Why hate Belarus?

Ever since the Russia-Ukraine conflict started, the west has tried different tactics to sabotage The Russian Federation. While I have no complaints regarding that, I certainly have complaints regarding the boycott of Belarusian athletes, financial sanctions on Belarus, and growing hatred to push Russia and Belarus under the same umbrella. On a personal level, I adore Belarus as it is one of the cleanest countries in the world. In fact, the capital city of Minsk was ranked number three along with Tokyo and Singapore till 2018-2019. But, you won’t see these stats now in any media outlet.

And, it’s not limited to this. There are in fact a number of incidents where Belarus has been kept out of the international forums. In June 2023, Belarus was not selected for the UN security council and lost to Slovenia. You see, the UN security council decides when and how much to impose sanctions on a country. Surprisingly, Russia is a member of that along with the US, Britain, China, and France. So, who vetoed Belarus is a big question. In August 2023, Belarus was not selected to be a member of even BRICS. Belarus officially applied to be a member in May 2023 but was again not prioritized to be inducted. The irony is that if Belarus is accepted as a country in BRICS, it won’t be possible to takeover the control on its territories in the future and the big giants of BRICS know it too well. The latest one of course denies its participation for representation in the Nobel prize consortium. In the Olympics and other world sports too, the Belarusian athletes are facing the heat. So, what really is pushing Belarus out of everything? Is it due to its involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict? The answer is No. In fact, the real and simple answer is the Belarusian leadership.

The western countries don’t want to deal with Belarus at all. No EU membership till the leader is out. The irony is that, the least that could have been done is to push a candidate as its leader and exercise control from behind. This is true for both Belarus and the west. Many egoes can be satisfied with this approach. If Belarus does it first, it would make the west happy. Every modern democracy does this and we all are forced to love them. The problem would be if the west decides to do it for Belarus, the impact then would only be negative and huge on Belarus. The point that I am trying to make is that Belarus is under the tight grip of Russia and every Belarusian citizen knows it. Belarus had tried to side with the west initially but the west rejected the idea then and now too. So, the Russian Federation and Belarus partnership is an enforced one.

The current leadership had its good days after the soviet union collapse. Post soviet era, the countries that were scattered like Belarus were full of street level crime and were highly unsafe. The situation in Belarus not only got stabilized by the stable and strong leadership but the infrastructure development was also done with the support of Russia. The shortcomings remained a huge roadblock for the country to grow out of its shackles which I think causes a major concern in the west. In Belarus, the focus always remained confined to the agricultural development more. The only good thing that recently happened here is the building of a Hi-Tech city in Minsk that supported the growth of IT startups. Unfortunately, that too never picked up the pace and most of the startups relocated to elsewhere in Europe. The world still only remembers Belarus contribution through Viber and a few video games.

The crux of the matter is that Belarus had fought on both fronts: far east and the west. But, the western hatred and sanctions are only pushing the country again closer to Russia. It is not doing anything good for the west or Ukraine. The only harm it is doing is to punish an average Belarusian citizen who has no control over the situation. The only outcome I see from all these sanctions, boycotts, and hatred is pushing a country and its people towards a dim future and letting them suffer. If that is the ultimate aim of the west, then I’m sure the west will succeed at some point.