Published by LEFTEAST
Melting-pot di voci e opinioni provenienti dai Balcani, LeftEast è un media on-line, apertamente schierato a sinistra, che raggruppa e ripubblica in inglese i contenuti più interessanti provenienti dall’Europa dell’Est. Lo scopo: proporre un’alternativa ai tradizionali stereotipi balcanici e divulgare la produzione intellettuale di questa parte del mondo.
Qui un articolo sulla marcia per la libertà a Minsk e la dura repressione governativa, raccontate dagli attivisti presenti.
On 25 May 2017, demonstrations marking Freedom Day took place in cities across Belarus (Freedom Day is the anniversary of the announcement of the self-proclaimed Belarusian People’s Republic on 25 March 1918; it is celebrated mainly by Belarusian nationalists). The government’s reaction to the demonstrations was quite brutal: in Minsk the unauthorized rally, attended by several thousand people, was dispersed by the police and about seven hundred participants were detained. Similar rallies were held in Gomel, Brest, Grodno and Vitebsk. Belarusian anarchists have reported further searches and detentions.
The events in Belarus are especially interesting in connection with the general European trend towards the unification of rightwing and “anti-systemic” protests, a tendency noted recently by Perry Anderson.
In light of the recent Belarusian protests against Decree No. 3 “On the Prevention of Social Dependence” (or the so-called ‘social parasite tax’ of $230 to be levied on those unemployed for six months), the violent dispersal of a traditionally nationalistic rally raises a number of questions. To what extent do the participants in these two protests intersect? And why did the Belarusian government react so brutally to the nationalists when in Russia, in contrast, the nationalists are merely “kept on a short leash” and even encouraged if necessary? Who came to the protests? Were they “ordinary Belarusians” appalled by the social situation in the country or “professional” activists of the nationalist opposition? Can there be a “fusion” of the nationalist and social agendas? And will the nationalists be able to use yesterday’s detentions as a trump card to take control of social protest?