FILM. Maksim Viniarski: You Are Responsible For Matters You Haven’t Prevented

Take a step towards freedom.

Today, coordinator of the European Belarus civil campaign Maksim Viniarski is the current record-holder for the served out administrative arrests (for the past 10 years, he has spent more than a year in prison serving out 10-15 days of arrest).

We would like to bring to your attention a film, in which Maksim tells us what motivates him and makes him remain an active participant in the Belarusian Resistance for 20 years.

"For me, personally, the issue of the responsibility for what you have not stopped has always been important. The responsibility for something, against what you have not spoken out. The one who accepts evil without resistance becomes its silent abettor. That's why for me there was not much choice: to do or not to do. If I do nothing, then what’s going on around suits me down to the ground.

The revolution is not instantaneous. Today, someone is ready to put a plug-in to get access to the blocked site Charter-97, tomorrow someone is ready to paste a leaflet with an appeal, with an explanation of what is happening in the country. The day after tomorrow, this person can go to a mass event, but after the day after tomorrow he himself will begin to perform actions that will become a most striking statement. It is difficult to predict when this will happen to this or that person. When Ian Palah went to labor camps as a student, no one knew that his actions would become a symbol of the struggle for freedom in Czechoslovakia and would then lead to a velvet revolution," – Makim Vinyarski says.