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I had the chance to visit Belarus last year for a extended period. The capital, Minsk, is by far the cleanest and safest place i have seen anywhere. Putting as

I had the chance to visit Belarus last year for a extended period. The capital, Minsk, is by far the cleanest and safest place i have seen anywhere. Putting aside the human right issues, i think the president there has run the country quite well given the circumstances and the post-soviet situation he inherited. Mostly staying out of conflicts, keeping a balance between the big brother to the east and the western European countries, growing the economy (with a big IT sector). But - unlike e.g. Ukraine - all without the usual post-soviet hard system change that displaces workers from the old soviet state companies and social structures they relied on. /edit: Jesus, why the downvotes?

account73466 7y ago
You are not supposed to say good things about Belarus, next thing we know you say the same about China or Russia! /s Edit: look at baybal2's comment, he managed to get China involved somehow :-)
- dblotsky 7y ago
  China is investing in Belarus. They build factories and infrastructure, likely to get easier access to the European markets.
roenxi 7y ago
> Putting aside the human right issues... I'm not sure that is a safe start to an argument that a country is well run. When human rights get suppressed that means people lose the ability to, eg, honestly complain about massive problems or take basic steps to improve their standard of living. Growing an economy at the expense of human rights is kinda stupid. What is the point of making people's lives materially better if the government is simultaneously suppressing their ability live better lives? Pointless and counterproductive busywork. I can see how a country can be good and have human rights abuses at the same time - most great countries are involved in human rights abuses to some degree - but they can't just be hand-waved at the start. Being a nice place to visit as a wealthy tourist hand having clean streets is not a high bar. You also inspired me to go and have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Belarus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Belarus . I wasn't impressed to read that they have laws where a "change of job and living location will require permission from governors [for 9% of the workforce]". I would call that catastrophically poor management of the economy bordering on actual slavery. So either Wikipedia is misleading me or they are not quite well run.
- account73466 7y ago
  >> I wasn't impressed to read that they have laws where a "change of job and living location will require permission from governors [for 9% of the workforce]". Do they have such laws or you believe that a proposed law (according to the cited articled) is an existing law already? You seem to quickly go and claim border-line slavery without checking it first.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    Belarus is a dictatorship. If Lukashenko says “this should happen, I’m gonna make it happen”, I think it’s reasonable to interpret that as a proclamation of a new law unless there’s evidence it’s not being followed.
- gambiting 7y ago
  I mean, I guess it's just hard to understand for people who have never lived under such a system. In Poland it's relatively common for people to say that life used to be "better" under communism, even though yes, what you could buy was limited, where you could travel was limited and sometimes yes, you would be assigned to a post somewhere and had to move there whether you wanted to or not(freshly graduated teachers would usually be assigned to a school in the country that needed teachers, with little personal choice). All of that sounds horrendous from the perspective of western countries today(or well, in fact, Poland in 2019 too), but not everything is just black and white - there were good things about it too. Excellent quality of education. Of healthcare. Public transport that was cheap or free to use, and regular. Massive investment in infrastructure. New things which were built were usually built with citizens in mind first, not profit. Like, it's really hard to explain because you'd never see the benefit of that over personal freedom, but I get why older generations are nostalgic over it. I wouldn't go back to it but it wasn't all bad.
hogFeast 7y ago
Because, as the article explains, what happened with IT was despite economic policy not because of it. And I think a reasonable person would make the comparison with Ukraine: Belarus didn't keep a balance, they are effectively run by Russia (iirc, Lukashenko and most of his associates are under sanction by the EU and can't travel there). Compare that to Estonia or Latvia or Lithuania...the difference should be quite obvious. Btw, just generally: Lukashenko is not a nice guy. He is one of the more anti-semitic political leaders out there (and the competition is stiff). The human rights stuff and election rigging is also unusually bad.
- sam_lowry_ 7y ago
  Didn't Lukashenka travel to Brussels recently? Or us going to, soon?
dnh44 7y ago
You’ve been downvoted because in the west we’ve been conditioned by over a decades worth of negative media exposure so it’s difficult for people to have a rational response for anything positive said about the region. This media blitz started in 2008 right about at the start of the Olympics.
timwaagh 7y ago
It seems you cannot voice a political opinion here outside the mainstream without being at risk for getting downvotes. Have upvote from Sacha.

