{"id":11501,"date":"2022-11-22T15:01:49","date_gmt":"2022-11-22T12:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/api.pozirk.online\/longreads\/lukasenka-lauds-farmers-distrusts-it-professionals\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:29:13","slug":"lukasenka-lauds-farmers-distrusts-it-professionals","status":"publish","type":"longreads","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/11501\/","title":{"rendered":"\u0141uka\u0161enka lauds farmers, distrusts IT professionals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n <span>By Alaksandr K\u0142asko\u016dski, BPN<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n <b><span>Alaksandr \u0141uka\u0161enka last week lauded farmers, a key component of his political base, and criticized IT professionals for taking part in 2020 post-election protests. The contrast is characteristic of his backward-looking mentality.<\/span><\/b>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t \u201cYou are the most modest but most reliable and hardworking of us. You have held up against everything, the pandemic, sanctions and attempts to drag you into political games under the guise of a rebellion,\u201d the Belarusian ruler told a gathering of best-performing farmers on November 18.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Reward for loyalty<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t It is not that most farmers are happy with the \u0141uka\u0161enka regime. However, rural residents are generally older and less educated and are less likely to criticize the government.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t \u201cThe prosperity of native land has always been on the shoulders of those who cultivated land, sowed, ploughed and harvested and baked the bread,\u201d \u0141uka\u0161enka said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t In fact, agriculture\u2019s share of gross domestic product shrank from 22 percent in 1992 to 6.8 percent in 2021, whereas the share of IT and communications services rose to 7.4 percent.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t The percentages are not that important. Farmers work really hard but are one of the lowest-paid groups. IT professionals make fortunes by Belarusian standards. They also spend a lot, driving manufacture, sales and services.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Ungrateful kids<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t One day before his meeting with the farmers, the Belarusian ruler met with top High-Tech Park (HTP) executives to revisit \u201cthe question of HTP functioning from the moral and political point of view, not even from the economic one,\u201d his press office reported.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t \u201cYou see that as a person responsible for the security of our state and the stability of our society, I cannot allow another wave to come from IT professionals, entrepreneurs and so on,\u201d he said, noting that during mass protests, HTP employees \u201cdid not show themselves, to put it mildly, in the best way.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t IT professionals took active part in protests against \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2019s re-election. Police broke up a number of rallies by IT employees outside the HTP office in Minsk.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka claimed that protesters had been taking orders from \u201ctheir foreign, mostly overseas masters.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t \u201cI was always thinking that your children cannot go to war against you. They paid a high price for that. It turned out that such children can fight their parents if they get paid well,\u201d he complained.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Maslow\u2019s hierarchy<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka bills himself as the HTP father because he approved tax concessions for HTP resident companies in 2005.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t The tax breaks, however, did not oblige IT employees to be his serfs and reject civil liberties, democracy and free and fair elections.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka cannot seem to imagine that someone can stand up for freedom without taking orders from foreign puppeteers.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t Officials ignore Maslow\u2019s hierarchy, the theory that humans attend to needs higher up the hierarchy when they satisfy their basic needs.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t Farmers are focused on satisfying basic physiological needs. They may not be ready yet to progress to meet higher-level growth needs. \u0141uka\u0161enka finds it easy to convince villagers that they should be grateful to him for mobile stores with cheap booze and canned food.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t IT professionals want security and freedom. They want officials, who get paid from their taxes, to provide quality services to voters. They want the right to change governments that fail to perform their duties properly.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Patriarchal system<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t Officials and propaganda promote the traditional way of life and patriarchal system.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2019s conferences on agriculture and inspections of farms receive extensive coverage in the state-controlled media as if Belarus is an agricultural country.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t The Belarusian leader boasted to the farmers that Belarus produced more than a ton of grain per capita for the first time in its history. \u201cThis is a success, which, I am sure, even the biggest states on our planet have not achieved.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t Belarus\u2019 neighbors, Lithuania and war-torn Ukraine, produce two tons of grain per capita.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Growth driver in decline<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t It is good that Belarusian farmers work hard and achieve success often despite unfavorable weather and flawed Soviet-era management practices.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka tends to exaggerate the role of agriculture and is ready to sacrifice growth-driving industries for selfish political ends. His crackdown on dissent forced many IT companies to relocate to safer countries.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t More than 20,000 IT professionals left Belarus in 2020, according to Imaguru. Nearly 12,000 left in the first eight months of the year, said the National Statistic Committee (Belstat). The key trigger was Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and Belarus role in it.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t The IT sector, touted by officials as a growth driver, posted a decrease in sales in July and August.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Development less important than power<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t In early 2021, \u0141uka\u0161enka said he had a doubt that the HTP \u201cbrings more benefits than harm.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t On November 17, he said that it would be wrong to abandon the HTP and not support it. But his support is conditional on political loyalty.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t Between development and power, \u0141uka\u0161enka always chooses power. That is why he did not hesitate to raise taxes for small businesses, seize equity from foreign businesses looking to pull out of Belarus over its role in the Russian aggression, introduce ideology and military-patriotic lessons at schools and close down private schools. The regime does not need educated, independent-thinking and pro-active people.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t \u201cI did not take it to heart when several thousand left in the year 20,\u201d he told Russian President Vladimir Putin recently, referring to dissidents.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t He does not regret that most educated, talented and involved people leave the country. After all, it is easier to govern the obedient and unconcerned.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t He does not have a vision of the future as he struggles to conserve the past.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Alaksandr K\u0142asko\u016dski, BPN Alaksandr \u0141uka\u0161enka last week lauded farmers, a key component of his political base, and criticized IT professionals for taking part in 2020 post-election protests. The contrast is characteristic of his backward-looking mentality. \u201cYou are the most modest but most reliable and hardworking of us. You have held up against everything, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"template":"","rubric":[22],"class_list":["post-11501","longreads","type-longreads","status-publish","hentry","rubric-theviewer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u0141uka\u0161enka lauds farmers, distrusts IT professionals | Pozirk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Alaksandr K\u0142asko\u016dski, BPN Alaksandr \u0141uka\u0161enka last week lauded farmers, a key component of his political base, and criticized IT professionals for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/11501\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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