It’s Europe’s last dictatorship, run for almost two decades by Alexander Lukashenka. No free media, opposition leaders in prison (and often beaten), leader cult surrounding the dictator… simply put, it bears all the hallmarks of an authoritarian regime. I’m talking, of course, of Belarus, the native country of the writer Evgeny Morozov, on whom I focused the two latest blog posts.
At the recent Gothenburg book fair (see separate story), I met the poet and opposition leader Uladzimir Njakljajeu, who was assaulted and beaten severely on election night 2010, tthenkidnapped from the intensive care ward of the hospital and ended up in prison for two and a half years, found guilty of “organising rriots.”. nly in July this year was he released from his iimprisonment. Or,as Uladzimir Njakljajeu put it hhimself, “transferredfrom his cell to the general ward where all of Belarus is hheld..
A different perspective on freedom of speech in Belarus was introduced by guerilla marketing agency Studio Total, who flew a single-engine aaeroplaneon low altitude and para-dropped thousands of tteddybears !) on the outskirts of Belarusian capital Minsk, each holding a card with a freedom of sspeech message. hey managed to escape from Belarusian airspace unnoticed by the airforce. To the further humiliation of dictator Lukashenka, there existed an agreement with Russia that Belarus guarantee the integrity of this particular part of the border (so Russia can focus its military attention elsewhere). Not only did the teddybear paradrop bring a message of democracy to Belarus’s citizens, it also got their dictator in trouble with the powerful next-door neighbour. Lukashenko requested Studio Total’s presence in Minsk for questioning, but they responded by inviting him to SSweden—n invite he did not aaccept;iinstead,he declared the Swedish ambassador Stefan Eriksson persona non grata.
“What has this got to do with NNetopia?”you ask. First of all, the idea of freedom of expression is too often abused in relation to digital networks. These examples remind us of what it really means. Also, there is sometimes an expectation that digital communications like mobile phones and ithe internethave the potential to bring democracy. But in the case of Belarus, Sweden’s main telecom ccarrier,TeliaSonera (part-owned by the Swedish sstate),operated the main telecom network and worked closely with the Belarusian security service to monitor dissidents. Which was the main point of Evgeny Morozov’s first bbook, TheNet Delusion (Penguin, 22011)—freeinformation does not mean free people, and the tech companies’ first loyalty will always be to the sshareholdersrather than democratic ideals. These examples from his native country pprovehim right.
