An interview with Irina Solomatina by Luba Fein

I last visited Minsk in the late 1980s. One of the city’s most prominent characteristics was the almost complete absence of old buildings. Minsk was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II and rebuilt during Stalin’s era. Communist urban planning promoted the provision of housing for all at the expense of aesthetics. As a result, the revitalized city was full of workers’ housing, predominantly grey, homogeneous-looking buildings. Nevertheless, Minsk had its charm. Its avenues were spacious, the parks green and vast, and public spaces clean and well-kept.

When I got home, I told almost everyone that I had visited Russia. I was proud to visit Minsk, but no one in my country and perhaps in other countries too, had heard of Belarus at the time.

At the beginning of the millennium, the Belarusian waitress at a tourist restaurant in Greece reminded me of Minsk. “You must visit there again,” she said. “Lukashenko rebuilt it, and it looks completely different. Beautiful, well-kept, bright.” If I accepted the waitress’ suggestion and revisit Minsk, I would no longer have to tell my acquaintances that I was in Russia. Belarus broke into the public consciousness around the world in August, with riots and mass demonstrations against the backdrop of the election results. The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has been elected to the post for the sixth time in a row. The main rival to Lukashenko in the contested elections, Svetlana Tichnovskaya, fled with her children to neighbouring Lithuania for fear of revenge. With concerns about election fraud in the background, Belarusians took to the streets.

The demonstrations in Belarus have fascinated the whole world because of several characteristics, which set them apart from the other protests against the authorities. First, the courage of the protesters was rare and extraordinary. While Special Purpose Police Unit forces violently suppressed the demonstrations, the public continued to flock to the streets. Second, the protests had a remarkably peaceful nature. A friend of mine from Minsk told me: “In Belarus, the demonstrators do not react violently, no matter how much oppression they suffer.” Finally, female leadership is visible in the demonstrations. In the front of every protest march in Belarus you can see marching women sometimes with signs, and sometimes with flowers.

To learn more about the events in Belarus, I spoke with a local feminist leader and frequent participant in demonstrations Irina Solomatina. Solomatina is the Head of Council of Belarusian Organization of Working Women (since May 2019) and a co-author of the book “Women’s Activism in Belarus: Invisible and Untouchable” (in Russian), along with Victoria Schmidt.

Belarus is referred to in the world media as "the last dictatorship in Europe". Is this a dictatorship? If so - how is it expressed?

For me, "the last dictatorship in Europe" is a cliché or a simulacrum. In Belarus, we have autocracy and not a dictatorship.

What caused the current opposition to Lukashenko's rule? Was it dissatisfaction with the standard of living, employment, health? Was it citizens' criticism of the quality of government/lack of democracy?

There was a confluence of factors, including COVID-19 and the rapidly changing situation on the labour market, when even people in the public sector were transferred to part-time employment, thus causing job insecurity. Public trust in the government was undermined.

How did the current government deal with the corona crisis? Was a part of the opposition due to citizens' dissatisfaction with this treatment?

Yes, the situation with COVID-19 and the complete incapacity of the authorities affected people’s trust and undermined their loyalty. And here there is a gender aspect: in health care and social services in Belarus, 85.6% of the workers are women. They care for the sick at home and work. Despite being at a higher risk of infection, they were underrepresented in the media even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

April 2 was the Day of Global Media Monitoring (GMMP - assessment of the presence of women in the media). Due to the pandemic, GMMP monitoring has been postponed.  I have performed my own monitoring and found that on April 2, only male doctors appeared in the news on the four central channels of the Belarusian television as experts. Only in one piece of ONT (all national television), a nurse, Natalya Vorontsova from the Vitebsk Regional Infectious Diseases Hospital appeared in the frame, thanking the staff.

A few days later, I found out that on April 2, Svetlana Kiseleva, a 47-year-old head nurse in one of the departments of the Vitebsk City Clinical Hospital No. 1, who worked with COVID-19 patients, had died. Her daughter Svetlana reported that “my mother was not given either masks or glasses, only 15 grams of alcohol for disinfection”.

In many other countries, the contribution of women was praised. For example, Caterina Conti, a respiratory specialist from Bergamo, Italy, which became the epicentre of the pandemic, was featured on the cover of the April issue of the Italian magazine “Vanity Fair”. The American weekly “The New Yorker” featured a photo of a hospital, where the main subject was a woman in a medical uniform, gloves and a mask. She held the phone and communicated via video link with her husband and children at home. The readers could learn that women are significant contributors to the fight against the pandemic. By contrast, in Belarus, the news framing ignored women.

