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[10ebbor10]

Not so sure about an impending Belarian revolution. The country has strong ties with Russia, and unlike Ukraine, doesn't really have a political opposition.

[moondowner]

As much as I am happy that Yanukovich is gone for good (and hope he gets the justice he deserves), things in Ukraine are as disgusting as I imagined they will be after the success of revolution.
Good-for-nothing, turncoat politicians are dividing seats, lots of empty words are said, same as in 2005, after the Orange revolution (and by pretty much the same people, too). People, almost as one, say "they're not who we fought for. we fought for ourselves, for the country", but look at the facts. Hundreds died, and now we have a new-old government. And what now, one more revolution? It's not like there's a political force that everybody trusts now.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

moondowner, believe me, Maydan will not repeat the mistake of 2005. No one has any illusions. Opposition is a bunch of corrupt power-hungry bastards. Lesser evil than that fat pig but still not fluffy puppets. It is our job to enforce that they'll work for our interests.

As Yarosh said - It's only the beginning of Ukrainian reconquest.  First, very important step is done, many more are ahead

[Owlbread]

If the Belarusian language will be enforced upon Russian-speaking people like in 1992-1994, then altitudes will change... against the people enforcing it.

Well, you don't have to "force" it on people. There are ways of doing things, Guardian. The Russian speaking population should be encouraged to learn Belarusian but it's not like they'll be beaten in school if they speak Russian.

The primary goal should be ensuring that everyone in the country is fully literate and fluent in Belarusian, repairing the damage caused by Lukashenko's policies. That can be done through ensuring the language is a compulsory subject at school, taught through language immersion classes (not out of textbooks) where the primary language of the classroom is Belarusian. Not every class of course, not at this stage, just at the moment. Hopefully after a good few years of positive encouragement to speak both Russian and Belarusian the dominance of the Belarusian language can grow in the educational setting until Russian occupies the same space that Belarusian occupies now.

Bilingualism should be encouraged wherever possible. If it became the primary language of government and the President spoke Belarusian as his primary language when giving speeches, that would raise its profile. Belarusian should be the main language of news stations, given primetime slots, with Russian rotated with the current Belarusian slots. Parliamentary proceedings should be conducted primarily in Belarusian, though because virtually everyone understands Russian there should be no problem if a member would prefer to speak his piece in Russian.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Belarusian should be the main language of news stations, given primetime slots, with Russian rotated with the current Belarusian slots.

Fascist!
That's how Ukrainian nationalists called when we offer similar norms.

That and:
"It is against free market! People are choosing Russian over Ukrainian you can't force them to watch TV\read press in Ukrainian"

You should have seen that hysteria when films dubbed in Russian (not original Russian films, those are OK) were banned in Ukrainian cinemas

[Helgoland]

PS. Am I the only one to see "My dictator is better dictator then yours, losers" attitude here?

A dictator has already failed if he no longer has the support of his people. Now Hitler, he didn't have to worry about stuff like 'mass protests' and 'democratic reform'.
/Godwin

[Owlbread]

Belarusian should be the main language of news stations, given primetime slots, with Russian rotated with the current Belarusian slots.

Fascist!
That's how Ukrainian nationalists called when we offer similar norms.

It's always amusing when people making proposals like that get accused of being a Fascist when the only reason why Russian is spoken so much in Ukraine and Belarus, and English is spoken so much in Scotland, Wales and Ireland is because the native languages were marginalised through the same methods the Russophiles/Anglophiles are getting upset about, and worse in some cases. I'm not proposing that English speaking students in Scotland should be beaten with a leather belt if they speak English, after all. In fact I believe speaking Gaelic was a hanging offense at one time, don't quote me on that though.

That and:
"It is against free market! People are choosing Russian over Ukrainian you can't force them to watch TV\read press in Ukrainian"

That's always an interesting argument, but it goes right to the core of the language issue. Is it worth preserving languages that are in decline because people aren't bothering to speak them/learn them? I actually think language lies at the core of any national identity, even if it's accent or dialect. Without linguistic differences there's almost never a sense of national separateness.

