28 March 2024, Thursday, 13:08
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

Sasha Filipenka: The Leaders of the Belarusian Protest Are People Who Take to the Streets

1
Sasha Filipenka: The Leaders of the Belarusian Protest Are People Who Take to the Streets

A Belarusian is a Belarusian to a Belarusian.

The writer Sasha Filipenka in an interview with Radio Svaboda spoke about the change of generations in Belarus as a factor of protests, changing the format of protests as a factor of their effectiveness, and change of the era, which as a factor of the authorities' defeat that they don't notice.

"If we take so long to change something, then later everything will change just as slowly in the other direction"

- In early September, in your interview with Radio Svaboda, you said that the victory is already for the Belarusian people, and we need only to wait a little. Did you suppose then that everything would drag on for so long?

- Probably, we need to separate what you hope for and what you are really ready for. Of course, we all wanted it to happen quickly, like in Kyrgyzstan. Now, among our friends, we joke that the Belarusians can last longer than the Kyrgyz. In that sense, I think it's good. We see how the government is changing very quickly in Kyrgyzstan, but it changes through a revolution. And now we believe that if we take so long to change something, then later everything will change just as slowly in the other direction - after all, it's freedom and democracy we are now all trying to get. Of course, I would like everything to happen faster. But, on the other hand, we see examples of other peaceful revolutions and understand that we are going now at a very good pace and on a very good schedule. As before, I have no doubt that, strategically, we won. Tactically, it is now clear that it is necessary to make a little more effort and have a little more patience.

- What, in your opinion, is the main obstacle for people to achieve success? Some criticize Belarusians for excessively peaceful protests, but this is said by foreigners, viewers from outside. On the other hand, Sviatlana Aleksievich says that if the Belarusians take up arms, it will delay the victory.

- I think so too. I do not really understand the mechanism of people who propose to take up arms and seize power with it. And what do they see after? People who will take power with weapons, then lay them down and say, OK, now, let's do democracy? As far as we understand, such a precedent was once in Portugal, after two years of military intervention. Personally, I don't really believe in it. The statements of people who say that you need to take a weapon at any cost and urgently go with it to seek freedom are very strange. It seems to me that we have chosen the only correct way to fight in 2020, and we see that it works.

People are now saying that the protest is fading, that fewer people take to the streets. In my opinion, now we need to pay attention not to how many people take to the streets, but to how many metro stations are closed and how many vehicles are brought. If we compare the number of people who took to the streets of Minsk with zero closed stations and zero security forces and water cannons, then we can say that the protest has died down. We see that it is transforming. We see that the idea has worked for people to come out in the courtyards and unite. Once again, we see how society is uniting from the bottom up. This is much more important. Some very important processes are going on. We see how stupid the authorities behave; we see that this is some kind of agony. For me, as a person who writes plays, books, and scripts, when they take a dramatic look at what is happening now in Belarus, it is absolutely obvious that this is the end of the play; the regime ends.

- Nevertheless, unprecedented repressions continue. Tens of thousands of people have suffered; there are maimed and killed. Many Belarusians are in a depressive mood today.

- I totally agree. I come to Minsk, see friends, go out with them. We are discussing the latest marches, as friends are unhappy, they believe that they are playing the role of a person who will be immediately tied up. They come out like cannon fodder, so they disagree with the march's organization and how to meet and where to go. But it seems to me that we are always looking for new ways. The idea of gathering in yards and walking in yards seemed to lie on the surface, but it took us a while to come to it. We are all ignorant revolutionaries; we have never done this before. This happens to us for the first time in 26 years. Everyone feels tired and a certain pessimism, skepticism, perhaps disappointment with politicians abroad and quarreling among themselves. But it's good that the protest is transforming. People help each other. If someone is tired and cannot go out, then other people come out who did not come out before. There can be very different ways of protesting, and it is not always necessary to take to the streets.

"In leaked conversations, we hear people who have completely lost touch with reality"

- When hundreds of thousands of people came out, it is obvious that people hoped for a classical revolution: the mass of people and the security forces are going over to their side. What is the essence of people leaving today?

