Creative Revolution. Belarus 2020
Creative Revolution. Belarus 2020
From March 25 to May 28, Art Station Dubulti in cooperation with the Belarusian society in Latvia "Supolka" offers the project "Creative Revolution. Belarus 2020". The exposition tells about the events caused by the presidential elections in Belarus on August 9, 2020, when the loser Lukashenko, using authoritarian power, falsified the election results, called himself the winner and ordered the power structures to use violence to suppress the democratic and peaceful protests.
For several days, Belarus turned into a battlefield. The Militia used sound and light grenades, rubber bullets and brutally beat people to death. Unarmed residents, avoiding direct clashes with the Militia and Omonians, began to gather in the yards of their neighborhoods. This is how one of the main phenomena of the new democratic culture of Belarus - the Protest Yards - were born. In large and small cities, urban micro-districts, residents of neighboring houses, who before did not even know each other, began to gather. The expression of protest was peaceful - people shared information about the arrests of relatives and friends, about how to provide help, made tea, sang and spontaneously held various lectures and conversations. The project "Creative Revolution. Belarus 2020" is dedicated to showcasing the new democratic culture of Belarus, its ethical principles, strategies and visual elements that used contemporary techniques. The revolution revealed that the democratic culture of Belarus is European, peaceful, with clear humane goals, and also convincingly demonstrated the rejection of entrenched patriarchalism. The role of women's solidarity and political activism is essential in this revolution.
The exhibition is structured by eight chronological stories in photographs, comments and practical attributes that took place in the summer and autumn of 2020 - the armed terror of the authorities against the peaceful protests, the peaceful demonstrations - the so-called Women's Marches and Sunday Marches, stories about the repressed and the phenomena of the democratic culture of Belarus - Protest Yards and the white-red-white Protest Flags, created according to the same principle, which confirmed the participation of various communities, institutions and individuals in the revolution. The exhibition will include the photographs of Yauhen Yerchak, Yauhen Attsetski, as well as other authors (their names are not disclosed for security reasons). On the second floor, the posters of the prominent Belarusian designer Vladimir Tsesler will be displayed. And the works of the internationally known ceramicist Hanna Miadzvedzeva. The works are provided with the help of the Littouwin Lions Club and Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center. Project curators - Inga Šteimane and Dzianis Davydau.
Opening of the project at the Art Station Dubulti - on March 24 at 18.30, but at 20.00, a performance of Belarusian singer. The exhibition is open every day from 9.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. On April 8 at 3 p.m., the artist talk with Hanna Miadzvedzeva and curators. Entrance is free. The exhibition is held as part of the events dedicated to the 105th anniversary of the proclamation of the Belarusian People's Republic.
The project is supported by Jurmala City Council and the State Culture Capital Foundation.
Intro by Inga Šteimane
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1# POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE
4000 detainees in 3 days. Mass beating of protesters and bystanders. Three days of night terror.
Belarusians have protested against the regime of A. Lukashenko earlier – in 1996, 2000, 2006, 2010, 2015 and 2017 – but the elections of 2020 felt differently from the very beginning. They started with thousands of people lined up at the stands for collecting signatures for the three main alternative candidates – a banker with more than twenty years of impeccable reputation A. Babariko, a director of one of the best technoparks in Eastern Europe V. Tsepkalo and a popular blogger S. Tikhanovsky. In earlier years Belarusians had doubts about how their other fellow citizens voted, now there were no doubts - A. Lukashenko had no chance to win these elections.
However, A. Lukashenko did not even try to do that. During the election period, there wasn’t a single real meeting with voters. Instead, Lukashenko repeatedly threatened voters from TV, warning that he, like once his Uzbek colleague I. Karimov, would not hesitate to use force and arrange “a new Andijan” for the Belarusian people (in Uzbek city of Andijan a crackdown on Karimov’s opponents happened, in which from 200 to 2000 people were murdered). Also, he was constantly meeting with special police units’ soldiers and other security forces.
Unfortunately, A. Lukashenko's threats came out to be true. As soon as on the evening of August 9, 2020, after closing of polling stations, thousands of people peacefully took to the streets of Belarusian cities to celebrate a new stage for their country, a war began.
The Internet was shut down in the entire country, thousands of security forces, well-organized, all dressed in black heavy protective gear, with shields and armed with military weapons, lined up in squares on the main streets and began to shoot at their own citizens.
They knew that A. Lukashenko lost the elections, but they decided that since they have weapons, their interests are more important than everyone else’s. Thus began the three black days. Every evening, thousands of Belarusians took to the streets to show that they were the majority, that they decided to change Lukashenko – and every evening the security forces were literally killing them with batons, rubber and real bullets. The detainees – more than 4,000 in three days – were transported in special trucks (“avtozaks”) to detention centers and prisons throughout the country. What was happening in those facilities horrified the whole country. Relatives and other people who surrounded the detention centers heard terrible screams of people being tortured and beaten to death from inside. Only the UN experts have documented more than 450 cases of torture during this period (many people were too scared to talk about what they have experienced inside afterwards).