I think though provided you aren't going around caning kids who try to speak Russian in the playground or something this isn't really a terrible problem, it's hardly an attack on democracy. It's not like the Russian language is going to die out any time soon.

Spoiler: I'm always reminded of this cartoon when I hear stuff like that from either Belarus or Ukraine: (click to show/hide)

You should have seen that hysteria when films dubbed in Russian (not original Russian films, those are OK) were banned in Ukrainian cinemas

That's the thing. State TV should be primarily in Ukrainian but if people want to set up a Russian station, maybe the government could provide some cash to help set it up. That way nobody's being "forced" to watch anything in Ukrainian, they can watch the Russian station instead.

[XXSockXX]

Looks like it could get better from here on, but there is still a lot of stuff to do. Most importantly not going bankrupt, which depends on Russia accepting the new situation and on the EU keeping their promises. Then keeping the country together, in short-term that simply means not breaking apart, long-term the East-West divide needs to get bridged somehow. Also getting a provisional government together (which is supposedly happening till next week) and starting to bring those responsible for the violence to justice. Then we'll see how the elections go, hopefully.

[10ebbor10]

The Eu hasn't really made any promises that I know off. Sure, we'll aid in negotiating an IMF deal, but we're not providing any loans.

[Guardian G.I.]

Well, you don't have to "force" it on people. There are ways of doing things, Guardian. The Russian speaking population should be encouraged to learn Belarusian but it's not like they'll be beaten in school if they speak Russian.

The primary goal should be ensuring that everyone in the country is fully literate and fluent in Belarusian, repairing the damage caused by Lukashenko's policies. That can be done through ensuring the language is a compulsory subject at school, taught through language immersion classes (not out of textbooks) where the primary language of the classroom is Belarusian. Not every class of course, not at this stage, just at the moment. Hopefully after a good few years of positive encouragement to speak both Russian and Belarusian the dominance of the Belarusian language can grow in the educational setting until Russian occupies the same space that Belarusian occupies now.

When Westerners, especially those who haven't been in Belarus speak about Belarusian language, they often assume that people who speak it get repressed by the government and that it's not present in schools, literature, press, television and the internet at all. They are actually wrong.

The Belarusian language is definitely not banned.
It is a compulsory subject in all Belarusian schools, even those where Russian is dominant, along with Belarusian literature. There are subjects in universities taught in Belarusian - for example, I study in a foreign language department in a local university, and we have linguistics, one of the core subjects, taught entirely in Belarusian. Originally students leaving school chose between exams in Russian and Belarusian, but from what I've heard, from this academic year on, both Russian and Belarusian language exams are compulsory, along with English and mathematics.
There are newspapers published entirely in Belarusian, both local and nationwide, and many newspapers, both state-owned and private carry both Russian and Belarusian articles.
There are Belarusian language programs on state television. Local news bulletins broadcast on the main state television channel, Belarus-1 and others are entirely in Belarusian. Main news programs broadcast on the same channels are dominantly Russian but segments dealing with local events and culture are mostly in Belarusian. Plus most recent documentaries on history of Belarus broadcast there are in Belarusian. The state-owned first channel of Belarusian radio mostly broadcasts in Belarusian.
Books in Belarusian are published by state-owned publishers. A lot of encyclopedias and other history books published in Belarusian, and they are not in any way inferior to books in Russian in any way - they haven't been made as throwaway in order to comply with the bilingualism laws. I'm not talking about fiction books by local writers.
Announcements on public transport are made in Belarusian. The absolute majority of road signs, as well as signs on state-owned institutions are in Belarusian.
Etc., etc., etc.

