A Belarusian clash of civilizations

Photo by Siarhey Dostan

While the attention of many in the West is now directed towards the protests, as well as their inspiring leaders, very few reflect on the values that have been driving Belarusians to protest against the authorities in this unusual time.

The fight for values

The title of this article – “a Belarusian clash of civilizations” – is neither a journalistic cliché nor a simple reference to Samuel Huntington’s pivotal work, The Clash of Civilizations. It is a description of reality; one that was inevitable, even though nobody predicted it would happen this year. Evidently, it took Belarusians almost three decades to reach this point now unfolding in front of our eyes. As a result of this lengthy process, the current clash of identities and values is not that of one Belarusian nation, but several such “nations” that have co-existed in Belarus. In other words, over the last number of decades the Belarusian people have split into groups of different civilisations, although they continued to share one state.

The first group are those who belong to the post-Soviet, later seen as pro-Russian, civilisation. These are mostly the elderly who are nostalgic for the USSR. Most had been supporters of Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his political course. The second group consists of supporters of the broadly understood western civilisation. They adhere to European values and want Belarus to be an integral part of a united Europe, and the EU later.

Needless to say, the division within Belarusian society, as presented here, is an oversimplification and slightly misleading. It does not adequately represent the full picture. Each of these groups have different values, to be sure, but there are differences of opinions within the groups. Thus, it cannot be said that there are no democratic liberals and technocrats among those labelled as proponents of pro-Russian “eastern” values. In the same way, the large group of democratic and pro-European Belarusians is not homogeneous. It also includes, for example, social conservatives.

Most importantly, there is the so-called third Belarusian “nation within the nation”, or “locals”. This includes the majority of Belarusians who, until now, were alien to politics. They were not interested in geopolitics, were rather apolitical and did not reflect much on their national identity. They looked at the world through the prism of everyday life. This year’s protests have demonstrated that all three of these groups are intermingled. This explains what we are seeing in Belarus since August is not an ordinary social uprising, nor is it a typical political protest. It is an axiological fight.

Protest values

From the outset, the protests that erupted in reaction to the forgeries in this August’s presidential election have been neither pro-Russian nor pro-western. Their message has been primarily pro-Belarusian. It is reasonable to say that the lack of slogans directly referring to Russia, the European Union or NATO attracted the masses to the streets and prevented provocations from Russia. Yet the fact that there were no EU flags present does not mean the demonstrators do not demand change or believe in European values. In fact, just the opposite. Belarusians want freedom, democracy, respect for basic human rights and civil liberties.

The lack of explicit pro-western slogans should not be misread in any way. It is quite evident that, regardless of the messages on protest flags and how the protests will further develop, integration with the EU is a vague, long-term perspective for Belarus. The slogans of human dignity and equal rights for all citizens, which drive the protests, are not only important in Belarus. They are universal. Thus, what is most valuable now is that the protests are of a pro-Belarusian character.

Thanks to this, various groups and communities have joined the movement. Thus, in addition to such actions as the Women’s Marches, which have become one of the main symbols of this year’s protest, demonstrations organised by various professional and social groups have been held. Among them are students of different universities, medical staff or retirees. The protest of the employees of state-owned organisations was especially important. Strikes and demonstrations organised by workers from different sectors of industry are very symbolic – this group has been one of the most important components of the ruling elite’s hard electorate. Representatives of various religious organisations have also come out to protest. Obviously, each of these groups has its own interests and demands. Yet, there is a strong value in their unification in the resistance.

The issue of Belarusian identity, both in political and nation-building terms, has played a very important role in these protests. As mentioned above, it would be a simplification to say that there is only one Belarusian state and one Belarusian national identity. Conversely, the identity of contemporary Belarusians is fluid and multi-dimensional. Understanding its complexity is important for understanding the country and the consolidation processes that are taking place. Clearly, each side – that is, the authorities and civil society – propose their own vision of a state identity, although none of them got rooted deeply into society.

Hence, the low level of awareness of Belarusians is regarded as a significant obstacle to the formulation of their state identity. A change in this regard is necessary, as many scholars argue that a national identity should first be established, later to be followed by a state identity. However, the dynamics of the 2020 protests indicate that in Belarus the order is reversed. Consequently, it remains very difficult to draft any forecasts of the further shaping of state identity. Considering recent social trends and processes, especially the events this year, it can be said that the formation of a Belarusian state identity now taking place is not at an ethnic level, but at a civic and political level. Such a complicated and ambiguous identity has its pros and cons.

It can already be seen that a political and state identity dominates over the ethnic and national identity. The political nation is more adapted to the challenges that have emerged both in Belarus’s near region and around the world. Again, this year’s protests proved that, for a common cause, Belarusians can unite. This is evident in their use of flags (the official red-green and the historical white-red-white) and their use of both Belarusian and Russian languages. Unquestionably, this unity is a new standard. Prior to this, state symbols and languages were the things that differentiated Belarusians and divided them.

Unexpected values

The 2020 protests are not only political and social in nature, despite the fact that freedom and democracy are their main demands. In addition, the protesters are not afraid to postulate some claims which have proved problematic even in some EU countries. These include the rule of law, judicial independence and free speech. Increasingly, the Belarusian protests have made open calls for equality for marginal groups, including the LGBT+ community, and those advocating for equal rights for women.

