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Speaker 1: M fucking hey, Bluetooth and headphones. This has been a

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Speaker 1: terrible morning of figuring out technology things. And it's also

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Speaker 1: three in the afternoon, which is nine in the morning

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Speaker 1: for me. I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards,

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Speaker 1: the show where every week I write a very long

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Speaker 1: essay about a different terrible person and then fail at

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Speaker 1: the basics of setting up headphones. Um, it's it's it's

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Speaker 1: the worst. The reason we've been having such terrible technical

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Speaker 1: difficulties is that today I actually have someone in the

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Speaker 1: studio with me, which we haven't done since the plague.

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Speaker 1: But the person the studio, Yeah, my desk that's in

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Speaker 1: front of my bed in my room that is filled

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Speaker 1: with ants and pieces of guns. Um, why are there

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Speaker 1: a Garrison? Say hello to the people? Hello? Hello, Hello, Hi,

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Speaker 1: this is this is Garrison. This is Garrison Garrison. Who

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Speaker 1: are you tell the people who you are? High? So

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Speaker 1: some people may know me as at Hungry bow Tie

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Speaker 1: on Twitter or Garrison Davis tear gas proof. Um. I've

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Speaker 1: been covering the protests in Portland and have been working

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Speaker 1: alongside Robert Evans and some other fine fine folks while

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Speaker 1: getting shot at by federal agents for months now. Yep.

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Speaker 1: We we met in a cloud of tear gas, and

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Speaker 1: most of our relationship has occurred in that cloud of

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Speaker 1: tear gas. Uh. And now we are becoming podcast buddies

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Speaker 1: in addition to tear gas buddies, which is which is

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Speaker 1: an exciting moment. And I could have just stayed home

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Speaker 1: and recorded from there and not had to deal with

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Speaker 1: this terrible bluetooth headphone situation. It's been awful. So the situation.

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Speaker 1: We want to have Sophie on as we record, but

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Speaker 1: a variety of things make that problematic, including the way

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Speaker 1: that headphones work. Nobody sells headphones splitters anymore, so we

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Speaker 1: eventually had to go by these things that you zoomers love,

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Speaker 1: these these little headphones don't separate, separate Bluetooth. Don't blame

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Speaker 1: me for don't don't rope me into that. I am

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Speaker 1: absolutely blaming you for the state of headphones back in

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Speaker 1: my day. Back in my day, Garrison, all we needed

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Speaker 1: was an audio jack and then a little splitter and

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Speaker 1: you get as many headphones as you wanted on a laptop.

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Speaker 1: Can we circle back to the part where you say

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Speaker 1: you wanted to have Sophie on. Excuse me? Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: are allowed to be here because I allow you to

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Speaker 1: be here. Continue. Okay, So Garrison, you are you are

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Speaker 1: one of the youth. Yes, that is the future. Yes

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Speaker 1: I am I am the future. Yeah, you're you're famously

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Speaker 1: seventeen years old. What is a TikTok? I've never had

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Speaker 1: it is? It's a sound of clock mix. I feel

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Speaker 1: like that's not what the president's banning. And I feel

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Speaker 1: like you're hiding your secret, your secret millennial zoomer whatever.

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Speaker 1: I'm seventeen for another month, but I've never had a TikTok. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So maybe the other thing you can explain? What is

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Speaker 1: what is an ariana grande? No, goddamn Robert, you know

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Speaker 1: how to pronounce her name. It's a coffee from Starbucks, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that sounds right, favor. Now that we've settled all these

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Speaker 1: issues that the youth can teachious about the future. Um,

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Speaker 1: sorry about climate change, by the way, that's going to

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Speaker 1: be a real problem for you guys. Um, I'll be

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Speaker 1: dead of many cancers by then. Thanks for that. In

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Speaker 1: a year and a half, Um, we're talking today about

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Speaker 1: Alexander Luca Shanko. Uh. And maybe folks don't super know

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Speaker 1: about this guy, but you've probably heard about some messed

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Speaker 1: up stuff happening in Belarus. Um, he's the dictator of Belarus.

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Speaker 1: So this is a very timely episode. Um. And you know, Garrison,

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Speaker 1: I was gonna have you want to talk about Dr

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Speaker 1: Jordan B. Peterson. But considering the fact that Belarus is

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Speaker 1: rising up against his dictator right now and they're all

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Speaker 1: getting horribly tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets, and

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Speaker 1: We've been horribly tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets,

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Speaker 1: I thought this would be a fun a fun subject

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Speaker 1: that also is timely. Yeah, there's a little bit of

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Speaker 1: relatability there. What do you know about Belarus, Little to

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Speaker 1: nothing except they are now experiencing a lot of tear

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Speaker 1: gas and getting shot at by their police. So that

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Speaker 1: is probably true for basically everybody. I mean, I'll be honest, like,

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Speaker 1: I knew that there was a dictator in Belarus and

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Speaker 1: that he was famously called Europe's last dictator by a

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Speaker 1: bunch of like American politicians. Um, but that's that was.

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Speaker 1: That was about of my knowledge of Belarus. Other than that,

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Speaker 1: I think they have arguments with Ukraine over who does

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Speaker 1: the best strange pig based dishes, um, which I can't

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Speaker 1: comment on, but there's some good ass pig based dishes.

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Speaker 1: Salo man, fucking amazing. But they both have salo, So

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Speaker 1: I don't know you ever had salo, Sophie. Mm hmm.

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Speaker 1: It's like guacamole made out of pigs. It kind of rules. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're not gonna get along in Eastern Europe. I'll trust

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Speaker 1: you on that one, buddy. Okay, So we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: Lukashenko today. Um So, yeah, once upon a time, and

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Speaker 1: by which I mean like three years ago, he was

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Speaker 1: repeatedly called Europe's last dictator by a bunch of American politicians.

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Speaker 1: And now there's a whole bunch of other dictators in

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Speaker 1: Europe again, so that's not really Yeah, you've got like

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Speaker 1: a discounting Russia if we call them like, because there's

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Speaker 1: always that debate over like how European Russia is, like

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Speaker 1: we've still got hungry. Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot more

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Speaker 1: dictators in Europe. So he's not he's not as special

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Speaker 1: as he used to be, but it is special because

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Speaker 1: uh Lukashenko has been in powerful like twenty six years,

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Speaker 1: so like throughout the whole kind of Golden Age, or

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Speaker 1: if you want to call it that, if the like

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Speaker 1: the kind of height of the European Unions influenced the

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Speaker 1: height of NATO's power. Um, he was like an old

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Speaker 1: Soviet style autocrat hanging out in the in the middle

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Speaker 1: of Europe. Um. It's it's a pretty weird story and

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Speaker 1: he's not This is going to be I think useful

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Speaker 1: because this is in the news right now. He's plays

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Speaker 1: it pretty close to the chest, So we just don't

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Speaker 1: know as much about the guy personally as we do

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Speaker 1: about some other figures. But I think it's still a

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Speaker 1: useful story to get out to people in the moment here. So,

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Speaker 1: Lukashenko survived the collapse of the USSR and basically spent

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Speaker 1: the whole period of capitalist democracy's victory lap ruling over

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Speaker 1: a nation of nine and point five million people. He

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Speaker 1: survived economic downturns, the birth of the Internet, conflicts between

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Speaker 1: his nation's neighbors, and a bunch of really awkward to

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Speaker 1: hang out sessions with Steven Seagal. Today though he's obviously

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Speaker 1: in trouble and for the first time in thirty years, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's this is that. We talked about this on the

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Speaker 1: Segal episode. This is the guy who like gave states

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Speaker 1: Abolo Giant Carrott. He's just out there, Steven Seagal. Yeah, sure,

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Speaker 1: is just occasionally kidnapping women and locking them in a

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Speaker 1: I don't want to finish that thought. Um. Yeah, so no,

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Speaker 1: we shouldn't. So there's a lot of eyes on Belarus

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Speaker 1: right now. UM, we should probably start by covering some

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Speaker 1: basic facts. Because most people don't know anything about Belarus. Um.

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Speaker 1: Belarus is located in eastern Europe. It's about as far

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Speaker 1: east as you can go without hitting Russia. It's immediate

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Speaker 1: western neighbor is Poland and its habors to the north,

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Speaker 1: or Latvia and Lithuania. You could call it Ukrainian Canada,

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Speaker 1: although nobody does. No one does that, including this Canadian.

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Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, there's not really any comparisons to make

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Speaker 1: between Ukraine and Belarus, and in that regard, um, unless

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Speaker 1: like is Canada dictatorship. Garrison not really Okay, okay, it

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Speaker 1: tries not to be. Yeah, Garrison's Canadian. So I mean

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Speaker 1: our current prime minister did not get the majority of

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Speaker 1: the votes in our last election. Um, because we have

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Speaker 1: a weird system that is different than the electoral college. Um.

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Speaker 1: But has some similarities. It's weird and not great. But yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 1: it's cute how both of our countries make the same

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Speaker 1: horrible decisions. Um but but just a little bit, a

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Speaker 1: little bit a little different shine on them. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's nice. That's what friends do. So um yeah, if

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Speaker 1: you know a little bit of history and geography, you

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Speaker 1: can tell that Belarus has had a rough time of

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Speaker 1: it historically. Being right between Poland and Russia doesn't seem great.

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Speaker 1: Not not great, but there's a lot of problems with

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Speaker 1: not the best spot to have, like not maybe not

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Speaker 1: as bad as starting place as Germany, which is a

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Speaker 1: pretty rough location to have a country. Um, as you

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Speaker 1: might gather, but like they're they're they're kind of in

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Speaker 1: the middle of a lot of ship historically, in the

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Speaker 1: middle of a lot of genocide. Yeah, in the mid

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Speaker 1: of genocide because connect to Ukraine, Russia and Poland, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of genocide in the adjacent area. Yeah, Belarusian

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Speaker 1: history has a couple of different points where we say

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Speaker 1: and then a shockingly high percentage of the nation's entire

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Speaker 1: population was killed in the space of a year. Uh So, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Belarus bad place to start as a country. If you're

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Speaker 1: if you're playing like civilization or whatever, and this is

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Speaker 1: where you land, you're gonna have a rough You're gonna

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Speaker 1: have a rough game of it. Um. Belarusian identity is

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Speaker 1: generally traced back to kind of starting to form in

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Speaker 1: the tenth century in the establishment of the Principality of Polotsk.

