Fighting Back With Voices
On 11 November 2020, thirty-one year old Raman Bandarenka was beaten at the Changes Square after he went there to stop pro-regime vigilantes from destroying the white-red-white decorations. These people snatched him into a minivan and later brought him, beaten and unconscious, to a nearby milicyja station. He died in a hospital the next evening, and thousands of people walked and drove to the Changes Square to mourn his death, leaving candles and flowers at the place where Raman was beaten and abducted. This playground that gave place to numerous concerts, theater plays, and friendly evenings. now became a place of a spontaneous memorial.
Roma is short for Raman and since then his name was always been heard in people’s chants. Coordinated not by some “Western puppet-masters” but by grief and anger, people demanded justice: a tribunal for the criminals. A new chant was born on this evening: “Why did you kill Roma?” But the main one was “Roma, we've come out!” because the last words Raman wrote in a neighborhood chat were: “I'm coming out!” People also commemorated his death with “minute of silence ceremonies” at the Square of Changes, on the streets, at universities, and at numerous locations around the country. While people were silent, the cars honked.
Expressions of mourning and solidarity, as well as the memorial to Bandarenka enraged the authorities. On Sunday 15 November 2020, the area around the Square of Changes was surrounded by various security forces, backed by armored cars, and a “Predator” water cannon. After the enforcers threw a few flash bang grenades, some people – mostly families with kids and elder people – left the area, and the enforcers started to encroach. But the yard defenders pushed back – with their voices only. Raising bare hands to show they were unarmed, they started shouting “Go away! It’s our yard!” It felt so wrong, so indignant that armed men wanted to capture and destroy this place of mourning filled with flowers, posters, candles, and pain, that people just couldn’t let them enter. After some hesitation, the riot squad retreated. It felt like an act of exorcism and was so intense that I thought it lasted about three minutes. Later, after listening to the recording, I was surprised that this sonic resistance lasted about ten minutes.
Fragment of my audio paper about the events of 11-15 of November 2020
This small victory was temporary. Soon the “kettling” (Hayward 2012) of the Changes Square commenced and the whole area was blockaded till the next morning. Hundreds were detained, including journalists who were live streaming the events (Human Right Watch 2021), but several hundred people managed to hide in local residents’ apartments and cellars, sometimes dozens of people crammed in just one flat. All night long riot squads were searching through the houses, sometimes breaking into flats or destroying residents' security cams. The enforcers checked passports of anyone who wanted to leave or enter the perimeter and residents wanting to go to a shop and come back had to prove they lived there. Therefore people hiding in flats and basements had to wait quietly till the morning, not talking, not using toilets, and not making any noise (Borisevich 2020).
Firstly, everyone was trying to keep quiet in order not to reveal our presence. Because of this, it was impossible to discuss what we should do next. Secondly, [the people] constantly heard milicyja men talking and their footsteps; they saw officers looking for the protesters with their flashlights. (Inanets 2020)
A friend of mine who was hiding in a basement with about sixty other people, told me that they had to keep absolute quiet for about sixteen hours, staying in uncomfortable postures on the floor, almost like in prison cells.[15] It was very difficult: people were hungry and thirsty, they needed to use the toilet and to notify their families that they were safe. At midnight, not able to endure the stress anymore, one woman wanted to go home, but the group couldn't let her out, as that would expose all of them.
After the Changes Square blockade, the authorities introduced a map of city areas that “needed special attention.” Raman Nikanau, a member of the Minsk City Council, called these places “points of pain” (Reform 2020). This map has provoked comparisons with ghettos, but also many jokes. People were proud to live in the protest districts. At the Changes Square, a permanent police presence was installed, but the residents still resisted and made themselves heard. If you happened to pass this or other densely populated areas at 9 pm, you could hear people chanting “Žyvie Biełaruś!” from windows and balconies, and those from nearby houses relayed the chant further. In a situation, when the city and especially the “protest yards” were patrolled and surveilled, such evening roll-calls and rapid unannounced mini-marches in the neighborhoods were what kept hope alive and signaled that the resistance was not suppressed.
