25 Mar 2011
Freedom on Paper
Апісаньне ўсіх сэрыяў і навіны праекту: paper.generation.by
And it`s the (unofficial) Independence Day again (to revise the historical background see my earlier posting). The pro-democratically-set part of Belarus is congratulating each other on this occasion, however, this year more quietly and symbolically than usual.
Today, it seems, there will be no one big organized street action to commemorate this date, which has become a tradition in the last 20 years. After the crackdown on democracy starting after the last elections, the democratic movement has been under constant attack by police and KGB. Activists and leaders are arrested and prosecuted, NGOs and media offices are raided by KGB, hundreds of people interrogated and threatened. Although some groups came up with initiatives for March 25th, the news that dozens of youth activists have been detained around the country (something which is referred to as preventive arrests) signals that there will be no mass street action today.
Showing up in a group in the city center on this date (let alone with a white-red-white banner or even an umbrella or scarf of that color) is equivalent to steping into a cage with tigers while wearing a Lady-Gaga-like meat-dress. Only very few will dare.
And if we imagine what could be if people were allowed to go out and celebrate the independence day with the national symbols of Belarusian Popular Republic that would probably be something like that:
The inspiration for this street art project came from an article about an artist known as SLINKACHU. The idea of his `little people` project is that he creates mini installations depicting tiny people and leaves them around London and other European cities. He also takes a picture of them, just in case the visitors of such an `exhibition` don’t notice the exhibits and ruin them by steping on the “little people”. GenerationBY liked the idea of the`little people` project and decided to adapt it to the Belarusian political reality.
The message goes beyond just art in case of Belarus. It is incredibly sad that tiny people drawn on a piece of paper have more freedom to gather and wear white-red-white symbolics than actual Belarusians. It symbolizes that despite the arrests and house searches and trials, the protest is still present in people’s minds. But it also transmits the hope that one day those will be us – real Belarusians in a free and democratic state celebrating its independence from the authoritarian rule.
Here is the original article about the “White-Red-White in Minsk” project.
PS. Despite what the news sites will show tonight about arrests in the streets of Minsk (or the lack of those) one can say that a Big Crowd has already gathered to commemorate this date, although just online. GenerationBY server went down for a while due to an unusually big crowd of visitors who came to see the project. Now the webpage is back online and running again.