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Speaker 1: The first Belarusians entered history largely for their ability to

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Speaker 1: maintain and profit off of a trade route connected the

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Speaker 1: Vikings to the Greeks, Which is part of why it's

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Speaker 1: such a rough place to be is it's like kind

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Speaker 1: of right in the middle of a bunch of roads.

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Speaker 1: Like if you want to get anywhere in Europe from Asia,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna wind up rolling through Belarus probably um. And

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Speaker 1: that you know, is a recipe for getting the ship

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Speaker 1: kicked out of you a bunch uh. They had a

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Speaker 1: lot of ups and downs the medieval period and spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of time fighting with the Mongols um, which

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Speaker 1: are not a group of people you really want to

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Speaker 1: fight um, But eventually they won. By the thirteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: what is today Belarus had become a central part of

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Speaker 1: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania UM, so Lithuanians and Belarusians

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Speaker 1: were the same people for a while. Um. At least

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Speaker 1: that's what the historians I've read tend to say. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure there's historians who will say that that's horribly inaccurate,

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Speaker 1: but that seems to be broadly the consensus um and

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Speaker 1: that at around like the fourteen hundreds, UM, Belarus and

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Speaker 1: Lithuanian identity started to split, and by the sixteen hundreds

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Speaker 1: that whole chunk of Europe was more or less a

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Speaker 1: free for all of constant warfare between different kingdoms, between

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Speaker 1: conflicts with Moscow, Poland, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire. The

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Speaker 1: population of modern day Belarus was reduced by half over

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Speaker 1: the course of a few decades in the sixteen hundreds. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that's the first time a gigantic percentage of the

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Speaker 1: of the population dies hard. Yeah, sixteen hundreds, half of

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Speaker 1: belarusk uh theologists get murdered. Um, so that's good. In

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Speaker 1: the early eighteen hundreds, Belarus was absorbed by the Russian

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Speaker 1: Empire and became its northwestern region. So it's like the

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Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest for Russia. There's so many relatable elements here. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's why, in addition to Ukraine's Canada. Belarus's other nickname

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Speaker 1: that nobody calls it is Russian Oregon. That's good because

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Speaker 1: I'm both Canadian and an Orgonian. Yeah, this is really

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Speaker 1: we should be able to identify with these people. So

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Speaker 1: being in the northwest of Russia was a bad place

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Speaker 1: to be for basically all of the twentieth century. Um,

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Speaker 1: and the horrific wars of that era, World War One

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Speaker 1: and World War Two reduced the population of Belarus again

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Speaker 1: by more than the third by the end of Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like they just they just keep huge numbers of them,

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Speaker 1: keep getting any time, like you're able to say, like,

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Speaker 1: and then this whole region was depopulated by this massive fraction.

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Speaker 1: It's not a great history. Um So, yeah, they've had

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Speaker 1: a rough time of it. By the end of World

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Speaker 1: War two, Belarus, it's been half a century being either

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Speaker 1: torn apart by mechanized warfare or recovering from being torn

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Speaker 1: apart by mechanized warfare. So the region settled into its

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Speaker 1: new life after World War Two. Is one of the

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Speaker 1: less memorable chunks of the Soviet Union. And for a

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Speaker 1: while things were like relatively okay comparatively compared to everyone dying. Sure,

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Speaker 1: I mean once you've hit a low that bad. Anything

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Speaker 1: besides that is comparatively good. Yeah, and they did, you know,

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Speaker 1: they suffered. There was quite a bit of state repression

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Speaker 1: in Belarus, which we'll talk about some of the effects

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Speaker 1: from a little bit later. Um. And everywhere in the

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Speaker 1: USSR had its different experiences, both good and bad. It

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Speaker 1: was a big, complicated thing that happened. Um. You can

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Speaker 1: make a case that Belarus was one of the parts

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Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union that was kind of broadly happiest

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Speaker 1: with the whole arrangement. I did come across interviews with

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Speaker 1: a number of Belarusian anarchists who talked about severe repression

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Speaker 1: of their cultural identity and the civic union in favor

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Speaker 1: of Russian identity. Um. This is something that happened all

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Speaker 1: over the USSR, and it seems like it was a

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Speaker 1: problem in Belarus. Two. Um, But it is true that

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one, when the various Soviets of the

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Speaker 1: Union had a referendum on whether or not to keep

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Speaker 1: being the Soviet Union, Belarus was one of the few

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Speaker 1: places where most people wanted to keep going. Of Belarus

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Speaker 1: voted to continue being a part of the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: It seems like people were like broadly like on board

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Speaker 1: with what was with what was going down, but that

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Speaker 1: doesn't tell the whole story. Those numbers do get cited

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Speaker 1: a lot as evidence that people were very happy with

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Speaker 1: the system, but things aren't quite that simple. Faith in

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Speaker 1: the Soviet government had begun to collapse in Belarus starting

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighties six with a chair Noble disaster and

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Speaker 1: its subsequent cover up doesn't make people don't like nuclear

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Speaker 1: power plants exploding and then being covered up, and sens

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Speaker 1: of people being poisoned, not not a fan of giant

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Speaker 1: explosions then getting yeah, yeah, yeah it's not it's not

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Speaker 1: anyone's best day ever, and making of incompetence causing giant

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Speaker 1: explosions also a timely, timely reference. So I thought you

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Speaker 1: were going to do an ad pivot there. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: podcast is supported by the concept of nuclear power plants

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Speaker 1: being improperly maintained. It was a real big ad gate

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Speaker 1: for US Raytheon sponsors blowing up this entire city. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean they don't stop it, stop it if it's

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Speaker 1: if it's not okay to influence a young man to

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Speaker 1: appreciate Raytheon's fine product line, then I don't know what is.

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Speaker 1: As we grow up in a complicated, conflicted world, we

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Speaker 1: all need the security that comes from a raytheon based

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Speaker 1: knife missile. It makes makes me feel safe and secure

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Speaker 1: in my look. Sophie, seventeen year old isn't allowed to

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Speaker 1: own a firearm, but there's no law that says he

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Speaker 1: can't own a drone fired knife missile. Not in this country.

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Speaker 1: Not in this country, good country. That's how you defend

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Speaker 1: your home is with a knife missile. I thought it

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Speaker 1: was with a mae. I have those two. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So people got angry in Belarus over chair noble. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And that was six And in ninety eight that anger

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Speaker 1: was compounded when an archaeologist named Zionon Pasniak discovered a

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Speaker 1: series of mass graves that dated back to Stalin's terror.

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Speaker 1: These graves were located at a place called Karapati outside

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Speaker 1: of the Belarusian capital of Minsk, and they held more

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Speaker 1: than a quarter of a million corpses. Okay, here we go, people,

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Speaker 1: people are not at their While most Belarusians vote to

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Speaker 1: stay in the Soviet Union, there's a lot of those

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Speaker 1: were not able to vote. Those those guys couldn't vote. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it does broadly make people less trusting of the

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Speaker 1: government when they find a quarter of a million dead

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Speaker 1: people buried outside of their hometown own. I wouldn't, I

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Speaker 1: would be I would have some questions, I would we would.

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Speaker 1: Yeah that it's not great. Um, when you that's not

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Speaker 1: the thing you want to hear about, Like, yeah, So

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Speaker 1: the fact that an archaeologist working for the state was

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Speaker 1: allowed to reveal that a quarter of a million people

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Speaker 1: had been murdered and buried outside of Minsk is evidence

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Speaker 1: that in nineteen eighty eight there was a lot less

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Speaker 1: repression in the USSR than there is. Yeah. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: love it when the state doesn't kill someone for saying

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Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of dead bodies. Yeah. Obviously this

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Speaker 1: was very troubling to people, and so there were a

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Speaker 1: lot of calls to reform and accountability. Activists within Belarus

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Speaker 1: created the Belarusian Popular Front in October of nineteen eight

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Speaker 1: after mass protests that ended in fights with state security forces.

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Speaker 1: And all of this brings us back around to Alexander Lukashenko,

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Speaker 1: who by that point was running a series of collective farms.

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Speaker 1: He was a pig farmer. Basically, um loves loves him

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Speaker 1: some collective farms, um, and was apparently pretty good at

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Speaker 1: running collective farms, and we should probably hop back in

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Speaker 1: time again at this point. UM. Alexandr Grigoryevitch Lukashenko was

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Speaker 1: born in August thirtieth, nineteen fifty four, and this much

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Speaker 1: a lot of people agree on. Uh. Pretty much everything

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Speaker 1: else about his background is up for grabs, though many

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Speaker 1: sources will say that he was born in the rural

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Speaker 1: verage village of Copius in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic,

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Speaker 1: but Lukashenko himself has given multiple different answers when asked

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Speaker 1: where he was born. He's claimed he was born in

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Speaker 1: a god forsaken half Belarusian half Russian village and also

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Speaker 1: that he was born in the city of Orsha. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The reason for this discrepancy is simple. Lukashenko was more

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Speaker 1: or less than nobody for most of his life. He

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Speaker 1: was derided as just like a pig farmer by his

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Speaker 1: rivals when he came to power, and there were very

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Speaker 1: few public details about his early life. And that's kind

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Speaker 1: of the way that Lukashenko wanted it. As he began

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Speaker 1: taking over, he knew that his biography was more of

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Speaker 1: a tool for taking and holding power than it was

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Speaker 1: an actual work of historical importance, and as such, most

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Speaker 1: of it shall read about Lukashenko tells us less about

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Speaker 1: the man himself than it does about the culture of

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Speaker 1: leadership and propaganda in the U. S s R, which

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Speaker 1: I find kind of cool. Um. So, wherever you find

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Speaker 1: like a community, a subculture, occult, a nation, um, an

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Speaker 1: ideology that's based around like charismatic individual people, you will

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Speaker 1: find specific traditions about writing biographies for those figures. And

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Speaker 1: this is true everywhere. Um. It's not just like a

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Speaker 1: communist thing. It's not just a dictatorship thing. It's true

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Speaker 1: of market capitalism. If you go grab a biography of

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk and a biography of Steve Jobs, and a

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Speaker 1: biography of Bill Gates, and you know, maybe run through

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Speaker 1: a couple of those fawning profile pieces in like The

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Speaker 1: New Yorker of people like Elizabeth Holmes or Travis Kallinik

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Speaker 1: of Uber or the Wee Work guy, like before all

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Speaker 1: of their grips became crashing to the grad. Yeah, if

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Speaker 1: you read a bunch of that stuff in a row,

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Speaker 1: you'll notice a bunch of patterns. All of these biography

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Speaker 1: they feel like kind of all just the same book.