Only two states in Europe have never imposed a lockdown: Belarus and Sweden. Unlike Belarus, Sweden is a rich country that can afford such measures and bear the costs of the non - intervention. Moreover, they clearly explained what the threat was and what consequences it had for people. In Belarus, there were no consistent and strict protocols to educate the population about COVID-19. The President declared the pandemic was “psychosis”, which should instead be ignored. He suggested treating COVID-19 with vodka, sauna and tractors. On July 2, the government made an announcement: “... we do not reduce the intensity of the struggle, although today we can already say that we have won.”

In May, our NGO "the Belarusian Organization of Working Women" launched a poll "Women and COVID-19 in Belarus: needs and problems". At that time, there were more than 30 thousand people officially infected with COVID-19 in Belarus. As of July 7, there were 64,003 people - and this is the highest case rate among the countries of the Eastern Partnership.

In July, we stopped collecting the data. Among 1013 women who participated in the survey, 65% lived in Minsk, and 15.4% lived in regional cities; 83.4% had higher education, and 8.3% had secondary professional education; 33.8% worked in private companies, 18.3% worked in at state-owned enterprises, while 15.7% were self-employed. 36.7% of the participants lived with family members, who were at high risk of infection. 46.8% of all the participants worked in a field with an increased risk of contagion (medical staff, teachers, social workers and other). Out of them,6.2% rated their risk of infection as very high, 20.8% - as average and 9.8% - as low. 34.5% rated their health before COVID-19 pandemic as "healthy". The rest indicated that they had one or more chronic diseases. 20.9% of women suffered from mild illness during the COVID-19 period. 

Only 14.7% of women reported that they received clear and sufficient information about COVID-19. 51.5% of the participants had no information about the governmental measures to ensure the sustainable operation of the economy and social sphere in connection with COVID-19. 88.7% of women reported that COVID-19 had affected their psychological state. Of these, only 33% turned to self-help practices, and another 33% couldn't answer the question of how they deal with anxiety. Among self-employed women, 24.2% suffered from a decrease in income, 7.3% were at risk of losing business, and 9.8% closed the business. 

A more detailed analysis will be published by the end of autumn. Still, we can conclude that in Belarus during the crisis, women are vulnerable due to having insufficient access to medical services and financial assistance. There were no targeted psychosocial services for crisis response and recovery in Belarus.

In April, the ONT TV channel launched a viral video calling “to protect the elderly from direct contact with children,” while the second episode of the video was that the discussion about dangers of COVID-19 for the lives of the elderly. Working parents were advised not to take their children to their grandmothers so that the latter would not "burst like balloons". The video suggested as well to not discussing COVID-19 with the elderly over the phone, so that they, again, would not "burst". Both videos indicated that the population deal with the existing sanitary and epidemiological situation by their means.

In Belarus, the largest employer is the state, directly or via administrative units and state-controlled organisations. No measures were taken in favour of the private sector. Some female-owned businesses acted responsibly, though. The ZERRO offline store in Minsk was shut down and moved online. The founder of Belarus Fashion Week, the most famous private project in the fashion industry, adopted the same policy.

Closing international borders and limiting human mobility caused severe economic damage to the tourism industry, including agro-ecotourism. In Belarus, agro-ecotourism is a profitable niche for female entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Belarus, Irina Kostevich, said that the situation in the labour market is manageable; people have retained their jobs, although "forced underemployment has increased fourfold". The government adopted several decrees and resolutions to companies that were forced to reduce the working hours significantly, but the compensation was remarkably low.

Belarusian women are leading the revolution. What are the roots of female leadership? What are the unique problems for women in Belarus, which are different from the problems of men?

Since 2010, the presidential elections in Belarus have been followed by repressions against the critics of the government. However, in both 2015 and 2020, women made an actual storyline of the presidential elections. Let me remind you that in 2015 Tatyana Korotkevich was registered as a single candidate from the opposition for the presidency. In 2020 there were more women: Svetlana Tikhanovskaya (the wife of the detained blogger, owner of the “Country for Life” channel Sergei Tikhanovsky) and Anna Kanopatskaya (ex-deputy) have registered.