- It seems to me that people come out who believe that we must show that we are, that the protest did not die out. We believed that the siloviki who swore allegiance to the Belarusian people, seeing how many hundreds of thousands of people will take to the streets, will go over to the side of the people. But we saw that the security forces swore allegiance to the person who seized power and not to the people. We see that the Belarusian army swore allegiance to this person, not to the Belarusian people. In this regard, what was supposed to happen did not happen quickly. But on the other hand, we see that the siloviki are leaving now; it is simply not advertised. We see that there are internal conflicts; they pour dirt on each other. We see their strife, how they behave stupidly. What chaos they have if they cannot arrange two minibusses to travel. It is sad that these people are at the top and rule the country and that we are all to blame for what we allowed before and that, for 20 years, we turned a blind eye to the fact that such people are in power.

On the one hand, these leaks testify that they have few people, that Lukashenka's press secretary cuts the ribbons herself, and that they are guarded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs generals. But, on the other hand, it testifies that they feel absolutely unpunished. They take the world champion Shakuta and think that they will get nothing for all this.

- They all will be brought to responsibility. It is a mistake of people when they think that, in 2020, when it is possible to record telephone conversations, leak them, they will do all this, and everything will go quiet. They will all be held accountable and brought to justice. They will be forced to defend themselves with lawyers or by themselves. It is a big delusion of these people that there will be no responsibility. They have lost touch with reality, and in general, all these conversations that we hear when they are real, we understand that these are conversations of people who have completely lost touch with reality. They do not see hundreds of thousands of people going out into the street. These are the actions of people who are in agony and who are cornered. Perhaps this way, they are trying to preserve the holding of the Ice Hockey World Championship because it is the most important thing for some. They absolutely do not see what is happening and try to keep their positions. Perhaps they have some kind of directive from Moscow that they need to stifle the protest by the New Year.

In this recording, it doesn't matter who blames whom, who delivered the last blow to Raman. It is important that these are some of Lukashenka's supporters who drink vodka from the bottle, sing "Sasha will stay with us," and blame other Lukashenka's supporters. It doesn't matter who exactly ends up in the dock for the murder of Raman Bandarenka. It is important that all these people are involved, and all these people support the regime.

- Why, in your opinion, did Bandarenka's murder stir up people more than the murders in August?

- It seems to me that all the murders are not forgotten. All caused a resonance. It is a matter of boiling, of what is accumulating. For more than 100 days, society has been demanding to be heard. Demanding peacefully, and in response to this, the government continues repressions. It is clear that it boils in people, especially because of how it was done. The guy dies in his own yard, not at the moment of confrontation with the security forces. We see that people come there who provoke him into a fight, and after, that they kill the person.

"In three months, everyone can figure out what is happening and who is to blame for what. Nevertheless, Aliaksandr Lukashenka still has a certain circle of supporters. What do you think motivates them to continue to defend him?

- There will always be people who will deny the obvious. I write historical novels and find a lot of documents in the archives. It always seemed to me that when you have a document with which it is impossible to argue, which has Stalin's signature on the execution, that is enough. There were people who said no; these documents were deliberately thrown into the archives during the Yeltsin era in order to slander the authorities. If you tell these people that there is an elementary description of the document, from which you can understand that it is real, they refuse to believe it. They are not ready to change their minds; they live comfortably with what they have heard for 26 years. They are afraid of change. They are afraid that all of us, who come out with white-red-white flags, will go through the entrances and begin to call all the "yabatka" followers to account. I think that motivation is different and cannot be generalized. Everyone is driven by something; someone is afraid of losing their salary, someone - believes.

My friends who ended up in the paddy wagon told me that AMAP officers with dilated pupils told them various nonsense that they hear from propagandists. This is not the same knowledge as the grain that has grown. It is something that comes to their heads from propagandists, and they repeat it like a mantra.

- Are there such people among your friends?

- No one. I think it is significant that I knew people who voted for Lukashenka in the last elections or before it. There were some grandmothers, grandfathers, great-grandmothers, some relatives. Now I do not know a single person in my environment who would support him. If you say there are many of them, then I'm wondering where they are.

- I did not say that there are many of them, but I said they probably are.

- Maybe. It is difficult to judge as we do not have accurate data.