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Speaker 1: They are more or less. Yeah, And there's the thing,

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Speaker 1: like you have to in those books, you have to

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Speaker 1: have like, um, a period where they're working out of

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Speaker 1: a garage. There's a structure, there's there's a structure that

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Speaker 1: we like when we learn without the people, we like

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Speaker 1: consuming a certain arenime exactly. And they constructed you know,

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Speaker 1: Google was in this garage when it actually wasn't. You know.

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Speaker 1: It's the same thing. Yeah, it's the same thing. If

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Speaker 1: you if you find the books that presidential candidates all,

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Speaker 1: like every presidential candidate has to publish a stupid fucking

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Speaker 1: book right before they start their campaign. It's required now. Um.

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Speaker 1: And they're all the same book basically, uh, because that's

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Speaker 1: just what we expect. Um. And if you grew up

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Speaker 1: under evangelical Christianity, like you grew up like me, Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: you know what all of like the whenever you have

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Speaker 1: like a charismatic preacher who comes to like deliver their

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Speaker 1: you know, like they all have the same have the

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Speaker 1: same story. It's the same grift over and over yet yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: It's it's just a thing that people need in their

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Speaker 1: stories of charismatic leaders and it's the same uh in

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Speaker 1: propagandistic biographies of Eastern Bloc leaders. Um So, one thing

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Speaker 1: that is emphasized in all of the stories about Lukashenko

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Speaker 1: is that he was his dad was absent, and he

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Speaker 1: was raised by his single mother. Uh as was Joseph

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Speaker 1: Stalin everybody, as with Saparmaranti is off of Turkmenistan. Nikolai

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Speaker 1: Cichesko knew his dad, but his dad was an abusive prick,

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Speaker 1: and Nikolai was always a mama's boy. So like shittier

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Speaker 1: absent father is a Soviet leadership trope. It's it's it's yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like it's a trope that they keep that they

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Speaker 1: keep using. Whether it's true or not right, it's it's

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Speaker 1: still something that they will. They will still reinforce that narrative. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they reinforce that narrative, and it's seen as being like

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Speaker 1: important to getting people to um to like feel the

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Speaker 1: way about the leader that they kind of expected. It's yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like Disney, you got to kill the parents. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you gotta kill the parents in order to have a

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Speaker 1: good dictator. So if you want to make a dictator, Nope,

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Speaker 1: I don't know where are you going? Anyway, continue, I

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Speaker 1: don't I don't know, Sophie, I don't know. It's it's

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Speaker 1: I'm just angry about the headphones. But you know what,

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Speaker 1: I'm not angry about, Sophie. You know what I'm not

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00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:48,280
Speaker 1: angry about find products and services that support this podcast.

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Speaker 1: None of what's your headphones. I hope there's some wireless

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Speaker 1: head I hope. I hope Recon gets in here real quick.

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Speaker 1: If Recon starts trying to advertise on our podcast, they're

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Speaker 1: going to have to deal with our other sponsor, Raytheon.

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Speaker 1: And I tell I'll tell you who I think is

380
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:01,360
Speaker 1: gonna win in a fight between some people who make

381
00:20:01,359 --> 00:20:03,880
Speaker 1: headphones and are are good friends with the Knife Missiles.

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00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:15,400
Speaker 1: It's the Knife Missiles products. We're back. Oh that was horrible.

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00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:21,000
Speaker 1: I accidentally made a minor adjustment to these goddamn newfangled

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Speaker 1: bluetooth earbuds off. The whole situation was horrible. We spend

385
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:28,520
Speaker 1: hours getting this set up and destroyed it in a

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Speaker 1: few seconds. I feel comfortable saying that Soviet Union works

387
00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:38,480
Speaker 1: about as well as these horrible bluetooth headphones. In the headphones,

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Speaker 1: I responsible for multiple genocides, well not nine, Okay, okay, okay, fair, fair,

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Speaker 1: just like well, I mean you could argue series of

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Speaker 1: war crimes anyway whatever whatever, Um, okay. So yeah, we're

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Speaker 1: we're talking about like Soviet leader tropes and Lukashenko. So

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Speaker 1: obviously all of his biographies will point out that his

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Speaker 1: dad was gone. They all will a very different things

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Speaker 1: about why his dad was gone, um, which is I

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Speaker 1: think kind of interesting, Like it's like the Joker. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think so are they like stories like well, like

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Speaker 1: is it like like yeah, kind of One of his

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Speaker 1: stories is that his dad died during World War two, um,

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Speaker 1: which is like a Turkmen Boshi, the Dictaty of Turkmenistan,

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Speaker 1: had the same story his dad died in World War Two.

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Speaker 1: The problem with this is that Lukashenko was born in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four. So I love how that works out. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like you said, all these true crime shows when they're

404
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Speaker 1: like and then we we found the murder, and then

405
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Speaker 1: they're like, I was in jail at the time of

406
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Speaker 1: that death. That's what it feels like. Yeah. Yeah, it's

407
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Speaker 1: it's like that, um. And it may seem kind of

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Speaker 1: baffling that a guy who's already in power would choose

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Speaker 1: such like an obvious lie. But Lukashenko's started making this

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Speaker 1: claim during a different period for his regime, between two

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Speaker 1: thousand six and two thous eight, when a bunch of

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Speaker 1: opposition groups rose up in protests against one of his

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Speaker 1: many sham elections. Uh, he meaned, yeah, I mean, our

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Speaker 1: us in America have no experience with the leader in

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Speaker 1: office making obvious sides about his family history. We don't

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Speaker 1: know anything about this only happens in uh post uh

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union satellites, not in this country. Yeah. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's so he started lying about his dad dying in

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Speaker 1: World War Two a decade before he would be born. Um,

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Speaker 1: during like this period of time when he's, you know,

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Speaker 1: his legitimacy as president was being challenged and thousands of

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Speaker 1: protesters were out in the streets fighting with cops. Uh.

423
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 1: And I'm going to quote now from an article in

424
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: the journal of Journal of Folklore Research that's kind of

425
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:53,159
Speaker 1: about the different ways Lukashenko has presented himself. Um, and

426
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:55,960
Speaker 1: it's going to sort of try to explain why maybe

427
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: he made this kind of baffling call quote. Lukashenko sought

428
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 1: to gain support through different means, including an established genre

429
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:05,160
Speaker 1: from the Soviet period of Belarus fake lore epics about

430
00:23:05,160 --> 00:23:08,000
Speaker 1: Soviet heroes. They were often made up by professional folk

431
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:11,879
Speaker 1: singers guided by professional folklorists to glorify Soviet ideologies and

432
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: particular protagonists Lenin Stalin, workers of the Soviet Union, etcetera,

433
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 1: who embodied them. These new epics, called novini, combined the

434
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:22,360
Speaker 1: structures and motifs of traditional epics and were purposefully recorded

435
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 1: and published. So like, basically it was it was this

436
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:28,800
Speaker 1: kind of thing that everyone probably more or less knew

437
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:31,399
Speaker 1: where he was lying about his background, but he was

438
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: lying about his background in order to make a specific

439
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 1: kind of propaganda art that everybody like knew what to

440
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,919
Speaker 1: expect from. So like everyone kind of knew that he

441
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:44,800
Speaker 1: was lying, um, but also the people who liked him

442
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: didn't care. Just part of the thing, this is just

443
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 1: what like leaders do in this part of the world,

444
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 1: as they talk about how their dads died fighting the Nazis,

445
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:57,600
Speaker 1: even if their dad didn't Yeah, when you were born,

446
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 1: might not have been old enough to make a baby

447
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: in nineteen yeah, um, so yeah, that's very funny. Um.

448
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: I find all of this interesting anyway. So the right

449
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: up in the Journal of Folklore Research that I found

450
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: compares Lukaschenko's Lukashenko Shifting birthdate and birthplace to the book

451
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, where like the reality is actually meaningless

452
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,440
Speaker 1: to even him. What matters is like that the state

453
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: can get people to believe it, or at least act

454
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: as if they believe it. Um, which is cool. Yeah,

455
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: that's always neat um. I'm gonna quote again from that article.

456
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: We might expect official narratives to strive for monologic uniformity,

457
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 1: but the results of my research demonstrate that official discourse

458
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: on Lukashenko's birth and life as a whole is an

459
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:43,360
Speaker 1: incoherent mess of of official representation, altered narratives, literary productions,

460
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: and quotations ascribed to the president. That the president's own

461
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:48,640
Speaker 1: words are often contested provides a good example of how

462
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 1: fragile his biography is and how easily it can be

463
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 1: challenged by vernacular alternatives. Um, which is something we'll talk

464
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: about a little bit later. The idea that um, a

465
00:24:57,119 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: bunch of people have kind of made up their own

466
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: opponents of Lucas Shanko get to also make up their

467
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: own backgrounds for the guy, because everyone knows that everything

468
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:09,120
Speaker 1: you say about him is just sort of a liarar propaganda,

469
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 1: like just like a choose your own backstory book. Yeah,

470
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: for the president if you want this backstory turned to

471
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 1: page x x X. Yeah, but this backstory turned to

472
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 1: page xx y. It's cool. So the alternative backstories for

473
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 1: Lukashenko that his um his opponents com up with are

474
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:30,120
Speaker 1: often based on like racism, which is unfortunately yeah. Yeah.

