Mon 03 Apr 2006 - Fraternally yours

Last Thursday the Alfred Mozer Stichting organized a public meeting on the elections in Belarus and Ukraine. More than 200 people attended and I was the chairman of the meeting. It was repetition of a meeting we did November 24th. 2004 on the same two countries. Then Ukraine was in the middle of the Orange revolution. Everybody was impressed and excited of the images from MAIDAN in the centre of Kiev. We had a guest then, Oleh, whose orange raincoat was still wet from the Kiev snow. This time Ukraine became almost a normal country, with normal elections and ordinary discussions afterwards. Most people came to learn about the situation in Belarus though, where more than 500 democracy activists are still in prison.

The best part of these kind of meetings is having interesting guests from the countries we are active in. My job becomes definitely more interesting and exciting through the personal friendships you acquire. There is also a dark side to this, besides huge phone bills… The “dark side” is the feeling of anger and concern about the people you know that are facing the riot police, imprisonment or worse. About Vlatko, who was in the middle of the crowd taking over the parliament building in Belgrade in October 2000. Or Milos almost unable to speak to me after inhaling too much CS gas, also in Belgrade. Those moments you are sitting in front of the TV screen, watching CNN and waiting for those text messages to come in of friends that have something better to do then thinking about this guy from Amsterdam who has got a weird fascination with their country.

The shiny part obviously is sharing the excitement of the victories. Belgrade 2000, Kiev 2004. Hopefully we will organize a meeting one-day in which all our Belarus friends will be able to attend and celebrate with us. Our friends in the youth movements, student organizations and the political parties. Our comrades. We speak about ‘sister parties’ and use phrases like ‘fraternally yours’ in the social democratic movement. I always found that rather quaint and old fashioned… This changed when these words really began to mean something for me. I understand now what elderly social democrats feel when they reminisce on Portugal and the solidarity actions supporting the revolution against the fascist regime. Hopefully one day, when I am really old, I will bore people with stories on the time Belarus was still a dictatorship…

Posted by Arjen Berkvens, Director Alfred Mozer Stichting and Secretary General European Forum on 03-04-2006 - 09:59:01