Programme

Working in Groups: Tasks

WG outcomes:

Comprehensive description

October 12th

In the rainy Friday evening the arrived Belarus exile students enjoyed a warm dinner at the "Dubliner” pub, located in the very heart of the beautiful Vilnius old town, and tried to remember more than 30 students' names from eight different countries. Later on they were taken to the conferential facility complex in the outskirts of Vilnius where the rally took place.

October 13th

After a long trip to Vilnius the Rally participants were quite sleepy, so something had to be done in order to prepare them for the upcomming lectures. That is why the organizers invited Dainius - the master of the exotic oriental art of Tai-Chi. He promised to wake the students up and so he did on every morning of the meeting.  After an interesting workout the participants listened to the lectures meant to remind the common history of Lithuania and Belarus, to stimulate the patriotic feeling of Belarus students and to find possible pillars for the Belarus statehood in the 21st century.

• Professor Alfredas Bumblauskas in his lecture "Heritage of Lithuania and Belarus Common History” raised a question what significance the Great Duchy of Lithuania, which united the lands of contemporary Lithuania, Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia, had in the medieval Europe. The students made an impression of knowing a lot about the common history of Lithuania and Belarus. Perhaps because of this reason during the discussion they were more interested in the linguistic aspects of the lecture: the origins of the Lithuanian, Belarus and Ukrainian languages and their use in the medieval state's administration.  

• The second lecture was given by prof. Alvydas Jokubaitis, who was trying to find out whether patriotism is a virtue. To answer this question he at first discussed two integral parts of the contemporary national state: the cultural and the civic dimensions. It means that each citizen's identity consists of two parts: he is a part of the community's culture and at the same time he is a subject of the state. To find equilibrium between these two dimensions is the main task of each state. The problem of Belarus, said prof. A. Jokubaitis, is that it forgets the cultural side of the citizens' identity and grounds its statehood on the basis of citizenship, or social contract. In modern times the liberal idea of social contract was supplemented by the concept of constitutional patriotism, which is the contrast to national patriotism. Constitutional patriotism means the devotion to the state system, not to the national ideals. The stimulation of this kind of patriotism and the lack of cultural identity in Belarus determines the national identity problems in the state. During the discussion the students raised questions regarding the means to strengthen the national identity in Belarus. The professor was not keen to give the "formula” which could strengthen it, but again stressed that cultural dimension is the key.

• Ideas about the perspectives of Belarus statehood in the 21st century were shared by two professors: political philosopher Vytautas Radžvilas and a famous historian and writer from Belarus Uladzimir Arlou. He recently published his book "The names of freedom”. In this work the historian tells us about the belarussians who fought for Belarus statehood, freedom and independence since the 18th century. U. Arlou looked optimistically at the future of Belarus, saying, as long as there are people who care about the sovereignty of Belarus, the statehood of Belarus state will exist. The historian recalled how important the short Belarus independence in 1918 was in his personal life. The professor invited the students to reflect what significance the 25th of March had in their lives as well.  

• Perhaps the hottest discussion was provoked by the thoughts of V. Radžvilas. Talking about the civilizational consciousness the philosopher emphasized its essential importance to the political structure and political development of each state. We should search for the answers of failed democracies, including Belarus, namely in the civilizational thinking structure. Civilizational paradigms are closely related with religion or transcendental way of thinking. In this respect, one of the Belarus statehood's foundations would be resolving the questions of co-existance of orthodox and catholic churches. The other idea which also seemed questionable to Belarus students was the proposition regarding European Union's phenomenon. V. Radžvilas claimed it is a sociopolitical unit which weakens the statehood of its members. The EU, he says, latently implements politics that curbs national identity. The decision not to include Christianity as the basis of the European cultural identity into the EU Constitution also demonstrates the erasure of the existential guides for personal identity. The lecturer admitted he personally is not a eurosceptic. He simply encouraged the students to think diversely and by reflecting the statehood of future Belarus not to confine themselves in the chronology of political events or personalities, but to look deeper. 

In a survey that was conducted at the end of the Rally all students mentioned that the lectures were indeed interesting and their topics useful. In the evening a lively and cheerful relay-race outdoors vivified the minds and bodies of the participants. And during the Lithuanian welcome evening traditional Lithuanian food and beverages were presented to the students who could themselves evaluate the taste of Lithuanian black bread together with a typical Lithuanian sausage, called "skilandis” as well as pickled cucumbers. The participants also had the possibility to taste some white quark cheese with honey. Later on the best relay-race teams were awarded for their efforts.

October 14th

During the second day of the Rally the students were divided into four groups and were given the tasks regarding the establishment of the Belarus Exile Students Community. They should have created the basic elements of such a community: to think of its structure, information dissemination model and communication strategy (the 1st group), to define its vision, development strategy, main functions and the basic needs (2nd group), to propose the name of the community, logo, slogan, mission, purposes, the ideas regarding the website and the possible public relation strategies (3rd group) as well as to plan the activities for the year 2008 (4th group).

After some intensive teamwork the bus took all the participants back to Vilnius, where the majority decided to visit the old town and the rest enjoyed the extremely wet attractions at the "Vichy” aquapark.

October 15th

As Monday came the students prepared interesting presentations, suggested ideas and visions of the Community that were worth of attention.

• There were even suggestions to register the Community and create an organization that would be a legal entity. The students proposed to register it in a country where the most of the Belarus students are. It would be Lithuania or Poland. The registration of the community, the creation of its web page and the data base, the forming of the initiative group, the provision of the technical and material base would be the primary tasks of the Community.

• The main functions (and at the same time the model of attracting new members) would be to help the students with accommodation, adaptation at the university, finding necessary literature, information or even a job as well as organizing free-time activities, different language courses, popularization of Belarus culture.

• The Community should also follow the most important events in the motherland, including the fields of economics, culture, education, and provide Belarus students as well as the international community with impartial information about what is going on in Belarus.

• By doing this the Community would also contribute to the creation of positive image of Belarus abroad and to the improvement of international political climate towards Belarus.

However, during the round table discussion that followed the students presentations, a lot of disagreements came out. The opinions split regarding the registration of the Community (some students proposed to create a social network) and it was decided to delay it. The need of professional workers who would do all the technical work: write the projects, care about the web site, searching for the sponsors etc. was also questioned. The students expressed their negative attitude towards hierarchy, the majority of the participants emphasized that the students themselves should engage in all Community's activities. In the opinion survey the participants suggested that the working group format was effective and the topics discussed were relevant.

Finally, an agreement was reached to stay as a EESC project and to have a coordinator in each state which has a diaspora of Belarussian students. The need of a web page was also agreed unanimously. Here the decision of the Community's name was vital. The students stressed that the name should be sounding, easy to remember and understandable to belarussians as well as to foreigners. The words "Belarus” and "students” were essential. The majority of students voted for the name U. S. B. - United Students of Belarus, meanwhile the design of a logotype was left for professionals, providing the students the possibility to discuss the versions of them on the EESC web site.   

The last evening the participants spent playing various Lithuanian traditional games and attending national dances according to the music played by a professional musician. Late in the evening they could also enjoy a huge fire where they could warmly exchange the contacts, discuss the rally and its outcomes as well as the future of an international Belarus student's community.       

October 16th

After a long party the students were not cheerful at all. During such a short time they have found new friends and now they had to part. However, as 96 per cent of the Rally participants promised to join the Belarus Exile Students Rally next year, they had hope that their communication and cooperation will continue during the creation of a Student Community.