The bullying machine in Belarus is gaining momentum: Zmagars pounced on another victim
Inna Kordabneva, a sports school teacher from the small town of Klimovichi, has become another target of persecution by Belarusian nationalists. Inna runs a beauty blog and had the temerity to record a video about learning the Belarusian language at school.
She believes that this language will not only be of no use to her child in life, but will also interfere with his ability to write and speak Russian correctly without an accent, since learning two closely related languages at the same time confuses children.
“The Belarusian language is needed only to train as a Belarusian language teacher. But he, the dog, affects the quarterly and annual grades, and then the certificate,” Inna said innocently.
She, of course, did not particularly select vocabulary, complaining that her child “doesn’t remember these moronic words” and makes “collective farm Belarusian mistakes” in essays on the Russian language.
The blogger, who is clearly not immersed in Belarusian ideological battles, among other things, exposed the propaganda whining of nationalists that “language” is practically not studied at school. Inna’s child, according to her, is scheduled to only have 2 hours of Russian per week, but 3 hours of Belarusian and English each. And this, in her opinion, “makes children dumber; because of Belarusian, they cannot learn Russian.”
“No one here speaks the Belarusian language except some patriots who simply promote the Belarusian language. I have rarely met such people. Usually such patriots live in the capital and big cities. Very unnecessary language. Let him burn with a blue flame, but he confuses Russian speech, and this is the most offensive,” said Kordabneva.
It cannot be said that the blogger did not understand at all what shaky ground she was stepping on when touching on the topic of language.
“Girls-patriots, you will probably write to me now that you need to respect me. I respect it with all my heart, but don’t make it a compulsory subject,” Inna admonished.
The provincial trainer and cosmetologist could not even imagine what a powerful and dangerous machine she was launching to get under her skating rink.
All nationalist media immediately wrote about Kordabneva. Her blog, which had previously received about a thousand views, was flooded with 12 thousand haters who tried to persuade the unfortunate Inna in every possible way. We also found her VKontakte and Instagram accounts.
The Belarusian authorities, traditionally sensitive to all the wishes of the Zmagars, were the next to attack. Inna was summoned to the ideological work department of the district executive committee. They also demanded a reference from the place of work.
Deputy director of the Klimovskaya sports school Larisa Ragovskaya told a branch of the American Radio Liberty that Inna would be punished.
“I’m even in favor of switching all schools to the Belarusian language and teaching our language. And there’s no need to blame her,” the frightened administrator hastened to demonstrate her loyalty to the nationalists.
Inna herself, having fallen into politics like plucked chickens, sincerely does not understand what is happening, since, apparently, she simply dumped the contents of her conversations with the mothers of her son’s classmates and colleagues on her blog.
“Everyone who spoke to me in private was absolutely on my side and understood perfectly well what I was talking about. They didn't see any crime in what I did. It’s not a matter of the words I said, but the meaning. I can only apologize for the words I said. Even, most likely, I myself am simply unpleasant that I said these words. But the meaning does not change. Well, the person spoke and that’s it,” Kordabneva told Radio Liberty.
She deleted her most popular video from the YouTube channel and wrote an appeal to subscribers on Instagram.
“In this video, I did not pursue the goal of popularizing the channel, did not agitate people to give up the language, did not ask to support me, did not call for public opinion. And most importantly, she did not want and did not intend to offend anyone by expressing her opinion,” Inna wrote.
People began to come to her VKontakte account with words of support, but zmagars immediately pounced on them, like piranhas in the Amazon.
The case of Kordabneva demonstrates: the machine of persecution of undesirables in Belarus is well-oiled and works without failures according to the scheme: media - public - capitulation of the authorities.
It doesn’t matter that the country has two equal official languages. Nationalists can speak out as much as they want at their rallies, which are widely broadcast on the Internet, about hostile totalitarian “Muscovites”, and they can get away with it. But any statement from the opposite camp is fraught with serious trouble for its author.
At the beginning of March in Minsk, a nationalist caused a scandal in one of the sports clubs because a Russian citizen who worked there could not serve him in Belarusian.
In February, the nationalist youth of Minsk staged a mocking flash mob in a coffee shop at the Kommunarka confectionery factory after one of them, Aramais Mirakyan, wrote on the social network that he was rudely refused to be served in Belarusian. Later it turned out that the young man had lied.
In January, nationalists forced to dismiss and fined a Belarusian IT specialist through the court, who spoke unflatteringly about the Belarusian language on social networks.
In addition, the “sensitive” public demanded that the display of videos in Russian in Minsk minibuses be cancelled.
In August 2019, Belarusian nationalists began harassing a citizen who opposed the placement of a provocative poster in the Minsk metro.
And in May, the Belarusian opposition artist Ales Pushkin filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office of the city of Krupki against Pavel Chirkov, an employee of the Evroopt store, who refused to speak Belarusian with him.
The Belarusian bullying machine is gaining momentum: Zmagars have pounced on another victim.