"So what else do you need, dear EHU leaders?" Sieviaryniec called to Belarusianize the university before it's too late

Pavel Sieviaryniec. Photo: Nasha Niva

The question of EHU must be put bluntly: EHU must be urgently and decisively transformed into the main educational base of the Belarusian movement.

As was to be expected from the beginning, the regime recognized EHU as "extremist", and students and their parents are being massively searched and interrogated.

So what else do you need, dear EHU leaders? What are you afraid of now? Change? Why do we see endless releases saying that everything is normal, we continue to work as usual?

EHU has a unique chance to educate future presidents and ministers of a free Belarus. Belarusian-speaking. With a European level of education. Open, brave. In 2020, all of Belarus rose, but EHU remained at the bottom. Afraid to breathe. Afraid to change. A continuous depressing Russian-speaking boredom in recent years.

What is EHU about, anyway? Who is it for? Most students are from Belarus, but what in the university is about Belarus? What is in Belarusian there? What kind of personnel does the university train if everything remains as it is now?

I believe the only way out for EHU today is to become an elite higher education institution for Belarusians abroad.

If no drastic steps are taken and everyone is convinced that "we are working in normal mode," it will end with EHU either closing down or turning into one of the minor, useless, faceless "options" for those who failed to get into prestigious or even average regional universities.

Until April 14, they were afraid of being recognized as extremists. They avoided "shining a light." That's it, they recognized them. People are being searched. Criminal cases.

Now there is nothing to fear. Now we really need to shine a light. And openly tell Europe, which has supported EHU all these years: a forge of personnel for Belarusian changes is needed.

Since the late 1990s, Belarusians have dreamed of a truly Belarusian university that would train elite personnel for a future, democratic Belarus.

You might ask, which Belarusians abroad will send their children to the Belarusian opposition EHU? To a university where Ales Bialiatski, Uladzimir Arlou, Liavon Volski, Katsiaryna Vadanosava, Vintsuk Viachorka, Pavel Tserashkovich, Tsimokh Akudovich teach in Belarusian — they will.

They ask me, where should the children of 2020 go to study? Now, when Belarusian education and culture are being crushed in Belarus itself, tens of thousands of young Belarusians, both in the country and abroad, dream of the best university in the world. Their own.

Well, listen, the regime itself is giving EHU a "magic kick." Are we really going to pretend again that EHU is not for us and not about us?

Hello, EHU! Let's change! Let's work for a free Belarus!

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