475
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: Many in the Belarusian opposition are convinced that Lukashenko's father

476
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,399
Speaker 1: was a German soldier, which is the non racist option

477
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: where they're like, he's so shitty, his dad must have

478
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: been a Nazi. Um. Others contend that his father was

479
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: secretly a Jewish Man, which is not a rumor I

480
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: like as much. Uh. And he's also regularly accused of

481
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,479
Speaker 1: hiding his Roma ancestry um, although they are not polite

482
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: enough to use the correct name. Uh and and go

483
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 1: with calling him a gypsy. That's like a common slur

484
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: against Lukashenko. Interesting. Um. Yeah, So I did want to

485
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: get a clear idea of what the modern state propaganda

486
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,959
Speaker 1: about Lukashenko's background sounded like. I wanted to know, like,

487
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 1: what is what is the actual government right about this guy?

488
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 1: And I found a book called with a very fun

489
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: title Belarus Country Study Guide. Uh. That certainly seems to

490
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: be government propaganda. It's published by a US based publishing house,

491
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:24,159
Speaker 1: but the inside jacket notes that the information inside was

492
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 1: provided by the Belarusian government. Um. And yeah, you can

493
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: kind of tell by reading it that it was just

494
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: published by the dictatorship propaganda arm and and not edited

495
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 1: at all. The government propaganda version of his life, or

496
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,239
Speaker 1: at least this one that I found, because again they

497
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 1: throw out a bunch of different versions, just states that

498
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: he quote grew up and reared without a father. Um.

499
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,639
Speaker 1: Not not perfect grammar in this translation here they put

500
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: this put a considerable amount of responsibility for his family's

501
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 1: care on his shoulders. Quote. This is why it is

502
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: logical that as early as in childhood such qualities as perseverance,

503
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: back to work, sensibility to truth and verity as the

504
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 1: main basis of the human soul, were being revealed. He

505
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: was interestingly taking part in the social life of the

506
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: collectives in which he studied or worked. The whole thing

507
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 1: kind of reads like that, it's it's mostly incomprehensible, um,

508
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 1: but it does have I don't know, a couple of

509
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: of of attempts at facts in there. It notes that

510
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: he served and served in the Soviet Army from nineteen

511
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 1: seventy to nine two. Uh. It notes that he became

512
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 1: an officer in the Communist Party and eventually found himself

513
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,159
Speaker 1: managing collective farms. Uh. Notes that he rose in prominent

514
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 1: did like a d I Y bio for himself. Um No,

515
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:42,400
Speaker 1: it's like, uh yeah, kind of like at least oversaw it. Yeah.

516
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 1: I think that there's like at different points in his rule,

517
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: he's kind of let the people putting out state propaganda

518
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,640
Speaker 1: know that he wants them to write different biographies for him,

519
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,919
Speaker 1: to emphasize different things. So it's like when you have

520
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: a friend who acts different around different friend groups. Yeah,

521
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 1: but instead of that, it's like a friend who acts

522
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 1: different around different crowds of angry Belarusians in order to um,

523
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: I don't know, keep everybody happy or to maintain power

524
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: in a Yeah, in a very weird, it's cool, very

525
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: strange quality. Yeah, it is. It is, And and Lukashenko

526
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,879
Speaker 1: is interesting just because like we actually know so little

527
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: about the guy as a person, um, which is different.

528
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 1: Like I much prefer it when we have a really

529
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 1: detailed back story about one of these individuals. But we

530
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: we just kind of have really the history of the

531
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: different lies that his regime has told about him. Um So, Yeah,

532
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: that's unfortunate. Um So. He rose in prominence within the

533
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: Communist Party throughout the late nineteen eighties, and he developed

534
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: a reputation as a firebrand, like he was an anti

535
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: corruption crusader within the Soviet Union for a period of time. Uh,

536
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: and he received repeated reprimands from the party because he

537
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: could not keep silent. Um. Yeah. And thankfully for him,

538
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 1: you know, by the time he was getting in trouble

539
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 1: for talking out against basically trying to drain in the

540
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: swamp within the USSR, things had opened up culturally there

541
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: enough that he didn't get disappeared or in trouble for it.

542
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: And in fact, he was elected to the Belarusian Parliament

543
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety as a People's Deputy on a platform

544
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: of fighting corruption. Lukashenko straddled an interesting line of criticizing

545
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: the Soviet government that had managed things for decades while

546
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: also opposing any breakup of the USSR. He was the

547
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: only deputy of the Belarusian Parliament to vote against the

548
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 1: nineteen dissolution of the Soviet Union, which is something he

549
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: brags about today because like a lot of folks in

550
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 1: that part of the world miss the Soviet Union. Some

551
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: older folks are pri nostalgic for him. Yeah, and he

552
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: can be like, I was the one guy who knew

553
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: that it was a bad idea. Yeah, it is a

554
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:42,959
Speaker 1: cool flex Yeah. But at the same time, like he

555
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: actually got to power by repeatedly criticizing the Soviet Union

556
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: and pointing out how like fucked up and corrupt the

557
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: government was, which is interesting. He's a fake, he's playing

558
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: both sides. He's playing both sides. He's doing what you

559
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: gotta do as a politician. It's like, how you gotta Yeah,

560
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: he's pulling a job Biden, Yeah, yeah, or Biden's pulling up.

561
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 1: So as the USSR fell apart, Western interests rushed in

562
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: to help their former enemy transition to the world of democracy,

563
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: and in practice this meant something for most like Soviet

564
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: satellite states, something called shock therapy um, which was this

565
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: kind of like theory among capitalists that like, as these

566
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 1: nations sort of opened up, the best thing to do

567
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 1: was immediately privatized every single thing in the country, um,

568
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: and that that would work. That like shocking people into

569
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: full on capitalism um would be a good idea for

570
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: reasons that were unclear and probably based around the fact

571
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: that it was extremely profitable for capitalists. UM. Shock therapy

572
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: was not a wild success. It caused widespread economic and

573
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 1: social turmoil uh and is generally seen as having been

574
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: a disaster in most places it was tried, which is

575
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: why you have all those old people who are kind

576
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: of nostalgic because they got their lives kind of ruined

577
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties. Yeah, it was nice when like

578
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 1: soulless business people didn't own our power plants. Uh, and

579
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: they were instead like property that was held in common.

580
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: Is kind of the way a lot of people feel. Uh. Now.

581
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety is the year Belarus held its referendum on

582
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: membership in the Soviet Union. People overwhelmingly wanted to stay,

583
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: but the Belarusian Popular Front had also grown into a

584
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: significant pop political force at that point. These are the

585
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: guys who were like nationalists they want Belarus to be

586
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: its own separate country. Um. And they're also democrats, so

587
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: like they want a democracy and they want Belarus to

588
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: be an independent nation. Um. And under their charismatic spokesman

589
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: a fellow named Pasniak. The BPF started at agitating for

590
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: Belarusian national ambitions for the first time in a generation,

591
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: and that year's elections to the Supreme Soviet the BPF

592
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: one of the seats, and this probably would have satisfied

593
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: most of the desire for change in Belarus at this point,

594
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: but happenings elsewhere in the USS are forced people's hands

595
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: in the direction of national sovereignty. In August of nineteen one,

596
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: there was a coup attempt in Moscow. It didn't work,

597
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: but it led to Yeah, I mean, wait, are you

598
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 1: pro coup or anti cusa? I was pro coup, you're

599
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 1: pro coup, You're you're you're in favor of this coup

600
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: in Moscow. It's a strong stance in favor of Soviet

601
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: hardliners by hardcore communist Sofia excited over the word coup. Yeah,

602
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: I mean, I always support a coup. It's always an

603
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 1: exciting word. We we we recently went through a coup

604
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: with a riot rib restaurant. That there's a rib restaurant

605
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 1: in Portland that had an armed coup. Reason. I actually

606
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy that one. It was not fun. It was

607
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: seemed like a big, massive, yeah, and much like the

608
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: rib restaurant that briefly existed in downtown Portland. The Soviet

609
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: Union did not survive it's armed coup, or this attempted

610
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: an armed coup um so it The coup failed, and

611
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: it led to declarations of independence by all of the

612
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 1: Soviets that bordered Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine. By this point,

613
00:32:55,000 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: the writing was on the wallah, so every it's kind

614
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: of most people in Belarus don't seem to really want

615
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union to go away, but also just because

616
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: of how fucked up everything gets and how badly it's

617
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 1: handled in Moscow, all of these other states in the

618
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 1: Soviet Unions start declaring their own independence, and the writings

619
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: kind of on the walls. Yeah, it's like it's it's

620
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: it's gonna come down, so we might as well like

621
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 1: get ahead start on being Belarus. So Belarus declares its

622
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: own independence on August twenty five, nineteen one. Um. The

623
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: sudden end of the Soviet Union ment opportunity for a

624
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: lot of people. Liberals, including members of the BPF, saw

625
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: it as their chance to turn the country into a

626
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: democracy along Western lines. There was a great deal of

627
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: resistance to this, though, and for a while the country's

628
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: old style Soviet organization remained mostly unchanged. By Nur, conservatives

629
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: have been pushed into creating a new position at the

630
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: head of Belarusian political life, the presidency. So everybody expected

631
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 1: that the Prime Minister, a guy named Ki, would slide

632
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 1: seamlessly from one head of state position to another, and

633
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: that he would just kind of go from being the

634
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: prime minister to the president now that they had a president.

635
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 1: But then from out of nowhere came Lukashenko. He ran

636
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:11,719
Speaker 1: a lightning campaign based around fighting corruption in the ossified

637
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: old regime. And again, the guy's a pig farmer at

638
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 1: this point. Um, but he's a deputy and he kind

639
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: of like um, proves himself to be a really successful

640
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: rabble rouser. His campaign slogan was, I'm neither with the

641
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: leftists nor the rightists, but with the people against those

642
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: who rob and deceive them. He's he's just like a PA.

