Will the world be strong enough to beat up a shameless villain?

The Belarusian dictator, who hijacked a Ryanair airliner in Belarusian airspace on Sunday and forced it to land at Minsk airport using fighter jets, once again asked the world a simple question.

Who is right? Are those who claim that there are high overarching human values that determine the vector of the development of our civilization, or those who openly sneer at these values, consider them empty words and are convinced that everything is determined by animal instincts - fear and the need for food. Namely, anything can be achieved by combining threats with bribery. The world has been waiting for an answer to this question for a long time. Will it receive it now?

What is happening just a couple hundred kilometers away is mind-boggling. Complete collapse of the judiciary and permissiveness of repressive structures. More than a thousand people are locked up in prisons just because they have spoken out against the regime; have hoisted the national flag or taken part in protests against the falsification of the results of the presidential election and the terror of the siloviki. One of these prisoners, fifty-year-old Vitold Ashurk, died in prison last week.

Here is how the situation in Belarus is described by the publicist Oleg Kashin, who is known for his cynical (and therefore often not very pleasant) view of politics: “Alexander Lukashenko is a professional cretin. When a whole country with its repressive apparatus, propaganda and fighter jets that are ready to seize a passenger plane to hijack a person (probably not just one) falls into the hands of a sick bastard, it is a tragedy. Belarus is the worst thing in our sight at the moment. Neither Chechnya nor the cannibalic enclaves in the range from North Korea to the Central African Republic give as horrifying an impression as fascist Belarus. "

It is customary to look at the Belarusian dictator with a kind of sense of superiority - oh, what has that moustached sovkhoz director done now? Meanwhile, this bandit who usurped power is terrorizing not only the people of his country, but now the rest of the world. The operation of the Belarusian [possibly in close cooperation with Russia] special services, during which a 171-passenger Ryanair plane was seized, is spitting in the face of the so-called civilized world.

The main task of the "civilized" world at the moment is to prove that the quotation marks are out of place in this phrase, because there are some doubts as to whether the Western world can still be called that. The internet is full of jokes about how strongly the world leaders will condemn it this time. "Deeply concerned" as a phrase is already being openly ridiculed, and people are ironically inventing new (equally toothless) slogans to be used by EU leaders to "condemn" the Lukashenko regime and do nothing.

It has been repeated for years that the EU and NATO are the clubs of the world's most economically and militarily powerful nations, but in the center of Europe one undisguised psychopath is mocking everyone else, while the members of the "strongest nations" club are just quietly muttering about how they are "deeply concerned." At least that's how it has been so far. Will it be different now?

This time, Lukashenko has made a mess at a pretty bad time. EU summits began on Monday, and this issue, while not the main, but will still be one of the topics to be discussed. The first reactions immediately after the hijacking were sharp. As usual, Lithuanian and Polish officials did not try to soften their statements. This time, the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and the British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab spoke uncharacteristically harshly. German officials, however, tried to avoid making comments. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, promised that EU leaders would discuss at their meeting a possible response to this "unprecedented situation." Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda expressed readiness to initiate tougher sanctions against Belarus, including a ban on Belavia flights to destinations in EU and NATO member states. Our Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs also mentioned a ban on flights over Belarus among the possible sanctions.

However, the purpose of this article is not to list possible global countermeasures to the actions of the Belarusian dictator and his guardian in Moscow. Experts will know better how to act on them. The question is about ourselves. Is the world ready for a vigorous and sharp reaction? Lithuanians and Poles are, but are we? Are the Germans?

When I hear someone say that these tyrants are cynically mocking the world, I just want to add that they are sadistically enjoying this subtle humiliation of the world around them. Putin and Lukashenko are enjoying their permissiveness and the powerlessness of the world. They feel that they are kings in this world full of miserable losers. Unfortunately, so far they have had no reason to believe that they might be living in a "parallel universe." So far, everything has happened according to their notions of a world where everyone can be bought, intimidated and suppressed.

In this world, in the very center of Europe, there is a country that can force any passing plane to land, pull out any passenger and do whatever it wants with him. In the past, these hooligans were afraid of the united anger of the world, but now they have realized that this anger is like smoke in music concerts - light and completely harmless, because they are not even smoke, but an imitation of smoke. And this Western anger is not real anger, but an imitation of it.

The fact that Western gunpowder is dripping wet became clear in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea and especially after the Malaysian Boeing was shot down. The slow Western response to these blatant violations of international law was the beginning of everything that is happening now and will continue to happen. The idea that with tactics of reassurance and negotiation we can reign in people like Lukashenko or Putin in the slightest has completely failed.

The events of recent years have shown that both regimes are becoming increasingly shameless, aggressive and more threatening to humanity. Unfortunately, the West is embroiled in its imaginary battles with crazy insiders who have no idea that all their favorite games about climate, gender, race, equality and other high topics are possible only because their hated imperialists, led by the United States, spend trillions on defense. Not only do they not realize, but they do not even want to hear that the armed forces of the hated imperialists are the only ones who maintain the current order in the world, and if these disgusting militarists suddenly disappeared, it would not be eternal happiness, where everyone is a friend and a kindred spirit, but soon enough an order would emerge in which everyone would feel like an insignificant dust mote before the almighty silovik.

If someone were to ask me whether the Western response to Lukashenko's actions on Sunday will be adequate and somewhat painful for the regime, I would certainly say no, but I would very much like to be wrong. For once, the world should finally realize that the only way to calm a brazen reprobrate is to beat him up. Just like the leader of the "new order" taught the world a few days ago. And hit him so hard that he would stop playing at being a king.

*****

Be the first to read interesting news from Latvia and the world by joining our Telegram and Signal channels.