"The Belarusian authorities simply do not correspond to the times. This is a dying species of mammoths"

- As a writer, you are an excellent observer. You called this revolution a moral and ethical revolution earlier. What happened that we are observing a completely different Belarusian people, about which many previously had a different idea?

- Time is changing. Another new generation of people has grown up who have never participated in elections at all. This is a large part of our society, young people who grew up in different conditions. As a child, I remember that I had to wait for one cartoon at 14.00. I lived in a paradigm that you don't always have a choice. Now we have a huge number of people who are constantly choosing. They watch YouTube, daily choose the clothes they want, movies, music, cars, they travel to other countries. And this generation in 2020 is being told that they have no choice. We see how technology influenced our choices. You can see in Telegrams, thanks to the Voice platform, who you voted for. I voted in St. Petersburg. There was a huge queue around the consulate. All these people talked to each other; they all came to vote against. And if they try to convince you in 2020 that it is still 1972, then you are outraged.

There is more going on than just a revolution. The Belarusian government, in the form in which it is, has outlived its usefulness. It just doesn't fit the time. It is a dying species of mammoths that may not be in 2020. Apparently, that is why it holds on so fiercely because it understands that it will be unnecessary in the future. All these officials are in mirrored carp-colored suits, salivating as they listen to Lukashenka. They understand that they will not be needed in the future, that they will have nothing to do in a country where referendums will take place, in a country that will strive to become an IT country. And these AMAP officers understand that they are not needed in the future in the new Belarus. This is a trauma for them because they will have to find a new job. They will have to become someone, get an education. They don't want to do this. This is a struggle of very old people who do not understand that the world is moving forward, not backward.

"For me, the leaders of the Belarusian protest are people who take to the streets"

- You said that the protest has no leaders, but there are still some leaders. I mean both Tsikhanouskaya and Latushka. How do you assess their performance?

- To be honest, I am not interested in all these leaders. I really want Maryja Kalesnikava to be free and all the people who are now in prisons to be free. I want Sanya Vasilevich to be released. It seems to me that this person has done a lot for Belarus. I am in no way belittling the merits of Latushka and Tsikhanouskaya, but I am not interested in their political struggle, which of them will be the prime minister, the president. Before the elections, I was going to vote against everyone since none of the candidates convinced me. But when I did "solidarity readings" and called on people for solidarity, I said that I would vote for Tsikhanouskaya, which promises new elections. This is the only thing I want that there will be a new election, where there will be a new candidate who will rather not convince me, and I will vote against everyone. As soon as our power changes, then I will immediately stand in opposition to it. The journalist and writer's role is not to bring about a change of government or to support it. Of course, we must give time for mistakes so that the new people in power have a chance to do what they have promised us. But I do not support anyone from those people who are now.

In general, I want to live in a country in which we would not know the name of the president. I don't understand why this is necessary. I spend a lot of time in Switzerland, and I understand that there are referendums that work - in every canton, or national referendums, where you can bring up the issues that concern you. I always try to find out from the Swiss who the president is in their country. Many do not know; they do not understand why this is necessary. You do not know the name of your local doctor or the name of the teacher at the neighboring school because everyone minds their own business. And the president must also mind his own business. I would like the Belarusian politicians not to divide the skin of an unkilled bear but to do what they need to do now and continue their struggle together with the Belarusians.

For me, the leaders of the Belarusian protest are people who take to the streets and who do something every day. They are people living in Novaya Baravaya, the "square of changes," or elsewhere. People who write, take pictures, Belarusian journalists. Of course, politicians who meet with Western politicians also do a lot, but I am rather skeptical of any politician in the world.

- How do you personally deal with depression and anxiety at this time?

– There are moments, especially when I come and go from Minsk, when it is hard, when it hits you. Then it is impossible even to watch movies; I understand that, for 100 days, I almost never watched a movie. I start, and I can't. I read something for work, and I can't do it. I try to save myself by playing football, running in the morning. But it is inspiring when you see that "a Belarusian is a Belarusian to a Belarusian." Other people inspire you, and when you get bored, they do something to make you feel better. Inspiring friends. We all now take an example from each other.

Write your comment 1

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts