Lukashenka stages New attacks on our language!

[J. Douglas Clayton]

Dear Seelangers:

The debate over Belorusian orthography has proved to me one thing: that in
Belarus herrings are still red. Surely the real issue is that a repressive
regime is using the orthographic stick to beat dissenters. They are not
being persecuted for using a particular language norm, but because they
challenge the squalid neo-Soviet regime of Lukashenka. The imposition of a
spelling norm, the dismissal of the head of a Belarusian-language school,
the beating by police of young people when they speak Belarusian - this is
all the depressingly archaic power-politics of a neo-Stalinist dictator.

Our colleague Mr Katkouski is right - Slavists should be protesting all
this, in the name of human rights and intellectual freedom. My best hope is
that Mr Lukashenka will soon be swept into the ash-can of history. My worst
fear - and it is one that we should all share, is that his ideas spread to
other areas of the FSU, including the Russian Federation, where he has a
very considerable following. That could have very grave consequences for
even Russocentric Slavists.

Doug Clayton

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Professor                                       613-241-1782 (home)
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