2# WOMEN'S MARCHES
Women's marches in Minsk and other cities began on August 12, 2020 (the third day after the elections).
After brutal crackdowns and detentions, several women in white clothes and with flowers appeared on the square near the Komarovsky market in Minsk. They came up and laid the flowers in a line at the edge of the roads. Then, new women with flowers started to come and stand along the roads in a chain. With such a heroic performance in the time of terror, later called "Women in White", large-scale women's marches throughout Belarus began, then – general large-scale protest marches.
This marked a new phase of peaceful and creative Belarusian protest, which was based on an asymmetrical, aesthetically accurate response to the brutal aggression of the authorities. Women's marches were held regularly on Saturdays. With the beginning of autumn, Minsk females began to take white and red umbrellas with them, and in winter, the participants changed their white and red dresses for white and red coats and fur coats. The women demostrations were especially creative: the Brilliant March, where everyone was wearing sequins and rhinestones, the Loud March, the March in support of Masha Kolesnikova, when everyone came out with red lipstick on their lips...
The women's marches were in total opposition to Lukashenka's regime: gloomy, rude, cruel. Flowers are better than bullets, and love is stronger than fear – Belarusians have shown that brute force can be fought with soft force. For a long time, the security forces simply did not know what to do with the protesters, but eventually the level of violence increased, and the girls began to be detained. At one of the latest rallies, the security forces detained more than 400 participants.
3# SUNDAY MARCHES
Half-million march in Minsk and Sunday marches
The first march with half a million of protesters took place on August 16, 2020 – on the next Sunday following the elections. The march was the culmination of a week-long protest against the falsification of voting results in the elections, against the mass detentions of their participants and against the violence committed of the security forces. The protesters demanded the immediate release of all detainees, the resignation of the president A. Lukashenko and the lawful prosecution of the security forces who beat and tortured the peaceful protesters. The participants of the march gathered near the “Minsk – City of Heroes” monument on Pobediteley Avenue, filled the entire Victory Park that surrounds it, as well as all the surrounding streets.
People approached the place from different sides in columns with national Belarusian flags and protest banners. They carried two 100-meter white-red-white flags and chanted “Long live Belarus!”, “Lukashenko in the “avtozak!””, “Go away”, “Fair elections, tribunal, freedom for political prisoners”, “Lukashenko go away”, “Lukashenko is not my president " and etc.
The massive statue of Motherland, which is part of the “Minsk – City of Heroes” monument, was wrapped in a white-red-white flag - a symbol of protest, and a corridor was organized for protester to pass under the other flag. The protesters brought with them sound equipment and turned on the anthem of the Belarusian protests – the legendary V. Tsoi's song "We demand change!". One of the protest leaders M. Kolesnikova spoke to the assembled crowd: “ – 26 years of nightmare must end. He drowned the country in violence. This shouldn't go on. We fully support the program of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. One of the key points of the program is the holding of new fair and open elections. We know that the regime is ready to do anything to keep power. The events of the last week have frightened the current government... We will not rest, we will not stop until the current government resigns and Belarus becomes a free country...”.
After that, people moved along Pobediteley Avenue to the Government House. People marched in a grandiose procession to Independence Square, until they filled it completely, and only after that they began to disperse. According to rough estimates, from 300,000 to 500,000 people participated in that march in Minsk alone. Marches of solidarity on this day were held in all cities of the country.
4# PROTEST YARDS
Neighborhood organization. Events between marches.
Neighborhood chats began to appear on Telegram as a tool to gather people for a march or to organize a chain of solidarity in the area. On August 9, 2020 people first time in their lives made friends with their neighbors at the polling stations, where they understood that they all were like-minded people – everyone was either dressed in “political color” clothes – white and red, or wore a white bracelet on their wrists, or folded their ballot papers in a special way to visually control the percentage of protest votes in the transparent ballot boxes. All these signs meant that they voted against A. Lukashenko and for S. Tikhanovskaya (wife of S. Tikhanovsky, who step in in the election race for her husband after he was arrested).
Then, after the official announcement of the falsified election results, the neighbors came out from their building blocks to the protest marches, massively hung white-red-white flags on the balconies and in the windows of their apartments, and together ran away from the brutal security forces during the dispersals of peaceful marches.
