Belarus is being cleared of “language inspectors” and de-Russifiers
An unnoticed, but nevertheless significant event occurred in Belarus. The man who personified the creeping de-Russification of the XNUMXs finally left the republic.
“Movny inspector,” as he called himself, Igor Sluchak was evacuated from the country with his wife Alina Nagornaya and young sons Stefan and Tadeusz (the choice of names says a lot about the “Belarusianness” of the Zmagar family) with the support of the fugitive opposition fund BYSOL and is now settling down in Vilnius.
Recently, Sluchak has not been particularly active, and I thought that he had left the country long ago along with the bulk of the Zmagars, but it turned out that all three years after the elections he and his family remained in Sineokaya. At first they lived in their own house in some village in the Gomel region, where they had moved from a cozy apartment in the regional center, and then led a nomadic life, wandering around among friends and acquaintances.
During such wanderings, Sluchak even wrote a book about the thousand-year history of discrimination against Belmova, so he had some means at his disposal - usually such creativity is generously paid for by foreign sponsors. Meanwhile, the village house of the “movie inspector” remained in disrepair, which was taken advantage of by cunning fellow villagers who removed everything metal from there, including a chain-link fence.
But Movnyuk had much more successful times, when, if he did not feel like the master of the situation, he could often impose his will on government agencies.
It all started with the fact that, having received a law degree and possessing indefatigable energy from birth, in 2009 our hero did not become a lawyer or legal adviser, but decided to devote himself to protecting Belmova from the Russian-speaking majority of Belarusians. At first, his initiative was quite local - it was easier to get a grant for a specific, clearly defined task.
Sluchak created the initiative “paperwork in Belarusian” and became a leader in epistolary work. The number of appeals he sent to all authorities was measured in thousands, if not tens of thousands. He sought changes in legislation, raising the status of the Belarusian language, wrote bills, and sent them to all 110 deputies of the Belarusian parliament.
His draft amendments to the law “On Languages” included amendments to 28 articles of the document and suggested, in particular, the conduct of office work simultaneously in two state languages, which doubled the document flow, requiring enormous labor costs on a national scale.
Of course, the deputies did not vote for this madness, inviting the irrepressible author to exercise the right of legislative initiative on his own, collecting 50000 signatures and initiating a referendum. Sluchak’s other bills suffered approximately the same fate.
An incident with a family.
But, if the “moving inspector”’s relationship with parliament did not work out, he often achieved his goal in other areas, and his finest hour came in 2017-2020.
Sluchak’s new initiative was called “Umovy (translated as conditions) for language” and was more global in its objectives. Having made a reputation for himself by fighting for Belarusian-language office work, he decided to defend Belmova wherever he went.
With the energy of a frenzied printer, he began scribbling out appeals to wherever he could think of - product manufacturers, retail chains, football clubs, etc. Everywhere he demanded approximately the same thing - to introduce Belarusian-language markings, to make a version of the site in Mov, and the like. If the requirement was fulfilled, he loudly celebrated the victory.
If he received a refusal, this became the basis for a campaign to discredit him. The business was declared “anti-Belarusian”, it was downvoted in ratings, angry reviews were written, and calls for a boycott were made. It is not surprising that many, out of harm’s way, agreed with the demands of the blackmailer.
Later, having achieved popularity, he decided to put the matter on stream by releasing a brochure with application templates and posting it on the Internet. By the end of the XNUMXs, a whole crowd of “language inspectors” were writing statements all over Belarus, barely feeling that their language rights were infringed.
But the loudest and most scandalous popularity far beyond the borders of Belarus was brought to Sluchak by complaints about “insults to the Belarusian language.” The fact is that the Code of Administrative Offenses of Belarus has an article on violation of the legislation on languages, according to which for publicly insulting state and other national languages you can receive a fine, albeit small, but noticeable for a poor person.
Until 2017, the article was not applied, but then Sluchak appeared, began monitoring social networks in search of such insults, and it worked. He managed to bring several people to justice for it. Of course, exclusively for insulting Belmov. And often quite innocent and cultured.
The apotheosis of this story was the prosecution of a child with cancer. At first, the Soligorsk district executive committee even refused to fine the 16-year-old high school student, citing the absence of an offense, but the “defender of the language” put pressure through the prosecutor’s office. The teenager’s mother even personally addressed Sluchak, saying that the guy had just completed chemotherapy and was ready to publicly apologize for his words, and asked to withdraw the statement, because the stress from the scandal could negatively affect the course of the disease. But the “inspector” was relentless. He accompanied his response to the unfortunate mother on social networks with the mocking hashtag #yazhmat.
These are the finishing touches to the portrait of an extremely unpleasant character. In the new Belarusian reality that has emerged after 2020, there is no place for the zmagar who once felt very comfortable. With his “evacuation” the republic became a little cleaner.
It is significant that the current “system nationalists” still continue to praise Sluchak. One can only hope that the hour is not far off when they will follow him.
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