Park of the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution. The lost fight

I risk bringing down on myself the anger of the indignant public and civil activists who entered the struggle to save the Park of the 40th anniversary of October Revolution. But! The situation is indicative, and it is necessary to study it.

I risk bringing down on myself the anger of the indignant public and civil activists who entered the struggle to save the Park of the 40^th anniversary of October Revolution.

But! The situation is indicative, and it is necessary to study it.

"You sit in cages because you say what you do not think,
and you think what you do not say. And in general,
all this bitter cataclysm, which I and Vladimir Nikolaevich see here..."

(The Fiddler. "Kin-Dza-Dza")

On Saturday, 25 February 2012, I attended the meeting of the Administration of Lenin District of Minsk with the public, which was dedicated to the situation with the Park of the 40^th anniversary of October. The context is such: there are plans to build the hotel "Beijing" on the territory of the Park, and therefore the Park is being destroyed now (the trees are being cut down; the territory is being developed). The decision to build it was accepted by the decree of the president and it is carried out with the help of Chinese investments. The inhabitants of neighboring street decided to save their park; environmental organizations, as well as a number of other public campaigns and initiatives, joined them, but failed to stop the process. On February, 16^th, the cutting of trees started again; the preparatory work to building the hotel began. The Saturday meeting was organized by the Administration in order to have a conversation (again) with the indignant public. I went there as my colleagues from environmental organizations had asked me, and within two hours I observed a quite sad situation. My sadness was caused not by the behavior of representatives of the state structures, but the general condition of the public and development of as though dialogue between two parties. The situation, unfortunately, repeats all classical errors of this kind of local civil initiatives.

First, the meeting was controlled completely by the Administration, it was organized by it, and it was developed according to its scenario. As Tatiana Novikova has formulated quite good, the purpose of the meeting was "to let people blow off steam".

Second, there was no uniform representation of the public. The inhabitants were isolated. Actually, there was no uniform position either from their party, or from public organizations. The general character of their statements was “cat's concert”. Uniform requirements were not expressed; there were only a number of (let even efficient) suggestions. Thus, even if correct things were voiced, as a result, all turned into a mess, and arguments simply extinguished each other. Leaders who speak on behalf of everybody, are absent at all. The amorphous mass speaks before the representatives of the state, and it is vividly proved by the way the physical space is organized (the presidium against the hall). Attempts of some people (Tatiana Novikova, Yaroslav Bekish, some inhabitants) to set a common position are not successful, and obviously they are not perceived by the majority as leaders (many people do not know them at all). For example, Yaroslav Bekish from the Green Alliance reasonably tried to deliver an ultimatum: either you answer our proposals and we begin a constructive conversation, or you continue to twaddle and then all of us will leave and we shall continue our struggle - but it brought no results. The Administration continued to prate, and everybody remained on their places. (Imagine how beautiful it would have been! The next state speaker starts to sing a song that "the decision is accepted", "the state interest", and all people rise and leave, leaving the “authorized persons” in the presidium with their opened mouths). It was obvious that the public had no variants of power pressure or any actions that would threaten the authorities.

In some cases it seemed that representatives of public campaigns and organizations simply tried to earn some PR by voicing the democratic rhetoric: we are society, we pay taxes; you (officials, deputies) owe us... They owe us nothing! They were appointed, and they owe only the higher institution, and they work for it. To force them to answer? - ok, try to do it!

Third, unlike the isolated mass of people, the Administration is consolidated; they accurately hold a uniform position; they support each other. Thus, they do not care a fig's end for the opinion of the inhabitants and ecologists as nothing threatens them, and that’s why they behave basically imperiously-boorishly (ignore questions, bulldoze the inhabitants, etc.). The only thing, which frightened the official persons a bit, was ideological questions such as "partisans had their parade in this park" (though I am not sure it scared them). They beat off all objections of the inhabitants quite well, even though formally ("all is according to the law", "the decision is accepted", we "will work", "all your offers will be transferred above", etc.).

Fourth, as it seemed to me, nobody from the public studies the general situation, i.e. nobody tries to foresee the development of the initiative; nobody considers the “win” - “no-win” situation. Everybody is either in illusions, or works according to the strategy "we fail, but we will more actively do the same things".

The conclusion is rather obvious - the Park will be cut down, the hotel will be built. I wish it were not like this...