The Swedes were charged for "Belarus"
The society of the Belarusian diaspora in Sweden “Sveriges Belarusier” held a picket in the center of Stockholm today, at which it called on the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ann Linde, to finally erase the name of Belarus “Vitryssland” from official use, which literally means “Belarus”.
This was reported by the Polish-funded Belsat TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The picketers held posters with the slogans “We are not white Russians,” “It was not us who appropriated (White) Crimea,” and “It was not us who chose (White) Putin.” One of the participants was dressed as a polar bear with the inscription “White Russian (not Belarusian) bear.”
“It’s normal for a country to be called differently in different languages. But if the name contains the name of another modern country, and even a very problematic country, this is a problem,” says Mikhail Sender, former director of the Belarusian Internet platform “Kufar”.
In 1991, after numerous calls from the Belarusian diaspora, the Swedish Academy agreed to add a new name for Belarusians to the Swedish dictionary - “belarusier”. This name, together with the new name of the country “Belarus”, began to be used by some Swedish media. In 2015, the Swedish Foreign Ministry agreed to add the new name “Belarus” to the official list of country names, but in brackets next to the old one.
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