Last weekend the police brutally dispersed an unsanctioned gay parade in Minsk. A week prior to that, a gay-pride event had been held in Vilnius, Lithuania. In Lithuanian capital, it went without much trouble, although the police had to keep an eye on a considerably large crowd of homophobes who gathered simultaneously to protest the first-ever gay parade in Vilnius. It was a strange mixture of Christian believers with large crosses, offensive placards and skinheads masked in headscarves. It took a lot of effort for Vilnius police to keep this group away from a peaceful gay manifestation. Some rednecks have even been detained, including two weird members of parliament who outperformed themselves in demonstrating their traditionalist views.

Just like in Vilnius, a far less numerous group of right-wingers gathered in Minsk, but not exactly to protest but to beat those fa**ots up unless the police do it. Well, those skinheads didn’t have to do it. The police did all the dirty work for them. The gays were beaten and taken into custody.

By talking to many Belarusians, reading forums and blogs, I need to tell you a very unfortunate thing, we, as a nation, are nothing like our image of “tolerant people.” Tolerance is often named as a national trait of Belarusians. We even have it in the current Belarusian official anthem “We are peaceful people.” But are we?

Luckily, there are many people who really are. I personally do not like stereotypes. “Slow Estonians,” “Hard-drinking Finns,” “Fat Americans,” “Tolerant Belarusians,” etc. This is all crap. Each and every one of us is an individual with his or her own psyche, life experiences, prejudices, believes. As for tolerance, I think we all need to learn what it really means to be tolerant, not just place a label “Peaceful People” on ourselves, because it’s pretentious.