View from Minsk: Navalny lost to a Gomel housewife
The protests of Navalny’s supporters, which took place throughout Russia on January 23, only the lazy did not draw parallels with the Belarusian protests of August-September. Even the telegram channel of Lukashenko’s press service, “Pul Pervogo,” could not resist commenting, “Coincidence? We don’t think so,” hoping to emphasize the rightness and foresight of “Father.”
But in fact, there are not many coincidences between Minsk 2020 and Moscow 2021. Firstly, the reason. In Belarus, protests began after the elections, which were the dirtiest and most opaque in the entire history of the republic and in the announced results of which many people did not trust. In Russia - after the arrest of an opposition leader of the second freshest, known for his revealing videos of dubious quality and the fact that he, by some miracle, remained free, despite two convictions in far from political criminal cases.
Secondly, in Moscow and other Russian cities there was no trace of either the scale or intensity that was in Minsk. From the entire 13 million population of Moscow and the 17 million agglomeration, 15-20 thousand people took to the streets. In Minsk, a population of two million, there were more protests at the peak. It was funny to see how some tried to pass off pictures of the Minsk protests as Moscow ones. In the photo - summer, white flags and the recognizable building of the Minsk pedagogical university, and in the hashtags - Moscow and Navalny. Yes, it was sometimes hot in Moscow - they knocked out a driver’s eye, threw Navalny’s opponent off a pole and beat him, but they didn’t build barricades, and the security forces behaved appropriately and did not shoot to kill.
In general, in Belarus everything was much more serious. An attempt to organize a protest marathon following the example of the Belarusian one is unlikely to succeed. The events of January 23 showed that the mobilization potential of the Navalny project is greatly overestimated. All reserves were thrown into action, the meeting was presented as “the last and decisive battle,” but in reality it turned out, in general, zilch. Lesha lost to the Gomel housewife in all respects. Of course, there is still a trial ahead, which is also unlikely to happen without unrest, but overall the project can be written off. In 2024, Russia will be shaken by someone new and more dangerous.
What happened on January 23 in Belarus? Nexta became more active and tried to give new impetus to the stalled protests, synchronizing them with the protests in Russia. Previously, the main day of protest was always Sunday, but yesterday, especially for Navalny, they were moved to Saturday. The same Nexta, or more precisely, Nexta live, its second channel, actively worked on Russian events. The guys attracted a lot of attention to themselves, some even decided that here, too, the puppeteers were going to destabilize Russia according to Belarusian patterns. In reality, there are many such channels in Russia, and some are being promoted right now, gaining a six-figure audience from scratch in a few days. The guys from Nexta were most likely just working out the contract.
Protests in Belarus failed to intensify. There were no “solidarity rallies” or any mass actions. A typical picture of the Belarusian protests on January 23rd is a few people standing along the road with white-red-white flags and covered faces. Moreover, according to the long-standing Zmagar tradition, they stood not much longer than the shooting lasted.
Interestingly, despite the chronic Russophobia of the Belarusian Zmagars, they regularly showed solidarity with Navalny. Even a quote from a Russian oppositionist thrown in by someone, in which he spoke unflatteringly about the Belarusian language, did not interfere: “It’s as if writing was invented by Khachiks and bastards.” Anyone else would have been hounded by the Zmagars for such a thing, but here even Sprachenführer Igor Sluchak, who loves to write complaints for “insulting the Belarusian language,” seems to have swallowed his tongue.
The active support of Belarusian Zmagars for Russian protests allows us to draw another conclusion that they will not like very much. Despite 30 years of independence, multi-vectorism, Belarusization and “sign quality”, we remain one people. And even the zmagars who hate Russia live much more with the problems of Russians than with the problems of their beloved Europe.
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