When the photo of the opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and her fellow leaders, Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo, later nicknamed  the “Three Graces”, was released on July 16 2020, social networks responded with outrageous misogyny.  The photo’s title was “Victor Babariko’s Headquarters”. Victor Babariko was another Belarussian politician, who decided to join Tikhanovskaya and not run for the presidency, and still, the PR photo bore his name. Second, the typical supportive comments were “the regime sucks so bad that even a housewife could become president” to “well, if those beauties run against  fat-faced bureaucrats, then I am all for feminism.”

In the media, the headlines were as follows: “Three women against Lukashenko”, “Time for women. Three parties united against Lukashenko,” “Never happened before: Three women against a dictatorship,” “A day with ‘Trinity’: The presidential candidate of Belarus and her comrades-in-arms”, “Female revolt”, “Will the joint headquarters bring gender equality to Belarus?” Maria Kolesnikova, the initiator of the alliance, said that the scenario was strategically planned, to pursue a common goal of changing the regime. The new headquarters adopted five principles: 

1. We call everyone to vote in the elections on August 9, 2020.

2. We will release political prisoners, economic prisoners, and grant the right to review cases in independent and fair courts.

3. We will hold a repeat election after August 9, 2020.

4. We will educate voters about the need to protect their vote in different ways.

5. We will urge everyone to participate in initiatives for fair elections, to become observers.

The candidacy of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a housewife who emphasized her maternal experience and love for her husband, was supposed to become an exhaustive argument. This “naturalness” of the family structure was immediately projected onto the model of the state as a large family.  Anne McClintock, a writer and a feminist scholar, suggested that the assimilation of traditional family structure - with a dominant father, a wife and their children - is the most efficient means of translation of the heteropatriarchal values that expects a woman to live for a man.

During the campaign, Tikhanovskaya, Kolesnikova and Tsepkalo mentioned social problems exclusively in terms of care (about husbands, children and Belarusians). In their rhetoric, there was no place for either feminist or gender agendas. Women rights’ issues, such as domestic violence and labour discrimination, were not mentioned. Neither was the fact that 85.6% of women were employed in healthcare and social services in Belarus, and they desperately need labour protection and better work conditions. Both the Lukashenko regime and the opposition leadership ignored topics like decent working conditions and job security for essential female workers.

The “Three Graces” and the men behind them ignored not only the gender topic but also the mere issue of equal participation of women. On July 22, Veronica Tsepkalo’s husband, Valery, said: “thanks to the efforts of the three headquarters, we can show everyone that even a housewife is capable of defeating him. We are going to create a Committee of National Unity, in contrast to a single government in our country. We share the opinion that we no longer want an erratic leader in power. “

Public discourse immediately feminized the protest, and the campaign of the “Three Graces” was full of symbolism of innocence and purity. The Belarusian press called Tikhanovskaya, Kolesnikova and Tsepkalo “girls” and framed their activism as a “sacrifice for their men”. The media compared “Three Graces” to the women in the Second World War: “Half of the male population died in the Great Patriotic War, and women had to take their place. The recent events in Belarus will become part of history as the first feminist revolution. Moreover, this is feminism in the normal sense of the word. And it became the turning point.”

The recent presidential campaign changed neither patriarchal myths nor gender prejudices; both remain among the vital elements of the Belarusian public consensus. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Victoria Tsepkalo and Maria Kolesnikova, like Tatyana Korotkevich five years ago, fought in favour of men who, for one reason or another, couldn’t participate in a political race. Women in white clothes with flowers, singing lullabies, meekly standing barefoot or even hugging police officers, are the most common visuals of the anti-Lukashenko campaign in 2020.  That is, the “female face” of the protests is primarily a media effect. Not many journalists are willing to discuss the real problems of women’s participation in politics and gender issues in the country. Even the headquarters are unwilling to discuss those problems, as the goal is to change the government by repeating the elections with alternative candidates - husbands and male associates.

As long as the opposition remains a hostage of the authorities, the gender agenda will belong to women, who help “their” men to fulfil their political ambitions. Women who sacrifice themselves in the name of hetero-patriarchal values, which they believe, harm not only themselves but also other women. Lukashenko represents the same values, insisting that he is the only “man” who can protect the Constitution, declaring in a gentlemanly way: “Even a man struggles to bear this burden. A woman will collapse, poor fellow.”

On August 21, a stylized image of Tikhanovskaya appeared on the cover of "The Guardian". She directed her gaze upward and held a white rose in her hand, a symbol of the peaceful protest. The visual glorification was reinforced by the title: "Flower power: the women driving Belarus's movement for change." 

An active protester, the artist Daria Sazonovich, visualized the white rose in her poster differently: The rose and a hand holding it were colourless rather than white because they bleed out. 

