Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s Advisor for Constitutional Reform and Parliamentary Cooperation, Anatoli Liabedzka, spoke to BGMedia about his journey towards embracing Belarusian identity and the prospects of resolving the “language issue” in Belarus:
📌 “It took me only two hours to convince my cellmates that Belarus needs a single state language”.
📌 “It is really important to me that people embrace democracy, not dictatorship. And if I can better convey to them in Russian that democracy is good, then I will speak Russian. Only when the majority of Belarusians become supporters of democracy will we see a democratic change, and that’s when the Belarusian identity can start growing again”.
📌 “I don’t think anyone tried to push Lukashenka towards the Belarusian language. Lukashenka always had a Soviet mind, and he has remained consistent in that”.
📌 “I have now fully transitioned to the Belarusian language. Being outside Belarus also imposes certain obligations. Here, I use the Belarusian language much more than any other”.
📌 “In the draft New Belarus Constitution, we didn’t rigidly define the language issue, considering the role of the Russian language in the country’s life today. However, I support the idea of including in the new Constitution of Belarus that the sole state language should be Belarusian, and establishing a transition period during which we will move to Belarusian as a single state language”.
📌 “At the beginning of my work in the Supreme Council, only four people spoke Belarusian. But by the end of the term, all the committee leaders were presenting their reports in Belarusian — this is another argument that my concept can work”.
