Exclusion in Belarus: pieces of discrimination

Photo: Bessoul (CC) www.pixabay.com

No one could have predicted the installation of a wheelchair stairlift would spark such a wave of discontent. However this situation exposed the contradictions and inconsistencies that regularly appear when it comes to the rights of vulnerable groups in Belarus. These groups and their rights still fall into the grey area of bureaucratic twists and social prejudices. In this particular case, necessary changes to the urban space were precluded not by legislative prohibitions or the indifference of the local community, but a lack of empathy and hostility towards the local residents. Nothing personal, just an unconscious defensive reflex.

Due to the media coverage, the residents reluctantly agreed to the installation of the stairlift. Yet this resolution has hardly affected the overall situation.

Confrontations

In 2016 the Belarusian human rights organisation known as The Office for the Rights of People with Disabilities initiated research to learn about how major print and online media in Belarus deal with disability. It turned out that only 1.5-1.8 per cent of all media coverage mentions people with special needs – mainly in the context of charity, health or targeted aid. The coverage in general was mostly based on old stereotypes, and instead of discussing the problem of discrimination, they merely expressed biased attitudes towards people with special needs. As a result, this leads to confrontations between the abled-bodied majority and the minority with special needs. It is often assumed that able bodied persons are entitled to a full scope of rights, whereas disabled persons are not. Discrimination of this kind is defended by arguing that people with special needs are “naturally” inferior, and therefore are not entitled to the same rights as able-bodied persons – ignoring the possibility that disability has something to do with pre-existing prejudices and how resources are unfairly distributed across society.

This way of thinking essentially rejects any systematic and political assessment of stigma and the exclusion of vulnerable groups, and results in the shifting of the problem from the legislative area to the private sphere. Consequently, structural inequality is misrepresented as the occurrence of a number of isolated instances. For example, the Gomel stairlift case becomes a one-off story about “hard-hearted neighbours”.

It is a strategic way of reducing every problem to a private matter. And it is a form of manipulation that helps ignore the need to recognise the diversity of experience and take into account the heterogeneity of society. This is a good moment to remember one of the slogans of the second-wave of feminism which remains relevant today: “The personal is political.” It was revolutionary for its time and place and it perfectly explains how politics consolidates the relationship of power and subordination. We should also remind ourselves that even liberation movements are prone to sexism, racism, homophobia and ableism. Back then, in the 1960s, female activists were criticised for publicly discussing their “bodily issues” (i.e. their sexuality, appearance, and right to abortion). They were encouraged to take responsibility for their own lives and quietly work for the benefit of the “revolution”.

This is very similar to the Belarusian opposition discourse which still views women as the “body of the nation”. We women should remain passive, objective and strictly functional according to the conservative paradigm of gender roles. Astonishingly, a list of 181 occupations that women are prohibiting from entering still exists in Belarus. The main argument advanced by those in favour of the list is that women have a duty to reproduce, which is represented as something that is a “natural” need for women, and the only proper way for them to achieve personal fulfilment. “We need not forget that 99.9 per cent of women are not participants of feminist projects, but wives, mothers, daughters, sisters who all live in different circumstances, have better or worse husbands, better or worse relatives, family and friends”, says the philosopher and theologian Piotr Rudkouski. He expressed his concerns that if the list of prohibited jobs were abolished, women would be pressured into quitting their existing underpaid jobs to search for more lucrative, albeit more challenging, careers. However, for some reason he fails to recognise that “participants of feminist movements” are also someone’s daughter, sister, and possibly even mother or wife, and that reducing the 181 occupations to coal mining is a gross oversimplification and manipulation of public opinion.

What’s real, what’s fake

The panic begins when uncomfortable cases of discrimination become public. The reaction of Belarusian authorities to the United Kingdom’s embassy in Belarus was symptomatic. On the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (which is celebrated on May 17th), the UK embassy flew a rainbow flag in front of its building. This act demonstrated solidarity with the LGBT-community across the world and support of the local community in Belarus, as well as reflecting the values of the United Kingdom. “Our aim is to challenge such discrimination”, Ambassador Fionna Gibb explained. In response to the British gesture, an anonymous comment was released on the website of the Belarusian interior ministry:

“Representatives of same-sex relationships fiercely advance their position, despite the principles and traditions established in society. Whatever one may say, same-sex relationships are a fake. And the essence of a fake is always the same, to devalue the truth. The LGBT community, and the whole struggle for ‘their rights’ and the community’s day – it is all just a fake! … We support real things, they won’t get away with it!”

