BELARUS, YEAR OF 2008. STANDSTILL SITUATION’S ANALYTICS AND MONITORING

…I was catching a moment, but didn’t catch it, and only broke my watch.

Now I know that it’s impossible, just like it isn’t possible “to seize an epoch”,

because it’s the same moment, only a tad bigger. Another thing is if you say,

“Register what happens during this moment”. It’s quite another thing. 

For example, “One, two, three! Nothing’s happened!

I’ve registered the moment during which nothing’s taken place”. 

I’ve told Zabolotsky about it. He liked it very much,

and during a whole day, he sat and counted,

“One, two, three!”, and registered that nothing happened, too… 

                                                                                                                                                                                                       Daniil Kharms

Political analytics of the Belarusan “after 2006” situation reminds very much this joke of Kharms – one, two, three… and we register that nothing has happened! The last presidential election became an original symbolical line when the situation in Belarus changed qualitatively, being influenced by long-term tendencies. Vivid topical events are no longer helpful to essentially understand the situation, or to act adequately and effectively in it. The big time lag where essential changes are possible, makes our situation “closed” – a standstill situation. None of today’s actors or subjects of the political field corresponds to the scales of these long-term tendencies (1); they have no opportunity either to influence their development, or to avoid these tendencies’ influence on them. The regime keeps “Cubanizing”, the opposition keeps “Yasser-Arafatizing”, while civil society keeps being in a torpor (2). 

(1) Here, we only talk about the correspondence of political and social institutions in general, in their historical development, but not about their concrete embodiment. 

(2) The long-term tendencies of Cubanization, Yasser-Arafatization, and civil society’s passivity were described by the Humanitarian Techniques Agency’s analytics, spring – summer 2006. 

If the 2004–2006 “open” situation gave independent civil forces certain chances, then today there are no such chances; they are hopelessly missed. We shall not consider why; it is already well enough described; let’s just “register” the current moment – nothing happens in Belarus’ political situation! It may seem an épatage-esque declaration, but even the July explosions and September parliamentary election cannot have more influence on Belarus than flares in the sun. 

The typology of “open” and “closed” political situations is not canonical for political science, but it allows us to understand and distinguish something in the structure of today’s moment. This division’s basis is a relation between the situation and the subjects working in this situation. 

Socio-historical situations do not exist per se. It is always somebody’s situation. There is always someone (an individual or collective subject) for whom these concrete circumstances are a situation of his/her activity, and it is his/her subsequent actions that determine all further development of the situation. In a reduced view, it was illustrated in the positions of dialectic materialism which said about “the appearance on the historical stage” of new public forces (bourgeoisie, proletariat, etc.) and about their “performance” or “nonfulfillment” of their “historical role”. For vulgar Marxists, such subjects’ role and actions are always predetermined by historical regularity, which is completely not obvious to us. One’s ability to perform or not to fulfill a historical mission is substantially defined by thinking and will of actors working on the historical stage. Well, let’s not delve into these questions; it is only important for us here to emphasize the correspondence between situations and subjects working in them:

– a “situation” appears as such only concerning a certain subject of action,

– the situation has certain requirements to working subjects,

– the subjects’ actions determine situations’ development. 

A situation is “open” when there are subjects who understand the given circumstances as “their own situation”, who correspond to the situation’s requirements and have “access” to it, thus being able to productively act and change the given situation. The situation is “closed” for those who do not meet the situation’s requirements and cannot have any essential influence on it. They become the situation’s background, an element, or scenery for the action played by other characters. 

A change of situations in the country can be presented as a change of requirements to the subjects of action, their forms of organization, types and ways of activity. All new circumstances “open” up opportunities of action for these or those political subjects so that they could add their contribution to the situation’s development and the country’s future. It seems simple, but it is important to distinguish one’s own and somebody else’s situations and to be ready for the mobility of forms and ways of action. Political activity’s norms and principles can remain the same, but concrete historical forms of politics’ implementation are always different. It is ridiculous, for example, to ask why Athenian Metics did not create a party of national minorities and did not demand a place in Pericles’ government. Since 2006, Belarus’ political parties are also an anachronism, but in this case nobody laughs. It is flexibility of thinking and organization that is the most difficult thing to adopt in the Belarusan political field. 

