Strategy for NGO's and non-state media in Belarus

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ANALYTICAL PAPERS

STRATEGY FOR NGO's AND NON-STATE MEDIA IN BELARUS

Belarusian Version

1. Short analysis of the present situation in the country

From 1995 the overall situation in Belarus has been marked by strengthening authoritarian rule, pressure on independent media, destruction of third sector infrastructure, decrease of its impact on the society and marginalisation of political parties.

The efforts to oppose authoritarian tendencies have brought no results.

One of the main explanations of this situation is soviet and post-soviet conservatism of the Belarusian society, which before the collapse of the USSR was aimed at growth of well-being (as compared with other former Soviet republics the living standards in Belarus were among the highest in those times). And real expectations of the majority of Belarusian population in no way contradicted the existing (communist) political system and system of distribution of social benefits.

Declaration of independence and a subsequent sharp decline in the living standards in the period of the so-called “liberalisation” (1991—1994) in combination with the real (socialist) expectations of the majority of Belarusian population have triggered a true social shock and caused a rise of nostalgic and aggressive moods, as well as rather quick revival of soviet-conservative mentality. А.Lukashenka has become a political expression of these tendencies.

The essence of his political message was very simple and understandable for the majority of population — “Back in USSR”. Later this message evolved in the process of the so-called integration with Russia.

Another significant factor consisted in development of national identity based on ethnic-linguistic model of the Belarusian self-identification.

Initiated by oppositional political forces in early 90-ies, these processes failed, when confronted by the tendencies of revival of soviet-conservative mentality, and Russified consciousness of a significant part of the Belarusian population. It became clear that Belarus is an underdeveloped post-soviet nation with a number of problems with cultural and national identity, and so, unlike in Baltic States, the national movement in Belarus hasn't become a significant factor of "desovietisation" of Belarusian population, its political consolidation and change in the ruling elite.

Therefore, the soviet (post-soviet) conservatism and marginal (post-imperial) consciousness of a major part of Belarusian population have not only blocked social and political transformations in the country, but also allowed the head of state to build up an authoritarian system of rule.

At the same time, in the last ten years there have been exogenous processes (not directly triggered by political opposition) in the country, which have significantly influenced various social, cultural, political and geopolitical orientations of the Belarusian population and were caused by:

The very fact of existence of the Belarusian statehood, which has become the mechanism of development of a new non-soviet Belarusian identity, based, however, on the idea of Belarusian citizenship, rather than on the model of linguistic-ethnical-national identity;
Entering of the so-called “Belarusian-Russian integration” in the final stage of the post-colonial “story”, which has actually made possible for Belarus to finally choose independence;
Civilisation factor of closeness of Belarus to Europe, which not only enabled a significant part of Belarusians (about one third of the population) to get acquainted with the Western (democratic) way of life, but also resulted in the situation when the majority of population evidently prefers Western models of consumption of social benefits and goods;
Exhausting of the populist resource of influence of Alexander Lukashenka on public opinion, which can be proved not only be a significant decrease in his rating after the second presidential elections, but also by introduction of state ideology built after the model of the soviet propaganda machine;
Growing public awareness of the wrong choice of direction of development of the country.

It can be forecasted that in the short-term and medium-term perspective all these factors will strengthen, which means that the Belarusian society will become more susceptive to various ideas, aimed at changing the social, political and economic situation in the country.

2. Activities of the third sector and funders' support

The development of the third sector in Belarus can be divided into the following stages:

1987— organization of the first NGOs and their rapid development in 1991—1994. This process was facilitated by favourable conditions caused by overall liberalisation of the political situation in the country, as well as by activities and funding support of the Belarusian Soros Foundation and other funders;
1995—1996 — development of the civil movement in Minsk and regional cities. A number of NGOs start to purposefully work for the development of civil society. 1996 — culmination of protest moods in the Belarusian society.
1997—2001 — regionalisation and "professionalisation" of the third sector, consolidation of NGOs. However, the external conditions of activities of the third sector started to worsen. Among the factors that caused worsening of the situation were а) change in the social moods of the Belarusian society; b) introduction of the total control of the authorities over electronic media and pushing non-state electronic media out of the information space, c) economic discrimination and pressure on non-state printed media, d) complication of the registration procedure for new NGOs and non-state media;
2001— activisation of the third sector on the eve of the second presidential elections, prosecution and closure of most active NGOs, sharp decrease of funders' support. Closure by the authorities and due to economic reasons of a number of regional and national newspapers. The strongest ones are surviving. The lack of long-term comprehensive strategy and understanding about the perspectives of the third sector development with sponsors regarding perspectives of the overall development of the situation and development of the third sector in the country is becoming evident.