Neighbors spoke among themselves in the language of suffering, indignation and solidarity. This is how neighborhoods or PROTEST YARDS arose. There were several hundred of them in Minsk alone. Lukashenko-led security forces organized large-scale punitive operations against them. Under the fear of firing or arrest, state utility workers painted over protest graffiti, cut off white-red-white ribbons, removed flags from houses and from ropes stretched between houses. OMON (special police forces) were braking into people’s apartments with illegal searches and kidnaping activists. In November, an act of state sabotage was committed against the entire Novaya Borovaya district: water and heating were completely turned off for several days. It was a form of Lukashenko's revenge for their free spirit and stubborn disobedience. The attack of the regime was not successful. It caused a powerful solidarity reaction of the whole city. The sufferings brought people closer together. People from all over the city brought water to the inhabitants of Novaya Borovaya, provided them with heaters and warm clothes, neighboring districts were ready to shelter them, their children and animals.
Art and culture were developing rapidly in these neighborhoods. Musicians and artists were organizing free concerts and theatrical performances in the yards among the buildings, people were creating joined entertainment programs for their children and were watching films together. They were drawing banners and graffiti for the next marches. It was in those yards where the idea of creating flags of their region or neighborhood was born. Performances and meetings very often ended with a joint tea party with pastries.
5# SQUARE OF CHANGE
Stories of Roman Bondarenko and Stepan Latypov.
"The Square Of Change" is a yard or neighborhood in Minsk, situated among several new high-rise buildings. The story of the protest in the neighborhood began with a protest graffiti of two DJs - Kirill Galanov and Vladislav Sokolovsky (you can see a reproduction of the graffiti in this hall) that was painted on a transformer box in the middle of the yard.
The graffiti became famous throughout Belarus as a symbol of the protests, therefore, employees of the state utilities companies, at the direction of their bosses, were painting over the graffiti every day. But by the next morning, or a day later, it was magically reappearing in the same place. In addition to that, the residents of the courtyard tied white-red-white ribbons on fences and street furniture (see how this is done in our hall).
Supporters of A. Lukashenko could not leave such activity without an answer. On September 15, 2020, special police forces broke in the apartment and detained the leader of the yard, Stepan Latypov. Stepan was severely abused after his arrest. Constant tortures in detention and the threats to use the same to his parents, made him to attempt suicide – to pierce his neck with a pen – right during the "trial" on him. He luckily managed to survive, but, nevertheless, he was sentenced to more than 8.5 years in a heavy- regime prison.
But the protests in the neighborhood did not end. Residents continued to go out every evening.
Then tragedy happened. “Volunteers” of A. Lukashenko, including that-time chairman of the Belarusian ice hockey federation D. Baskov and Lukashenko's own press secretary N. Eismant, together with riot police dressed in civilian clothes, began to visit the yard at night to "hunt for protesters." With several more cars with riot police on duty around the corner – to "reinforce" them in case of trouble. Residents tried to go out and non-violently defend their yard and its residents.
As a result, during one of such “hunts”, on November 11, 2020, A. Lukashenko’s supporters severely beat and took to the police station a resident of the yard Roman Bondarenko. In the police station (according to other sources in the hospital), without regaining consciousness, Roman died from the beatings inflicted on him.
For the disclose of the circumstances of Roman’s death, Lukashenko's “court” imprisoned the doctor who performed the post-mortem examination of Roman’s body - Artyom Sorokin - and a journalist of the leading news portal TUT.BY – Ekaterina Borisevich – for 2 years with probation and 6 months of real imprisonment, respectively. None of the people who beat Roman have ever been found.
6# REPRESSION. 40 000 DETENTED
Tougher repressions – 40,000 detainees. Constant growth in the number of political prisoners. Violence and torture in prisons. Partisans and the K. Kalinovsky regiment.
After a week-long pause, caused by the mass anger of Belarusians, who saw the people beaten in the detention centers, and the threat of a total strike throughout the country, A. Lukashenko and his apparatus returned to the strategy of retaining power in the country chosen before the elections.
Since the beginning of September 2020 with every day they began to harsher and harsher suppress any protest activity of citizens:
· strikes on major enterprises were calmed down through detention and torture of trade union activists and leaders of such movements;
· protesters on the main streets were detained and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, with most of the arrests happening either on the way to gathering places, or when the protesters were starting to go home, or at night – to minimize the chance of organized resistance;
· people who tried to organize for any violent methods of protest were identified through an extensive network of spies who were planted as security officials allegedly seeking cooperation, or through spies in every neighborhood, in every department, or through surveillance and analysis of negotiations and sent data – A. Lukashenko's regime had been always eager to spend money on the purchase of the most innovative foreign surveillance technologies.
In the first year of protests, the number of only official political prisoners (those who were not afraid to complain to international organizations through their lawyers, and those who were not falsefully charged under violent or non-political articles) exceeded 1,000 people. Over 40,000 people went through administrative arrests, beatings, and tortures. All oppositional presidential candidates who put forward their candidacies in the elections, and employees of their headquarters, received terms of imprisonment of 10 years and more "for trying to change the state political system through elections", "terrorism" and "organization of riots".