It is quite clear; in fact, if one working subject has conceded his/her place, i.e. the leading role, to another, then the former has not stopped existing, has not disappeared, and has not evaporated, – he/she can keep his/her activity; however, he/she has no influence any longer on the course of the political process; for him/her, the situation becomes “closed”. It is possible to keep considering the minor player to be the main one, and it is only a matter of time that both little kids and adult serious people admit that “King is naked”. The function of criticism, public debate, expertise, etc., which is built in today’s democracy, puts everything in proper trim, but when there are no such institutions of publicity, one can stay in illusions for a long time. 

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Let's try to present the country’s political history as a change of “open” and “closed” situations and accordingly a change of types of working subjects for whom these situations are given as “open” or “closed”. First, we shall review only the subjects whose positions, decisions, and actions allow them to define the country’s future. Actually, such positions are political, in a full sense of this word, as they define politics. More often than not, each situation is determined by a “struggle” of two basic subjects who try to influence its development. 

The time of the struggling “people’s fronts” and old nomenklatura elites of the 1980s – early 1990s gave both of them some chances to define the country’s political future. They played the leading roles on the political stage. The State Sovereignty Declaration, market reforms, Belarus’ own money and its own institutions of government, – all these key decisions for the country were results of the struggle between the Soviet nomenklatura and the Belarusan People’s Front. These two political subjects’ understanding and settings were defining the future of the country. 

However, in 1992–1993 their time was irrevocably lost; their “open” situation was over; and other characters had reached the political stage. The years of 1992–1995 are the time of open opportunities for practically any small groups organized by new principles, with new, unusual for Belarusan society settings, purposes and, the main thing, ambitions. That was the time of the biggest social mobility. The Soviet economic, political, and legal institutions’ disintegration and a parallel development of new relations had resulted in a temporal decentralization of the country’s authorities. Old hierarchies and the power monopolies had broken up; new ones were not formed yet; the borders between layers and strata were easy to cross, which made it possible to enter without difficulties the structure of elites and to carve out fast careers. The main characteristic of political subjects for whom the 1992–1995 situation was “open”, was the mobility and flexibility, first of all, of organization. It was clearly understood by the group who promoted the young and ambitious delegate of the Supreme Soviet, A. Lukashenko, as their candidate during the first presidential election in 1994. 

Having achieved the power, this group did its best to restrict the mobility, thus concentrating and centralizing their authority. By 1995, access to the positions of influencing the political situation became significantly complicated and not possible for everyone. Now, in order to enter the political stage, one needed big concentration of resources and big organizational discipline. At that time (in the situation of not enough steady authoritarianism of 1995–1999), the biggest weight belonged to political parties and other formally organized political subjects. It was the time of their mass growth. Still, the increase of authoritative tendencies, the old Council’s crackdown and castration of new Parliament’s powers, free elections institution’s liquidation, independent mass media’s gradual abolition, and the public field’s collapse had resulted in the situation when parties had lost their leading political value. The first sector became state-run and indistinguishable from the state management. No space of activity was left for political parties and political leaders; all this space was occupied by the state. In 1999, the well-known political dialog organized by OSCE, was the last chance for the party opposition, but it did not manage to take advantage of it. The political space as a space of conducting common causes, was actually canceled and reduced to decorative and ritual actions. 

Since that moment (2000), the baton is passed to civil society organizations; that was a beginning of an “open” situation for them. Politics is transferred to the third sector since that moment, where there are subjects independent from the state, with their own political interests. However, the organized structures of civil society, as well as the political parties pushed into the third sector and curtailed down to the NGO level, did not manage to break the course of the political process and stop the growth of nationalization and authoritarianism. The joint democratic opposition consisting of party structures and those of civil society, headed by a joint candidate, could still have some sense in the 2001 situation (in the situation of ironclad authoritarianism), but it was already completely useless in the situation of the 2006 election (neo-totalitarianism). During the last presidential election, organizations and formally organized groups of civil society did not have any longer the value they used to have in 2000–2001. During five years, organized civil society was split, demoralized, and deprived of lawful sources for their existence; the situation was “closed” for them. 

