The Belarusian society: trial by fire
16.12.2020Facing the extreme challenges (like epidemics or political upheavals), the social system may respond to them in different ways. Under the influence of one of them the community consolidates and mitigates (at least temporarily) the internal contradictions, while the other ones rend its integral elements apart as these contradictions grow.
The variety of events is big and the spectrum of reactions to them is wide. However, in modern societies the political factor is one of the most disintegrating. After all, political pluralism cannot exist without updating the ways in which people vary. Thus, the political pluralism carries risks for the societies with the lack of preventive restrictions for disintegration.
The growing political competition changes the nature of relations within the society, from the personal to the class ones. That is why the political processes in Belarus have to be viewed through the prism of their social outcomes.
It should be understood that the anti-Lukashenko protests in Belarus do not involve the whole society and the protesters represent only the part of it. This points to a lack of full consensus on this issue in Belarus and that is natural. Therefore, the «Belarusian revolution» is a factor of democratization on one hand, and the disintegration factor on the other hand, as it promotes consolidation of political groups and consequently the growing tensions between them.
Although the existing studies do not provide a complete picture, they still unveil the internal political processes in Belarus and enable us to see the outlines of the possible future. As of this moment, we can identify several zones of rupture within the Belarusian society.
Geopolitical gravity. One of the important features of the Belarusian geopolitical position is its location between the two big centers of power: the West (and Poland in particular) has a significant influence on one hand, and the Russian Federation — on the other. The impact of these important players unavoidably affects the internal processes within the Belarusian society. Both actors have significant media resources. However, recently Poland’s role has markedly increased. Considering the fact that Poland is Russia’s historic political rival, its media presence here is definitely one of the forms of this historic fight. Moreover, the influence of both sides on Belarus cause fractures in its society with regard to the foreign-policy orientation. Thus, in 2019 a bit more than 40% of Belarusians supported integration with Russia, and the share of the EU-integration loyalists expanded to 32% [The downfall: the number of supporters of an alliance with Russia fell by a third. Belsat: web-site. URL: https://belsat.eu/ru/news/obvalnoe-padenie-chislo-storonnikov-soyuza-s-rossiej-snizilos-na-tret/]. Ukraine’s experience has shown that conflicts between the supporters of the Russian and European vectors can dramatically affect the society’s consolidation. It should be noted, that the foreign-policy orientations of people first of all reflect the values attributed to the countries or the unions they are in favor of. And so they reflect the difference of values between the groups. And this inevitably creates some political demand. As it was noted before, the political market in the unstructured political cultures speculating on diversity can transform it into the contradictions.
The rise of nationalism. Apparently, many people in Belarus are not accustomed to the collocation «Belarusian nationalism». However, this ideology has already become a full part of the political discourse in Belarus. And despite the long-term internal and external Russification and the powerful influence of the idea of brotherhood between Belarusians and Russians, the Belarusian national identity has not disappeared and has recently become even more expressive. And although, according to the well-known Russian sociologist S. Belanovsky, the spread of extreme nationalism is difficult to assess for the moment, its research shows that Belarusians are quite interested in their own nation-state, however not all of them accept the Belarusian nationalism in the form of «imposing» Belarusian language [Belanovsky S., Nokolskaya N. The great country from Brest to Chukotka? Do Belarusians want to unite with Russia? Forbes: web-site. URL: https://www.forbes.ru/obshchestvo/406615-velikaya-strana-ot-bresta-do-chukotki-hotyat-li-belorusy-obedinyatsya-s-rossiey].
Today, the Belarusian national issue has great media promotion. And this is not only about the Polish Belarusian-language TV-channel «Belsat», but also such a worldwide giant as the «Radio Svoboda» which actively advances the idea of using the Belarusian language. This is a traditional way to fight Russian cultural influence.
The interpersonal strain. Severe political crises like the one in Belarus today, always raise the well-known dichotomy «we» vs. «them». This applies to the carriers of different political views and their attitudes to political events. Such interpersonal strain manifested in the acute negative experiences and non-acceptance of those who have different political views, is growing today amongst Belarusians. This is also suggested by the studies of the Ukrainian sociologists [Dembitskyi S. The interpersonal political and psychological tensions in Belarus: part 1 (methodological). soc-research.info: web-site. URL.: http://soc-research.info/blog/index_files/belarus-1.html]. Such a situation always constitutes a potential threat of radicalization of political groups.
To crown it all, today the illusion of the monolithic Belarus is dispelled and real threats to Belarusian society begin to surface. Under these conditions, the urgency of political balance and the need to avoid political speculation are becoming even more popular and practically relevant. However, considering the strategy chosen by the current Belarusian regime against the protesters, it looks like the confrontation within Belarus will increase. And the external players are likely to benefit from it.
However, the fact that the Belarusian protests do not exploit either the «European» or the «Russian» focus distinguishes them from e.g. the Ukrainian Maidans. Therefore, perhaps we are witnessing the birth of a new model of democracy, freed of the Western liberal patterns or from the Russian model of the «portioned» democracy. Today’s Belarus is integrated into Russia’s zone of economic influence, but mentally it is less and less Lukashenko’s. Therefore, the radicalization of both Western and Russian trends is a major threat to social peace in Belarus. In this context, it is to be hoped that the situation will not spin out of control and that Belarusian society will preserve its integrity and peace.
Olexander Kovtun, Open International University of Human Development “Ukraine”, Department of Psychology and Social Work
This publication is part to the partnership between Newssky Media Group and the Institute for Democratization and Development/Ця публікація здійснюється у партнерстві Newssky Media Group та Інституту демократизації та розвитку