643
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: He's an effective politician. He's a very effect and he's

644
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: he's doing a drain the swamp sort of thing. Um

645
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: he does one of the things that he's he's kind

646
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: of focused on that that is probably a good idea

647
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: in the long run is he he doesn't want to

648
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:46,319
Speaker 1: privatize Belarus's UM like state assets. Um. He wants to

649
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: keep the economy pretty much the same way it was

650
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,919
Speaker 1: under the Soviet Union. And this is really the only um,

651
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: the only Soviet satellite state in Europe where this happens

652
00:34:55,719 --> 00:35:00,359
Speaker 1: in UM. So, Yeah, Lukashenko want a democratic elect with

653
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 1: about eight percent of the vote. And this is probably

654
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,840
Speaker 1: like an actual election, and it's like it's not a

655
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 1: fake election like the one that just happened. No, it

656
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:11,400
Speaker 1: seems like if I haven't heard any real arguments that

657
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 1: he that this was a fake election, and he kind

658
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:15,359
Speaker 1: of came out of nowhere. He didn't have a lot

659
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 1: of institutional support when he won the presidency. Um. Yeah,

660
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 1: and he's he's kind of a weird guy to have

661
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: as your first president because for one thing, he didn't

662
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: really think there should be presidents. Um. He was not

663
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:31,240
Speaker 1: a fan of democracy. Uh. He supported immediate reunification with Russia.

664
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: So he wasn't really a big supporter of Belarus being

665
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: an interest nation at the start. UM. And yeah, mostly

666
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 1: he mostly the reason that people voted for him was

667
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 1: his anti corruption stances, right like his other his other

668
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: the the other things that he like sort of focused

669
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 1: on weren't as popular, UM find interesting, just like reconciling

670
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: that with what he is now. Yeah, and it's yeah,

671
00:35:55,440 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 1: that's odd. He changes a lot. He keeps writing his worries,

672
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, he gets to do that because he's

673
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,879
Speaker 1: the guy who controls the state security forces. But I'm

674
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: just saying, like that it makes sense that he's so

675
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 1: wishy washy flip floppy out of character. I think he

676
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:15,880
Speaker 1: just has like a really bad identity crisis. Maybe just

677
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 1: doesn't know who he is. Maybe he just needs to

678
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 1: like go to therapy and like find himself thoughts. No, yeah,

679
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: I think he should take some molly and maybe, like,

680
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:29,359
Speaker 1: you know, maybe he was told he was born at

681
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: a time and was following somebody else following a different

682
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 1: star sign when he should have been following another. We

683
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:38,919
Speaker 1: don't know. Oh, it's an astrology problem that you're saying.

684
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:43,800
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that might might must be wrong people,

685
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 1: because he doesn't know what his birthday is. What he

686
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: could do is he could he could sign up for

687
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: better help. Yeah, you're a better help online. That's something

688
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 1: that he could do. If you want to stop becoming

689
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,919
Speaker 1: the dictator of Belarus. The only op is better Help

690
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,839
Speaker 1: online counseling. A hundred percent of people who don't use

691
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: online counseling become the dictator of Eastern Bloc nations. It's

692
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: guaranteed to prevent you from becoming a dictator to exactly,

693
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 1: it's the only promise they make it Better Help is

694
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: that you will not become Alexander Lukashenko if you use

695
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 1: better Help. I mean it is actually time for an

696
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:21,799
Speaker 1: ad break though, Robert, I know that's why I did that. Well,

697
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing. You might as well roll

698
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: into ads hopefully. I'm telling you Garrison is higher products.

699
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: Ye beat me? Did it? Bit my job? Now? All right,

700
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 1: we're back reize. So you've meant towards somebody who's younger

701
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: than you and knows how to do more things, and

702
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 1: it's slowly taking over your role, and he's sitting right

703
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:48,759
Speaker 1: next to you, and you don't know what to do.

704
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,439
Speaker 1: You know, it's terrible because he hasn't ruined his brain

705
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 1: with drugs yet. It's very funny. He hasn't ruined his

706
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:57,840
Speaker 1: brain with a series of horrible decisions and has and

707
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: he has flu fier hair, than you. It's just so fun.

708
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,439
Speaker 1: I know he's gonna coop me out of my show.

709
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 1: I know. I'm telling you, I'm watching it. That's why

710
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: I'm talking from machetes. God damn it. This is just

711
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 1: knives at my bed and we and we slowly realize

712
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: that your cat likes him more than you. It's just happening.

713
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to hire riot police to protect

714
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,879
Speaker 1: my my podcast. And then I've always from a teenager. Yeah, well,

715
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: just which is what the riot police are doing right now,

716
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: That's what that's what they're doing. So you could just

717
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 1: use the same guys. And I always choose you. We

718
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:40,720
Speaker 1: will always choose you. I'm skeptical always, We'll see always

719
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 1: and forever. Back to actual dictators. Back to Lukashenko. So

720
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: he gets elected, this guy who doesn't really want to

721
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: be president um and who wants to basically go back

722
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 1: to being the Soviet Union, and who is like the

723
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:56,760
Speaker 1: only thing that he's really popular for wanting is fighting

724
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: against corruption like that. This is the guy who becomes

725
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 1: the president of Bellas and his presidency is kind of

726
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 1: conflicted from the beginning. And I'm gonna quote now from

727
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 1: a study on the country that was written by an

728
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: academic named Helen fedor uh Quote. Lukashenka's presidency was one

729
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: of contradictions from the start. His cabinet was composed of young,

730
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: talented newcomers as well as veterans who had not fully

731
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:20,440
Speaker 1: supported the previous prime minister. As a reward to the

732
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: parliament for confirming his appointees, Lukashenko supported the move to

733
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:28,720
Speaker 1: postpone the parliamentary elections until May. Lukashenko's government was also

734
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,240
Speaker 1: plagued by corrupt members. Lukashenko fired the Minister of Defense,

735
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: the Armed Forces chief of Staff, the head of the

736
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: Border Guards, and the Minister of Forestry. Following resignations among

737
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: reformists in Lukashenko's cabinet, Parliamentary Deputy Deputy cr Hey Anton Chick, Sorry,

738
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: good Russians read a report in parliament on December about

739
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,359
Speaker 1: coruption in the administration, and this is Lukashenko's administration, so

740
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: he kind of like immediately puts new people in place

741
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 1: and their wind up being corrupted ship too. Although Lukashenko

742
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,800
Speaker 1: refused to accept the resignations that followed, the government attempted

743
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,680
Speaker 1: to censure the report. Feeling the oppositions criticism of Lukashenko

744
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,839
Speaker 1: Lukashenko went to Russia in August nine and his first

745
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 1: official visit abroad at head of the state. There, he

746
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: came to realize that Russia would not make any unusual

747
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 1: efforts to accommodate Belarus, especially its economic needs. Nevertheless, Lukashenko

748
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: kept trying, and in February nine, Belarus signed the Treaty

749
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: on Friendship and Cooperation with Russia, making many concessions to Russia,

750
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: such as allowing the stationing of Russian troops in Belarus

751
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: and hopes that Russia would return the favor by charging

752
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: Belarus lower prices for fuels. However, because the treaty included

753
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 1: no such provision, there was little hope of realizing this objective.

754
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 1: So he's not great at this at first um and

755
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 1: his main plan for being the president seems to be

756
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: be like, become a Russian satellite state, so they'll sell

757
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 1: you cheap oil, um, which is I don't know, not

758
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: a great plan, but I've never been in charge of

759
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,879
Speaker 1: Belarus what do I know? So right off the bat,

760
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 1: Lukashenko had issues with Parliament, mainly over the fact that

761
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: he didn't think it should exist or be able to

762
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: tell him what to do, which is a problem to have. Uh.

763
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 1: He was convinced that as president he had the right

764
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: to dissolve parliament in any moment, although no one else

765
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 1: was really sure they had this right. He was just like,

766
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I could do this, um. And there

767
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:17,839
Speaker 1: were there were disagreements, including by the parliamentarians who did

768
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: not think that he could do this. So eventually the

769
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: Parliament of Belarus starts carrying out a hunger strike against

770
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 1: the president UM and the protest ends when all of

771
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: the striking deputies were evicted from the Parliament house in

772
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: the dead of night by police who claimed that an

773
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:35,840
Speaker 1: alleged bomb had been hidden somewhere in the building. So

774
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: they all get forced out of the Parliament building and

775
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 1: they head over to the National TV and Radio building

776
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 1: to make a statement, and they find that those buildings

777
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 1: have also been closed up. The police stud to an

778
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: alleged bomb. You don't think there were real bombs in

779
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,839
Speaker 1: those places? Well, yeah, this could have been something. So

780
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 1: after all this, Parliament gave into Lukashenko on a number

781
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,920
Speaker 1: of his demands because thanks to Belarus's complete lack of

782
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: a free press, he'd made it impossible for them to

783
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: publicize their strike. There were the bombs. What else can

784
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:04,360
Speaker 1: you do? There were bombs and now we don't have

785
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: a parliament. It's not no more. It's the problems happening

786
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 1: in Europe. It does you know you know who else

787
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 1: doesn't have a Senate right now? Us because September. Yeah,

788
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 1: I wish they're no. Not gonna make that claim on

789
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: don't need to have another conversation with anyway, um the parliament.

790
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote again from Helen Federer's right up quote.

791
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: The parliamentary elections held in May of nine were less

792
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,720
Speaker 1: than successful or democratic. The restrictions placed on the mass

793
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 1: media and on the candidate's expenditures during the campaign led

794
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 1: to a shortage of information about the candidates and almost

795
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: no political debate before the elections. In several cases, no

796
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: one candidate received the necessary majority of the votes in

797
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: the May fourteenth elections, prompting another round on The main

798
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: problem in the second round was the lack of voter turnout.