Belarus’ last chance to have its own “color revolution” was still possible till 2006. However, in the 2004–2006 situation, effective activity needed concentration of resources and will of all subjects independent from the state, organized and non-organized, formal and non-formal ones, and even those of separate individuals. Still, it was already impossible to achieve it by then existing institutional forms (3). In order to gain access to resources of “wide” civil society, it was necessary to be reorganized in a decentralized social movement characterized not by a precise organizational form, but a common strategy of actions and common goals. The 2004–2006 situation was open only for such a form as a “movement”. The fact that such a movement was not created, became the reason of a shattering defeat of all democratic forces of Belarusan society in 2006. 

(3) Its bright parameter is that during 2004–2006 there were a lot of new youth real and virtual groups and organizations who expressed openly their mistrust to the traditional political parties and NGOs. 

Nowadays, such a “moving” organizational form (and in particular, the Movement (“Rušeńnie” in Belarusan) organized in 2005 by U. Matskevich) is deprived of an opportunity to be what it was (let alone, what it could be) in 2004–2006. After the election, the situation became “closed” for it, too. It is possible, of course, to pretend that it still can play a significant role as it does For Freedom Movement and A. Milinkevich, but it is far from being so (4). Unfortunately, neither then, nor now nobody has understood the very principle of a movement’s organization and its difference from other forms of being a subject on the political field. A movement per se has no expressed structural form; it is not a subject of activity. If a process is replaced by a certain figure represented by this or that organizational form, it destroys the very principle of a movement. 

(4) For Freedom Movement did fail to surmount the stereotype of organizational structures’ super-value and, as a matter of fact, did not become a real movement. Now, it does not differ from a usual NGO. 

Thus, for the latest 20 years, the Belarusans have lived through a change of several types of political situations: the democratic transit (1980s – early 1990s), the period of quasi-democracy and an open political struggle (1992–1995), institutional political confrontation (1995–1999), institutional (1999–2004) and non-institutional (2004–2006) political confrontations of the state and civil society, the period of cultural-political confrontation (since 2006). The characters of the political stage have accordingly been varying. 

For the sake of demonstrativeness, we shall present the above-mentioned information in the following table: 

Table 1. “Closed” and “open” situations ** 

At the moment, we actually have such a situation where none political subject, except for the power group, can determine the course of the country’s development. In such situations, subjects for whom the situation is still open, are “dissidents” – intellectuals with an active cultural-political position. Right now, in Belarus nobody has such a position. That is, intellectuals as if exist, but everything happens “without them” (V. Akudovich). Their “as though presence” changes nothing; none of them has any sufficient weight and status to be able to influence the situation. However, no matter how sad the situation may seem, it is only them who still have a chance to act, and it is only them whom the future of the country depends on. Civil society has lost its struggle for itself, having completely obeyed the state, but for dissidents the situation is “open”. The battle line has transferred to the cultural-political level; right now the political fight is being developed in the space of knowledge, thinking, ideas, and persons; and those who act in this space (from poets to scientists and philosophers) become the main subjects of the political process. 

Inertia of perception and self-perception 

Let's generalize what has been said above. “Shake the tree when the fruit is ripe”, everyone has their own time, and if you have lost it, you will not catch it. For their development, new situations demand new forms of activity organization, different from the previous structures and organizational forms. The trouble is inertia of perception and absence of reflexion and adequate analytics, while actors outside of the history’s track still think they are leaders. A textbook example is our oppositional political parties. All of them (as sung by S. Shnurov and his Leningrad band) “got stuck in their time and can’t get rid of this burden”. Sometimes, it becomes really funny; only those who misunderstand their place and role in the current situation, can do something like the following, “the United Democratic Union has demanded from the authorities…”, “Labiedźka (Lebedko) has delivered an ultimatum to Lukashenko…”, or “the Belarusan People’s Front sets forth conditions to the authorities…” (http://charter97.org/ru/news/ 2008/8/9/8862/) 

The external subjects have the same illusions concerning Belarus. The international community thinks the situation is still the same as it was in 1996–1999. For them, the basic event in the country is elections, the basic working subjects are parties, political coalitions, and other political subjects and their leaders. 

Both those who today in Belarus call themselves politicians, and the part of the international community who supports them, are lagging ten years in their understanding of the situation. It is not important at all who the leader of the Belarusan Social-Democratic Party (Hramada) is or the fact that Mikhalevich is expulsed from the party. Kozulin without the party and Mikhalevich as a “free radical” are much more adequate to the situation than they in the role of party functionaries. It is high time for persons; structures have no value and sense any more. 