3. “Meeting the future”. Strategy of activities for NGOs and non-state media until 2006 and later

Based on the above analysis of the situation, the strategy of development of the third sector and media should take into account the above factors (Items 1—6, Chapter 1), as well as various related social and cultural processes. It should also take into consideration the changes in the public opinion in the direction of apathy (instead of enthusiasm) or critical attitude of a significant part of the Belarusian population toward the authorities, current social politics, economic condition of the country and direction of its development.

The factors of activisation of the critical public opinion in the country will be parliamentary and presidential elections. At the same time it should be taken into account that the present public opinion in Belarus is not consolidated. Political activities and public expression of political judgments is blocked by fear of a possible punishment or other consequences. These factors significantly restrict the possibilities of large-scale political activities in the country.

3.1 Essence of the strategy

This strategy is not based on building election coalitions with political parties, political blocks or other political forces in the country. In societies without a well-developed party system or civil society such alliances are bound to turn NGOs into political hostages, while weak political parties will seek to use them as their political assets or additional resources. This strategy is not also aimed at development of the third sector into a self-sufficient structure, it means, into a structure, which activities are not connected with different target groups of the Belarusian society.

The essence of this strategy is defined by its long-term objectives, and in particular — building of the strong full-fledged civil society and promotion of the European (democratic) choice for Belarus (joining EU).

While the aims of the strategy have a nation-wide character, the main accent of operations of NGOs will be transferred to the regional and local levels. Development of local and regional communities is a necessary condition for the development of the full-fledged civil society, future system of local self-governance and movement to the nation-wide democratic choice.

3.2 Medium-term objectives

activisation and consolidation of local elites, development of horizontal social solidarity ties, promotion of the idea of civil self-organization for solving various problems, as well as the idea of local self-governance. The centres of this process should be NGOs on the regional and local levels. Protection of NGOs and their activists;
development and strengthening of the feeling of Belarusian identity, interests, rights and responsibilities of citizens, as well as interests and rights of local communities;
development and strengthening of the Belarusian cultural and national identity, based on the idea of Belarusian statehood, cultural tradition and the idea of the historical belonging of the Belarusian nation to Europe;
creation of the situation of a real choice of information, resulting in good degree of information of Belarusian citizens and society about social, political, economic and cultural problems and processes inside the country and abroad;
promotion of the idea of participating in elections to support democratic candidates as a real basis of social, economic and political change in the Belarusian society;
strengthening of civil society by raising trust to NGOs on behalf of the population;
development of scenarios of democratic transformations in the Belarusian society;
promotion of European choice (Europe as value);
promotion of cooperation between Belarusian and NGO and NGOs in the countries where democratic transformations have occurred.

3.3 Target groups definition

Demographic structure of the modern Belarusian society is well correlated to the distribution of support/no support of democratic ideas, European choice of Belarus, present politics of the state and current authorities, which implement this course.

Evidently, population characterised by soviet and post-soviet conservatism demonstrates the biggest support of the present authorities and the least support to opposition and democratic transition This group is represented by the majority of representatives of older age groups (50—59 years and 60 years and older) (Lukashenka's electorate).

The biggest support to democratic choice (about 40%) is demonstrated by representatives of the younger age group (25—29 years old). Interestingly, representatives of this age group received middle and higher education in the period of formation of Belarusian independence, national revival movement, “Shushkevich-time liberalisation” and “Belarusisation” of middle and higher education in the country.

This age group in particular can become not only most active in promotion of the ideas of democratic transformations in the country, but also a real “resource” for replenishing the bulk of activists of the third sector.

Other age groups (18—19, 20—24, 30—39, 40—49 years) show manifested support to the opposition at the level of 30%. Regarding the “neutral” idea of joining EU, the overwhelming majority of Belarusian population (2/3) support the idea of joining the European Union.

It should be taken into consideration that the public opinion in Belarus, its structure, configuration and dynamics are extremely complex phenomena, which should become special objects of analysis.

3.4 Relations with political parties and movements

Evidently, the interests of NGOs (third sector), independent media and democratic political parties often do not coincide. Gaining political power is not the goal of NGOs, and building civil society is not the main goal of political parties. Independent media, in its turn, do not serve the interests of political parties and do not protect political interests of the population (Otherwise it turns into the means of propaganda or ideological work)

Objectively the interests of all three players coincide only in:

long-term perspective of building democratic society, and
during election campaigns.

In the latter case the coincidence of interests is based on fundamental democratic values and human rights — freedom of opinion, freedom of speech and freedom of choice, rather than on political objectives of the parties, taking part at the elections. The relations with political parties should be based on these values.

Thus, the main task of NGOs is not taking part in elections, but activisation of civil position of the population during election campaigns, as well as its development outside these campaigns. This activity should be ongoing.

3.5 Necessary internal conditions for strategy implementation

Taking into account that the present Belarusian society is to a large extent atomised and fragmented, which is typical of any post-Soviet transition society, where no institutional changes have taken place and where “temporally unifying ideology” like post-soviet nationalism of Baltic states has not resulted in consolidation of society in relation to the main directions of its development or in formation of a full-scale multi-party system, and given a number of political realities of the Belarusian society, the imperative conditions of implementation of this strategy are:

а) informal unification of active NGOs supporting the objectives described above;

b) large scaleness of activities;

c) powerful analysis in all fragments of coordinated activities and its planning;

d) development of action plans aimed at activisation of civil awareness on the local and regional levels, as well as programs not limited to election campaigns

e) achievement of mutual understanding with funders and coordinated funders' support.

3.6 Necessary external conditions for strategy implementation (general recommendations)

3.6.1 while supporting civil society in Belarus, Western partners and neighbouring countries should realise that fast and large-scale transitions in Belarus are not possible even in case of changing the present authorities. The present condition of the Belarusian society requires long-term investments in the civil society for 5—10 years. These investments shouldn't be related only to the next parliamentary or presidential elections.

3.6.2 Belarus shouldn't be considered only in contest of relations between the West and Russia or in context of the so-called Belarusian-Russian integration. Despite official propaganda and Belarus' information isolation from the West, Belarusian society undergoes dynamic processes of cultural and national self-identification with the Western vector as vector of development. And a significant part of Belarus' population already supports Belarus' European choice.

3.6.3 the strategy of assistance to the development of civil society should carefully take into consideration the Belarusian specifics. Import of democratic transformations scenarios from other post-communist countries is not productive for Belarus, as far as the mentality of a significant part of Belarusian population retains a negative attitude to all kinds of external impacts, which have historically obtained the forms of aggression or colonisation.

3.6.4 a key issue is the necessity to counter by all means Belarus' international isolation or self-isolation imposed by the present authorities.

3.6.5 the support of civil society should be aimed not on the social programs which implementation without cooperation with the authorities is not efficient or not possible at all, but on the NGO projects aimed at the development of democratic communities, civic education and non-state media.

3.7 Principles of activities and strategy implementation

Coordinated activities aimed at achieving the goals;
Joint planning of actions on the regional and national scale;
Tactics of small victories;
Orientation to real social, information and cultural needs of the region (country);
Engagement of a largest possible number of citizens;
Strong PR, aimed at explaining the meaning of actions and their results;
“We have good intentions and are implementing them”;
“We create allies, not enemies”;
“We are flexible and don't operate “point-blank”;
Avoiding any conflicts with the population;
Accounting for “common sense”;
"Depolitisation" of activities;
Holding mass campaigns in the style of performances.

4. Main ideas of the strategy

The key issue of implementation of this strategy is information efficiency of non-state regional and national media, which mainly have to perform the function of the public forum.

4.1 Non-state regional and national media

Non-state regional and national media have to become the subject of critical analysis from the point of view of their information efficiency. This analysis should result in development of new/alternative information packages.

Achieving the goal of “creating the situation of a real information choice” (Item 3.2.4) is impossible without presence and efficient operation of non-state printed and electronic media in the information space.

This requires taking the following measures:

a) to provide a significant support to non-state national and regional newspapers;

b) to launch the alternative system of their distribution;

c) to resume operations of Radio Racyja;

d) to establish a satellite TV channel (public service TV);

e) to launch the system of distribution of TV programs on tapes;

f) to set up regional web-publications;

g) to set up a centre of distribution of information via e-mail (e-newsletters) and regular mail;

h) to support the existing information and analytical web sites, the operations of which correspond to the long-term goals of this strategy, or to set up new ones.