799
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: After the second round, Parliament was in limbo because it

800
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: had only a hundred and twenty elected deputies, still short

801
00:42:57,280 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: of the hundred and seventy four members necessary to seat

802
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:02,360
Speaker 1: a new ledge aislature. After another round, another round of

803
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: elections was discussed probably near the end of the year,

804
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:07,399
Speaker 1: but the government claimed to have no money to finance them.

805
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: So basically he forces the old parliament out, which forces

806
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 1: a new set of elections, but he also makes it

807
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 1: impossible for anyone to report on this and makes it

808
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,839
Speaker 1: impossible for any of the campaigns to be funded, so

809
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: that nobody can actually have an election or vote or

810
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 1: know that they even need to vote. Um. And he

811
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: kind of just does away with a parliament that can

812
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: do anything against him in this in this manner, which

813
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 1: is like a real anti corruption president. Yeah. Yeah, that's

814
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 1: how you get rid of the corruption. I mean, I'm

815
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:38,440
Speaker 1: sure all of those guys were corrupt, probably probably, but

816
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: there's another god of one corruptions for another, that's right, um,

817
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: thus solving the problem forever. So they not to make

818
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 1: a not all that long story short, Lukashenko emerged from

819
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 1: his fight with parliament as basically a dictator, so in

820
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:56,320
Speaker 1: the space of his first year or two in power,

821
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: he kind of does away with any of the restrictions

822
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 1: against him. Political analyst Valerie Karbalovitch, author of an opposition

823
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: biography of Lukashenko, cites two factors his explanations for why

824
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:09,879
Speaker 1: Belarus went straight to a strongman dictator after the fall

825
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 1: of the USSR and just kind of, you know, they

826
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 1: had a democracy for like a minute there, and they

827
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 1: just kind of gave it up as soon as the

828
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: first guy came along, who was like, but what if

829
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: we said fuck that? Um? And her explanation is quote,

830
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: Lukashenko was hungry for power and rejected having his powers

831
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: curtailed and Belarusian society. Society yearned for a sense of

832
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:32,959
Speaker 1: of Soviet stability. So in nineteen Lukashenko decided to change

833
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,399
Speaker 1: the constitution on his own and allow himself to fire

834
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 1: Parliament whenever he wanted, which really made the situation a

835
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: lot easier for him. He got rid of all the

836
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: deputies who had provided even mild resistance to his whims,

837
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: and he replaced them with a parade of yesmen. Since then,

838
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 1: he has not dealt with any serious challenges his to

839
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: his rule from within the political establishment. In nineteen seven,

840
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: Lukashenko established the Union State of Belarus and Russia with

841
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: Boris Yeltson. This was never a real organization, but it's

842
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 1: like it's like a fake EU for Russia and Belarus

843
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,360
Speaker 1: that they tried to get a couple of other countries

844
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 1: on board with There was an idea that like they

845
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 1: might Russia might seed its sovereignty to this so that

846
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: Putin could be president passed his third term. But then

847
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:18,919
Speaker 1: they just wound up doing that anyway. Um, but yeah,

848
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 1: it's just like this kind of fake political organization that

849
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 1: existed to kind of tie Belarus to Russia, and the

850
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 1: fact that it existed gave them sort of like political

851
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:31,920
Speaker 1: cover for some of the things that like Russia wanted

852
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 1: to do. And in exchange for agreeing to this, uh

853
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: Lukashenko got the ability to achieve what would go on

854
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:40,319
Speaker 1: to be the only real success of his reign, which

855
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:44,400
Speaker 1: was like slow, steady economic growth and reliable payment of

856
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: state wages. UM. On paper, Belarus was a quasi Marxist state.

857
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:51,280
Speaker 1: About eight percent of the economy is a troll controlled

858
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 1: by the states. Some people say sixty. It's somewhere in

859
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:58,000
Speaker 1: that ballpark. UM. Belarus remains the only former Soviet state

860
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 1: where all farms are still collectivized. And while many Soviet

861
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: former Soviet republics have gone on to have tumultuous economies,

862
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 1: you know that of outright collapsed like Albania, and like Russia,

863
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 1: Belarus has, on the surface, like kept a relatively steady

864
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: course um and this has basically all been due to

865
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 1: Russian economic support. Belarus has survived by buying heavily subsidized

866
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 1: Russian crude oil, refining it, and then selling it to

867
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:24,799
Speaker 1: the rest of Europe at a profit. This is kind

868
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 1: of like what funds everything in bell or what did

869
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 1: fund everything in belarust And An economy based on cheap

870
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:33,799
Speaker 1: Russian gas allowed Lukashenko to mostly ignore Western complaints about

871
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,879
Speaker 1: the human rights abuses within his country. Um. There were

872
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 1: many of these. He disappeared at least two of his

873
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,239
Speaker 1: cabinet colleagues after they got too popular, and at least

874
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 1: four of his political opponents. Opponents like people running against

875
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 1: him in elections have just sort of been are no

876
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: longer there, whereabouts are no longer known. Um Now. Lukashenko

877
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 1: has felt the need, over the last twenty six years

878
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:58,759
Speaker 1: of his rule to provide the occasional illusion of democracy

879
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:01,720
Speaker 1: and choice to people Opposite Asian parties are generally allowed,

880
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: but then they tend to be either heavily compromised by

881
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:06,600
Speaker 1: the get go, or they're very quickly banned and their

882
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: leaders are arrested, and in fact, it does kind of

883
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: seem like the only reason there are opposition parties in

884
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: Belarus is so that he can arrest the leaders of

885
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:18,400
Speaker 1: those parties after the elections and throw them in dark holes. Um,

886
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:21,600
Speaker 1: which is you know, one way to do it. Uh.

887
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:24,719
Speaker 1: During the two six elections, Lukashenko warned that any Belarusians

888
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:27,239
Speaker 1: who attended protests opposing his reign would have their next

889
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:32,400
Speaker 1: run rung as one might have duck. Um. Yeah great, yeah,

890
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:36,120
Speaker 1: that's nice. Um. And despite this, he consistently denies being

891
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: a dictator, stating at one point that my position in

892
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 1: the state will never allow me to become a dictator,

893
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:44,880
Speaker 1: but an authoritarian ruling style is characteristic of me. So

894
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: like that's the that's his argument, and he's he's an

895
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: authoritarian and that's like no, no, no, no no, you don't understand.

896
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 1: I'm not a dictator. I'm an authoritarian. Yeah, very very different,

897
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: very different. It's like, um, it's like claiming you're a

898
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 1: civil libertarian as opposed to uh, I don't know, a Nazi. Um. Yeah. So,

899
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:08,799
Speaker 1: Belarus's international political alignment has remained broadly Russia focused for

900
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 1: most of Lukashenko's reign, he made a point particularly early on,

901
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 1: of thumbing his nose at Western powers. In nine, he

902
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:18,800
Speaker 1: bought a house in an upscale gated community in mink Minsk,

903
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 1: which was shared by twenty five ambassadors, including the British

904
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:24,439
Speaker 1: and American envoys. And it was like nicer than most

905
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: housing developments and in Belarus tended to be. I'm surprised. Yeah,

906
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:31,799
Speaker 1: Lukashenko decided he liked it and he wanted it all

907
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,839
Speaker 1: to be, including all of the other people's houses who

908
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:38,839
Speaker 1: lived there. So the British and American envoys refused to leave,

909
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:42,160
Speaker 1: and so Lukashenko ordered water, electricity and gas cut off

910
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 1: to their homes. When they still refused to leave, he

911
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 1: changed the locks on the front gate so they could

912
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 1: no longer get back inside. Um, and eventually he got

913
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:51,799
Speaker 1: his nice compound. There you go. That's how you do it,

914
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:53,320
Speaker 1: and that's how you do it. That's how I procured

915
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:56,920
Speaker 1: all my housing. Yeah, just change the locks, turn off

916
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: all the water and gas and change the locks. Then

917
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: people stop coming to exactly, and then it's yours. That's

918
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:04,080
Speaker 1: a that's a good way to deal with the fact

919
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: that nobody in your generation can afford rent. So eventually

920
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:11,320
Speaker 1: the U S and England withdrew their ambassadors in protest.

921
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 1: Lukashenko ignored this because he didn't give a fuck. But

922
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: his antipathy to the West has not been consistent in

923
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 1: recent years, nor his alignment in Russia. After the two

924
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,319
Speaker 1: thousand six elections, the U S and the EU threw

925
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: a bunch of sanctions out at Belarus because you know,

926
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 1: because people protestion, yeah, and he beat them up, uh,

927
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:32,720
Speaker 1: And then Russia invaded Georgia and around the same time,

928
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:37,240
Speaker 1: um like, basically two dozen six, Lukashenko has some sham

929
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: elections and he beats the ship out of people who protest,

930
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:43,439
Speaker 1: and the EU and the US put sanctions on him.

931
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:46,280
Speaker 1: But then Russia invades Georgia at around the same time,

932
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: and he like is vaguely critical of Russia. Um. And

933
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 1: that makes the EU and the US happens better, but

934
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: it makes Russia angry, so they double the price of

935
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:57,240
Speaker 1: the gas they're selling Belarus. Well, you can't, you can't

936
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 1: win it at all. No, no, And it's like he's

937
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 1: kind of just been dancing between NATO, UH and Russia

938
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 1: for most of the last ten years in particular, which

939
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,040
Speaker 1: is is like interesting. You'll see a lot of people

940
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 1: will claim that, like, like there's a lot of suspicion

941
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,760
Speaker 1: that you know, he was gonna when the protests started

942
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 1: getting out of hand, he was going to call on

943
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: Russia to defend his sovereignty. Um, but Russia hasn't been

944
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 1: super positive towards Lukashenko lately. Um, and the Belarusian government

945
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 1: actually arrested like a bunch of Russian mercenaries at the

946
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,840
Speaker 1: whole start of things. So it's like it's a pretty

947
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:34,799
Speaker 1: complicated situation because like you also have people who will

948
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:37,839
Speaker 1: be like, oh, this uprising in Belarus is just like

949
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:40,600
Speaker 1: orchestrated by NATO to try to remove another you know,

950
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 1: a good old fashioned socialist leader from Europe. And it's like, well, actually,

951
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 1: there have been periods where like NATO was kind of

952
00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 1: okay with Lukashenko, and it's it's it's much more complicated

953
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 1: than all that. Yeah, it doesn't seem super straightforward. No. Um,

954
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:58,319
Speaker 1: he's basically like he's he's kind of like, um, he's

955
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:01,719
Speaker 1: kind of a cock tease like that. That's Lukashenko within

956
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: the context of European politics. Is like he'll flirt with

957
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 1: Russia a little bit and then he'll run over to

958
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 1: the US to make Russia jealous and then like that's

959
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:16,440
Speaker 1: just kind of happening. Yeah, yeah, gone with the sheep,

960
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 1: Russian un filtered gas. I don't know, um, so yeah.

