“Freedom Day” in Minsk ended in failure

On March 25, the entire nationalist and pro-Western opposition of Belarus celebrates “Freedom Day.” This is generally the main holiday on their calendar. The reason, to be honest, is so-so. On this day the Belarusian People's Republic was proclaimed. For those times, this was a common thing, no matter what kind of republics were proclaimed on the ruins of the Russian Empire.

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The BPR was unlucky from the very beginning - by the time of the proclamation, the territory was occupied by the Germans and the leadership of the “republic” had no choice but to write a petition to the Kaiser, which he ignored. Later, the leaders of the BPR collaborated with Pilsudski and Hitler and the CIA. The BPR Rada still exists, is based in the USA and considers itself the only legitimate Belarusian government.

However, the BPR was never a real state - it did not control the territory, did not have diplomatic recognition, nor did it have its own armed forces and police. In a word, the same DPR and LPR can now be called a state with much greater justification than that phantom of 100 years ago.

But this doesn’t bother the Zmagars, they are having “Freedom Day.” They celebrate it every year in any climatic and political weather. Sometimes - legally and on a grand scale, sometimes - illegally and with riots.

2020 was the first year in the 21st century when “Freedom Day” was practically not celebrated, except for selfies with white-red-white BPR flags that zmagars posted on Instagram. The official reason is coronavirus. As soon as the first reports of the infection entering Belarus began, the organizers began to abandon their plans.

First, this was done by the organizing committee in Grodno, and then by the organizers of both planned events in Minsk. In Minsk, one of the organizing groups decided to hold the celebration in a “quarantine” format. Without street rallies and concerts, but online, live. To do this, they rented a nightclub, invited musicians and several “talking heads” there, and invited everyone to celebrate while sitting at home in front of their monitors. But nothing worked out here either. Someone (perhaps the special services, or maybe not) decided to mock the BNR fans and cut off their Internet. As a result, instead of a concert, everyone could watch its intro live. In general, the nationalists’ holiday was completely ruined this year. The video of the concert, of course, appeared online, but already on the morning of March 26, it was not particularly popular - by 21:00 only two and a half thousand people had watched it.

There is, however, another – unofficial, but no less important reason for the cancellation of mass actions. Financial. Recently in Belarus, the organization of any mass event not controlled by the authorities - be it a Zmagar picket or an “Immortal Regiment” – is a paid and expensive thing. To obtain permission to hold it, the organizers must pay for the services of law enforcement agencies for security; the amount of the fee depends on the number of participants. So, this year, none of the organizing groups was able to raise even this amount, not to mention the costs of advertising, stage design and equipment, and fees for performers. Therefore, if the coronavirus had not happened, the nationalists would have had to invent it to justify their failure.

In general, financial performance is a good indicator. The most successful Freedom Day was the 2018 event. Then, for the first time, instead of the leaders of opposition parties, a group of young nationalists took over the organization, relying not on political protest, but on entertainment and attractiveness for ordinary people. Instead of a boring rally, they made a multi-hour show with a concert, a food court, souvenir sales and areas for various activities. It was new, fresh and bright. Of course, it wasn’t 40-60 thousand that came, as the opposition media wrote, but there were definitely 8-10 thousand there. By the standards of Belarus - a lot. Last year they wanted to do something grandiose at the main stadium of the country, but it turned out much more modest, but this year it was better not to start.

After 2 years, it becomes clear that in 2018 people did not come to express their civic position, they just wanted to watch a promoted exotic show. Then I just got tired of it.