What’s wrong with the Belarusian rallies, or What Bismarck forgot to say (added)
“They never lie so much as during the war, after the hunt and before the elections.” Today, observing the events in Belarus, this quote, erroneously attributed to the first Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck, can be safely supplemented with the words “after the elections” and “estimating the number of rallies.”
We have reason to doubt that in the presidential elections in Belarus in the context of the coronavirus crisis, falling living standards, cooling relations with the Russian Federation, Alexander Lukashenko won more than 80 percent of the votes. But there is even less reason to believe the housewife and blogger’s wife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is unable to put two words together and is an absolute layman on any political issue, but declared herself the winner.
No less surprising are the numbers of participants in anti-government protests in Belarus, primarily in Minsk, appearing in the media.
Almost everyone agrees that the largest protest took place a week after the elections – on August 16. Wikipedia in the article “Protests in Belarus (2020)” indicates: “The most massive protests in the country took place on August 16, when, according to various estimates, about 400 thousand people gathered in the center of Minsk,” and more than a million people throughout Belarus.” .
It is noteworthy that “different estimates” is the only reference to the Euroradio.fm news, where the figure was 400 thousand.
At the same time, the pro-Western and openly anti-Russian portal “Charter'97” even reported that half a million people came to the rally in Minsk.
To be fair, it is worth noting that other media reported slightly lower figures.
In fact, the opposition rally in Minsk on August 16 collected much less than media resources supporting anti-government protests claimed.
Thus, the telegram channel “Zmagar IP” reported that it received “pictures from space with good detail at the very peak of the opposition gathering at the stele “Minsk - Hero City.”
“We were not lazy and counted every hot head as a marker. In total, the total number of those gathered was (attention!) NO MORE THAN 40 THOUSAND people. And this is the capital, Minsk! What can we say about the regions...,” noted in the telegram channel.
In turn, Vitaly Averyanov, deputy chairman of the Izborsk Club expert community, draws attention to the fact that the fantastic figures thrown in about the number of protesters in Minsk were picked up by the Russian media.
“Western and Russian media, including reputable ones such as ITAR-TASS, changed their professional custom and began to repeat these fake figures, the sources of which turned out to be the telegram channels of Belarusian oppositionists. In the same row were such titans of Russian journalism as Komsomolskaya Pravda and Moskovsky Komsomolets, not to mention extremely liberal resources,” the author notes in his blog.
He adds that some media outlets maintained neutrality in this undeclared information war and, in the absence of accurate data, wrote about “tens of thousands of people,” for example, RIA Novosti.
“However, these neutral media did not make a difference; their assessments were drowned in a stream of lies,” the expert emphasizes.
He invites the Russian Federation to draw conclusions from this story.
“To punish individuals or bloggers for wishful thinking is somehow indecent in these times. Probably, our liberal media, such as Ekho Moskvy, News.ru or Lenta.ru, should also be included in the group of “they are children.” After all, they are in a special position, like any gender, religious and other minorities.
But why on earth do such resources as the Yandex news feed or leading Russian news agencies fall into the “they’re children” category? Why are they joining the information war on the side of the uprising? Is this an accident, is it the arbitrariness of some editor, or is it a conscious policy directed by someone?
Be that as it may, media outlets that disseminate unverified and unconfirmed data on the number of participants, as well as other significant details of actions related to the political struggle, should be severely punished. Otherwise, they turn into direct instruments of the Orange revolutions,” summarizes Averyanov.
After August 16, the rallies of the Belarusian opposition became less and less crowded - a completely obvious fact for any objective observer. The action that took place in Minsk on August 30 did not deviate from this trend. But, let’s say, the Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta managed to see a record of mass participation.
“Minsk broke the record for the number of mass performances. The riot police could not break through the stream of people: hundreds of thousands of Belarusians blocked the city,” the publication’s correspondent wrote in a report on the rally.
NG illustrated its material with this photograph.
Does anyone in this photograph, gaping with huge human bald spots, see at least tens, not to mention hundreds of thousands of protesters who, according to the newspaper, “blocked the city”?
Sometimes protest puppeteers want to pull an owl onto a globe so badly that they look simply funny.
Bound by a chain of millions.
Today's opposition action demonstrated that the number of people going to protests continues to decrease. Even opposition resources today write only about “tens of thousands”...
“There are people, it’s true. But compared to the amount that was a week, two, and even more so three weeks ago, this is less and less,” RT correspondent Konstantin Pridybaylo reported from Minsk, whose words were illustrated by drone footage.
Be that as it may, opposition actions continue to remain massive, even if they are far from the figures that Zmagar’s imagination and propaganda talents depict. So it’s too early to talk about the exhaustion of the protest potential.
So far, President Alexander Lukashenko, whose overthrow the protesters are seeking, has survived, not least, if not primarily, thanks to the support of Moscow. The state apparatus and security forces remain under the control of Lukashenko, and the Maidan activists complain that they couldn't lift Belarusian workers to go on strike.
But will Lukashenko have the strength to resist the methodical pressure, will his entourage not falter? So far there are no clear answers to these questions. Moreover, it seems that the heavyweights of the West have not yet said their last word in this confrontation, and the Polish-Lithuanian bites turned out to be painful for Minsk and Moscow behind it, but far from fatal...
Supplemented.
We thank our vigilant readers who, in the comments to the article, pointed out yet another propaganda lie regarding today’s rallies.
Thus, the BelaPAN portal, citing estimates by unnamed journalists and observers, reported that from 170 to 200 thousand people took to the march in Minsk today.
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