What will happen if all the oppositionists and corrupt officials are imprisoned?

The degree of disunity and social hatred that can be observed today in “prosperous” Belarus is reaching alarming proportions. Usually, the “integral” Belarusian society breaks up into different social clusters even faster than the Russian one. And even within these clusters there is no mutual understanding between people. Sometimes in Minsk it seems that some strange “war of all against all” is going on.

A couple of weeks ago, the most active part of the Belarusian Internet society was lively discussing unusual news: a girl Irina wrote a story about her life and how difficult it is for a young, beautiful, intelligent worker from the service sector to live and have fun in the capital on $700. The girl writes that life is quite difficult: she spends $210 on a rented one-room apartment, $15 on mobile communications, $100 on gasoline for a heavily used BMW, $30 a month on movies, $20 on hair coloring, $115 on food. She writes that she is lucky: her salary is twice the standard Minsk $300 per month, she eats little, and bought clothes in other, more “well-fed” times. This story received nearly three thousand comments. Basically, as usually happens, they wrote all sorts of nasty things to her. It’s like: “I live on $200 a month - and that’s enough for everything.” Or: “You’re such a fool, you’re raking in so much money and complaining about something else.”

The degree of aggression of the comments is demonstrated by the fact that in an interview for the project, on whose website she posted her story, she even refused to give her name or show a photograph. “I would show you my photo and even tell you my name, and the problem is not the privacy policy at my work. But you will tear me apart. You will go to social networks, you will take all my tweets and statuses piece by piece, you will write to them a million comments in exchange for my honesty with you. You drag me into the mud today, forget me tomorrow, and next Monday you’ll attack someone else who spoke out,” this is how she explained her reluctance to open up.

In Minsk, I also don’t talk much about my income, I don’t brag to my friends. Not because I don’t want to, but because in Belarus the majority of people, even young and seemingly promising ones, are sure: if someone has $700 a month, it means that this person is either “greased to the trough” or has been greased parents. Or, alternatively, he sells drugs. And friendship with such characters usually ends at the police station. It ends in Belarus: for one gram of “grass” in your pocket, everyone here will go to prison for three years. Really. Every. As well as for concealing income.

Here's the thing. There are not just poor people in Belarus. Here everyone is still equally poor. 80% of the population receives approximately the same salary - within $250-320. And the state really does everything to ensure that people are the same. Entrepreneurs are strangled by constant inspections - from tax authorities, firefighters, sanitary and epidemiological stations, police, the state control committee, security services and even officials from city and district executive committees. The salaries of managers at state factories differ from the salaries of ordinary workers by a maximum of two to three times. Therefore, anyone who earns more than “usual” here deserves everyone’s contempt. And Belarusians are not ashamed that they earn little. They are scared if they earn more than their neighbor. Personally, I have at least three friends who could have bought a new car at a dealership a long time ago and would like to do so, but are afraid of “what people will say.” Buying cars, mobile phones and computers that are more expensive than “regular” ones is fraught with social isolation in Belarus. This is the “levelling” effect for you.

Every Belarusian who has ever tried to leave the country for at least two or three months and live abroad knows: there is no Belarusian diaspora. Belarusian emigrants rarely communicate with each other in a foreign land. They avoid each other. And even on vacation in Crimea, they don’t honk at each other as a greeting when they see license plates with the native flag on a car.

Now in Belarus, as in Soviet times, it is very fashionable to snitch on each other to the competent authorities. Parked your car on the sidewalk? Rest assured: in half an hour a tow tractor will come for her. The vigilant old lady on the fifth floor will report your “crime” to the traffic police without leaving the house. Did you buy an extra bottle of whiskey at duty-free that you can't take across the border and stash it safely in your seat? A vigilant neighbor will take turns “whispering” the truth to the customs officer. Therefore, in every compatriot, even many kilometers from home, a Belarusian is afraid of not recognizing a “spy.” It was he who was taught this fear over the past 7-8 years: every Belarusian knows that in any work collective and in any student group there are one or two “informers” (usually of different sexes) collaborating with the KGB.

It is known for certain that employees of the Belarusian KGB live in neighboring countries. Under the guise of ordinary citizens engaged in some kind of “honest” work. Their goal: to get to know their own people and “get to know the mood” in the emigrant community. At least to know which of the political refugees were able to leave the country in what way.

Belarusian society is also strongly divided along professional lines. Approximately 70% of people are employed in the public sector. Most of them are police officers, officials in executive committees, employees of ideological departments of various types of production enterprises, and auditors. That is, people who do not produce material goods, but only participate in their redistribution. And it is unlikely that a Belarusian who at school or university was friends with a friend who became a tax inspector will continue to be friends with him if he has become a businessman. It is impossible to reach an agreement with an old friend to “cut off” the fine: the friend has his own standards for collecting fines, and he does not take bribes because he is afraid of persecution from his fellow tax officers.

The way Belarusians hate each other at the everyday level can be seen at least by the way people drive cars or communicate with each other in shops and on the streets. Just visit sometime.