But, I need to say one very important thing: the shrinkage of use of the Belarusian language happened not because of repression, but because of lack of interest among the public.
During the times of USSR (after the death of Stalin, and to some extent during his times), Belarusian publishers published tons of Belarusian books that gathered dust in book stores because no one bought them, not because the bloody KGB would break in their house at night and kill them on the spot, but because no one was particularly interested in reading them. The majority of Belarusian literature, especially if it was written after the war, was really boring. There wasn't much good entertainment literature - the only authors I can name is Uladzimir Karatkievich with his historical books like "The Dark Castle Olshansky" or "King Stakh's Wild Hunt" and Leonid Daineka with his books "The Sword of Knyaz Vyachka" and "The Trail of the Sorcerer", also about Belarusian history. Books written by the rest of the good authors like Vasil Bykov (who wrote excellent but very bleak stories about the Second World War) weren't something that could be read in free time. The translations of foreign literature into Belarusian were completely overlooked by the public in favour of Russian versions of these books.
The same thing happened with newspapers and many television programmes - lack of interest. The Russian language publications were more interesting, so people read and watched them. All of that coupled with the dominant usage of Russian in official documentation resulted in the Belarusian language gradually falling out of use in cities.

The language policies set by Lukashenko are pretty much the same as those in Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic during the late Soviet Union. He isn't interested in intensively promoting the Belarusian language, not because of malicious intent, but because he apparently thinks that the current policies are fine and shouldn't be changed. Westerners, who know that he is apparently a dictator that longs for the time of the USSR and that Belarusian is falling out of general use immediately arrive at the rather incorrect conclusion that he enforces Russian by using political and cultural repression.

The Belarusian authorities before Lukashenko came to power in the beginning of the 1990s tried to make Belarusian the dominant language as quickly as possible - it was set as the sole language used by the government, in official documentation, educational establishments and the media and Russian was simply removed out of those spheres. Quite a lot of people who suddenly found that they should use only Belarusian didn't really like it.

[Owlbread]

When Westerners, especially those who haven't been in Belarus speak about Belarusian language, they often assume that people who speak it get repressed by the government and that it's not present in schools, literature, press, television and the internet at all. They are actually wrong.

I have not said that the language has been repressed by the government. The government is just allowing it to stagnate.

The Belarusian language is definitely not banned.

Indeed, I didn't claim it is. Like its close relative though in Ukraine it has experienced its fair share of persecution in the past due to its status in the 19th century as a peasant language. The damage has already been done since then, the problem is that the Belarusian establishment (who are Russophiles) don't really care about it and it is generally in their interest for it to be in decline.

It is a compulsory subject in all Belarusian schools, even those where Russian is dominant, along with Belarusian literature. There are subjects in universities taught in Belarusian - for example, I study in a foreign language department in a local university, and we have linguistics, one of the core subjects, taught entirely in Belarusian. Originally students leaving school chose between exams in Russian and Belarusian, but from what I've heard, from this academic year on, both Russian and Belarusian language exams are compulsory, along with English and mathematics.

Yes, and that is the wrong way to go about it. It's quite effective for killing languages outright in some cases. The policies of successive Irish governments over the 20th century are singularly responsible for the decline of Irish. Never teach kids and young adult students language that you want to preserve and spark interest in by forcing them to learn out of textbooks and complete exams in them. That is just silly.

There are newspapers published entirely in Belarusian, both local and nationwide, and many newspapers, both state-owned and private carry both Russian and Belarusian articles.

Given that much of the press is allegedly controlled by "the opposition" as you've said in the past that is to be expected.

There are Belarusian language programs on state television.

Just like there's Breton programs on French TV. Not nearly enough though, clearly.

Local news bulletins broadcast on the main state television channel, Belarus-1 and others are entirely in Belarusian.

When you say "local news", by local do you mean "rural"? Would local news bulletins in, say, Minsk broadcast entirely in Belarusian?

Main news programs broadcast on the same channels are dominantly Russian but segments dealing with local events and culture are mostly in Belarusian.

Local events and culture. There's that "local" again. Is "local" exclusive to more rural, outback areas where the majority of Belarusian speakers are?

Books in Belarusian are published by state-owned publishers.

I'd be surprised if they weren't. Clearly not enough are.