961
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: This dance has continued regularly for the last like fifteen years.

962
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 1: And you might look at Lukashenko's position in the New

963
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 1: Cold War era as similar to positions taken by like

964
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: a bunch of African and Middle Eastern nations during the

965
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:33,360
Speaker 1: Old Cold War, where they would kind of try to

966
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 1: play both sides. Um. The Bush administration gave Lukashenko his

967
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 1: last dictator in Europe nickname in two thousand five, but

968
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:43,319
Speaker 1: after two thousands six, Western powers were a lot more

969
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 1: careful about how they referred to him UM, and Lukashenko

970
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:50,360
Speaker 1: through them Ramy to releasing his nation's most prominent political prisoner,

971
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:53,359
Speaker 1: Alexander Calzlan from prison after his two thousand and six

972
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:57,400
Speaker 1: conviction for hooliganism for leading a demonstration that protested against

973
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:01,600
Speaker 1: the Riggdpole Hoo. Luganism is how most a Larusian political

974
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 1: opposition leaders wind up getting charged with this, just like

975
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 1: we have felony mischief exactly, felony mischief. Don't call it

976
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 1: that guy like at least make it sound like a

977
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 1: serious crime as h and again he was still like

978
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 1: the guy that he was, so as he releases this

979
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 1: prominent political prisoner to make the West happier. He also

980
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:27,359
Speaker 1: detained twenty independent journalists after a series of cartoons making

981
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 1: fun of him showed up on the internet. Um. Yeah,

982
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:32,800
Speaker 1: so I don't know, you know, he he's he's continued

983
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 1: to be the guy that he is now the clearest

984
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: shortcut to guaranteeing a government response. Uh, In terms of

985
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 1: like being an activist, like because he was, it's always

986
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: been kind of weird, like what the state would respond to.

987
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:49,319
Speaker 1: As a rule, Belarus would allow protests, um, but would

988
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 1: always punish the people who organized them. Um. But he

989
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: for years actually got a lot of political mileage out

990
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 1: of attacking the United States and the UK for tear

991
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 1: gassing crowds because you're like, we don't have to do

992
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,600
Speaker 1: that in Belarus because we just torture and murder the

993
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:08,319
Speaker 1: people who organized the protests. How things have changed. Yeah,

994
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: and they also he also tear gas Yeah, absolutely sure.

995
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 1: If there's no media that doesn't have to get out.

996
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: So yeah, there were a number of other kind of

997
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:21,279
Speaker 1: weird rules that the media had to abide by in Belarus.

998
00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:24,320
Speaker 1: Television stations in Belarus have been ordered, on pain of

999
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: arrest and presumably torture, to never film him from behind. Yeah,

1000
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 1: and this started because he went bald in the mid

1001
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 1: ots and he didn't want his bald spot to be visible. UM.

1002
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:36,799
Speaker 1: I don't. I think he's bald enough now he's a

1003
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:38,600
Speaker 1: comb over. So I don't know that that rule is

1004
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: still in place because it's very obvious. Um. But yeah,

1005
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:44,720
Speaker 1: he would imprison you for showing that he was bald

1006
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:48,239
Speaker 1: for a while. Uh. And it's probably fair to say that,

1007
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 1: Like if you're gonna, if you're gonna, if you're gonna

1008
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 1: like rank dictatorships, um, Belarus is pretty low in terms

1009
00:53:56,880 --> 00:53:58,799
Speaker 1: of like if you're gonna, if you're gonna make a

1010
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:01,000
Speaker 1: list of like which dictator ships have been the worst

1011
00:54:01,120 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 1: to live under? Um, I guess it's one of the

1012
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 1: better ones. Like the level of oppression, you wouldn't really

1013
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:10,080
Speaker 1: compare it to like North Korea, um, so to speak,

1014
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 1: or to Syria. UM. Like in Syria they have their

1015
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: secret prisons where they torture people and they killed tens

1016
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:21,040
Speaker 1: of thousands of people in those prisons, and Belarus they

1017
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:24,320
Speaker 1: kill a handful, and they they do eventually let most

1018
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 1: people go. Um, so, you know, not great, but I

1019
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:30,880
Speaker 1: guess it could be. I don't know. I don't want

1020
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:33,600
Speaker 1: to say that either about a horrible dictatorship. You know,

1021
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:35,759
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's just that's where they that's where

1022
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:38,239
Speaker 1: they land on the worldwide things like you get information

1023
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:41,200
Speaker 1: out of Belarus. People are able to report on things,

1024
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 1: but you also never know if reporting on something happening

1025
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:46,240
Speaker 1: in Belarus is going to get you beaten and tortured

1026
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:49,319
Speaker 1: by state authorities. But it might not. It could not, Yes,

1027
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: it could not. I love the uncertainty of if I'm

1028
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: going to get abused by the state for doing journalism.

1029
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:57,400
Speaker 1: That's what makes it a good place. Favorite part of journalism.

1030
00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 1: Yeah so uh yeah. And again for most of this period,

1031
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 1: like Lukashenko, there there would be kind of regular frustration

1032
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 1: with aspects of state repression, but most of the country

1033
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:12,399
Speaker 1: was kind of on board with things just because like

1034
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:16,600
Speaker 1: things were pretty stable. There was like slow, steady economic growth. Um.

1035
00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 1: Belarus kept enough of the old Soviet era institutions around

1036
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:23,080
Speaker 1: to ensure that social inequality remained very low. Belarus has

1037
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:26,160
Speaker 1: one of the lowest levels of social inequality of any

1038
00:55:26,160 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 1: place in the world. Um, so you didn't see a

1039
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: lot of like regular people on the street. Nobody had

1040
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:36,040
Speaker 1: nobody was really rich, Like they wouldn't have known anybody

1041
00:55:36,040 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: who had like a lot. But also like you didn't

1042
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:40,279
Speaker 1: know anybody who was dirt poor for most of the

1043
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:45,600
Speaker 1: history of Lukashenko's reign. Um like people people there wasn't

1044
00:55:45,640 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 1: like it wasn't like, um, you wouldn't see homeless people

1045
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:50,760
Speaker 1: on the street or whatever, right, um, And so people

1046
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: were like, well, at least things are stable and we

1047
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about like all of these because

1048
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:56,960
Speaker 1: like you look over at Albania and a bunch of

1049
00:55:57,000 --> 00:56:01,400
Speaker 1: other places that like experimented with capaalism suddenly in the

1050
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,480
Speaker 1: nineties and they wound up like people lost everything and

1051
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:06,319
Speaker 1: wound up on the street, and like that didn't really

1052
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 1: happen in Belarus. Um. So that made that helped him

1053
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:13,280
Speaker 1: like maintain popularity, and they were still kind of quasi

1054
00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 1: Marxists for a little bit. Yeah, aspects of it, Like

1055
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:19,400
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where people actual Marxists and

1056
00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 1: stuff will point out like a bunch of ways in

1057
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: which that actually is not the case, and really people

1058
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 1: people pointing out differences between Marxism. Really, I'm shocked, but yeah,

1059
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, life in Belarus continued on from under under

1060
00:56:35,640 --> 00:56:38,759
Speaker 1: Lukashenko pretty similarly to how it had been under the

1061
00:56:38,800 --> 00:56:41,400
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, and that is, in the in the good ways,

1062
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:44,720
Speaker 1: and that like people continued to be able to benefit

1063
00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:46,879
Speaker 1: from sort of some of these state institutions that got

1064
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,160
Speaker 1: taken away in other parts of Eastern Europe and in

1065
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 1: the bad ways, and that like, there was still massive

1066
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:54,200
Speaker 1: political repression and no real free no real like freedom

1067
00:56:54,239 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 1: to to you know, pick your own political leaders or whatever.

1068
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:01,520
Speaker 1: Early on in his reign, Luke Shenko earned the nickname Vodka,

1069
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 1: which means father, and that's broadly how he's attempted to

1070
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:06,719
Speaker 1: portray himself ever since it's like the father of the

1071
00:57:06,719 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 1: Belarusian people, um. And this kind of differs a lot

1072
00:57:11,040 --> 00:57:14,520
Speaker 1: from dictators like Kadafi, Turkmenbashi or the Kims, because he

1073
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:18,600
Speaker 1: never portrayed himself as a superhuman figure um like. He

1074
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 1: he preferred to kind of the image. He seemed to

1075
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: prefer himself as, like as a farmer. So there's a

1076
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 1: lot of propaganda about how Lukashenko, you know, as opposed

1077
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:28,120
Speaker 1: to like the which you hope from like the Kims

1078
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, they built a rocket ship, you know,

1079
00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: or whatever, they invented the game of golf. With Lukashenko,

1080
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:35,840
Speaker 1: the stories that they tell about him and were like

1081
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:38,440
Speaker 1: he went to a collective farm and saw that cows

1082
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 1: were being abused and so he fired his minister of

1083
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:43,600
Speaker 1: agriculture to like make sure that cows are taken care of.

