Advocacy 2.0

Anyone who talks about political prisoners in Belarus, be it a politician, a human rights organization or an independent media, faces a number of problems. The main ones are, of course, the shift in the focus of attention of the world community, and of the Belarusians and Belarusians themselves. After all, various events take place in the world every day, which, to varying degrees, are capable of horrifying, shocking or delighting. But above all, it is the war in Ukraine.

The most dangerous thing is the internal fatigue faced by people working in this direction. And it looks like a banal drop in views, reposts and tweets, as soon as the media starts talking about political prisoners, as well as a sharp decline in people's motivation to support regime prisoners or at least talk about them. Let's try to dissect this problem and take a step towards its solution.

To begin with, we will delve into that very “fatigue” from the topic of political prisoners, which kills motivation and drives you into depression. Obviously, no one expected such a long struggle with the autocrats of the post-Soviet regimes, who, as it turned out, are capable of unleashing wars to maintain power. Of course, the ever-growing number of political prisoners and the lack of simple answers to the questions “ When will we win? ” and “ When will we free everyone? ” themselves are a very poignant reminder that the aspirations of millions of people have not come true. Democracy and law have not triumphed in Belarus, and these figures, with new horrifying details of everyday repressions, are a living reminder of failure. Part of the civilly active people, against the backdrop of such despair, even organized themselves into various circles and initiatives, and are trying to offer ways to bargain at least someone from the bloody paws of the dictator. It’s a pity, because with a high degree of probability, the realization of one’s helplessness pushes people to such strange proposals in an unconscious impulse of any changes. And such attempts to do at least something will not lead to more than closing someone's gestalts.

And now we will tell you why you should not concentrate on everything described above and offer strategies and ways to fight for people held hostage by the regime.

First of all, it is worth discarding the desire to fall into arguments and disputes, and often swearing, which begin or end with “ if only ”. No one could guess in what direction the Belarusian protest would develop, how far the dictator would be ready to go, and what help he could count on from the Russian FSB leadership. We have what we have. Including an unthinkable number of political prisoners who continue the battle for a better world, but already in the dungeons of the dictatorship. What to do now, almost 3 years after the fateful events for Belarus? How can we help political prisoners? The answer will be very simple, so simple that some will be afraid to believe that it works.

We must talk about them!

And that's it? Does it really help?" - you ask. This is the only way to truly help them today.

We have talked many times about how such things help the repressed get help and provide support for their relatives and friends. All this is just a toolkit, which we will talk about at the end of the article. Now we will focus on a new awareness of the need to shout about our political prisoners. We all live in an information world where we are literally attacked by thousands of news a day. Their main task is to attract our attention, to put pressure on us in order to settle in our thoughts and, if possible, be reflected in our actions. Thus, the actors of modern reality bring to life their goals from selling us a can of cola to choosing a certain candidate in the elections. All these are gigabytes of information, a few bytes of which can become decisive and push us to certain actions.

In accordance with information theory, a conditional subject placed, for example, in a box, is completely cut off from the world and does not produce any information. The surrounding world does not know either the size of the subject or its characteristics, whether someone is alive there or whether this is a household item - just a closed box. The degree of influence on the surrounding reality on the part of such a subject is equal to zero. This is not an actor in the modern information world, it is isolated. And now, attention - it is on this that the whole institution of repression of autocratic regimes is built . An inconvenient person, whether an activist, politician, writer, journalist, or just a dissident, is a carrier of ideas that are harmful to an authoritarian system. The modern information society provides unprecedented means for spreading these ideas to the masses from a YouTube video to an expression in any social network.

Based on the knowledge of man as an extremely social species of intelligent monkeys Yuval Noah Harari “Sapiens - a brief history of mankind” , it can be confidently stated that the ideas of a rebel, not only threaten to spread (after all, usually in dictatorships, to put it mildly, there is something fair to criticize), so they also evolve. And where someone expressed dissatisfaction with the violence on the part of the security forces, another will call for a strike and blockade of supply chains. Judge everyone!”- we already know this answer. It cannot be otherwise, because the skeletal system of authoritarian power has never been able to compete with the living power of thought of free people.

At the time of writing this text, according to the information we have, 1,760 people have been isolated from society. And this is not a complete figure, but it is supported by information about real cases that you can and should work with. The monsters from the authorities in Belarus are trying to invent new ways to make the concrete boxes in which the objectionable were placed as deaf and closed as possible. After all, what is glimmering inside them is a real Koshcheev death for the Lukashenka regime, and most likely for the very concept of authoritarian power in our region.

What actions should we take? Talk, talk and even shout about political prisoners. To tear to shreds those boxes in which the best and brightest people of our time are put, because their values and views in the form of even a few bytes of information can scare the hell out of the regime. We definitely need to maintain all possible types of communication with people inside the colonies, prisons and isolation wards. Without a doubt, we are facing challenges and opposition to the dictatorship, which means we will have to come up with new ways to connect with these people, with their loved ones and relatives, because their voices are important . Perhaps this is the most important thing we have left from the struggle for democracy in Belarus.

Organizations, initiatives and foundations, of course, can and should have their own perspectives and visions of this issue, however, who we all, without exception, should be are loopholes in these closed boxes through which people in prisons can not only receive crumbs of information and assistance, but also to wage their own struggle against the very principle of diktat.

As for us specifically, we are desperately trying to find those tools and ways that will allow people not only to directly help political prisoners and their families in need, but also to become conductors of their voices. Those voices that the coward with blue fingers, surrounded by maniacs in uniform, is so afraid of. We would like to remind you about our project “Keeper”, in which any person, group of persons, organization or foundation can become an assistant for the family of a political prisoner and the prisoner himself/herself. At the same time, we are talking not only about material support, but also about moral support, about friendship. Each and every one who has the strength and desire to provide long-term assistance, as well as to be the voice of this person at large, can contact us and we will tell you all the details of this area of our work.

More visible may be informing the public about the fate of political prisoners within the framework of our other project “Guardians”, where media personalities, bloggers, politicians and journalists can truly become the voice of a person isolated in the dungeons of the regime. Write, and we will definitely help you get involved in such an important work!

Summing up, we want to say that you should not despair. The struggle continues, just the front of this struggle has lost its colors and its importance is carefully hidden from us by prison walls. But we are well aware of what...

Until everyone is free!

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