Actions of solidarity and the – Women’s Marches are of particular importance. Worldwide, we have seen images of hundreds of Belarusian women dressed in white linens on the streets carrying banners calling for an end to violence against women. Chains of  solidarity became more frequent and demonstrations held by women became one of the main symbols of the 2020 protests; to the point that some claim that, in parallel to the national Belarusian revolution, the first feminist revolution is taking place in the country. If this view is to be justified, however, it has to be properly interpreted in the Belarusian context. The demonstrations of women, of all ages, are making references to an historical narrative that is well-known and close to the hearts of the majority of Belarusians. This narrative does not overlap with western feminist traditions (Belarus is still a relatively patriarchal country), but it draws from the symbols of the Second World War (in post-Soviet states known as the Great Patriotic War).  It builds on the image of women who joined the resistance movement after most men had been killed or sent to fight on the front.

This war-time allegory still resonates among the public and can be seen in the symbols and rhetoric of this year’s protests. Only the oppressors are different this time around: this year they are security services and the police. Most importantly, the women’s chain of solidarity has contributed to an increase in public support for the protesters and has built a greater sense of solidarity among the so-called “ordinary Belarusians”. Recent sociological analyses speak in favour of the changes taking place in the area of women’s leadership. For example, over half of female respondents to opinion polls say that women are not adequately represented in politics. This is an extremely important shift in a country where earlier polls pointed out that the majority of Lukashenka’s hard electorate were women. Surely the president’s misogynistic statements, and the use of violence against peaceful protesters, eliminated the remaining support and lowered Belarusian women’s trust in the system under his leadership. The message of the Women’s Marches also indicates that this protest links and complements various values within Belarusian society.

Illustratively, Belarusian human rights and LGBT+ organisations joined this year’s electoral campaign as well as the post-election protests. These groups came to the demonstrations with an agenda that was shared by all the democratic forces: they demanded democratisation which was not limited to the interests of one community, but was put in a broader context. During the campaign the main goal of these organisations was to activate the public to participate in elections, while their main claims were fair elections and an end to the violence against protesters. Despite the risks of open protesting and the often hostile attitude conveyed by church representatives, LGBT+ organisations have remained active participants in the protests. Images of the rainbow flag alongside the white-red-white one, waved at the demonstrations, are a sign of the beginning of change taking place in the minds of many Belarusians.

Is Homo sovieticus gone for good?

Three years ago, on the pages of this magazine, I wrote about Belarusian society from the perspective of Homo post-sovieticus. Among the most important features of this category I distinguished: collectivism, subservience, opportunism, adaptability, the lack of respect for the rule of law, a monistic world view, and an instrumentalist approach to religion. Back then, the category of Homo sovieticus, in regards to Belarus, was justified. I presented some of the remnants of the features of the Belarusian Homo sovieticus not as a disadvantage, but as challenge and a potential advantage: subservience and passivity as potential openness; collectivism as a chance to build a civil society; adaptability and opportunism as resourcefulness, and the multi-layered identity as an expression of a modern civil nation. Back then, Belarus was in a state of social and political anomy, which made it a completely different place than Belarus today.

Now, it can be argued that the Belarusian Homo sovieticus is leaving the country for good. Neither the authorities nor the opposition have managed to use and “develop” the above-mentioned features, which I then considered an opportunity. Today’s situation is also a result of the fact that Belarusian society has undergone a generational change. It has taken place in the last decade and has a profound effect on the present. This generational change happened in an organic, although unnoticeable, way. As a result, today’s Belarusian millennials – those born between 1981 and 1996 – have the same needs and worldviews to their counterparts in the “developed West”. They use the same new technologies (sic! they often create them first – Belarus is one of the most important suppliers of the global IT industry) and watch the same programmes on Netflix or HBO. Before the pandemic many were travelling in Europe and around the world.

This generation has completely different expectations from the state and from politicians than previous generations. However the parents of Belarusian millennials are also now starting to have a different perception of the world. In this way, the Belarusian Homo sovieticus is now losing the battle over the country’s future. As the protests have showed, Lukashenka’s crude rhetoric, which is based on Soviet values and nostalgia, has become alien, incomprehensible and worthless for both the Belarusian youth and a majority of those who are now in their 30s and 40s. Indeed, it is the younger people who have made the values of protest available to everyone. The digital sphere is the natural environment for this generation, while for the authorities it remains a strange and unexplored territory. That is why we see the latest protests as colourful and creative mass events.

The first signal that something was broken did not come after the elections when thousands of peaceful demonstrators came to the streets. It came about in the spring when Belarusian social media started revealing that something was changing. More precisely, the users of social media channels, who had been completely apolitical and socially passive before, stopped posting photos from trendy cafés and music concerts. Instead their Facebook, Instagram or TitTok accounts became filled with images of police brutality or video streams from rallies of opposition candidates. This, together with the dynamics of the protests in the recent months, shows that change was already taking place, and now this trend is becoming irreversible.

Maxim Rust is a political analyst and researcher of political elites in post-Soviet area. He has a PhD in political science from the University of Warsaw. He is also a contributing editor with New Eastern Europe.

belarus, Eastern Europe, protests, values