«Гудбай, «Зубр». Гэта была прыгожая спроба, і шкада, што яна не ўдалася. Спадзяюся, у новым фармаце пашанцуе больш», – піша аўтар англамоўнага беларускага блоґу на Transitions Online VS.
In the fall of 2000, several young opposition activists founded a new youth movement called Zubr (Bison) - a copy of Serbia’s Otpor that just helped to oust Slobodan Milosevic out of power. Obviously, the idea was to replicate the revolution in Belarus according to the Serbian scenario. Zubr managed to make a lot of noise, both in Belarus and abroad (to many, more abroad than in Belarus), but the revolution never came. Seeing that, in Leninist talk, ’conditions are not mature’, Zubr struggled to redefine its own identity, trying in 2002, for example, to switch to campaign on social issues, to little success. Then came December 2005 and new amendments to criminal code, that made founding an unregistered NGO punishable by three years in jail. Several Zubr activists, including Mikita Sasim, are now in prison awaiting trial.
It looks like Zubr expired before the revolution came. On their website, you can see the following statement:
The presidential campaign 2006 has considerably changed the situation in Belarus. Despite total control, mass repression and intimidation the dictatorship failed to break people’s will for freedom. Dozens thousands of Belarusians went out to streets disregarding threats of death penalty and, thus, demonstrating their willingness to see Belarus as a free and democratic country. The Lukashenka’s regime was morally defeated.
It is absolutely clear that the final victory can only be achieved via unification of all democratic forces. Coordination within the frames of a partisan coalition is not enough. Now it is on the top agenda to create a single national democratic civic movement that would unite millions of supporters for democratic changes. Methods of unification, the title of the movement, forms of activities and ways of registration should be discussed.
We call upon all civil initiatives to join the united movement. As the first step of this unification, the youth resistance ZUBR declares interruption of all its activities under ZUBR brand and will continue its struggle against the regime within the wide national movement.
Only united we can win!
For your and our freedom!
All rights for the YOUTH RESISTANCE ZUBR brand belong to Antos Tsialezhnikau till January 1, 2007
So, Zubr is dead? Hard to judge. The organization, unlike Otpor, never became a truly mass movement. This is not to say it did not have people - it did, and at a time, there was a massive outflow of activists to Zubr from other groups. But now, it is more of a dissident network of semi-radical activists rather than a movement. The group got more than its fare share of police attention, and now being a Zubr means being in jail. I believe, they desided to bury the brand that can put their people in trouble, hopefully without stopping activities.
How to judge it? Maybe, it is one more warning against the schematic application of the revolutionary expreiences - something that never truly worked in Belarus. Maybe, it is a sign that the Belarusian opposition is getting tired. Maybe, however, it is a good call for consolidation, even though I believe, the appeal to ’join the new movement’ is just a way to quit and save the grace - after all, there is no new movement, only talks about it. Maybe, it is also the sign that opposition politics for some time to come will be constricted to virtual reality rather then practical things that are extremely dangerous right now.
Any way, good buy, Zubr. It was a nice try, and we are sorry it did not succeed. Hopefuly, you will get a better luck in a different format.
VS