4.2 Monitoring and analytical media centre

Although in the last ten years the Belarusian Association of Journalists has performed the monitoring of the media situation in the country (mainly violations of the freedom of speech and pressure on non-state media), the contents of the media (information packages) and their audiences have never been the object of serious analysis. This task should be performed by a monitoring and analytical media centre, the preliminary concept of which has been already elaborated.

4.3 Other think tanks and analytical groups

For the development of public opinion and development of scenarios of democratic transformation of the Belarusian society it is necessary to coordinate the efforts of the analytical centres and groups, which have common goals, and principles of activities enlisted in this strategy.

The studies of processes and problems of European integration and the experiences of our neighbours and other new members joining EU should become more active.

Temporal think tanks can be established for elaboration of specific regional scenarios of NGOs activities.

A special attention should be paid to the development of technologies of activities and creating effective interrelations with the public (PR-technologies). Given the specifics of the Belarusian mentality related to the problems of post-soviet and post-colonial (post-imperial) mentality, this direction of development of analytics seems especially important.

4.4 Central role of regional NGO associations

On the first stage of strategy implementation this role requires development of regional programmes or setting up the “banks” of most realistic ideas or performing, at minimum, their inventory with regard to regional (local) specifics, the situation of these NGOs, goals and principles of the common strategy.

4.5 Problems, which should be paid special attention to when implementing the strategy

4.5.1 It is a social aspect of the Chernobyl problem. As of today the “effect” of this problem has revealed itself in social passiveness of a large part of population living on the polluted territories and feeling much more dependant on the authorities than on their own initiative in solving not only post-Chernobyl, but also all other problems.

4.5.2 It is the problem of linguistic and cultural post-colonial stereotypes typical of a large part of the Belarusian society, which in a number of cases manifest different values' subordination (orientation to the West or to the East). Revealing and studying of these stereotypes and public debate could significantly contribute to overcoming them.

4.5.3 It is the problem of new leaders on all levels, and especially on the local level. This problem requires implementation of a number of training programs, which can be implemented by our partner NGOs from abroad.

5. Minimalist organization model required for implementation of the strategy

This organization model is necessary for implementing coordinated activities on all levels of strategy implementation.

On the regional level this model will be voluntarily made up by representatives of local NGOs supporting goals and principles of this strategy and which form up regional assemblies.

On the national level it will be voluntarily made up by representatives of regional NGOs assemblies, human rights organisations, which support goals and principles of this strategy, as well as representatives of analytical groups and think tanks expressing interest in analytical activities resulting from this strategy, or already implementing such activities.

Representatives of all the above organisations do not form any political coalition.

For implementing the strategy and carrying out coordinated activities based on their objectives, representatives of regional and national NGOs sign corresponding Memorandums on cooperation.

Minsk, February 2004

MEMORANDUM

While sharing the goals and principles of the above “STRATEGY FOR ACTIVITIES OF NGOs AND NON-STATE MEDIA IN BELARUS”, we fully realise that this strategy is not the only one possible.

At the same time, we clearly realise that the problems of the Belarusian society go beyond the present political situation. And to the full extent they will reveal themselves after changing the current regime and while holding democratic reforms in the country.

The success of these reforms will to a large extent depend upon the development of a strong civil society in the country, which serves as one of guarantees of irreversibility of democratic transition. Free citizens fully realising their individual private interests and rights are the main force, which forms a real counterweight to various authoritarian and totalitarian intentions of the authorities. Free citizens realising their cultural and national identity are the guarantee of preservation of the country's independence and its free development.

While sharing the aims and principles of the strategy, we undertake to implement the following initial steps necessary for its implementation:

• to distribute the document in all local, regional and national NGOs;

• to monitor proposals and ideas expressed by the NGOs interested in its implementation;

• to set up regional “banks” of ideas most suitable for its implementation;

• to hold (if necessary) regional conferences to discuss these ideas;

• to develop on the basis of these ideas the programs of activities on the regional and national levels;

• to distribute the document through national, regional and local non-state newspapers;

• to distribute the document among foreign embassies in the Republic of Belarus, all charity organisations and foreign NGOs interested in cooperation with Belarusian NGOs.

Contact Information: Ales Ancipienka, belkalehium@yahoo.com

Minsk “BC” Analytical Group

Minsk, March 2004

Strategy for NGO's and non-state media in Belarus