As a percentage of the population, these repressions exceeded those of Hitler in the 1930s.
Severe repressions against the population in Belarus continue today. With the beginning of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, A. Lukashenko's regime gave the country to Russia as a permanent military base. Although, officially, the troops loyal to A. Lukashenko do not participate in the battles, they provide training and comprehensive support to the Russian occupation troops. These facts forced a large number of Belarusians to take up arms. Sabotage against the Russian military infrastructure is regularly committed in the country, and several Belarusian volunteer military units, the most famous of which is the Kastus Kalinovsky’s regiment, are fighting on the side of Ukraine.
7# MERGING OF THREE COORDINATION CENTERS
Unification of the repressed presidential candidates’ headquarters. The role of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Public initiatives to monitor fair elections. The work of cabinet now. Support of the European Parliament (resolution).
When Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was registered as a presidential candidate, but none of the key favourites – V. Babariko and V. Tsepkalo – was, the three headquarters united and created a women's triad. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Veranika Tsepkalo (wife of V. Tsepkalo) and Maria Kolesnikova (chief of election headquarters of V. Babariko) began to travel together to the cities of Belarus and perform in front of people, gathering large crowds. Following the headquarters, almost all the rest of the Belarusian opposition united.
S. Tikhanovskaya did not leave the race even after threats against her children, and Veronika Tsepkalo quickly took her children abroad, depriving the authorities of the main trump cards against her.
Independent observation of elections in the usual format was impossible due to the obstacles created by the authorities. Independent teams of observers often worked on the street near the entrance to polling stations and were constantly detained. An independent platform “Golos” was also created, which helped to record electoral fraud. The idea was that after voting people could take a picture of their ballot and send that data to an independent counting system. There were cases when election commissions unlawfully forbade voters to photograph their ballots, but “Golos” was still able to prove that the announced voting results were untrue.
On August 10, the day after the elections, S. Tikhanovskaya was forced to leave the country. A video recorded in the building of the Central Election Commission appeared on the Internet, with her asking people not to go to protests. On the video she looked very frightened. Her departure did not reduce the dynamics of the protests, and most people did not criticize her for the video appeal, because it was clear that it was made under pressure.
Soon S. Tikhanovskaya continued her work from Lithuania.
Now she regularly holds meetings with the leaders of various countries, where she in fact performs the role of president and consistently defends the interests of the Belarusian people, convincing world leaders that it is important to distinguish Belarusian citizens from A. Lukashenko. In addition to the Office of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the United Transitional Cabinet (analogue of a provisional government) and the Coordination Council (analogue of a provisional parliament) are also working abroad. They achieved recognition from the European Union, several resolutions of the European Parliament were adopted in support of the Belarusian national movement. Veronika Tsepkalo left the country the day before the elections, because of well-founded fears for her safety. There was an attempt to forcibly push Maria Kolesnikova out of Belarus in early September 2020, but she tore up her passport at the border (which according to international law made impossible for her to leave), then she ended up in prison. The so-called court has sentenced her to 11 years in prison.
8# DISTRICT FLAGS
The phenomenon of the Belarusian protest flag (free play with traditional symbols)
The white-red-white flag has been a symbol of the Belarusian national movement since 1918 – it was the official flag of the Belarusian People's Republic. Modern illegitimate authorities in Belarus focus solely on the fact that it was used by collaborators who collaborated with the German occupiers during the Second World War. So, the national flag of Belarus, as once the flags of Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine, is banned in its own country and is called a nazi flag by state propaganda. Under this flag, Belarusians protested against the regime of A. Lukashenko for all the years, but in 2020 the use of the national symbol became truly massive.
But the protesters not only used the white-red-white flag, but also made flags of their cities and districts on its basis. This approach was criticized by the most conservative part of the protesters, but the majority saw the idea of self-expression and local self-identification based on national symbols as positive.
The longer the protests went on, the harder the repressive machine worked, and people raised flags only at the marches themselves, but as before, hid the cloths under their clothes while on the way to the march. Most often they wrapped the flag around themselves in the lumbar region - so it became less noticeable, and there was a decreased likelihood that it would be found during a check on a street.
Over time, the images of flags became more and more allegorical – people hung white, red and white towels to dry on balconies next to each other, put on clothes of appropriate colors. The police began to see protest flags in any combination of white and red colors – in the city of Dzerzhinsk a man was convicted of hanging the flag of Japan (a red circle on a white cloth), and in Minsk another man was detained for the fact that on his balcony there was a white box with a red stripe that once contained LG TV set.