Then, why cling to party and other organizational structures? Why try to register new parties and movements (For Freedom, Belarusan Christian Democrats)? In terms of influencing the internal situation, it is silly. But, taking into account the vacuum of internal resources and a desire to be supported by grants from abroad, it is important because the presence of an organizational structure, preferably a legal one and registered by the state, raises considerably chances to receive support. It creates a vicious circle: Belarusan politicians and analysts provide the West with inadequate knowledge – the West, being based on this knowledge, creates programs of support – Belarusan politicians ground their actions on these programs. 

As a result, the situation is conserved and re-reproduced in the same way. The authorities are much more modern in their representations about the situation, which allows them to be ahead of their opponents, i.e. the European Union and Belarusan democratic opposition. 

About the explosions, election, and other “events” 

Using the knowledge of open and closed situations, we shall try to understand what is taking place right now in the country, which events are important, and which ones only raise a stink and cut a wide swath. 

While in general the situation stays still and the same, something, nonetheless, sometimes somehow happens. Mass media write news; blogs are full of debates and discussions. There is some effect of some dynamics; something seems to be changing, but it is a false effect, mirage. Let’s review the loudest fact of recent date – the terroristic act during the official Independence Day. How shall we know for sure whether it was or wasn’t at all? 

The f.a.q.s concerning this act of terrorism (“malevolent hooliganism” according to the official version): “Who has done it?” and “Who is the beneficiary?” The most reliable answer to these questions will be the same, “I do not know and I cannot know”. All other reasoning is nothing but groundless hypotheses and versions. Perhaps, today it is necessary to ask questions, being based on what already happened, – but it is something we cannot be sure of. These are the questions, “For whom has this something that happened, become an event?”, “Who and how has taken advantage of this event?”, and “How has it affected the situation in the country?” 

For whom has this something that happened, become an event? Generally speaking, events do not exist per se, separately from the one who perceives them and relates somehow to them; without this relation, it is possible to think that nothing has happened. We can notice society’s languid, apathetic, practically “none” reaction. There is neither fear, nor big unrest, as if nothing has taken place. Naturally, it is a tragedy for victims, their families, and friends. It was an event for those whose work is connected to news, first of all mass media. It hurt some sympathizing citizens. Well, of course, those who were to react because it was their “duty”, did react: doctors, law enforcement bodies, authorities (more likely due to ideological reasons, Independence Day, not an ordinary day), democratic activists – due to their proved fear of reprisals against them. 

Who and how has taken advantage of this event? This event has touched many people, but it is only the authorities who have managed to take advantage of it, converting it in certain significant actions and effects in several directions: to rearrange the power group, to create a situation of uncertainty, and to intimidate preventingly the opposition before the election. The second is the most interesting. Uncertainty as such is advantageous as it raises the general level of control over the situation and allows the power to undertake at any moment any radical steps, not caring about additional legitimization of these actions. It is obvious that there is a certain tonus after all this story, but it is very cautious: all are tense, but without a superfluous panic. There are constantly some incidents in the metro with forgotten stuff; there are odd “false composite pictures” of suspects; oppositional activists are being arrested and released, being accused of committing this crime; the common population are being interrogated in unprecedented scales… This uncertain situation “after the explosion” is most likely to be continued as long as its internal resource will allow. Then, it will be more difficult to keep this pressure, this is when someone will be incarcerated, or this “event” will be “abandoned” like it was in case with the Viciebsk “incidents”. 

How has it affected the situation in the country? Has the habitual rhythm of life been broken? Obviously no, as if again nothing has occurred. 

The approaching election has even a smaller charge of newsworthiness and opportunities to change the situation. Whatever decision any figures of the opposition are going to accept: to participate in this election, or not to participate in it – it will not affect the situation as a whole. As if there is no election at all, almost everybody agrees: 

“The streets are silent (the echo of the Minsk explosion has calmed down). In buses and metro, there is the same silence usual for Belarus. Walls are clean. Mailboxes are littered with the usual advertising stuff. Even in kitchens, there are only sluggish conversations. There is no election. They are not present in REAL life. They can only be found on web-pages.” // A. Alexandrov. Boring election (http://baj.by/m-p-viewpub- tid-10-pid-46.html) 

