The ideological vertical is bursting at the seams: Lukashenko’s propagandists are quitting en masse from TV
The situation in Belarus again resembles an accelerated version of events in Ukraine on the eve of the 2013-14 coup - journalists began to quit en masse from state television channels, declaring disagreement with the brutality of riot police and the threat of using the army against protesters.
Among the departing propagandists who recently served the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, there are also personalities well known to Russia. For example, presenter Dmitry Semchenko, who incited hatred towards Moscow and allowed myself offensive attacks against then Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
What does this mean? “Canned food of the West” has been opened, or have the rats fled from Lukashenko’s sinking ship? PolitNavigator interviewed experts about this.
Co-chairman of the Belarusian movement “Civil Harmony” Artem Agafonov:
“As for the dismissal of Semchenko, it does not matter whether he was a Russophobe and so on - he is a man, a cog in the ideological machine, who simply voiced those ideological guidelines that were formed at a higher level than he himself was.
He was not the only one who quit - there are quite a lot of dismissals from state television now, several people have already quit in the last two days, there were dismissals before that, but Semchenko, of course, is an iconic figure.
This is an indicator that the entire ideological vertical is bursting at the seams, is already beginning to crumble, and quite large figures are starting to flee from it. What is happening is that there has been such a massive use of violence, in many ways unfair to the threat posed by the protests, which at first were quite peaceful - it has thrown the system out of balance.
There are already differences in the pro-government system. The Belarusian propaganda vertical is heterogeneous, and has now begun to wobble.”
Political commentator Yuri Baranchik:
“All this is a consequence of the chaos that the Belarusian security forces caused on the streets of cities and squares. The fact is that this violence is absolutely not provoked by people. People came out to express their peaceful protest against falsifications. Instead of giving them the opportunity to speak out or engage in dialogue with them, they decided to simply beat them. Naturally, this caused an extremely negative response in various spheres of Belarusian society.
As we can see, on the first day, about ten cities took to the streets, then twenty, and today more than thirty cities and towns have begun to take part in these acts of resistance.
Naturally, the TV presenters, as politically literate people and well-informed about the processes in Belarusian society, could not remain indifferent, because everyone suffered from these beatings - friends, relatives, parents, children. It seems to me that this is a clear expression of the civic position that this cannot be done.”
Political scientist Rostislav Ishchenko:
“Things like Maidans are prepared ahead of time, therefore, the people who will support them are also ready ahead of time, including among journalists. I wouldn’t be surprised if layoffs start there and at the Foreign Ministry.”
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