How should one understand the statement “they won’t get away with it”, made by the institution responsible for protecting its citizens? Does this homophobic statement mean we should be prepared to have a law “on propaganda”, similar to the one adopted by the Russian Federation in 2013? Is it a signal they could possibly resort to open violence? Is it calling for aggression? In any case, statements like this only play different social groups off each other and incite hatred. This homophobic statement, coming from a public official, only makes the situation worse, as it reflects not only a personal viewpoint, but the position of the state.

A few days after the incident activist Vika Barin came to the building of the interior ministry with a sign that read “You are a fake yourself”. Photos of her that were later posted online served as grounds for prosecuting Barin for organising an unsanctioned protest (a one-person protest).

Two weeks after the incident, the Belarusian interior minister, Igor Shunevich, gave an explanation for the statement that was published on the ministry’s website:

“This was a maturity test for our civil society. Our civil society has not quite passed this test. Not a single non-governmental organisation or association complained about this, nor demanded that that thing be taken down, which, for that matter, was displayed in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Unfortunately, neither religious nor public organisations reacted to this act.”

At the same time, Shunevich said there was no discrimination in Belarus. Yet it should be mentioned that hate speech against representatives of the LGBT community did not go unnoticed.  As a result of the Baran protest, a petition was initiated demanding Shunevich’s dismissal. However it was met with a brief and quite predictable response: the appointment and dismissal of the interior minister lie beyond the scope of the prosecutor’s office.

Understanding hate

In general, activists and journalists regularly raise the problem of using inappropriate language in relation to vulnerable groups. First and foremost, their work is aimed at understanding the connection between hate speech and crimes committed out of hatred. Regular monitoring, working with the media and roundtable discussions help bring to the foreground the discursive aspect of the problem and to consider possible solutions. Anti-discrimination legislation, along with joint regulation and self-regulation, is instrumental in combatting the problem. Katie Morris, head of Europe and Central Asia at Article 19, a British human rights organisation, noted that self-regulation is the most desirable approach for the media to take, as it allows them to minimise restrictive interference and helps promote better ethical and professional standards within the journalistic community. Morris also points out that self-regulation is relevant for Belarus because it precludes the use of legislative levers as a censorship tool against independent media.

This is something that is also supported by Anna Baranovskaya, a member of the human rights organisation Human Constanta. The problem is that international law does not give one common definition for hate speech. As for Belarusian legislation, the word “hatred” is only used in defining elements of crime, and this creates some difficulties, according to Andrei Bastunets, chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

In conclusion, I would like to say that, without a doubt, discrimination in Belarus has its peculiarities and nuances. But, in general, its origins lie within the common attitudes of the patriarchal world where people are still divided into a “majority” and “minority” group, and problems are divided into “significant” ones and those that “can wait”. It is always important to remember that power is not limited to the state or government. Power is a relationship between people and the continuous practice of marginalising non-traditional lifestyles. In other words, power means decisions and acts that are taken by every one of us. The processes that take place at the legislative level have a significant impact on the discourse that revolves around this or that topic, but discrimination does not run along the divide between “official power” and “the people”.

Exclusion is more complicated and manifests itself where certain privileges (for example, the possibility of leaving home without meeting obstacles and moving freely within the urban space) are confronted with the violation of basic human rights. Exclusion materialises where empathy is replaced with a reaction that blocks any possibility of communication. Instead of hearing the other side, we start to fiercely protect ourselves. But whom are we scared of? Maybe ourselves?

Translated by Olena Roguska

Tanja Setsko is a researcher, activist and team member of the MAKEOUT organisation. She graduated from the Belarusian State Academy of Arts, European Humanities University and Belarusian Collegium. She takes part in different projects in the cultural and creative sectors as an organiser, tutor, researcher and co-ordinator.  As a lecturer she works in European College of Liberal Arts in Belarus (ECLAB).

belarus, Social policy