Final Straw: The Uprising in Belarus

Long running anarchist radio and podcast show the Final Straw brings us a discussion on the ongoing revolt in Belarus that holds many similarities to the current situation in the so-called United States.

Belarus is continuing to experience a revolt against the 26 year dictatorship of the post-Soviet dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. The situation came to a boil, fueled by yet another election rife with administration corruption, the creation of mutual aid infrastructure in the face of a government that abandoned public health measures in the face of the corona virus pandemic, decreased economic quality of life… people found each other and the state turned on them. In response to the police violence, regular folks came out into the streets to oppose the dictatorship and the system threatened collapse. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

For the hour, we speak with Ivan, a Belarusian anarchist living in Germany, about the uprising, doxing cops, the part that anarchists have played, the distinctions between pro-Democracy and anti-dictatorship activity, the upcoming week of solidarity with anarchist and anti-fascists of Belarus from November 23-30th, 2020 and how comrades from abroad can support not only those repressed but the activist efforts to sustain the resistance to the Belarusian dictatorship. You can learn more about the week of solidarity, including where to send solidarity funds and communiques at ABC-Belarus.Org. You can support wider protest infrastructure by donating at FireFund.Net/Belarus.

A great news source that Ivan mentions to keep up on anarchist perspectives from Belarus (sometimes in English) is: Pramen.io/EN/Main/

Ivan also mentions, when talking about international solidarity, US corporations that are supporting the Belarusian dictatorship during this repression. They include:

1. Apple has attempted to pressure Telegram to close the channels where protesters in Belarus have been sharing details on the police
2. Sandvine (founded in Canada, funded in part from the US) was providing equipment that Belarus used to block access to Twitter, Facebook and international news sites. The country has a pretty bad history ala likely use by the governments of Egypt, Turkey and Syria to repress the populations of those countries, but in this instance (and pressure from the US Gov and Human Rights Watch) they appear to have canceled their contract with Belarus in September.
3. Skype (owned by Microsoft) has been providing court infrastructure, as the trials of those arrested during the uprising is taking place over the video conferencing platform.