Andrei Khrapavitski: Belarusian American Blog

Here’s an interesting take from TED Fellow and Belarusian journalist Evgeny Morozov on the ways the Internet can actually help oppressive regimes stifle dissent.

I agree with most of his points. Especially, I concur with him that support for NGOs, dissidents, intellectuals is very important. Simply relying on the spread of Internet per capita won’t do the job. However, we shouldn’t underestimate the role of the new media in democratization. What is basically flawed (not in Evgeny’s speech, but in general) is how the pace of Internetization in Belarus is measured by various statistical institutions. Yes, there are lots of people who have access to the Internet, but the availability of a computer connected to the Web does not necessarily presuppose quality usage. Still too few Belarusians buy stuff online, read news, work online, etc. Due to Internet expensiveness, far too many simply check their e-mail accounts or read anecdotes. This may change when Internet becomes more widely available and less expensive.

Evgeny is right to say that the authoritarian governments have learned to use the Net for their cause (I like the term Spinsternet he invented). In fact, it would be naive to hope that the regime would keep out of the Web while opposition used it so voraciously. Yes, it makes our job harder when government spin doctors infest the Belarusian segment of the Web with pro-Lukashenka propaganda (it is already happening). However, I wouldn’t look at this as at the online battle of opposition vs the dictatorship. The Web is an invaluable source for disseminating news. It our job (journalists, NGOs, intellectuals) to make our sites more attractive, more interesting, more regularly updated, more inventive, more user-friendly, more Web2.0, more next-gen. Yes, if we allow discussion, spin doctors might join. But so will others, those who can tell truth from lies and who can post counterarguments. We shouldn’t worry about them infiltrating our sites, we should work hard to make our online presence as high quality as possible.

19 September, 1991, the white-red-white flag was voted to become the official flag of Belarus. Just in few years, it would be scrapped by Alexander Lukashenka. Since 1995, Belarus has lived under the soviet-style symbols again.

There’s a myth circulated by some media outlets that back in 1991 Lukashenka was the one who carried the white-red-white banner into the house of the Belarusian parliament after the flag was voted to become an official symbol of the country. Well, he wasn’t the one who carried the flag, but, indeed, he partook in the procession by walking next to Uladzimir Kavalyonak, the one with the flag.

As RFE\RL reports, Lukashenka continued to wear a Belarusian Soviet Republic flag pin on his lapel even after the historical symbol change. And soon after Lukashenka had become president, he scrapped the white-red-white flag together with historical Pahonia emblem and returned our country under the soviet symbols. Since then the white-red-white banner has been tabooed from public use. It is mostly seen at opposition rallies, nonprofit organizations’ offices, etc. Even the most casual use, for instance, a white-red-white flag pin, may raise some eyebrows when spotted by the police.

Wearing a now-official red-green flag is also a political statement. Of course, there are many people who simply have to wear the current symbols on their military or police uniforms, athletes wear red-green T’s, so on. But apart from these groups of people, common folk hardly ever put a flag on unless they want to demonstrate their political standpoint (it’s not just in Belarus but in many countries). The red-green is usually pinned on by members of the Belarusian Republican Union of Youth (the union is pro-Lukashenka), but even many of these youngsters are not true believers in the symbolism of Lukashenka-styled Belarus, they just submit.

Lukashenka, similarly to many dictators, has used pots of money to nurture love for his symbols. Remember military parades, social billboards and placards, various patriotic events. I don’t know. Maybe this has yielded some fruit. But youth is not so inclined to show love for the red-green. The white-red-white is a statement of dissent and many young people are attracted to the flag endorsed by many a rock band and their counterparts. For them, the white-red-white flag is not just about Belarusian history, it’s about the European choice, it’s about the future they do not see possible under the soviet symbols.

It’s a pity so little is written on Belarus in English these days. No, I don’t mean blunt news translations published on a bunch of websites. I don’t mean analytical summaries printed by think tanks, RFE\RL, some foundations, etc. There are just a handful of English-language blogs focusing on this country. Very few are regularly updated. Blogs on Belarusian issues is what we badly lack. Wouldn’t it be great to read more personal stories, unspoiled by heavy analytical argot, party politics, etiquette prescriptions, etc. Bloggers, however unqualified, mediocre, amateurish they may be, are a great source to find out about the real state of things, because bloggers tend to write about the things they are personally involved with, worried about, agree or disagree with. Blogs are always fun.

That is exactly why we, at westki.info (a regional news project I work for), allow each and every user to have a blog on our Web site. Of course, there are some downsides of this. Once in a while, somebody registers and posts a slandering piece or something that only a KGB agent may write. Sometimes, the editors need to take it down or even block an abusive user’s account. But such cases are rare. Blogs have given our site the vibe of unpredictability and personal involvement of the people from our target audience.

In fact, blogs have become, I guess, the most vibrant part of the Belarusian Internet with users galore in both Belarusian and Russian on popular blogging platforms such as Livejournal.com and TUT.by. It’s a pity there are very few in English.

I’ve been running this blog for almost four years. It is now one of the oldest English-language blogs about Belarus. With so few colleagues I have, I feel a need to continue.

It’s been an unforgettable summer. On a personal note, I have changed my marital status. Yep, not single any more. Our honeymoon was the best journey I’ve ever been to. We traveled Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, France, and Netherlands. Made new friends, swam in the Northern Sea, which turned out to be pretty warm if compared with the Baltic… But the summer is over. It means back to the usual stuff - reporting, policy analyses, research, what have you…

Today is the day when the Belarusian Popular Front is holding its convention. BPF is the oldest and arguably the largest opposition party in the country. The big question of the day was who would become the new leader of the party as the incumbent chairman Liavon Barsceuski had refused to run for reelection. The two candidates were Viktar Ivashkevich and Aliaksiei Yanukevich. The former, BPF old-timer, backed by both Barsceuski and Viacorka, presented himself as a man of action. His strategy would be to secure Barsceuski as the sole candidate of the United Democratic Forces and insist on democratization of the electoral laws. His rival, Yanukevich is of the Front younger generation. Although not a vocal opponent of the old BPF elite, he promised to shake up somewhat stagnant party. Yanukevich offered to withdraw from political unions compromising the party principles but he suggested that a new coalition of rightwing forces should be created.

At least, from my encounters with regional BPF activists, I sensed that Yanukevich was an acceptable choice for many unsatisfied with the old party bosses while Ivashkevich was seen as one of the old tribe.
As the convention neared, seems like it was becoming clear that Ivashkevich was going to lose. The party elite sensed it, too, so when the day X came I guess they tried to play a Barsceuski card again, i.e., to persuade him to run for reelection. Remember how Barsceuski surfaced as a compromise figure when Viacorka and Michalevich clashed at the previous convention without a clear winner. So guess what, this time around, Ivashkevich withdrew making way for Barsceuski to reclaim the throne. His initial refusal to run for reelection disappeared somewhere. He accepted the offer saying that he would spend most of his time preparing for the presidential elections while he would commit majority of administrative functions to his deputy Ivashkevich.

The party members didn’t buy it. Yanukevich came out as a clear winner. As I am writing this, the convention continues. Yanukevich’s chairmanship sounds like a fresh anchor face for BPF, but will it really mean fresh ideas and decisive actions? Time for observation and reflection is necessary.

Another interesting news from the convention is that Ales Michalevic officially announced that he was planning to run for the presidential office. Michalevic is a young politician who unsuccessfully ran for BPF leadership at the previous convention and was ousted from the party by Barseuski people later on. For a while he was absent from national news. Will his effort to return to big politics be successful?