Belorussia.

[Vera]

Slap me if I misspelled the name of the country, the Finnish word for it is entirely different so I'm not sure about the spelling of the English word.

Anyway. This country is the only remaining dictatorship in Europe. I recently read an article and it's just a very sad state of things over there. They recently had an election and oop-di-doo, Lukashenka won again. When people turned out to vote, some of them found their voting coupons already filled out for them. Surprising, indeed.

What is there to be done? Will the revolution come tomorrow or the day after? Discuss.

[wheelchairman]

There is no revolution to come. The opposition is impotent, and Lukashenko's support comes from the ultra-conservative peasantry.

The last demonstration had about 500 students in it, not nearly enough for any kind of social change to happen.

We can only wait for enough people to grow sick of Lukashenko's police state. Although it's hardly an evil oppressive dictatorship, I spent two weeks there. The people are taken well care of. I fear though that there are likely many oppressive policies that we don't see.

Either way, corruption is wide spread.

[Vera]

Oh, that's too funny. I'm sorry, it's just that your idea of "people taken care of" reminds me of your "But they give rice to the North Koreans!"-arguments. Too funny.

The lack of freedom of speech is just appalling though. Nobody in Belorussia will ever know anything about anything better when all the media and television are controlled by the government.

There's hope in youth.

[wheelchairman]

I'll ignore the glaring irrelevance of your first sentence and just state, that as far as I could tell (and I met people from the opposition movements, they are good people.) Free speech doesn't really motivate them. But then, this is considering that the closest democracy is the Russian Federation, which is about as democratic as Lukashenko. They just hide it better. And then there are countries like Bulgaria, where the former monarch is also now an elected head of state.

In a decade, there may be enough momentum in the youth movement, but the only place where opposition truly exists is in Minsk, and they aren't exactly supported by the people. However just their cause.

[wheelchairman]

hmmm Vera do you consider Russia a democracy now? Or Bulgaria (who just had their former Monarch elected as head of state)?

[Jasonstanton83]

You find a country without freedom of speech as an acceptable state of affairs?

my my you really are a true commie!

Anyway...back to the real world, i hope one day soon belorussia will be liberated either internally or externally in order to free a "cared for people" without an american style involvement of course

good thread vera.

[wheelchairman]

You find a country without freedom of speech as an acceptable state of affairs?

Where in this thread have I said that? Do not distort my words.

Anyway...back to the real world, i hope one day soon belorussia will be liberated either internally or externally in order to free a "cared for people" without an american style involvement of course

good thread vera.

liberated externally is just a fancy way to stay conquered or invaded.

[SicN Twisted]

There are European countries with more repressive policies then Beloroussia (I actually have no idea how it's spelled either). The Russian Federation is a perfect example. Croatia doesn't have a real democracy either, nor does Bulgaria, as previously mentioned.

Vera, what are you trying to convince him? WCM obviously does not value freedom of speech because Communists consider it a sign of decadence - people don't need it, because in a revolutionary government, nobody would have anything to critisize!

[wheelchairman]

Wow, you people don't hesitate to use your baseless propaganda.

[Vera]

Vera, what are you trying to convince him?

Absolutely no idea. The topic basically spurred from me having read a long article about the situation over there. A girl I know is from the country and one of her old friends is a part of an activist group called Zubr and the girl got beaten up by the police when she got caught spreading leaflets.

I was quite affected by that, the girl is like 15...

Our baseless propaganda? I laughed at that out loud. Good one.