The artist interpreted her idea in the following way: “On one day of the rallies, I held such a white rose, which after several actions around the city became short and shabby. No matter how “beautiful” these peaceful actions with flowers during the day were, I couldn’t breathe at night, thinking about all this unprecedented violence.” Women in modern Belarus might be willing to be agents of the political transition to democracy, but their opportunities are questionable.

How would you describe the status of women in Belarus? What is the level of gender equality in employment, in wages, in the family?

In a certain way, being a woman in Belarus is good. Women are more educated and happier than men; they are more likely to be employed. However, the pay gap between men and women has increased by almost 30% over the past nine years. At the beginning of 2020, only 37.6% of all industrial workers were women, while in the service sector (culture, education, health care, consumer services, and transportation) 68.2% of all the employees were women.

On the one hand, the massive participation of women in the labour market in Belarus - 84% of women of working age are employed – allows women to earn money. On the other hand, the gap in wages (almost 30%) between men and women is associated with horizontal (sectoral, professional) and vertical (jobs) gender segregation. The “Belstat” data shows that the central sphere of female employment is the service sector. In this low paid sector, the wage gap is 15-25% while the wages are way smaller than the national average. The jobs in the “male” sectors, such as industry, are usually paid higher than “female” ones. The inequality exists even within the same industry; in healthcare, the Minister of Health is a man who has one male assistant and four deputies (two women and two men). That is, the prevalence of men on the upper echelons of power and management in the “female” industry - healthcare - is evident.  As a result, a full-time job can neither guarantee economic well-being nor provide workers with protection. During the crises and organizational downsizing, women are the first to be fired.

Another problem in Belarus is the influence of stereotypes that prevent men and women from developing personal skills, striving for professional growth and making individual choices. Stereotypes can be either hostile or seemingly harmless. For example, the stereotype of woman as a natural-born carer turns childbearing or caring for the elderly to a predominantly female responsibility. Belarusian mothers are three times more likely than fathers to engage in four or more activities with their preschool children, which provide knowledge and prepare them for school. Women are responsible for 75% of household chores. In Belarus, women are legally prohibited from occupying 181 professions in 42 working spheres, due to harmful working conditions that pose a risk to the reproductive health of women. 

Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Protection Alexander Rumak says that “maintaining [the list] corresponds to the state’s priority to protect the health of workers, especially women. We should protect female reproductive health.” But the state must protect the interests of all working citizens without exception, and not just women, who supposedly have a “more vulnerable” reproductive system. Why doesn’t the state care about men’s reproductive health? Life expectancy for men is ten years less than for women. In the country, 15% of the total number of couples are infertile, half of which is due to men. By emphasizing the protection of the “natural function” of women, officials show disrespect for the personal choice of working women in Belarus.

Belarus is currently implementing the European Union project “Employment, vocational education and training in Belarus”, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, the Ministry of Economy and the Institute of Vocational Education. The project aims to create a link between the supply of vocational education and the needs of the labour market. Within the framework of this project, a photo exhibition “She is on the Right” was launched - twelve portraits of women and their stories about how they became blacksmiths, foresters, milling operators, electricians, optical mechanics, rope coilers, welders, technicians, etc. It is worth noting that some of these professions are listed among the 181 occupations that pose a risk to women’s reproductive health. The external consultants who provide professional and financial support to Belarus are not worried about the list of professions prohibited for women. Lea Orro (Estonia), the project manager, states: “The aim of the project is to improve the link between employer, labour market and education to create better employment opportunities for young people and”. Olga Gudei, a communication advisor in the same project, said: “The example of our heroines proves that professional education can become the basis for obtaining a favourite profession.”

The paradox of the situation is that Belarusian women can learn a profession from the “list”, but they cannot obtain a job. More precisely, to get a job, they will need to wait until the prospective employers aren’t able to find male candidates. In this situation, employers will have to improve workplace conditions. Only the holders of “certificate of appropriate working conditions” are allowed to employ women. A woman can also become self-employed and ignore the “list”. Yes, there are women in Belarus who pursue their professional dreams, despite the obstacles. For example, Oksana Kirilyuk, a participant of “She is on the Right” exhibition, is a skilled blacksmith, whose success was not due to the existing system, but instead despite it. She is a heroine, but the project “Employment, vocational education and training in Belarus” neither facilitates her employment now nor in the future.