A lot of encyclopedias and other history books published in Belarusian, and they are not in any way inferior to books in Russian in any way - they haven't been made as throwaway in order to comply with the bilingualism laws. I'm not talking about fiction books by local writers.

Yeah, that's basic stuff. It would be a problem if it wasn't but that's nothing to really celebrate, not enough people are reading it.

Announcements on public transport are made in Belarusian. The absolute majority of road signs, as well as signs on state-owned institutions are in Belarusian.
Etc., etc., etc.

Across the board? In every city and town the announcements on public transport are in Belarusian?

But, I need to say one very important thing: the shrinkage of use of the Belarusian language happened not because of repression, but because of lack of interest among the public.

The lack of interest stems from successful Soviet policies of Russification in the country, imposed after the Second World War. The policy is known as the "rapprochement and unification of Soviet people" policy. It's not as though the Belarusian people, uniquely in the world, simply thought their language was vulgar and didn't need to bother with it anymore. That came right from the top as part of Soviet policy. Even though books were printed as you say not nearly enough was done to protect the language, rather, the opposite occurred.

The nationalist movement had been well and truly crushed in the early 1930s, unlike in Ukraine, though Ukrainians are obviously struggling to restore their language in spite of that. It's also interesting that at the same time Soviet-linked philosophers and academics reformed Belarusian grammar to make it as close to Russian as possible, thereby making Russification easier. The association of the language with Belarusian nationalists and Fascists didn't exactly help activists post-war either.

The same thing happened with newspapers and many television programmes - lack of interest. The Russian language publications were more interesting, so people read and watched them. All of that coupled with the dominant usage of Russian in official documentation resulted in the Belarusian language gradually falling out of use in cities.

Look at your last sentence. "The dominant usage of Russian in official documentation".

The language policies set by Lukashenko are pretty much the same as those in Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic during the late Soviet Union. He isn't interested in intensively promoting the Belarusian language, not because of malicious intent, but because he apparently thinks that the current policies are fine and shouldn't be changed.

But given the preference among Belarusian opposition activists to speak in Belarusian and the association with Belarusian nationalism it is well within his interests as a Russophile and proponent of greater integration with Russia to oppose the growth of the Belarusian language. Lukashenko is, as you say, merely carrying on the traditions of the Russophile political establishment in Belarus.

Westerners, who know that he is apparently a dictator that longs for the time of the USSR and that Belarusian is falling out of general use immediately arrive at the rather incorrect conclusion that he enforces Russian by using political and cultural repression.

Statements I have not made, but thank you for pigeon holing me as an idiot Westerner, as you often do. Besides the bit about Lukashenko being a dictator who longs for the time of the USSR though, that's pretty much indisputable.

The Belarusian authorities before Lukashenko came to power in the beginning of the 1990s tried to make Belarusian the dominant language as quickly as possible - it was set as the sole language used by the government, in official documentation, educational establishments and the media and Russian was simply removed out of those spheres. Quite a lot of people who suddenly found that they should use only Belarusian didn't really like it.

This is why I said "there are ways of doing things". The early 1990s policies were foolish and ill conceived, you should never force something through like this.

I don't know what you'd think of it Guardian, but whenever I speak to you about Belarus and I feel the 1984 stuff coming off you in waves (he loved big brother) I always listen to this song.

[XXSockXX]

The Eu hasn't really made any promises that I know off. Sure, we'll aid in negotiating an IMF deal, but we're not providing any loans.

That's correct. Commentators point out however that we'll have to push for the IMF deal (no idea what's going on with that) and that we might have to jump in if Russia decides to not give credits anymore. Bankruptcy seems pretty close, the EU promised to support the new government, and better should not leave them hanging.
Basically the EU needs a more coherent approach in it's Eastern Europe policies, which is of course a bit of a minefield because nobody wants to antagonize Russia.

