When I think about Belorus I can’t help but refer to an episode of a popular TV show of late-Seinfeld. There is a line between the two main characters Jerry and George when discussing what their work was going to be about. George answered to Jerry: “Nothing, the show is about absolutely nothing”.
The recent political developments in Belorus bear a resemblance of the abovementioned line as stalemate and lack of any kind of change has described the country’s political landscape for the last seventeen years(or it is about “nothing” in George’s words” so to speak).
Yet the world has witnessed an amazing array of grass root revolutions as the ones that occurred in Tunisia, Egypt and currently in Syria to name a few. It is mind boggling as to how it is possible for so many dictatorial regimes to be overthrown in a matter of weeks by their discontent respective populations and a country like Belorus to be still mired in a dead end politics concocted by its heavy handed and erratic president of seventeen years Mr. Lukashenko.
I have even tried to ask people born in Belorus what their vision is as to why the country wouldn’t move towards democracy and progressive development and I have always received a lukewarm response that: “the state and the people there aren’t ready for a change”. This prompted me to study it in depth and see if there is any reasonable answer to its current predicament.
World history shows that nation building follows a pattern that involves creation of educational, cultural, religious, economic and ultimately political institutions that all when put together form the foundations of a state. The order in which those institutions develop naturally differs from one country to another but as a rule they all contribute to the functionality of any given polity. The success of a nation building process is often affected by the determination of a population to participate and support willingly the formation of cultural, educational or political institutions that represent the state. If we take Bulgaria for example its history reveals some interesting steps that are an indelible part of a nation building. In the 19th century, long before it gained independence from Turkey the Bulgarian population developed its own schools where the classes were taught in Bulgarian. Additionally it worked towards creation of its own church which resulted in the initiation of the Bulgarian autonomous “Echsarchy”(a form of self governing church body based in Constantinople and separate from the Greek Patriarch). When the independence movement started under the leadership of the national hero Vasil Levsky who developed a network of grass root revolutionary committees that were active participants in the struggle against Turkish rule, the Bulgarian population reached a point of awareness of being part of nation and it was just a matter of time when the goal of creation of a state would be achieved. This explains to a large extent the quick pace with which Bulgaria was able to form an army, parliament and government structure after the Russo-Turkish war in 1877-1878 which resulted in the formation of a Bulgarian state.
Belorus on the other hand has largely lacked, due to various historical reasons, a popular national movement that would lead naturally to the formation of cultural, educational or political indigenous Belorussian institutions. In the Middle Ages it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which led to a distinctive culture gravitating to Vilnus as its land was a portion of the Lithuanian section of the state. Following the final partition of Poland in 1795 it became largely part of the Russian Empire. The national policy of Pan-Slavism that developed in Russia created an atmosphere of general russification of all conquered lands. Belorus was considered the inferior partner in the empire and no outlets of Belorussian culture were allowed. That is the time when Belorus started to russify itself so to speak to the point of no distinction between the people living in Minsk or Moscow.
Yet at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century there were signs of Belorussian revival. The newspaper “Nasha Niva” published in Vilnius in Belorussian language had writers like Uladzimir Zylka, Zmitrok Biadula and Maxim Haretsky contributing to the development of a Belorussian self awareness.
Ultimately Belorus was split between Poland and the Soviet Union after the World War I. Historically it turned out that its population has always been affected by the will of some major neighboring power that would impose its own vision and strategy.
After World War II Belorus was incorporated into the Soviet Union. The official policy was to suppress any irredentist behavior and promote the “Russian” language and feeling of belonging to a “superior” culture-namely the one coming from Moscow. The Belorussian language as such became almost extinct in a way-it was an oddity, a feature of the folklore or the past never to return.
When independence came in 1991 it was a total surprise for the general population. It was something that just happened due to the fact that the Soviet Union disintegrated. No one in Belorus had any idea prior to that fact that they would be forced to form an independent country and be separate from the mighty Russian neighbor.
The country of Belorus had to start from scratch building some form of statehood and promoting a Belorussian identity for the first time in hundreds of years. When Mr. Lukashenko came into power in 1994 the general population gave a sigh of relief-finally there was a strong person who would surely guide everyone to prosperity. What occurred though was a steady establishment of a dictatorial regime. The authoritarian president showed signs over the years of being pro-Russian, then pro-West, ultimately he switched back and forth until he confused everybody in the international community. He preserved the state nature of the main factories and businesses in order to maintain a firm grip on the economy. He developed a populist approach in order to keep the general populace happy-for instance he increased the public service employees’ salaries by 50% right before the “elections” in 2010. Yet he took all that added wealth back in 2011 (after the elections) by devaluing the Belorussian ruble (the national currency) by almost 50% which wiped out the savings of the working class. For instance as of May 25th the ruble was trading 4930 rubles per dollar as opposed to the previous 3155. The perceived value of the local currency is considerably lower however-on the black market it takes 6000 rubles to buy a dollar.
Additionally Mr. Lukashenko jailed all responsible for the protests after his “overwhelming” victory in the presidential elections last year, which were considered mired by fraud by all independent organizations monitoring them. For instance Nikolai Statkevich, Dmitry Uss and Andrei Sannikov all received various prison sentences for participating in unsanctioned demonstrations against the current strongman of Belorus.
The opposition as such is facing an uphill battle due to its lack of reasonable ideas as to what the future after Lukashenko would be. Additionally they are failing to capture the momentum of general discontent with the detrimental economic policy established so far as well as to utilize the resources available online as Facebook, Tweeter, etc. As the revolutions in the Arab world showed people like Wael Gonim (the Google representative in Egypt) played a major role in inspiring the population to revolt against the dictatorship. Basically the public used Facebook to update each other when there will be a demonstration and what it would be about. The opposition in Belorus so far has been unable to utilize that great source of information to its full extent.
When studying the historic evolvement of Belorus as a nation in retrospect one can’t help but notice that it hasn’t reached the maturity necessary to develop a viable and stable democracy yet. However the very fact that there are people opposing the regime at this time shows that sooner or later an uprising similar to the one that occurred in the Arab world will happen. The nation of Belous may seem supine and lethargic at the moment but this is only calm before the storm.
In closing I would like to quote to all Belorussians in the world a line from the United States Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
The truth is that the right for liberty and natural strife for happiness is so overwhelmingly important for the functionality of any society that no one, not Lukashenko, or Saddam Hussein, or Bashar Assad, or Hosni Mubarak can take it away from its subordinate populations. Sooner or later freedom will prevail and the people of a proud country like Belorus will be able to establish a viable and flourishing democracy. The Belorussian equivalent of Vassil Levsky (the Bulgarian revolutionary) or Wael Gonim (the Egyptian) will surely appear at some point and lead the nation to a revolt against the dictatorship. Let’s hope that this time will come to Minsk sooner rather than later.
