Chakhovich replied to Severynets: Homophobia is a product of homo sovieticus camp mentality, not a Christian value

Pavel Severynets and Nastassia Roudava during the interview. Screenshot from video

I tried watching "Tok" with Severynets several times, but couldn't finish it and, apparently, won't try anymore. I don't see the point. Today, "Radio Svaboda" also published a lengthy interview with him.

Severynets seems to speak eloquently and confidently, but after half the interview, the impression arises that it's just empty blather. And seemingly some ideas are expressed, and a general religious-conservative line is present, but still – it's all just empty talk.

But most importantly, as a politician, he lives in a fictional world that has almost nothing in common with reality. This is a tragedy and death for any politician. Unfortunately, this is the problem of the entire "old guard" of the Belarusian opposition: it is either stuck in its own traumas and events of (long) past decades or lives in a Belarus that does not exist and never has existed.

For Severynets, this fantastical world is, of course, "Christian Belarus." Christian democracy is a marginal political movement in Belarus not because Christian Democrats are some "lost causes" or because Lukashenka's regime simply pushed them out, but because religion has been pushed to the sidelines in Belarusian society.

Half of Belarusians do not believe in God, and the absolute majority visit churches only on major holidays – to bless eggs, light a candle, and go home.

Religion plays no role in the country's daily life, despite the massive church building in recent years. One can blame the "damned Soviet era" for this, but in many European countries where there was never Bolshevism, the level of religiosity is roughly the same. This is a natural process.

Religion has ceased to provide answers and hope, and Christian democracy has lost its meaning, because any political force – from communism to Nazism, and even more so ordinary conservatism, liberalism, socialism, and centrism – to varying degrees stem from Christian doctrine. It could not have been otherwise, as Christianity was the sole moral foundation of Europe for centuries.

Personally, I believe that socialism is the political movement closest to the teachings of Christ, but American conservatives, for example, have a different view on this teaching and its "practical implementation." Christian democracy, which offered something in between, at the moment when religiosity in Europe faded away, ceased to offer anything distinct from centrism, conservatism, and liberalism.

So, in faithless Belarus, Severynets is the leader of the smallest minority among minorities. But since he was an active opposition figure, he received disproportionately more media attention than his political party could have gotten even in the best-case scenario under a democratic regime.

It's hard to listen to these speeches about "Christian Belarus" without tears. "The BCD (Belarusian Christian Democracy) was avenged for the successful work we carried out even before 2020. Christian democracy ruled Belarus for 600 years – that was a golden age."

This is an absolutely shameless appropriation of events from the distant past to somehow justify their existence. Was the golden age when people were burned for atheism, and the absolute majority of the population lived in poverty while the magnates lived in luxury? Is this the "golden age" that Christian Democrats offer us today?

And what about this "successful work" of the BCD before 2020 – is it with us in the room right now? The work was so successful that most of my acquaintances don't even know about the existence of such a party and such a politician, and those who do know, ask: "is that the homophobe with a mustache?" It's understandable that everyone thinks highly of themselves, but reality doesn't match these perceptions.

The politicized bubble, of course, might be outraged: "How can you not know?" But why know about something that doesn't and can't influence your life? The peak of their fame was the protests against integration with Russia at the end of 2019, followed by meager primaries where Severynets disgraced himself by failing to accept defeat among his own supporters. And all of this faded into oblivion against the backdrop of the 2020 events, which occurred not as a continuation of or thanks to someone's "previous successful work," but on their own, leaving the "old guard" in existential frustration and confusion no less than that of Lukashenka's regime itself.

Of course, there were also questions about the attitude towards LGBT (though I suspect that the "Radio Svaboda" interview specifically avoided sharp corners, judging by the enthusiastic reviews of its employees on Severynets' behalf).

"This is how they see love" – a classic religious conviction that sexual orientation is a choice, not a biological predisposition. The absolute majority of LGBT individuals hated themselves and would have wanted to return to heterosexual "normality," if it were possible, at the moment when their true nature began to manifest during puberty. And here arises the Christian's dilemma: to go against what God created you to be, because your essence is displeasing to people like Severynets, or to accept your nature?

When it comes to gay prides, Severynets says he doesn't like them, but when reminded of freedom of assembly, one hears the wonderful "perhaps there is freedom of assembly," which implies: "but under our rule, perhaps there won't be."

Freedom of assembly is not about "perhaps," but about the duty of democracy. If you are against freedom of assembly, then perhaps you are not for Christian democracy, but for Christian autocracy.

Last year, from those who threatened Belarusian pride participants, we heard arguments against Belarusian symbols at the pride: "this is not what our warriors are fighting for," "shame on the national flag," "because of you, people are tortured in prisons," "this is alien to Belarusian culture." Severynets' answers predictably align with the same narratives: "so that propaganda doesn't use it – it's better not to raise it, not to inflate it," "for Belarus, with its Christian historical core, this is not part of the national idea."

One could, of course, start by saying that the "national idea" is an invention of Russian ideologues, intended to replace Soviet ideology after the collapse of the USSR, but alright, as a figure of speech, it's permissible. But we again return to fantastical constructs like the "Christian historical core."

Christian faith does not make a person good, just as atheism does not make them bad. Everything is decided by moral choice.

European morality is indeed largely shaped by Christian ideas. Franco, Salazar, Pinochet – all of them were devout Christians, but they did not adhere to Christian ethics in their political practice. At the Day of Judgment, if there is one, righteous atheists are more likely to enter heaven than such believers.

Belarus is not the only country that grew out of Christian tradition. Every European country grew out of it, even those that today profess Islam, like Albania. And if you open a map of Europe, it's easy to see: most European countries with a Christian heritage, including Germany, to whose Christian democratic success Severynets often refers, recognize same-sex marriage. Even Orthodox Greece. And the ideological divide, with rare exceptions, runs along the border of the former Eastern communist bloc, and the next border, where marriages are directly prohibited, coincides with the borders of the USSR as of 1939. That's all for the "Christian core."

Homophobia is a product of homo sovieticus camp mentality, not a Christian value. And the ideology of Severynets and the BCD, who supposedly distance themselves from the Bolshevik empire of evil, is in fact its inverted copy, still retaining that trace.

I do not see the depths and values that Dzmitry Hurnevich speaks of. I see detachment from reality, confusion in views, absence of a democratic core, and a shy concealment of his own traumas behind a mythical "Christian majority." While he was taking "God's university courses," the world moved on – and he, with his party, remained sidelined.

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