Integration Nightmare

When I was just starting to get involved in anarchist organizing in Belarus I downloaded somewhere out there with my 100MB traffic per month 5MB pdf version of Huey P. Newton's “Revolutionary Suicide” about the history of black panthers. It was quite an easy and fast read that touched a lot of different sides of being active under constant oppressions from the state. One of the most quoted stories from the books is about the cop who beats panthers at the police station at some part of the book and tells others that they should be done as soon as possible as he has to go the church next day with his family.

At that point I already knew that being politically active in Belarus does involve a certain level of police violence, doesn't matter how radical you are. By that time already several politicians and a journalist were murdered by the regime, and it was quite common to be beaten up by the police. Of course, it depended on the current relationship between Lukashenko and EU/USA. Meaning if there is a phase of friendship you might get out quite ok, but if belarusian regime is now in the phase of being close to Putin, than it means violence without consequences for the cops.

For us as young activists starting to organize, it meant that during the training on how to behave during the arrest, the questions of violence were always on the table. Some of the educators would even say “if you were beaten up, try to put blood on the detention protocol to use it later in the court”. Of course this kind of advices wouldn't help you in the court that has decision about your sentencing even before the court starts (most of the decisions are made not by judges, but rather by political forces, including political police officers), but it does create a certain atmosphere of what to expect in case you are caught during your next illegal action. And let's be clear here for the western reader – “illegal” in Belarus meant pretty much all political actions apart from 2-3 officially allowed ceremonial demonstrations happening for the last 20 years or so.

So with that in mind there was a bit of confusion but no surprise getting in a situation where cops would try to smash your head with a book of penal law, trying to make a point that you are not as smart as they are, because they have power over you. Paradoxically, violence was also something that brought me back to black panthers history. The same way as in the past, riot cops would argue with each other that they have to be done with me faster, because one of them has a date with his new awesome girlfriend. Or another case when the cop friendly told me that he is living just couple of house away from me. Half an hour later, he and 4 more cops were beating me and the other comrade with batons in the police station for not signing the police protocol.

There is a certain narrative these days in the liberal media among others that situation started getting bad in Belarus only after the protests in 2020. And although the shit did get on a different level, belarusian society and activists in it were living with police violence for generations, not talking only about regime of Lukashenko, but also the soviet regime and the Russian Empire before that. The state was beating, torturing and killing it's opponents for generations. Former cops are openly talking about training the use of violence on the prisoners (with belarusian riot cops and special task forces both practicing that), so when the time comes they won't have a barrier to smash your head against the wall. The violence of belarusian dictatorship was always there, it's just that recently the regime removed any breaks from the police actions.

And this is an important lesson for anarchists all around the world. If you are not experiencing police violence at this point of your activism, it doesn't mean that it won't happen. It is very hard to live through the violence that you don't expect, and it is just a little bit easier to go through this hard time when you know what to expect. And trust me “democratic” institutions do not protect you from police brutality and quite often encourage it against you under the banner of fighting “extremism” or some other bullshit as we all know that the only way to stop police violence is to abolish the police.