1084
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 1: Now in BELARUSI he's like the father farmer. That's kind

1085
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:48,480
Speaker 1: of that's the image he tries to put out. Yeah,

1086
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 1: that's that's sort of like yeah, like yeah, yeah, yeah,

1087
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 1: farming dad is the is the way Lukashenko wants to

1088
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 1: be known. And it's like worth like when Steven Seagal visited,

1089
00:57:58,000 --> 00:57:59,600
Speaker 1: like they went and hung out at a farm and

1090
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:03,080
Speaker 1: Sago all had to eat gigantic carrots that Lukashenko pulled

1091
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 1: out of the earth. It's a weird video very often.

1092
00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's probably accurate to say that Lukashenko never

1093
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 1: really had a cult of personality like most dictators we

1094
00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 1: talk about. Um, it's just not something he really went for.

1095
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:19,280
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna quote now from an article in Politico

1096
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:23,120
Speaker 1: about this. It cites an expert on Belarus named Lushenko quote,

1097
00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: on the face of it, that's a weakness, but Lashenko

1098
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:28,760
Speaker 1: argues it differently. Ideology, she writes, is one of the

1099
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:33,080
Speaker 1: most successful undertakings by the Belarusian leader, Unlike traditional Soviet ideology,

1100
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:35,960
Speaker 1: though it does not consist of truths, but attitudes, principally

1101
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:39,680
Speaker 1: feelings of security and pride. Belarusians are constantly reminded by

1102
00:58:39,720 --> 00:58:42,440
Speaker 1: the state propaganda machine that the outside world is dangerous,

1103
00:58:42,480 --> 00:58:45,480
Speaker 1: whereas life in Belarus is enviably calm and well protected.

1104
00:58:45,760 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 1: Wages and social payments are on time, there is no terrorism,

1105
00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 1: no political upheavals as in Ukraine or Georgia. The constant

1106
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 1: struggle by authorities against external and internal enemies is not

1107
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 1: just successful but grounds for pride. Belarus, Or argues Lukashenko

1108
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, has been endowed with the great

1109
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:05,160
Speaker 1: mission of being the spiritual leader of Eastern European civilization.

1110
00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:08,360
Speaker 1: So that's interesting to me because you've got this country

1111
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:11,840
Speaker 1: where there's a strong history of like half of the

1112
00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 1: nation dying in horrible violence, and so a lot of

1113
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:18,720
Speaker 1: Lukashenko's kind of argument for why he should stay in

1114
00:59:18,760 --> 00:59:22,560
Speaker 1: power has been like nothing happens we haven't had a

1115
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 1: massive genocide in our country. Yeah, like yeah, leader, yeah

1116
00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:31,720
Speaker 1: here since we were all killed or whatever. Yeah, um,

1117
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 1: which is you know, I guess one thing. So yeah. Again,

1118
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:37,160
Speaker 1: no real cult of personality for Lukashenko, but he has

1119
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:39,680
Speaker 1: had some songs written about him, and his favorite is

1120
00:59:39,680 --> 00:59:42,520
Speaker 1: a ditty called Master in the House. Uh and it

1121
00:59:42,560 --> 00:59:45,680
Speaker 1: includes I don't I don't know that how to sing

1122
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:48,640
Speaker 1: this to a tune? Um? But here's here's the English

1123
00:59:48,680 --> 00:59:52,080
Speaker 1: translation of kind of the most relevant chunk of the song.

1124
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 1: He is a hard nut to crack. He wouldn't teach

1125
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:58,600
Speaker 1: you anything wrong. He can call everybody to order. He

1126
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:02,320
Speaker 1: is really cool. He can easily redress all grievances. He

1127
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:05,640
Speaker 1: is reliable and calm. That is that. That is a

1128
01:00:05,680 --> 01:00:08,800
Speaker 1: good ditty. That's a good ditty. Yeah. I I love

1129
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 1: it when people can easily redress all grievances. Um. But

1130
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 1: like also you see that, like he's kind of a

1131
01:00:14,560 --> 01:00:17,640
Speaker 1: boring dictator, and it seems like it seems kind of

1132
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:19,640
Speaker 1: the only way he's gotten some support. Just he's just

1133
01:00:19,720 --> 01:00:22,480
Speaker 1: kind of boring. Yeah. Yeah, that's like what people like

1134
01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 1: about him because things have been so tumultuous that's what

1135
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 1: people liked about him. Um. I think, like, you know,

1136
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:31,120
Speaker 1: in some places you need to have like the dictator

1137
01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:33,480
Speaker 1: is you know, holds up the sky and is the

1138
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:36,760
Speaker 1: only thing keeping you know, uh, you know the Western

1139
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 1: Hordes Backer, he invented all these wonderful things in Belarus.

1140
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:46,920
Speaker 1: It's like he's calm, he's reliable, he keeps everybody chill. Um. Yeah,

1141
01:00:47,360 --> 01:00:49,400
Speaker 1: So the rest of the song goes on for a

1142
01:00:49,480 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 1: pretty considerable length of time. Um. Anyway, it's it's he's

1143
01:00:54,880 --> 01:00:56,520
Speaker 1: a weird guy. He's kind of hard to get your

1144
01:00:56,560 --> 01:01:01,080
Speaker 1: hands around. And I he's definitely not the kind of

1145
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:06,040
Speaker 1: colorful figure that we tend to cover on behind the Bastards. Um.

1146
01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:08,480
Speaker 1: He is a terrible dictator who's suppressed a lot of

1147
01:01:08,520 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 1: people very violently. But he's also just like kind of

1148
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:17,919
Speaker 1: a boring middle manager. He seems like a boring dictator. Yeah, he's, he's,

1149
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:21,240
Speaker 1: he's he's kind of a boring dictator at the end. Um,

1150
01:01:21,440 --> 01:01:24,040
Speaker 1: and yeah, I found a quote from him, another quote

1151
01:01:24,040 --> 01:01:25,680
Speaker 1: from him where he kind of talks about himself as

1152
01:01:25,680 --> 01:01:29,480
Speaker 1: an authoritarian from an August two thousand three interview, where

1153
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:32,400
Speaker 1: he says, again an authoritarian style of rule is characteristic

1154
01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 1: of me, and I've always admitted it. And the notes

1155
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:37,320
Speaker 1: you need to control the the country and the main

1156
01:01:37,440 --> 01:01:41,160
Speaker 1: thing is not to ruin people's lives, um, which is

1157
01:01:41,200 --> 01:01:43,480
Speaker 1: a really self aware thing for a dictator to say, Like,

1158
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:47,440
Speaker 1: as long as I don't fuck people up, um, Albeit,

1159
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:49,960
Speaker 1: people will support me. They're gonna keep letting me be

1160
01:01:49,960 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 1: a dictator as long as I don't do something massively terrible.

1161
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:54,720
Speaker 1: So in part two we're going to talk about the

1162
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:57,360
Speaker 1: time Lukashenko did a bunch of massively terrible things that

1163
01:01:57,440 --> 01:01:59,880
Speaker 1: made people not want to support him as a dictator anymore.

1164
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:04,520
Speaker 1: But first this episode's over, Garrison, you want to tell

1165
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:06,360
Speaker 1: people where they can find you on the internet before

1166
01:02:06,360 --> 01:02:09,959
Speaker 1: we talk more about Belarus. Yeah, if you want to

1167
01:02:10,080 --> 01:02:13,160
Speaker 1: see me talk about protests and getting shot at by

1168
01:02:13,160 --> 01:02:15,040
Speaker 1: police and federal agents, you can go to my Twitter

1169
01:02:15,520 --> 01:02:18,240
Speaker 1: at hungry bout I hungry as in the accessory, not

1170
01:02:18,520 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: the country. Um yeah, that's where. That's where most of

1171
01:02:22,280 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 1: my stuff lives right now. Work working on a few

1172
01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:27,440
Speaker 1: other things, but yeah, mainly on my Twitter right now.

1173
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:33,400
Speaker 1: So follow Garrison's Twitter, tweet things at him. Uh, fill

1174
01:02:33,480 --> 01:02:37,280
Speaker 1: up my mentions with any anything that's legal yeah, yeah,

1175
01:02:37,280 --> 01:02:41,680
Speaker 1: that's legal. Uh follow me on Twitter and fill my

1176
01:02:41,800 --> 01:02:45,400
Speaker 1: mentions up with anything that's illegal. Um, that's how it works.

1177
01:02:45,480 --> 01:02:49,840
Speaker 1: Crimes to me, laws to Garrison, that's how the Twitter goes. Yeah,

1178
01:02:51,080 --> 01:02:54,000
Speaker 1: but you're at the I rights all right, Yeah, that's

1179
01:02:55,800 --> 01:02:58,640
Speaker 1: that's the thing. So the podcast is over. Um, you

1180
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:01,040
Speaker 1: can find us on the website at behind the Bastards

1181
01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:03,680
Speaker 1: dot com. You can buy t shirts. We have masks

1182
01:03:03,720 --> 01:03:07,640
Speaker 1: that will cure your diseases at the approved guaranteed to

1183
01:03:07,760 --> 01:03:10,840
Speaker 1: cure all diseases. Which first, okay, I thought this was

1184
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:13,600
Speaker 1: a fake ad for you until I saw one of

1185
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:15,440
Speaker 1: these masks in person. Days again, like, oh no, these

1186
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:16,920
Speaker 1: masks are real. This isn't just a joke you do

1187
01:03:16,960 --> 01:03:18,320
Speaker 1: at the end of the podcast, I don't know they were.

1188
01:03:18,360 --> 01:03:22,400
Speaker 1: Actually Yeah, they're real FDA approved masks to prevent all diseases.

1189
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:24,400
Speaker 1: And if the f d A has a problem with

1190
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:27,920
Speaker 1: me claiming that, then they can come. They can they

1191
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:31,200
Speaker 1: can attack Tea public Yeah, they're Canta te publics. Uh,

1192
01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:35,080
Speaker 1: mountaintop compounds with the basement full of children. Um, bring

1193
01:03:35,120 --> 01:03:36,040
Speaker 1: it on, f d A.