Exodus
While people in the EU were following the news about this artificially provoked migration crisis, the exodus of Belarusians was less noticeable in the international media. Starting even before the 2020 elections, this process led to Belarus losing thousands after thousands of economically and politically active citizens, many of whom were at the core of the protests. Since then, Belarus saw several waves of emigration with the estimates ranging from a few dozens of thousands up to a million people who left the country due to repressions and deteriorating economy (Ex-Press.by 2022). In October 2023, Mikalai Kapiankou, the Vice-minister of Internal Affairs and the chief of the Belarusian Internal Troops, claimed that 350 thousand people “who don’t support us” have fled abroad (Zerkalo 2023). Aliaksei Biahun, the Head of the Citizenship and Migration Department, estimated that around 200 thousand people emigrated in 2021-2022 (Naša Niva 2024b). The real number is, probably, higher. The main destinations for the Belarusian migrants were Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, and – until February 2022 – Ukraine and Russia. Among the emigrants were also many artists and musicians. Even those who felt relatively less risk of repressions, decided to relocate, as there were fewer and fewer places to perform or other ways to earn their living. And in Belarus, it became nearly impossible to express one’s political views through art and to stay free.
More than 1500 civil society organizations were liquidated or are in the process of liquidation since 2020 (LawTrend 2023) with their employees forced to leave Belarus, because Lukashenka considered any non-state-led civic initiatives as his personal enemies “on the Western puppet masters payroll.” Anaïs Marin, the UN Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, stated in a 2022 report that:
Intimidation, harassment, searches of homes, prosecution, arrests, detention and criminal charges have been used to target Belarusians from all professional categories and social groups, such as civil society activists, journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, medical workers, teachers, athletes, artists and Telegram chat administrators. In fact, anyone seen or perceived to be participating in protests or exercising his or her legitimate freedom of expression or peaceful assembly could be targeted. (Marin 2022: 11)
Marin also mentions Hirschman's (1980) concept of “exit, voice, and loyalty” as suitable to analyze the options left for Belarusians: “Censoring themselves as a means of survival (compliance with restrictive legislation); voicing their criticism, thereby exposing themselves and possibly their relatives to repression; or leaving the country” (Marin 2022: 6). I wouldn’t equate silence with loyalty – rather with a survival tactic. And silence and self-censorship did not guarantee safety. In previous decades, a phenomenon of “inner emigration’”[24] was widely discussed by Belarusian intellectuals in the context of imminent transformation of the Belarusian regime into an isolationist military dictatorship of a Cuban type with a widespread civic silence that reinforced the illusion of the state supporters domination – “a spiral of silence” driven by a fear of isolation (Noelle-Neumann & Petersen 2004: 350). There used to be ways to be “hidden in plain sight” and continuing one’s cultural, scientific or dissident activities; however, this is no longer possible and these discussions now seem naive. Today, the regime is set to identify and persecute not only those who took part in protests but anyone who is not loyal; it uses violence, infiltration of activist groups, mass surveillance, and face-recognition technologies. Even if it is not possible to identify and imprison all the protest participants (500 thousand – 1 million), it is possible to intimidate the rest, either forcing them to leave the country (and then imprisoning them when they come back to see their families) or forcing them to be “quieter than water, lower than grass.”[25]
The context in which Belarusian activist groups communicate and operate has also changed drastically. Since August 2020 the regime has been increasingly controlled by Russia and is “cleaning up” the political space of any pro-independence and anti-Russian sentiments. While political scientists and lawyers are discussing whether Belarus can be considered occupied and what the consequences are of such a status according to the international law, activists see that it is no longer a stand-off with the local regime only, but a resistance to the Russian military and security forces and their local collaborators who control the territory, media, and political decisions.
Before 2020 Lukashenka somehow tolerated (if I dare to say so) at least some level of opposition activity, and even benefited from the protests against Russian military bases (2015) or “deep integration”[26] (2019). These protests showed that the Belarusian society was not univocal about closer ties with Russia, and this gave Lukashenka some leverage in his negotiations with Putin. But since he turned to Putin for protection in 2020, later providing Belarus as a springboard for a hybrid warfare/migrant crisis and then for the invasion, there is no turning back. For the Russian regime the Belarusian opposition activists are enemies just as Ukrainian “nationalists” (that is, everyone who doesn’t consider themselves Russian). And the Belarusian activists are aware that, just as the Russian special services and military had lists of Ukrainian activists, they might have similar lists of Belarusian activists. So now Belarusian enforcers are not only protecting the regime against “revolutionaries”, but do a dirty job for Russia by isolating or ousting the “dangerous elements” who could thwart its military plans.
Among numerous other problems, emigration has also led to tensions and misunderstandings between the new Belarusian diaspora in other countries and those who remained in Belarus. Both groups often accuse each other: emigrants, especially those who didn’t necessarily risk arrests, are often called cowards and opportunists fleeing to a better life; and those in Belarus are accused of surrendering to and supporting the regime with their obedient work, taxes, silent loyalty, and of cowardice for not continuing the protests. But a more acute problem is maintaining the support of prisoners convicted for political activities. Those who are in jail need constant emotional and financial support from families and friends.[27] In a situation when hundreds of thousands relatively well-earning people emigrated or relocated because their companies left the country, and making international money transfers is impossible or difficult, poverty looms over more and more families in Belarus. The economic crisis, international sanctions against Belarus, along with the persecution for supporting the prisoners, make collecting money and food packs for them extremely difficult and risky, as it can be considered as financing of extremist or terrorist activities.
Every day human rights initiatives like Viasna register yet another dozen of activists arrested, tortured, imprisoned or added to the state register of “extremists”. And almost every week there are musicians and cultural workers among them. In October 2022 several musicians were arrested, including members and families of the Tor Band, whose songs were among the most popular during the 2020 protests. The group’s songs, logo, and social network accounts were listed as “extremist”, and people filmed in their music videos were interrogated as well. The special services got access to the band’s YouTube channel and deleted all the videos that amassed millions of views. In the autumn of 2023 the band members were sentenced to 7,5-9 years of imprisonment (Viasna 2023b). In January 2024 members of another popular rock band, Nizkiz, were arrested too – they were still living in Belarus occasionally touring abroad. The musicians were forced to “confess” that their music and popularity “was used” by the opposition (Naša Niva 2024a).
Examples like this show that not “everyone left the country” and not only the “silent, loyal electorate” remained in Belarus. It also shows that the state revenges musicians and culture activists for their creative resistance. Among the revenge methods are breaking the activists psychologically, revealing details of their private and sexual life, discrediting their reputations, and forcing them to speak against their will.
Fragment of a crime news TV program: a woman refuses to explain her “unlawful activities”, a man explains why he sabotaged the railway, etc. Recorded at a railway station in a small Belarusian town, 19.03.2021.