In the last 3 months, the Belarusian government has shown its failure to solve serious urgent problems. And if the problem with economy is not new for the country, then Lukashenka’s inability to overcome the coronavirus destroys the myth that without centralization the society will be plunged into chaos.
Many Belarusians have long understood that the state is not the guarantor of their security. Back in the Soviet Union people discussed what was happening in the country only when the state wasn’t listening. Belarusians dreamed of freedom while the state tried to teach us obedience.
Protection of the population from external and internal threats is the key argument for the existence of the state. Threats can be of different nature: depending on the state, you can be saved not only from a neighbor’s invasion, but also from starvation death or illness.
Belarus State, being the heir to the Soviet Union, is trying to present itself as a social apparatus committed to creating a social system for the working population. Promises are transformed into conditionally free medicine, subsidized public transport and social programs for housing construction.
The state as an apparatus is in constant need to justify its existence. If there is an organization in society that imposes taxes, laws and whims on the population, it is the population that should receive something in return. The absence of sufficiently strong arguments for the existence of the state can lead to a revolution that will try either to establish a “social” state or to destroy the state apparatus as a whole and choose a decentralized way of organizing society.
In this case, the Belarusian state is gradually losing its meaning. Belarusians can tolerate Lukashenka on their necks until he becomes so heavy that nobody wants to pull him. The protests in 2017 were against a certain law that should have made the lives of workers harder, but did not threaten their lives. The COVID-19 situation called into question the necessity of the state itself, which continues to let the population down in the fight against the virus.
Neighboring countries are doing much better with the coronavirus. This situation makes us doubt that the Republic of Belarus, which has been a dictatorship for almost the entire period of its existence, is able to somehow respond constructively to the problems of the population. Yes, we have already heard about the need to save the economy at the cost of the lives of physicians and workers, but few will accept such an argument. Economic failures in the country are directly related to Lukashenko and his government, which for many years has been trying to maintain its own power at any cost. Why then should Belarusians give their lives for the mistakes made by the country’s famous potato farmer and his friends?
The self-organization of tens of thousands of people inside the country shows that the Belarusian state copes worse with the crisis than people who are not professional managers on state salaries. If one reads social networks and telegram, one unwittingly asks why the Belarusian society needs the state in general, if we can spontaneously organize better than the whole vertical of power?
An additional nail in the coffin of the regime was a scandal with water in the western part of Minsk. Several hundred thousand people lost access to water in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic. What flowed from the tap in the Frunzenski district can only be used by the president and his children.
The local authorities initially denied the problem and once again tried to prove to us that the problem is in our heads and not in reality. And even after admitting the problem, the water tanks that were taken out into the street could not seriously affect the situation. Today, not everyone can pull 5 liters of canisters, and those who are under quarantine are isolated from the most basic resource. Residents of the city took the initiative and brought water to the homes and apartments of those who could not get to the nearest clean water tank. Thank you once again to the ordinary people of the country.
And don’t tell us stories that the guilt lies on the shoulders of local officials, while the king simply did not know. Throughout his reign, Lukashenko created an apparatus that will always report on the green grass in the street at any time of year under the fear of repression. That’s why the poisoning of minsk lies on the shoulders of the entire vertical.
In the coming elections, some believe that the Belarusian state needs liberal reforms. These very reforms will turn the country into the real cradle of European civilization, and we will finally get our “papizzot”[1]. The projects of other Eastern European states show that corruption and indifference of officials remain even after the change of one ruler to another. Scandals in Bulgaria, Poland and many other countries of former Eastern Block confirm a rather simple thesis – power corrupts even the most idealistic fighters. And the only solution that can rid people of greedy and corrupt officials is a world without the state and capitalism.
Today, Belarusians, like many people in other countries, will not be able to defeat the dictatorship of the state by choosing a new president. The destruction of the regime requires a social revolution that will restore the self-confidence of the working population. That is why not voting, but resistance and direct action can bring us freedom.
1: papizzot – is a promise from belarusian president that everybody will have salaries at least of 500 euro. This promise comes and goes every year and slowly turned into a meme.
