Belarussian bully doesn’t deserve our attention

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/03/2020 (2332 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THERE is something unsettling about the sudden obsession with Belarussian football. Several things, actually, and not insignificant among them is the realization that a lot of us seem to lack a breadth of interests of leisurely pursuits that don’t involve 22 people and a ball.

There’s more to life than football, folks. But let’s assume, just for a moment, that there isn’t.

Superficially, there is nothing wrong with following any division of football, at any level, anywhere in the world. In fact, doing so can often enrich our knowledge of a particular region, bringing us closer, not only through sport, but also by way of politics, geography and culture. It’s a fun, wonderful way to learn more about one another.

But that’s not what’s happening as more eyes than ever before turn to the Vysheyshaya Liga. In fact, the increased attention on the only European League not suspended due to COVID-19 will only serve to embolden autocratic president Alexander Lukashenko, further putting lives at risk in a country whose administration continues to reject the urgency of the pandemic.

Just last week Lukashenko referred to global efforts to flatten the coronavirus curve as “psychosis” and “a plan to turn everything upside down.” Belarus’s first and only president, he sets the official talking points for a governing clique that resists all opposition. He is also an outspoken supporter of the Dinamo Minsk football and hockey teams, so there was never any doubt the Liga season would kick off last weekend, or that the hockey semifinals would continue next week.

Nor was it surprising the head of the Football Federation of Belarus would sing from Lukashenko’s songbook.

“I can ask a counter-question,” replied Vladimir Bazanov when interviewed by the Minsk outlet Tribuna on March 19. “For what reason should we not start it? Is a state of emergency declared in our country?”

There isn’t, and given the administration’s smug rejection of science, there isn’t likely to be one, either. Belarus claims that none of its citizens have died from COVID-19 — an assertion it would no doubt maintain if the hospitals were overwhelmed and bodies piling up. Here, where critics are jailed and demonstrations suppressed, it is Lukashenko’s word that is truth.

Even Aleksandr Hleb, Belarus’s most famous footballer, has been caught up in the doublethink.

Initially, and understandably, the now-retired Arsenal and Barcelona midfielder criticized Lukashenko’s government for its inaction, saying, “it’s like no one cares.” Maybe, he continued, Lukashenko was “just waiting to see what happens with the virus,” adding that “people in the presidential administration believe it’s not as extreme as the news says.”

Days later, however, he revised his remarks, posting to Instagram that his comments had been distorted “for the sake of high-profile headlines.” We hardly have to imagine why he changed his tune.

“Since the Presidential Administration (incidentally now capitalized) does not see the real need to quarantine the country, the situation is under control,” he wrote, going on to say that “these are difficult times” and that “news about the coronavirus causes both excitement and great interest.” Football matches, he asserted, would be postponed if there was a credible health emergency.

They won’t be of course, because there won’t be an emergency. That is to say, “there won’t be an emergency.” And so, this afternoon, Lukashenko will be able to watch his beloved Dinamo face FC Minsk in the local derby. Regrettably, it could end up being one of the most-watched matches in Belarussian football history.

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It shouldn’t be. We shouldn’t tune in. To do so would be pathetic condescension, the treatment of a country’s football as an amusement, a plaything, no matter the harm caused to players, staff and people in general. And it’s a very real, very present harm.

Belarus is choosing to disregard the health of its citizens. Let’s choose differently. We don’t need our football fix so desperately that we’re willing to put others’ health at risk.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter @JerradPeters