MINSK, 8 May (BelTA) – The national emblem and flag are secular icons, which should be worshiped by the entire nation, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the ceremony to honor the Belarusian national symbols on 8 May, BelTA has learned.
“The essence of the flag and the emblem is that the whole nation, all of us, should worship them. They are, if you like, the secular icons of the country,” the president said.
“Tell me, how could we worship the white-red-white flags and so on? How could we do it, if these flags have the blood of every third Belarusian on them? Those who know it, understand it, have lived through it, are not dead yet. They are alive. How could we go so far as to give our people the right, call upon them to worship those symbols?” the head of state asked rhetorical questions.
He noted that, of course, the very symbols imposed on Belarus, including the white-red-white flag and the Pagonya emblem, as well as their colors, are not to blame for the meaning they have acquired as a result of historical events. “Those symbols bear the blood of our people, the weeping and moaning of our children, the children of Khatyn, the women and the elderly! The cries of the people of the Minsk Ghetto, the weeping and moaning of the people tortured in the concentration camps. The shame of betrayal and collaborationism. I reiterate: no flag and emblem are to blame for this (we know who is to blame). But we cannot worship such things,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.
“I want you, young people, standing in front of me in this square not to forget it. If you forget, you will have the same what we see happening in our brotherly Ukraine. God forbid us to once again repeat what happened less than a century ago, after a terrible war, not our war, which swept the country back and forth (and how many of them there were!),” said the president. “Let's live peacefully, let us build our country. Let's gather for peaceful, good events in honor of the great. Let us not trample with our feet what many generations before us have won. Let us be proud of our victories and successes!”