The election starts to get a certain illusive value only if it is analyzed by some external factor, e.g. the West. Besides political prisoners’ liberation, the transparency degree of the election procedure is another negotiable subject of the Belarusan authorities and the EU. However, the regime’s level of control over the election process allows it to carry out elections with any adjustable level of transparency. It can allow these or those concrete alternative candidates to enter Parliament, or it may decide not to allow them to be elected, – all in all, it does not matter as it influences nothing: 

“Eventually, it does not matter where the regime will recognize the opposition’s existence – at the level of several oppositional parties, or at the level of several oppositional delegates. It will not mean the oppositional ghetto is over – just a transfer from one cell to another. Our Parliament works nonpublicly, deputies there are as if imprisoned.” Yuriy Chausov. (<http://community. livejournal.com/nmnby/100333. html>) 

The election and political prisoners’ liberation is an opportunity to show something to Europe or Russia, and to somehow influence their actions concerning Belarus; actually, nobody speaks any longer about elections’ internal value. Still, it does have some value – not in national, but local scales which are limited to frameworks of interests of local elites, small groups, and separate persons. Someone, for example, will be promoted to Parliament from the post of a chairman of a regional executive committee, someone will take his place. It will change a configuration of local executive authorities, but the political system of the whole country will not feel all these local shifts. 

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In the end, the only subject of action on the political field of Belarus still remains the state, the power structures. Only for them, appearing circumstances are real situations of activity. To tell the truth, when there are no other subjects, it is no longer an actual political field and political activity; it is more likely activity of management and administration. Political analytics here has no real events or topics to discuss. Remastication of such circumstances, as a matter of fact, is not analytics at all. 

Then, where should analysts and those trying to change the country, direct their attention? In our description, the situation looks almost like “the end of history”, the end of all opportunities for action. Well, it is not like that, it is the end of another period; it is the moment when there is a change of the subjects for whom the new situation is “open”. In new conditions, it is dissidents. But if we say so, it is like saying nothing at all. When we discussed and analyzed the history of changing open and closed situations for the latest 20 years, we did it in retrospect. We had some empirical material and already happened, real events, and we only ordered them with the help of the suggested model of understanding and explanation. As for the current and future situation, we cannot do the same. 

When we talk about dissidents as new subjects of the cultural-political space, we assume and project such a position as the only possible one in new circumstances. This projecting is based on knowledge and, first of all, the knowledge of the Soviet totalitarian system’s conditions. The characteristic feature of such a position, which makes it a real subject of politics, is “to go for a rise”, i.e. to set such an intellectual and cultural level which cannot be reached within the scope of a totalitarian system. In the given conditions, it is possible to influence the country’s development only by offering “the best product” of thinking, ideas, works of art, and role models. It must be impossible for both supporters and opponents not to recognize this product. In a totalitarian system, only strong personalities can do it. 

However in today’s Belarus, “recusance” (dissidentship) is still only an opportunity, or as we call it “a free position”. We confirm that only this position remains a real position which can change the situation, and it means that it is to be filled, and this process (dissidents’ appearance in Belarus) is the only worth business for those who want changes. It is also the basic event which will probably take years and which is to be traced and analyzed. 

Calling the present situation an end of one period in the country’s history and a beginning of another one, a change of subjects, we see that it, nevertheless, differs essentially from the previous, similar situations. Everyone who understands or intuitively feels that the time of politics has ended, does not see new opportunities and prospects. In all previous similar situations when basic working subjects were changed, new types of such subjects were already present in the political field as embryos or at least norms of activity, i.e. alive, real samples. The situation with recusance in Belarus is much more complex. There are almost no, and actually have never been, people who used to have or still have such a lifeway in Belarus. Therefore, it is even difficult to imagine such a position and such a political subject in our conditions. That is, there are no problems to do it abstractly, of course, but a concrete embodiment raises many questions. Is recusance a personal position, and does it depend on a person’s will and courage, or is it also a certain organization of social environment around him/her? What qualities must a person possess in order to cope with the position of a dissident? What does such a position ask of other people and their activity? 

These questions have no clear and precise answers yet. The valid answers can only be given during attempts of realization (formation and implementation) of such a position as a Belarusan dissident of the 21^st century.

** Table 1. “Closed” and “open” situations 

    * white means situations are “open” for a certain subject, grey – “closed”

Andrei Yahorau

Tatiana Vodolaghskaja