.m. on Yakub Kolas Square.
“Radio Svaboda” has been informed about that by a deputy chairman of the Belarusain Popular Front party Viktar Ivashkevich.
- It has been said that this year the march on Freedom Day would have a new route. What are the latest details? Has the permission of Minsk authorities been received?
- The new route hasn’t been either prohibited or sanctioned. I think that the official answer would be received from the authorities today or on March 20. The organising committee has decided that we shall gather on March 25 at 6p.m. on Yakub Kolas Square near the stairs of the Philharmonic Hall.
We’ll wait for people to gather for about 40 minutes. We’ll lay flowers to Yakub Kolas monument. After that we’ll march along the avenue up to Valadarski Street and lay flowers to the building where the Belarusian National Republic was proclaimed.
Then we’ll go down Valadarski Street to Mitskevich monument, and then along Bahdanovich Street, Haradski Val and Kupalauskaya Street to Bahdanovich monument. A little reading of Bahdanovich’s verses will take place there. Flowers will be laid, and that will be the end of the march. By the way, it is not a new way; the same route was used in 1999.
- To your mind, what oppositional rally on Freedom Day was most successful?
- I think that the most successful one was the rally on 1992 when a festive meeting took place in Opera House on March 25. The leader of the state Stanislau Shushkevich, representatives of the BNR Rada (Council), expat community, representatives of different democratic parties, MPs took part in the meeting. That meeting gave an impulse to Belarusian patriots and the BNR members started to write textbooks for Belarusian schools. Belarusian-language classes started to open everywhere. Unfortunately, that process was stopped in 1994, but I think it will be renewed soon.
- Let’s return to the celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Belarusian National Republic’s declaration this year. It is not limited to the street rally on March 25. Please tell us about the major events dedicated to this date.
- The main know-how in Freedom day celebration this year is holding a nation-wide dictation. Its initiator was political analyst Uladzimir Padhol. He adopted this idea from Lithuanians, Poles and the French. They are holding such dictations many years. We decided that if these nations care about preservation of their languages in the time of globalization, we, Belarusians, so much more should adopt this experience.
There were many publications about the first dictation that took place on March 15. Diplomats accredited in Belarus took part in it. This dictation has taken place in Vitsebsk, and on March 23 such a dictation is to take place in Minsk in the headquarters of the Belarusian Language Society and the Belarusian Popular Front party headquarters.
I know the same thing is to be done in Salihorsk and Harodnya. Basically, the scheme is very simple. People dedicated to the Belarusian idea gather, they read Belarusian poems, write a dictation of the text of introduction to Francis Bahushevich’s book “Belarusian Pipe”. They celebrate this day.
In this way, the gathering of supporters of the Belarusian idea turns into a nation-wide action, not just a celebration, under the condition the event would be pictured and the information about the meeting would be covered by independent media.