Another Belarusian paradox is the high rate of women in the National Assembly of Belarus, 40%. The global average representation of women in national parliaments is 24.5%. The international community highly appreciates the achievements of Belarus in the field of gender equality. For example, in February 2020, Ingibjerg Solrun Gisladottir, the director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE), stressed Belarus' readiness to uphold the rule of law and human rights. OSCE  organized three "Women Leaders" forums in the country, within the framework of the EU funded project "Promotion of Democratization and Human Rights in Belarus". 

Participants of the panel spoke about the obstacles that women face on their way to political participation at the local level: "Women often face humiliating remarks and attempts to undermine their authority as leaders". Before the elections, the President of  Belarus made a humiliating remark, not at the local, but the national level. I have already quoted Lukashenko: "Even a man finds it hard to bear this burden. A woman will collapse, poor fellow."

Lukashenko claimed that the primary responsibility of women at the decision-making level – is “decorating” the environment and disciplining men. “A third of women in a parliament make it stable. Men won’t behave like fools, won’t jump or run around - it is a shame in front of women. “Let me remind you that in 2004 Lukashenka for the first time recommended that 30% of women be introduced to parliament. It is symbolic that in the same year the newspaper “Sovetskaya Belarus” published an article about beauty contests taken under the “personal protection” of the President. The main argument was that only state-owned competitions could resist those “dubious events” with possible intention to sell Belarusian beauties into sexual slavery: “sometimes, under the guise of all kinds of castings, invitations to work in modelling agencies, there is banal recruitment of unsuspecting girls into sexual slavery. The high status of “Miss Belarus” is, first of all, insurance against fraud. The state ownership of the pageant is a part of our women protection policy. We struggle to make sure that our lovely ladies have the opportunity to fulfil their goals in their country. It is not accidental that the President suggested including at least 30-40 per cent of women among the deputies of the House of Representatives”.

In 2019, Miss Belarus became a member of parliament. Until that moment, the "miss" could be seen next to the President on official trips, at sporting events, as well as at the New Year's ball in Minsk, where Lukashenko and the beauty queen danced the waltz. All this depicted the well-built state ideology using both female human capital and female sexual attractiveness as a strategic resource of the country. Promoting certain women to the parliament at the personal request of the President was presented as a commitment to the idea of gender equality and democracy. In reality, there was a mix of manipulation and moral control over women by the authoritarian regime in Belarus. 

Protests against sexual and domestic violence are now raging all over the world. What's about Belarus? Is there any impact of #metoo or maybe some local movement?

There was no #metoo movement in Belarus, more precisely, there were several texts on the topic and an attempt to initiate a discussion, but it did not work. 

"Trafficking in Persons" report from 2020 mentions Belarus as a trafficking source country.  More specifically, the traffickers kidnap women from Belarus (and other Eastern European countries) to exploit them in the sex industry in the Western countries, like Germany. Is there a local opposition to this phenomenon?

The anti-trafficking movement exists in Belarus as well. The leading institution in this field is "Social Change", which implements the project "La Strada Belarus". The project's goal is to prevent sex and labour trafficking.

Have there been other expressions of female leadership in politics in the past?

In 2001, Natalya Masherova, a member of the then House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus and the daughter of the former First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, Peter Masherov, has become a strong rival of Alexander Lukashenko. She was expected to enter the second round, yet withdrew her candidacy even before completing the signatures’ collection. She explained her move by the lack of public support: “I have decided to run for the presidency to promote the third way of development of our country. As an independent candidate, I tried to promote the preconditions for elections not via creating opposition, but rather by consolidating our society. However, society is not ready for this yet”. She indirectly mentioned excessive political pressure: “I will not hide, many scenarios have developed without my participation, but they all have nothing to do with me. I do not want to live in a zoo and am neither a duck decoy nor a Trojan horse.” Almost 20 years have passed since Masherova’s attempt. This story, like many others, is hardly remembered.

From the late 1990s - early 2000s, the donors have been controlling the ideological expression of women’s activism in the “old” opposition in terms of content, choice of allies and political compromises. The subsequent period of pressure on women activists undermined their cooperation and the desire to act in the public policy space. Until now, apart from striving for symbolic leadership and participation in elections, female activists lack clear ideas about their own goals.

I have heard about a rampant routine of arrests and incarceration. Are women also imprisoned and beaten?

