The failure in binary thinking about Belarus

Photo: Jimmy Tudeschi / Shutterstock

In their search for answers they often omit what is really of essence. While first overstressing the regime by limiting the analysis to the power of the president and now desperately trying to predict its final collapse, they fail to notice the core of the changes. That, however, requires much more intellectual effort, one that might require getting out of our comfort zone of binary thinking. In our view, such an effort is worth undertaking, even though it may not lead us to simple answers, or even show that some questions may for long remain unanswered. And this is fine, too.  

Social changes

The social phenomena that best explain today’s Belarus and should be more deeply analysed by both social scientists and policy-makers as well as covered by journalists include: the unprecedented sense of solidarity which can be seen among the protesters and public at large; the growing desire for fairness and justice in political life; creativity, entrepreneurship and self-organisation; as well as the tiredness with the style of politics that has been observed for the last few years and that goes beyond the typical western headlines that proclaim the emergence of a “new Belarusian national pride” and “rediscovered identity”.

These phenomena are a result of the changes that have been taking place within the Belarusian society for quite some time already. However, they also vary depending upon many factors.  Among them, the easiest to see and analyse are the number and creativity of IT and other start-ups as well as the number of young Belarusians travelling to European and other western states to study or simply visit. As a result of these experiences the Belarusian society in the early 2020 was no longer fitting the label of the unfree Soviet people. Many of them, especially in the younger generation, resemble their peers in other states, also those living in Western Europe. They listen to similar music, follow similar fashion trends and adopt similar lifestyles. However, it is also true that they also indeed still live in a reality (political and economic) that has not cut off from its Soviet heritage and Soviet elements are still widely present in the public space.

These social changes have yet remained almost unnoticed outside Belarus. As a result, until recent protests the country was covered by the dust of the old thinking which is based on such simplified dichotomies as “Soviet vs European”, “democratic vs authoritarian” “free market vs command economy”. The luring advantage of such mental short-cuts is that they easily convey elements of a very complex reality. For those who do not want to apply intellectual curiosity they are a perfect, simplifying tool. Yet one that also does not fully explain the ongoing protests that should neither be called as pro-West nor anti-East. Or more precisely, when we take a closer look at what the demonstrators are expressing from the very first moments of the protests, we see that their demands are truly pro-Belarusian. As of now, the future of the Belarusian state has not been decided upon. Its final shape is still under way and will depend on many factors. It may take the form of a western-style liberal democracy, but it may also take a form of a strictly Belarusian system, one that will combine some elements of the old with the new.

For sure it will not be a product of the old opposition. The truth is that the protests which we have been observing only now confirm the old dichotomy between the democratic (read: opposition) and the authoritarian (read: the regime) side also failed and is of no explanatory value. This issue was discussed by Maxim Rust on the pages of this magazine many times. It also demonstrates another serious problem in international relations discourse. Namely, too much emphasis is put on geopolitics and formal institutions. As much as these factors play a role in political developments, which we do not question at all, focusing only on them, can overshadow other equally important elements of social change. Including those which actually lead to non-violent protests and revolutions.

For this reason, we propose that the thinking about Belarusian political change, which is underway now, should be removed from this binary trap. Even categories such as the division between the opposition and the authorities should be placed on a wider spectrum and not just shown as “authoritarian and brutal” versus “democratic and peaceful”. Experience from other countries in the region shows that once political change is achieved, new information can also emerge about the behaviour of some individuals and their actions during the revolution, which can significantly disturb the image of both sides.

No ready answers

These processes are also at play in other post-Soviet states. The division between national language and Russian, for example, explains, or gives hope to, the process of nation-building. Consider Ukraine, where there are many Russian-speaking Ukrainians who feel Ukrainian. In Belarus, speaking Russian does not necessarily prevent many protesters from feeling Belarusian. Many of them have opted for the white-red-white flag, recognise the need for their state’s independence and disagree with the forged elections. They also want to live in a country that will not limit their freedom and allow them to economically prosper. Just like the protesters in Ukraine in 2014, Belarusians “want to live in Europe, or like in Europe”.  If the Ukrainian lesson teaches us anything, it is actually that there is a need to abandon this binary thinking. The country’s latest democratic choice is a perfect example of this. Yet trapped in the dichotomy of “Maidan vs anti-Maidan” many western analysts are still failing to understand why as many as 70 per cent gave a chance to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

 There is, thus, a need to abandon this approach also in the scenarios of what is next for Belarus. As mentioned earlier, while it is too early to tell whether the statehood of this nation will take the form of liberal democracy or something else, any speculations or scenarios can be proven wrong as long as we obsess with obtaining ready answers for the here and now. Here too the thinking in terms of “before” (the elections) and “after” (the revolution), which is binary and – as we argue – wrong and misleading, is a useless mental exercise. Belarus will most likely choose a path that we may not have seen in other post-Soviet states. It might be a form of a hybrid system with heavy elements of democracy, but also some remnants of Lukashenka’s times. As we learnt from history, neither people nor their states change overnight. That is why imposing any form of system on Belarus that is not rooted in its history and contemporary experiences may end up as disastrous as was the “introduction of democracy” in Iraq by the United States in the early 2000s. The truth is that the process that is now under way in Belarus is unique. After over five months of protests we have no illusions that this social expression of discontent is something not seen in the region before.

