BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

15/11/2006

Intellectual Says Belarus's Supply Of 'Honor For Sale' Has Been Exhausted

Valery Bulhakau, editor in chief of the intellectual Belarusian-language monthly "Arche," told RFE/RL's Belarus Service on November 14 that Belarus during the rule of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, like the Belarusian SSR, has been "a prostitute selling its honor to Russia." "This honor consisted of her [Belarus's] ethnic idiosyncrasies -- its language, culture, genuine traditions, and so on," Bulhakau noted. According to Bulhakau, Moscow invested heavily in Belarus during the Soviet era in order to make the republic loyal to the center and to prevent the Belarusians from becoming a nation. "From this point of view, Russia's recent [gas-price proposals] show that the Russians have begun to realize that the Belarusians have nothing more to sell on the symbolic level. The Belarusians have already become almost identical with the Russians, therefore their resources of honor for sale have been exhausted. If this logic is true, then we will unavoidably see a serious increase in gas prices," Bulhakau said. JM

Source:

http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2006/11/3-cee/cee-151106.asp

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