Women are much less frequently detained, and they are not beaten or tortured like men. I know this since my husband was beaten, and I went through all the stages of visiting the Investigative Committee and documenting the beatings. There were no women. But the detained women witness how OMON forces ("Special Purpose Police Detachment") beat men in the isolation wards, and this is a secondary trauma. In 2020 we all witness the process of political transition, not due to a change of political agenda in terms of women rights, but rather opening up a space for new political, social and legal opportunities. And the trigger for the change was the detention and torture of about seven thousand Belarusians from August 9 to 14.

After the Internet connection was restored in Belarus, and the detainees were released, social networks have been filled with photographs of the tortured protesters. An immediate public reaction was shock; Most responses highlighted the narrative of victimization and cruelty. People condemned the atrocities, sadism and brutality, atypical for Belarussian mentality. At the same time, effective legal mechanisms for handling the events have been lacking. The evidence of cruelty was probably enough to delegitimize the regime and Lukashenko, but not enough to understand the origins and consequences of the events.

Torture gains an unprecedented political role when freedom of speech is restricted for one reason or another. When a political regime violates freedom of speech, it persecutes not only people who express their opinion but also those who choose to be silent rather than representing a favourable attitude. If one listens attentively to the testimonies of the detained and tortured protesters between August 9 and 14, the double restriction of freedom of speech is evident.  I have posted on FB: "Tonight the volunteers dropped my husband to home, he was released without laces, without a mobile phone and money ... while beating him, they asked the question "Will you still go to rallies?". People who didn't remember the dates of the beginning of the Second World War and the words of the Belarusian anthem were treated with more cruelty. Those who remembered had to shout out the text so that others could repeat loudly.

The detainees were tortured in front of each other, forced to sign a confirmation of the preventive work carried out, and the “re-educated” victims were released to manifest the educational success. Torture was combined with intimidation and disorientation by the moral justification of such measures. They were framed as a powerful means of re-education for immoral non-patriots. The same narrative legitimized the institutionalization of torture in Chile. OMON tortured in the cruellest way people who wore artefacts of underground communities, such as dreadlocks. Citing my husband’s statement to the Investigative Committee: “In the police van, one of the police officers showed the detainees a knife and shouted that he could cut the throat of any detainee. Later, he noticed a protester with long hair and began to cut his hair with a knife. The officer demanded everyone to shout before leaving the special van: “I love OMON.”

Historical parallels between Latin American regimes and police violence during Lukashenko’s rule reflected in the struggle for justice for victims of torture as well. Those who are trying to pursue the legal path by initiating a criminal case against the police and OMON face numerous formal and informal restrictions. For example, only two private specialists throughout the country can perform the necessary forensic medical examination, thus making a paid forensic analysis nearly unavailable. Most victims can choose between contacting the Investigative Committee for a forensic medical examination and contacting a health care institution, which allows them to submit an application to the police department and the prosecutor’s office to appeal against the action of law enforcement agencies. But health care institutions are in no hurry to issue medical documents, referring to the fact that they do not have a traumatologist, and the police department says that at the moment all investigators are busy and offer “to come later”.

At the same time, the public reaction to mass detentions and torture are predominantly based on glorification and inclusion of the narrative of suffering into nation-building. So, on August 21, in her video message, Maria Kolesnikova defined the first weeks after the elections “as progress that takes hundreds of years for other nations”. The positive branding of Belarusians as a solitary and mature nation in the rhetoric of the opposition resonates with the public discourse of the current government. Thus, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei asked the West not to impose sanctions, which he defined as harmful to the natural formation of a nation: “We will lose the rhythm that our countries and societies need, especially in the modern world. We have a difficult situation now. But which of your countries has not gone through painful stages of national maturation? Let us pass it too because it is everyone’s interest: Belarus, Europe, and all of Eurasia. I ask you to think about it without emotion.”

The personal experiences of victims of repression and cruelty are appropriated by those who use torture for their public capital. The alienation of the victims’ experiences is compounded by the minimal opportunity to involve international organizations in the restoration of justice. And here I again want to recall Ingibjörg Solrun Gisladottir, Director of the ODIHR, who praised the cooperation of the Supreme Court with the OSCE / ODIHR. She praised the ODIHR project “Promotion of Democratization and Human Rights in Belarus”. The infiltration of any public initiative by the state is one of the main results of 26 years of Lukashenko’s rule. However, the collapse of civil society as a consequence of such a policy remains on the sidelines of analysis. The question is whether we can find our way to remember so that the practices of collective memory not only become a source of delegitimization of regimes but ensure justice.

What are the chances that Belarus will have a different leadership soon? Maybe female leadership?

Women have no chance of being full-fledged political agents, unfortunately.

Luba Fein

September 2020