account73466 7y ago

You are not supposed to say good things about Belarus, next thing we know you say the same about China or Russia! /s Edit: look at baybal2's comment, he managed to get China involved somehow :-)

dblotsky 7y ago
China is investing in Belarus. They build factories and infrastructure, likely to get easier access to the European markets.

roenxi 7y ago

> Putting aside the human right issues... I'm not sure that is a safe start to an argument that a country is well run. When human rights get suppressed that means people lose the ability to, eg, honestly complain about massive problems or take basic steps to improve their standard of living. Growing an economy at the expense of human rights is kinda stupid. What is the point of making people's lives materially better if the government is simultaneously suppressing their ability live better lives? Pointless and counterproductive busywork. I can see how a country can be good and have human rights abuses at the same time - most great countries are involved in human rights abuses to some degree - but they can't just be hand-waved at the start. Being a nice place to visit as a wealthy tourist hand having clean streets is not a high bar. You also inspired me to go and have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Belarus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Belarus . I wasn't impressed to read that they have laws where a "change of job and living location will require permission from governors [for 9% of the workforce]". I would call that catastrophically poor management of the economy bordering on actual slavery. So either Wikipedia is misleading me or they are not quite well run.

account73466 7y ago
>> I wasn't impressed to read that they have laws where a "change of job and living location will require permission from governors [for 9% of the workforce]". Do they have such laws or you believe that a proposed law (according to the cited articled) is an existing law already? You seem to quickly go and claim border-line slavery without checking it first.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Belarus is a dictatorship. If Lukashenko says “this should happen, I’m gonna make it happen”, I think it’s reasonable to interpret that as a proclamation of a new law unless there’s evidence it’s not being followed.
gambiting 7y ago
I mean, I guess it's just hard to understand for people who have never lived under such a system. In Poland it's relatively common for people to say that life used to be "better" under communism, even though yes, what you could buy was limited, where you could travel was limited and sometimes yes, you would be assigned to a post somewhere and had to move there whether you wanted to or not(freshly graduated teachers would usually be assigned to a school in the country that needed teachers, with little personal choice). All of that sounds horrendous from the perspective of western countries today(or well, in fact, Poland in 2019 too), but not everything is just black and white - there were good things about it too. Excellent quality of education. Of healthcare. Public transport that was cheap or free to use, and regular. Massive investment in infrastructure. New things which were built were usually built with citizens in mind first, not profit. Like, it's really hard to explain because you'd never see the benefit of that over personal freedom, but I get why older generations are nostalgic over it. I wouldn't go back to it but it wasn't all bad.

hogFeast 7y ago

Because, as the article explains, what happened with IT was despite economic policy not because of it. And I think a reasonable person would make the comparison with Ukraine: Belarus didn't keep a balance, they are effectively run by Russia (iirc, Lukashenko and most of his associates are under sanction by the EU and can't travel there). Compare that to Estonia or Latvia or Lithuania...the difference should be quite obvious. Btw, just generally: Lukashenko is not a nice guy. He is one of the more anti-semitic political leaders out there (and the competition is stiff). The human rights stuff and election rigging is also unusually bad.

sam_lowry_ 7y ago
Didn't Lukashenka travel to Brussels recently? Or us going to, soon?

dnh44 7y ago

You’ve been downvoted because in the west we’ve been conditioned by over a decades worth of negative media exposure so it’s difficult for people to have a rational response for anything positive said about the region. This media blitz started in 2008 right about at the start of the Olympics.

timwaagh 7y ago

It seems you cannot voice a political opinion here outside the mainstream without being at risk for getting downvotes. Have upvote from Sacha.