In an attempt to forestall any possibility of a revolution, the government of Belarus is planning to build climate-controlled storage facilities. Each urban resident will be provided with a large, free, and heavily armored storage unit. In order to encourage citizens to use their storage units, the government has placed large billboards in all major cities urging residents “not to let the beautiful home be a cluttered place.”
Given the symbolic and practical importance of barricades in creating any kind of civil disturbance, this new initiative is designed to make rebellion practically more difficult. Julius Afanasyev, Assistant Vice-President of Strategic Military Coordination explains:
We don’t, of course, expect a revolution. And civil disturbance of any kind is most unlikely. But, if such an unlikely and improbable event does happen to occur—and I’m sure it won’t—our storage units will be an important strategic element of our long term plan. Instead of sustaining casualties while overrunning barricades, we will simply post guards near the storage units to make the construction of barricades more difficult. And if there is a rebellion, at least we’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that they’re sleeping on the ground—the only thing they’ll have on hand are their beds. Of course, we know there won’t be any problems anyway.
Photo: “Barricade rue Soufflot” by Horace Vernet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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