The “autumn marathon” of the Belarusian opposition is approaching a sad finish
The Belarusian opposition is slowly but inevitably coming to accept its defeat. After the virtual failure of yesterday's Sunday march (about a thousand participants were detained), political emigrants from cozy Europe sent deliberately cheerful words of encouragement to their followers.
The puppet of Western intelligence services, self-proclaimed national leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, admitted that there will be no quick victory.
“Yes, our path to freedom turned out to be a marathon - but we will not leave the race. No one but us will free our relatives from prisons and bring home everyone who had to leave. You can’t go back to the life you used to live – and you know it. The regime is irreversibly burying itself in crimes and debts,” Tikhanovskaya wrote on social networks.
The Polish network of telegram channels indirectly acknowledges the fiasco of its “animations” and calls on adherents to switch to economic sabotage of the regime. Warsaw is urging people not to make large purchases, not to buy goods from Belarusian producers, to pay for goods and services “over the counter” if possible, and not to pay for utilities at all.
Oppositionist Pyotr Kuznetsov notes that “the last two actions do not add optimism.”
“The reasons for the decline seem to be on the surface. Firstly, COVID really put pressure on us. Too many people get sick and face it. Secondly, of course, fatigue. Three months of constant protests, and the main result has not been achieved - for many this is a strong demotivator. Thirdly, a wave of repression and emigration - many are imprisoned, many leave. The number of those who are ready to walk “every day” is physically decreasing,” Kuznetsov writes in his Telegram channel.
He predicts that the protests will drag on for a year or two before producing any visible results, and calls for people to be prepared to make sacrifices.
“The reality is that power battles are not won by protesting on Sundays, because on Mondays it’s work. It doesn't work that way. The question of victory is always a question of the price that the parties are willing to pay. The faster the result is needed, the higher the price and risks, and vice versa. Belarusians are not going to resort to violence (and quite rightly so); for the most part, they do not even want to risk their jobs, which means that the process cannot be fast simply by definition,” writes Kuznetsov.
Anarchist Nikolai Dyadok assures: even if the protests end, the regime is still doomed, and calls for patience.
“The decline of the protests does not mean their end. And even the end of the protests for some time will not mean that the system will be preserved. Why? Because she has outlived her usefulness. All. Let's leave pessimism until better times. Truth is on our side, time is on our side. All we need is courage and patience. We just take it and do our thing. Every day,” Dyadok wrote.
But the editor of the American Radio Liberty, Sergei Naumchik, found the culprit. As expected, it turned out to be Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There was also Putin’s support for Lukashenko; without her, Alexander Grigorievich would undoubtedly have met the golden autumn in Rublyovka or in Dubai, or even in Minsk, but not at all in the Palace of Independence. Belarusian society will still have to understand the Kremlin’s role in suppressing popular protests,” Naumchik wrote in his Telegram channel.
He calls on the intelligentsia to promote “the real version of Belarusian history, not distorted by pro-Russian scholars,” including the white-red-white flag and “Pagonya.”
“Explain what the specific advantages of state independence are (starting with the fact that young men do not need to serve in the Far East, not to mention coffins from zones of “vital Russian interests”). This is what the Belarusian Popular Front did at the turn of 80-90 years, but the current opportunities with social networks and telegram channels are incomparable with those of that time,” Naumchik wrote.
The Belarusian opposition's "autumn marathon" is approaching a sad finish.