[MarcAFK]

Interesting derail about the language issues of Belorussia, I think you misinterpreted some of what 10ebbor10 said, particularly parts where you quoted his statements about past soviet repression as if it was current policy.
I find it interesting that the current system requires learning 3 languages, which makes perfect sense considering how pervasive english is in Europe and the rest of the Globe, and also as I imagine Russian is the majority language amongst all former soviet republics, as such I don't think it is the wrong way to go about it, except I personally think that the damage is basically irreparable without some further repression of both english and russian. Essentially if your language is archaic and reduced to the minority it will inevitably be reduced in usage untill the point of obscurity and extinction as has been seen in many places affected by english, french, russian, etc, I would like to point out that all those languages have been over the centuries bastardised and changed by time and contact with other languages and cultures, they may have been imposed by conquest but became pervasive due to flexibility, ease of use, complexity and other factors which made them useful to the population.

I theorise that if your people want their own language to survive serious thought needs to be made into the possible need to bastardise the language further than the russians did to produce a moreflexable modern language that then has to be made the official language in a more forceful way. Yes people would hate it, the majority would in fact so the process would need to take decades whilst retaining the need to enforce Tri-lingualism upon the population, it would of course be insanity to not require English and Russian to be taught in the schools at least English as a minor part, and Russian more thoroughly due to other factors, and you would need to keep printing all official material in Russian for the majority that still use it. Or perhaps it isn't worth the effort and you could let your old language die, hell in 50 years we might all still be having this exact discussion albeit in Mandarin and about how archaic English should be left to die. (ironically it's likely that our hanzi script will still be recorded in our software using English UNIX based software code, probably compilers will be in chinese but will still need to convert the code to the same english based system for compatability ).

[10ebbor10]

I don't think I said anything about the Belarusian language.

[Guardian G.I.]

There are newspapers published entirely in Belarusian, both local and nationwide, and many newspapers, both state-owned and private carry both Russian and Belarusian articles.

Given that much of the press is allegedly controlled by "the opposition" as you've said in the past that is to be expected.

No, I didn't meant that back then. The opposition doesn't control the (non-opposition) press. Some private newspapers are sympathetic to the opposition, but they aren't controlled by them.

Local news bulletins broadcast on the main state television channel, Belarus-1 and others are entirely in Belarusian.

When you say "local news", by local do you mean "rural"? Would local news bulletins in, say, Minsk broadcast entirely in Belarusian?

Main news programs broadcast on the same channels are dominantly Russian but segments dealing with local events and culture are mostly in Belarusian.

Local events and culture. There's that "local" again. Is "local" exclusive to more rural, outback areas where the majority of Belarusian speakers are?

I'm talking about regional news programs. To put that into perspective, they are like the news programs broadcast by the regional departments of the BBC (Look North, Midlands Today, etc.)
The same thing goes about Belarusian language segments in the evening news.

Announcements on public transport are made in Belarusian. The absolute majority of road signs, as well as signs on state-owned institutions are in Belarusian.
Etc., etc., etc.

Across the board? In every city and town the announcements on public transport are in Belarusian?

Yes, including the capital city Minsk.

The association of the language with Belarusian nationalists and Fascists didn't exactly help activists post-war either.

The language itself wasn't discredited by the Soviet government for being used by nationalists during the war, even during the times of Stalin. Aren't you confusing it with the white-red-white flag?

I don't know what you'd think of it Guardian, but whenever I speak to you about Belarus and I feel the 1984 stuff coming off you in waves (he loved big brother) I always listen to this song.

the 1984 stuff coming off you in waves

1984 stuff

Aww, of course neither me nor anyone else can genuinely support any authoritarian rulers of their own countries or any of their policies! How can anyone support the totalitarian regimes that resist the inevitable triumph of Western liberal democracy and the Invisible Hand of the Market? As the Kremlin bot writing under the name of Lev Natanovich Sharansky, the most diligent and handshakable defender of human rights in Russia said, "Свобода лучше чем несвобода наличием свободы". It's a universal and unquestionable axiom that no mental slave like me can understand. I'd better go listen to the most unbiased and independent Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to fix it, or watch BBC.