BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

28/04/2006

"Things are beginning to change."

"This is not a dictatorship" insists Marina, a student at Minsk University. It's wrong to have a fixed Western attitude to something which is different, she insists.

We are sitting in a cafe in the capital and, to be fair, we are freely, and loudly, discussing politics. But in all other respects, at least to my 'fixed Western' eye, Belarus has done everything to earn its tag as 'Europe's last dictatorship'.

5 weeks ago farcical elections saw President Alexander Lukashenko claiming a farcical 82% of the vote. A popular demonstration was crushed and one of the two opposition leaders, Aleksander Kozulin, was jailed for organising a protest march. Now Kozulin has been joined his opposition colleague Alexander Milinkevich - jailed yesterday for attending an 'unsanctioned' rally.

Democracy isn't built in a day

Marina is certainly no Lukashenko fan. Recent travel restrictions have stopped her leaving the country to attend an EU sponsored seminar. If she had left, she could have lost her place at university. Like so many young students in Minsk, she's desperate for change. But Western style democracy, she insists, does not come in a day.

Most Belarusians are children of the Soviet Union and in the villages and small towns away from Minsk the President is still widely popular. Even if he hadn't rigged the elections to gain a Soviet style majority, Lukashenko would have probably still won handsomely. The Belarusians are not blind to the overbearing state-control, but they see it as 'normal'.

Indeed, Marina says the word normal is the curse of Belarus.

As long as their pensions are paid on time and there are jobs, then freedom can wait. Belarusians, it is said, are good at enduring history, not changing it.

Cultures do change

Marina was so convinced of the fatalistic apathy of Belarusians - that the events of 5 weeks ago 'amazed' her.

Some 10,000 people gathered in the central October Square on March 19th to protest the blatently rigged presidential elections.

The authorities were evidently alarmed. While state television ran brief sarcastic reports dismissing the protestors as a drunken rabble, minders appeared in Marina's university classes checking attendance. If you are learning, goes the logic, you can't be demonstrating.

Marina believes that something new was born during those brief few days of popular disobedience - a new sense of civil self-confidence. By Belarus' standards it was a daring, unprecedented protest: "It was the first time that I have seen young and old people making a political statement and not being afraid.

Paul Strohmeier, an Austrian Zivildiener working in Minsk, has also recognised this change in consciousness.

When he first arrived in Minsk, before the elections, no-one talked about politics. Now everyone seems to have an opinion. They discuss the demonstrations and the criticism raised by the opposition in their brief television appearances.

Hope and Disillusionment

The new sense of hope competes with bitter disillusionment.

If the demonstrators hoped they were ushering in a second Orange Revolution - mimicing the democratic upheaval of neighbouring Ukraine, they were sadly disappointed

Within 5 days the crowds at October Square had dwindled to around 150. These were easily rounded up by the Belarusian police in an action that lasted just 20 minutes. The opposition leaders are not in power, they are in jail. Paul says this has been a cruel blow to his Belarusian friends:

"They feel that nothing has changed and that all the demonstrations have had no effect at all."

More Open Dissent

Yet all young people I spoke to in Minsk, including those who didn't want to be named, say things are changing.

People are beginning to show their discontent more openly. If you walk the streets or university corridors of Minsk you might see people wearing small black bows on their clothes or on their rucksacks. These first appeared on the day of Lukashenko's re-inauguration are meant to symbolise mourning. They are mourning the death of democracy.

Paul has noticed political protest seeping into the lively Minsk music scene. Bands who are overtly political, such as the popular band NRM, find it hard to find a venue to play, but there are more subtle protest actions. Many young musicians dress in red and white, the colours of the old Belarusian flag, which was banned by Lukashenko.

I asked Paul what sort of music they played. Britpop - Belarusian britpop - is apparently big. Many bands, meanwhile, are influenced by Muse and Placebo, while the Icelandic band Sigur Ros has an iconic status in the Minsk music scene. Is this an expression of their depression? "No. Most young people I meet are pretty happy, to be honest."

Marina is happy too. On the day Lukashenko was hit by an EU visa ban, she got her visa to visit the USA in the summer.

"I love the irony." she beams.

Source:

http://fm4.orf.at/chris/213015