Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “The regime regularly takes our children to military units and prisons and brings weapons into schools and kindergartens. Children are forced to take notes on propaganda, read poems about 'fraternal peoples' and literally transcribe speeches by regime officials. And every children's event is attended by police officers and military personnel.
What kind of knowledge can our children gain from such lessons? What does this even have to do with education? Is it humanity, compassion, and empathy that all these events and people in uniforms teach?
We must always talk to children and teenagers to see what they want and how they see their future, country, and world. Right now, no one is talking to them and not even giving them a choice other than a machine gun and mechanical theses about the 'collective West'. So what is the regime preparing the future generation for? War? Confrontation? But with whom?
We all understand perfectly well that this is not the future we want for our children. We want a future where parents can be sure that the schools develop their children, help them realize their potential, and not turn them into obedient soldiers. Where a teacher is first and foremost a mentor, a guide to knowledge, and a friend, not just another cog in the repressive apparatus. Where children in school are asked about their future profession. Where schools help them make a professional choice, not just teach new law enforcement officers. Where the history of Belarus is not rewritten in favor of the 'Russian brotherhood'. And where successful entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, and doctors are guests in schools, not propagandists and law enforcement officers. We all want to see such schools.
But for now, we are only on the way to this future. So I encourage you, dear parents, to talk to your children. Answer their questions, tell them the truth, help them develop critical thinking, and identify causal links. I doubt the schools will teach them this. And if you don't do it, your children will speak the language of force and batons in the future.”
