Solidarity As A Built-In Utility

Helping political prisoners will be our lifestyle until the end of the dictatorship.

Belarusians are geniuses of solidarity. I have been repeating this phrase for many years. The other day I read how the Salihorsk residents lined up to donate blood for their fellow citizens with leukemia, and repeated again: we are geniuses of solidarity, that’s it.

People still remember the water cut in the Novaia Baravaia [a district in Minsk] three years ago. The locals brought cans and bottles of water from all districts of Minsk to help. Everyone remembers that private medical centres were providing care for the victims for free during the protests and cafe owners were letting in those fleeing riot police and closing the doors in front of the security squads, volunteer motorists were on duty near Akrestsina and the Zhodzina pre-trial detention centres, taking home those leaving after administrative arrests. These are the first examples from the recent past that come to my mind. But it has always been like that.

Perhaps, solidarity and readiness to immediately come to the rescue is a kind of utility built into the software of the Belarusian brain. We are born with it and do not notice how it works until it becomes visible to the whole world. So, we are looking at each other and we are surprised: “Wow! We can really do some very important things without noticing it. Utility, you see.”

There have always been political prisoners in Belarus. Except that “under Shushkevich”, in those amazing three years of poverty and freedom, difficulties and joys, despair and hopes, no one was imprisoned for thoughts and words. And then Lukashenka came, and the word "political prisoner" returned to the vocabulary of those who hoped never to use it again. The first political prisoner of the new time was poet Slavamir Adamovich, who was arrested for the poem "Kill the President." Ales Bialiatski collected money to help the family of Slavamir during the first Chernobyl Way. In 2006, Minsk residents went to the Square to the tent camp of the protesters, without saying a word, with warm clothes, food and thermoses with tea. In 2010, they collected money for the families of political prisoners. Then - to pay fines for participation in the "parasite" protests and to help the families of those arrested in the case of the White Legion. All the time it is like that, until today. And until 2020 - without Telegram channels, and even earlier - without social media and even sometimes without mobile phones. It is even impossible to imagine how we managed to meet at that time and get acquainted, negotiate and help without any means of communication and coordinators. The utility was working - there are no other versions.

This continuity provides the main feature of helping political prisoners: this is not a telethon, not a show, not an action. This is the way of life of Belarusians as long as dictatorship and repression exist. Marathons are good when you need urgent one-time fundraising, for example, for victims of natural disasters or man-made disasters. Everything is clear here: you need to act quickly, decisively and, most likely, once. But when it comes to political prisoners, the most important thing is not one-time actions, but constant help. It's like a second job. For example on Sunday, instead of a day off, you can go for a walk with children whose parents are under “home arrest” and cannot leave the house on weekends. And not just once to go for a walk with the children, but constantly. You can arrange shifts with friends: today you, tomorrow me. Or regularly buy food for parcels to the pre-trial detention centers, taking a specific family “under guardianship”. Or pay for the delivery of food parcels, not for transfers to a pre-trial detention center, but for the family of a political prisoner who finds himself in a difficult financial situation. There are a lot of options, both in Belarus and abroad. The main thing is to make it habitual, indispensable, obligatory. Not always pleasant perhaps, but necessary. A one-time transfer of money is a ransom like: I'm done, I’ve made a transfer, I helped. Constant assistance to the family of a political prisoner, which you may know personally or you can find through social media or human rights activists, is a conscious, time-consuming action. Work, volunteering or, if you like, lifestyle.

By the way, from my own experience (fortunately or unfortunately, I happened to be both a political prisoner and the wife of a political prisoner) I can say: the most important thing for a political prisoner is to know that his or her family is receiving care. They come, call, write, bring gifts to children, buy groceries and help relatives to bring heavy parcels to the prison. Until you get to know the family of a political prisoner, you won't know what they really need. Perhaps not even money, but simple physical help.

It's really easy to get to know each other. I am sure that there are families in which someone is imprisoned for political reasons in every city of Belarus. I have no doubt that we, 97% of us, hopefully still a valid figure, will be able to take care of every family. After all, we are the geniuses of solidarity. We have such a utility.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org