A SECULAR CARTOON JIHAD
By Evgeny Morozov
TCS Daily, DC
March 15 2006
In his 1979 novel, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, the Czech
writer Milan Kundera cautions against the dangers of institutionalized
forgetting, portraying diabolic laughter as an effective response to
the absurdity and pomposity of a totalitarian system. The Belarusian
opposition can hardly get a better piece of advice. For the foundations
of Alexander Lukashenko’s Forgetful Empire are as much absurd as
they are under-derided. A loud strain of Kunderesque laughter can
crumble it in a few months. To win, the opposition should mock the
quasi-institutionalized cult of forgetting and posit laughter at the
cornerstone of its resistance campaign.
Lukashenko’s obsession with forgetting started in 1996, when he
organized and won a referendum on abandoning Belarus’ traditional
pre-Soviet insignia in exchange for the Soviet one (the latter being
irrelevant to the history of the independent Belarus before 1922).
>From then on, Lukashenko attempted to efface all other traces of
the real Belarus. All national heroes, who would be the pride of a
nation in any other state, were marginalized, as if they could remind
Belarusians of their pre-Lukashenko grandeur.
Shortly after, forgetting became an official policy, expanding into
such unexciting areas as giving almost empty names to the streets
that bore any resemblance to that “other” Belarus that Lukashenko
despises. Thus “Skaryny Avenue”, a major street in the capital,
named in honor of Francisk Skaryna (the first publisher of a book
in a Slavic language, who came from Belarus), became “Independence
Avenue”. “Masherov Avenue”, named in honor of Petr Masherov, the most
popular Soviet-era Belarusian leader, who advocated an early form of
glasnost, became “Victors’ Avenue”.
Lukashenko’s cult of forgetting had made him forget even the hardest of
facts. A few years ago he proclaimed that he grew up reading verses of
Vasil Bykov, the most eminent Belarusian writer and a nominee for the
Nobel Prize in literature. Bykov never wrote verses, only prose…A
devout fan can do better-Lukashenko did not bother to attend Bykov’s
funeral in 2003.
About two weeks ago Lukashenko made an even more blatant mistake,
stating that “we should not be ashamed of our past [hinting at
the centuries-long relationship with Russia]… Take Skaryna,
for example. We all know that he had lived and worked in Saint
Petersburg…”. Good point about being ashamed of the past (didn’t
Lukashenko himself change the name of Skaryna Avenue?), but Skaryna
died around 1550, while Saint Petersburg was founded in 1703. One
hundred and fifty years here or there, but as long as Saint Petersburg
is the birthplace of Vladimir Putin, the cheerleader-in-chief of
Lukashenko’s re-election, the trick is worth it.
Letting such slips go un-ridiculed can be very costly for the
Belarusian opposition. Instead, they should advocate laughter and
derision as a way of life for anybody who realizes the absurdity of
Lukashenko’s regime. Thus, they can also restore confidence and faith
in what Lukashenko would rather prefer to forget.
Take the 2006 presidential elections campaign. In almost every
Belarusian town local authorities try to obstruct public addresses
from the opposition. Since those meetings are allowed by law, local
administrations fill most of the seats in the audience with their
own subordinates, thus preventing those who genuinely came to see the
candidate from entering extremely crowded halls. How more subtle can
it get: authorities themselves deliver those who need to be persuaded
and force them to listen to a two-hour speech by one of Lukashenko’s
challengers. However, instead of deriding this absurdity in their
speeches, the opposition candidates conduct those meetings with their
permanently serious faces.
Or take the recent coup-revelation scandal, in which the chief of
the KGB (some things in Belarus do preserve their old names) proudly
reported to have uncovered more than 70 quasi-secret non-profit
organizations getting ready to undermine Lukashenko’s regime. In
reality, their secrecy can’t get worse-almost all of them are listed
on the “Supporters” page of the Web site of the main opposition
candidate. But instead of pointing to the absurdity of KGB’s claims
and offering its officials a paid job placement into any of those NGOs,
the opposition mounted a rational self-defense, justifying their very
existence and activities.
The opposition’s strategy to attack Lukashenko with numbers and
hard data is also ineffective. For every number and fact that the
opposition produces but never airs, Lukashenko produces five other
numbers, announcing them from the front covers of top newspapers,
not to mention TV. A public argument against Lukashenko can never
be won, since he is always the only one talking. Humor and irony are
ideal for toppling him; there is nothing to refute in a good joke.
Belarusians still remember how anecdotes about the Armenian radio
crumbled the Soviet Empire; doesn’t the Armenian radio have a stance
on Lukashenko?
As opposed to politicians, civil society does mock Lukashenko’s
regime-and quite effectively. In 2004 a group of college students
initiated a series of Flash-animated cartoons about it, which
they branded “People’s TV”. The cartoons resonated in the online
community. At the peak of their popularity they attracted more than
50,000 hits per day. In the summer of 2005 the authorities said
they were not going to tolerate that any further, and three of the
cartoons’ authors emigrated. Those who stayed now face up to five
years in jail. Even by Belarusian standards, this seems too harsh
for a piece of Internet animation. But who can now stop “People’s TV”
broadcasting from abroad? Maybe, it is time to revive the tradition
of underground publishing.
Central European nations, afresh with the memories of their own
struggle against tyranny 20 years ago, know all of this. Thus,
on February 27, four major dailies in the Czech Republic, Hungary,
Poland, and Slovakia published a series of cartoons about Lukashenko,
encouraging a pan-European attack on the repressive regime. An
excellent strategy – if only the Belarusian opposition can do its
job too and display the cartoons even to the staunchest supporters of
the regime. Such cartoons will be more effective than leaflets that
talk about GDP per capita and the share of exports in the Belarusian
economy, terms that alienate an average Lukashenko supporter.
More and more people start talking, if not joking, about the regime
in their daily lives. Thus, places like local markets, which are part
of the Zeitgeist of today’s Belarus, have been rightfully marked by
the opposition to deliver their messages. But talking facts to people
that have been brainwashed by Lukashenko’s media empire yields few
results. The day the opposition appeals to good humor rather than good
judgment, it will be poised to win. Not laughing at today’s regime
grants Lukashenko the opportunity to remain the only one laughing.
=031506B