In terms of the slogan of “unexpected revolution”, mentioned at the beginning of this piece, both of its elements can actually be questioned and maybe replaced. We have already explained the problem with the “unexpected” but also the word “revolution” requires some clarification. It was used again as a useful phrase to describe the upheaval, massive in its scale, that started in the early summer of 2020 on the streets of Belarus. Without a doubt, the mental change of the Belarusian society as a whole is revolutionary, especially in the context of the last 26 years of political life in this state. However, can we call it a revolution of the Belarusian people? This is more complex and ambiguous. Looking at the discourse of both researchers and analysts, we see that some of them who not that long ago would willingly use this term are now more critical and careful in its application. Indeed, we still need to wait some time before we get an answer to the question as to whether the real revolution, in an institutional and systemic sense, is taking place.

Values

The expectations of many casual observers that these protests will soon change the face of all of Belarus have not yet been realised. Right now the protests, which are still ongoing and will most likely continue, are quite different from what we saw two or three months ago. In a sense this can be explained by the fact that in the late summer and early autumn, Belarus suddenly jumped from the period of obsolete post-Soviet political life to post-politics with its post-truth and other elements that may not have existed in the ideologically-shaped epoch of omnipresent state propaganda. What results can this change bring? At the moment, nobody can be sure; just as much as not many could predict the changes that started to take place in Belarus in 2020.  

A separate analysis should be undertaken in regards to some journalistic clichés, including that of a “Belarusian national awakening”. It is clear that for the western audience, but also those who live in Central and Eastern Europe, this is a highly clickable headline. Does it yet reflect the truth? Does it reflect the understanding of this term among the Belarusian people and the wider society? In our view, overusing this term in reference to Belarus is superficial. The issue of Belarusian national and state identity, the sense of belonging to an ethnic community, requires a separate study. However, it is clear that what the 2020 protests have also revealed is that values such as “society” or “political nation” seem higher for Belaruisans, than “ethnicity” and “ethnic nation”.  This of course does not mean that the now emerging national identity, which is based on social solidarity, will not have an impact on people’s understanding what does “Belarusian” mean. Most likely, it will drift in a direction of modern European political nation, and not ethnic nation.

Returning one more time to the issue of how “unexpected” the revolution was, we should yet ask a serious question: would people really come to the streets in Belarus had the authorities not ignored the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic? Had the regime been more responsible and took the health of citizens more seriously, would such large-scale social mobilisation have taken place? And the unprecedented political activism? Or even later – had Lukashenka been more responsive to social moods and not make the official results of the elections 80 per cent but rather 50-60 per cent, which could have been more difficult to call an “outright lie” – would there have been a “revolution” and “national awakening”?

Looking at these events from the perspective of January 2021 we believe that the answers to these questions are not so easy either. Instead, we ask a new one: Did the Belarusian society simply get tired of what it had for too long and the combination of election farce and mismanagement of the corona-crisis only added a new face to this popular discontent?

We do not claim that this is the case. We just want to show, based on the examples above, that the binary thinking in regards to Belarus is not as much incorrect as it is limited. The same can be said in regards to other post-Soviet states, including Russia, Ukraine or Moldova. By focusing solely on one dimension, that is political structures and geopolitics, we really miss the role played by other ones: social, cultural and economic. And, as we can see in many cases throughout the region, they play a key role in the ongoing transformation processes. The latter too requires a new analytical approach, one that would include an adjustment for the generational change that has clearly taken place. We are no longer in the early 1990s, the Soviet Union did not collapse yesterday (as a matter of fact, this year we will be commemorating 30 years of that event). In sociological terms, this is already a whole new generation.

All said, it is worth stressing that one of the results of binary thinking is a lack of critical thinking about the essence of changes taking place during “revolutions”. This is a result of the earlier noted dichotomy of “good” and “bad” and the black and white optic applied to the process of social changes.  Yet an obsessive attachment to the “end justifies the means” approach can become quite problematic as well. Think of Ukraine’s inability to tackle corruption, even six years after the Maidan. Thus, in regards to Belarus we should also apply criticism. As of today, there are already some signs that should raise a red flag. One of them is the protection of personal information, which was broken by the cyber guerrillas who revealed data of special services personnel, or the huge wave of hate speech and calls for violence that can be observed also in “pro-democratic” opposition chat rooms. We do not want to say that we do not understand the causes of such behaviour, but we also believe that problems of this nature should, in the end, be solved through peaceful means. Those who break the law have to be held accountable. And even if the end justifies the means, cases of self-inflicted justice, even at the time of a revolution, are not a good sign for a future democracy.

Iwona Reichardt is the deputy chief editor of New Eastern Europe. She has a PhD in political science from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

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 and lecturer and researcher at the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw.

analysis, belarus, Belarus protests, research