Bedouins Of Our Century

Belarusians are becoming a new nomadic people.

The other day, in a European country, in a beautiful city, a concert of a Belarusian band took place. And I probably can’t say anything more: during that concert, the director of the venue was filming the audience on his phone. And several spectators came up and asked: please don’t film, we are not emigrants, we still have to return to Belarus, and who knows what being at this concert might mean for us in our homeland. “But I just film it for myself!” said the director. And yet, they told him, nevertheless...

In another European country that is not part of the European Union, I recently spoke with representatives of the Belarusian diaspora — we talked about the consequences of the “passport decree” for them: this is not Poland or Lithuania, it does not issue travel documents to foreigners, so the situation for with our compatriots is terrible, especially since, worst luck, after the signing of the decree it turned out that many of them have passports that expire next year. I listened to their stories, and they told how they were forced to leave, how the hours were ticking, and there was no time to wait for a humanitarian visa, how they later fled, for example, from warring Ukraine and finally, it would seem, to safety, but no — they are trying to catch them at least with a passport trap. I wrote it down and promised: I won’t tell your surnames, dear compatriots. And my compatriots suddenly asked me to change their first names too.

“But what’s the point,” I said, “why change Uladzimir to Vasil if I am not going to tell your surnames?”

“What’s the point in highlighting personalities,” they answered me, “if it’s the stories that are important?” How will they be more convincing if we leave Uladzimir? What is important is what happens to us, and not what we are called. But we don’t need to draw attention to ourselves, and not to the problem.

— But you are safe!

— Today we are safe, but what will happen to us tomorrow?

In a third European country, Belarusians really want to register the diaspora as an NGO, because in that country they are very fond of stamps and papers. But they can’t register it because no one wants to take on the responsibility of de jure leading a public organization and signing it. Not because they are afraid of responsibility or do not want to get involved with the bureaucracy, but because everyone, as it turned out, is “on suitcases”: one is waiting for a Canadian visa, another is thinking about Israel, the third generally lives on a “Visa Run”sufferance and is afraid every time that when crossing the border they will not be allowed back.

We ask that our faces be blurred in photographs from protests. We clear our social media feeds so much that you can’t even tell if we were ever there or if we just dreamed about it. We hide our names, change our biographies, turn off geolocation and disappear into space. We don't know where we will be tomorrow or whether we will be there at all. We are getting used to living like backpackers — people traveling around the world with one backpack and not being overgrown with utensils, furniture, ficus trees and geraniums. We are not putting down roots.

Belarusians are becoming a new nomadic people. Nomads, Berendeys, Bedouins of the twenty-first century. A passport with a few months left till expiration date in my back pocket. A couple of T-shirts, a sweater and spare jeans in the backpack. The phone has been erased beyond recognition, just in case. Accounts created specifically in case of returning to Belarus can become confusing. The white-red-white flag is definitely in your pocket, without it it’s worse. Weather forecast, flight schedules, blablacars; where can you fly on a low-cost airline today and which country still accepts and issues a foreigner’s document; I’ll buy new sneakers later, these ones are still quite tolerable, we need to save money. We will dock somewhere anyway. The main thing is that we are alive and free. But what our names are, how we are remembered, what we lived like just a few years ago — what difference does it really make? A field, if it is between countries, is sometimes more difficult to cross than to live a life.

But even if we forget our names and biographies, our cities and houses, our tears and laughter, we will still recognize each other. By the white-red-white ribbon on the backpack, by the baseball cap with “Pahonya”, by the ringtone “We Want Change!” Anywhere in the world, on any continent, when we see or hear this, we will remember everything. Because you can even forget your name. It is impossible to forget only one thing — that we are Belarusians. It's stronger than us.

Iryna Khalip, exclusively for Charter97.org

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