Siarhei Kruchkou
Vice Chairman of NGO
Belarusian Language Society named after F.Skaryna

    Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, it is quite difficult to talk about Belarusianness in Belarus as this theme is discussed for the first time. By now we have workings out only in the sphere of Linguistics as the project "Strategies of the Belarusian language's development in XXI c.", with the special section devoted to "Information Technologies", which was offered to public discussion in 2001. That is why BLS as the organizer of the round-table " The Belarusian Language. Internet and Computers." hoped that the application of the Belarusian language to the modern computer technologies would arouse interest not only for the NGOs but also for the organs of the government. Unfortunately, as it became known at the round-table discussion organs of government ignore this problem starring from the Referendum of 1995. As a result of the changes made to the Act of the Languages the use of the Belarusian language in the documents and record keepings has become non-obligatory in the sphere of public administration. Actually they headed for the use of the already made workings out of the Russian specialists in the sphere of the computer programming, which is parasitism and nothing more.
    Still the Belarusian language must function in full value in the world cyber space, and the General Assembly of UNESCO is also interested in this. And the care about its functioning as a state language must be taken by the State itself. But in the so fast developing information technologies there appeared a real problem of the disappearing of the Belarusian language heritage of the Belarusian literature from the modern life. The participants of the round-table said that up today there are no common instruments in the sphere of book publishing, viz. the correcting system for the Belarusian texts, there is no linguistic support of the Belarusian language in the programs of the optical character recognition, there is no unified standard of the cording some of the Belarusian letters "ˇ", "˛", " ' ". By the way it is the only reason why the record keepings of the retirement fund will be made only in Russian from 1, January 2003 and 4,5 mil. Of the Belarusians will be deprived of the right to use their mother tongue in the sphere of the social security.
    The participants of the round-table took the resolution, which was sent together with the letters of inquiry to the President Administration of the Republic of Belarus, to Vice-President, to the Palate of Speakers, to the National Assembly, to the Ministry of Information, to the Ministry of Education, to the National Academy of the Republic of Belarus. All these institutions can and must take care of the use of the Belarusian language in the computer technologies. We got responses only from two of them - from Ministries of Information and Education. The Ministry of Information writes that they lack mechanisms for the transmitting of the Belarusian texts and financial resources. At the same time in the Internet site "Belaruskaya Palichka"("Belarusian Book-shelf") one can find thousands of texts in Belarusian. This work has been done by Belarusian student who studies in Austria now. At the expense of his own scholarship he could solve the financial problem of this project and he could find all the necessary mechanisms for texts transmitting. And it is quite strange that in the Ministry of Information they are not able to do the same work. Ad the Ministry of Education cannot prepare the specialists because the study of information science is only in Russian. The National Academy of Sciences and the Informatization Fund of the Republic of Belarus could have found the way out but our requests were ignored. That is why BLS is working now at the foundation of the non-governmental laboratory on the application of the Belarusian language to the modern computer technologies. For all that we hope for the support of UNESCO and its programs aimed at the support of the languages that are dying out.
    The participants of the round-table "Language in the Mass Media" discussed questions of vital importance 17 June 2002. But this round-table was "half-round" as the representatives of the Parliament, of the executive authorities, of the Belarusian National Radio and TV Company, of the leading informational holding companies ignored this round-table. Public figures and professionals who are not indifferent to the problems of their native language took part in this discussion, but their clever remarks were left without any attention. The representatives of the deputy corps of Belarus (with the only exception of Mrs. Tsyrkun, who has always given her speeches on the topic, which didn't coincide with those of the round-tables', usually she spoke of the gender problems in Belarus) have always ignored all the discussions, though they were invited to all round-table. Reconsideration of the Act of the languages depends on the deputies. According to the present variant of the Act it is impossible to demand from Belarusian National Radio and TV Company to satisfy the needs of the Belarusian-speaking community in getting information in their native language. While in all democratic countries TV functions as the means of the formation of the national consciousness satisfy all-round moral needs of the people, stimulates intellectual and esthetic enrichment of a person, gives unbiased information. Unfortunately TV broadcasting in Belarus does not fulfill these objectives. The reasons are state monopoly for creation of broadcasting organizations, for technical facilities of TV signals propagation on the territory of Belarus and the practice of total state control over the contents of TV programs. In fact a modern Belarusian who lives in the center of Europe stays in international and local intellectual isolation. Such situation has prompted to us and to some other NGOs the idea of foundation of the Belarusian international ethnic-cultural satellite channel. To our mind this channel will satisfy the cultural needs of the Belarusains who live abroad and the residents of Belarus will have the opportunity to get unbiased information. This list, which proves the discrimination of the Belarusian language, can be continued. That is why BLS applies to General Assembly of UNESCO with request to examine the situation of the language issue in Belarus.
    To our mind we should look back on to our history in order to see what kind of Belarusainness must be worked out and applied today. Let us remember the XVIII c. and read the extract from the list of Russian empress Catherine to her son Paul where she described her impressions of Belarus."…Hills and hillocks stretch among which there are a lot of lakes, which very beautiful. Here the people are very mixed and together there live Orthodox and Catholic believers, members of the Unite Church, Jews, Poles, Russians, Finns, and Germans. In one word you won't see two peasants who look alike, there is no common speech, this mixture of people and languages look like Chaos of Babel." Such diversity was no relish for the government of the Russian Empire either for the Government of the Soviet Byelorussia. Unfortunately, the policy of leveling of the national and cultural and religious distinctive features of the peoples of Belarus is still going on. The status of the Belarusian language and the diversity of other languages and cultures of the national communities that live in Belarus must be recommenced