L. Mirzayanova: “Happiness and Freedom”. Letters From Prison

Vladimir Yeremenko: “Happiness means just being free…”.

Most people want to be happy. I would even say all of us want to be happy. Happiness is way more important than money, health and sex.

People are conscious of what happiness is.  For most people it’s joy, for others – positive emotions, absence of fears, anxiety, depression. As for the scientists, for them the synonym of happiness is “subjective well-being”, which is not the same for all people.

Happiness depends on objective conditions and on how a person sees the world.

There is a link between happiness and freedom. Depriving a man of his personal, political or economic freedom will considerably decrease his level of satisfaction with life. And freedom, on the other hand, makes a man happy when he can use it properly. As studies show, in the countries with badly-developed democratic institutes and lower level of life, where the declared freedoms cannot always be so easily used, the level of happiness is also way lower. One of such countries is Belorussia.

Happiness, according to a renowned scientist Argyll, is a great wealth of the society. And it’s not personal business of each citizen. How can you make the whole country happy? – it’s an important question for each civilized country, for country leader and the government whose actions must be directed not at oppression of freedoms but at creating happier people in their country.

Imprisonment of a person, according to many, is a source of unhappiness. His loss of freedom affects all aspects of happiness: joy, satisfaction, negative emotions.

And still, is it possible for a man, even during long imprisonment, and especially by an unjust conviction, to be happy? What gives him strong positive emotions in prison? Formulas of happiness of the political prisoners after the events of December 19 locked up in prisons and colonies of Belorussia are what this section is focused on. We would like to start off with a letter by Vladimir Yeremenko.

Member of the Youth Front, he was arrested on 20 January 2011 for participation in a protest action against falsified results of Belorussian Presidential elections, and was imprisoned in Volodarsk Jail. On 14 May the court sentence Vladimir to 3 years of colony with a reinforced regime.

June 17, 2011, Volodarsk Jail

Being behind bars, it’s impossible to be happy in a full sense. With the loss of freedom you lose the opportunity to do anything, you lose your purpose of living for you can’t be with your family and loved ones. Even the simplest right and opportunity of being able to go wherever you want and whenever you want to, is taken away from you.

But in spite of that, in captivity I still have more inner freedom. Now I have time to be by myself, to analyze my earlier life, to find mistakes  I’ve made. During this time, as weird as it might seem, at this place (jail) I’ve come closer to the Lord. Because of that, I can’t say that I’ve been altogether unhappy.

Of course in jail I’ve had some reasons to rejoice. Jail is really an interesting place. You’d think that behind these dim walls you couldn’t even think of talking about something like joy, but in some weird way you start finding joy in things that you wouldn’t have even noticed before.

I happily receive each letter from the outside world.  You can’t express by words what an experience it was to hear my mom’s voice during visits, to see her smile instead of the tears that filled her eyes straight after my sentence. I looked forward to each court hearing because I had a chance to see my friends and relatives. I was grateful, and still am, for each coincidental meeting with the people I know within the walls of Volodarka.

Each minute of my walks is a joy, a joy to take in each gulp of fresh air after the musty, smoke-filled cell. I’m joyful each morning when I hear the birds singing through the window, realizing: I’M ALIVE…

As paradoxical as it may sound life itself makes my life happy. I’m happy when I wake up in the morning and know that I can do something kind and sincere.

True happiness is seeing your family, friends, i.e. those who are close and dear to me, to share joy and concern together. Happiness is just being free…”

L. Mirzayanova: PROACTIVE ADAPTATION TO LIFE IN PRISON

“My dear son, I’m laughing, because I can’t cry any more…”

What happened on the square on December 19 strikingly demonstrated that President’s elections in Belarus are marked by more and more repressions with each pre-election campaign. Arresting presidential candidates and young people, putting them into remand prison and penal colonies is becoming more and more widespread. Adapting to prison life, which calls for considerable intellectual and emotional power becomes a burning issue for many people right after the elections. There are no suitable ways of behaviour in this awful reality, and this is followed by health deterioration. I wouldn’t be surprised if the authorities in power that position themselves as humanitarians, always expressing concern for the health of Belorussians, soon addressed us with a new appeal “Let’s put some hay on the bunk (bunkbed)!”: let’s actively help an individual adapt to life in prison.

Implementing this appeal into life can be initiated with development of specific recommendations. For instance, academic plans of educational establishments should include a course “Basic preparation for prison”. This course should be taught for all students: from elementary school children to graduates, the program would differ only by age. We need to discuss if this course should also be taken by presidential candidates. On the day of registration as presidential candidates the latter should receive a manual “Guidelines for the future political prisoner” which would include “the Penal code”, a booklet “Shape your future in prison, and then sign up” .

In order to effectively teach the course “Basic preparation for prison” teachers need to be re-trained at the Academy of post-graduate studies. A solution of how to develop all the necessary educational documentation should be found in shortest terms possible.

Aren’t these guidelines good? How about urgently developing didactic manuals taking into account day-to-day election realities in Belarus and calling them “Losing one’s own rights during protest actions”, “Special protection of rights of OMON agents”? One can also launch scientific research of the following subject, “Influence of an injury on witness statements made by OMON agents in court”?

One can also organise a series of events on adaptation in prisons as part of the action plan of all educational establishments. Working in this direction would mean publishing dictionaries with prison vocabulary and slang, books on determining the sense of tatoos, organising a competition for the best name for a penal colony, suggesting such names as “Bear’s lodge” and “Foxes’ burrows”. One  can publish reference books like “Who shall I become? (specializations: electrician, electric welder, sewer that can be mastered in a colony)”, “Begging. How to avoid cheating in a colony?”, “Visiting lepila (a doctor in the colony)”.

Isn’t this guideline useful – organising children’s holidays in camps during summer, and making those camps function as similar to penal institutions as possible?

Ice palaces can be turned into convenient remand institutions since they proved to be economically unfeasible existing as palaces. This will help solve a row of burning issues, such as overfilled prison cells, as well as differentiating the arrested according to their profile: politics, economics, and finally, treating the arrested as individuals: Presidential candidates, party leaders, headquarters’ heads, ordinary participants of protests.

By the way, ice palaces can serve as a solid foundation for celebrating a new holiday in the country “Election dozhinki” named after L. Ermoshina.

The key guideline is to continue using the approach “Fake justice” that sees the proven innocence as an aggravating circumstance. Educational establishments should be the ones to try using this approach (they can organise open trials on “peoples’ enemies” in halls, or on stadiums of schools, colleges and universities if the weather is good), and they can also prepare the masses who would be shouting “Action. Remand prison. Colony”, “Suitcase. Railway station. Europe” or “Suitcase. Railway station. Russia” depending on the political situation. The main thing is not to mix them up!

The list of guidelines is not finished yet. They are actively discussed at forums and this will help finalize the document that will need approval.

L. Mirzayanova: The Multifunctionality of Silent Acts of Protest

Are silent acts of protests needed or not? It is argued over by sociologists, politicians, journalists and ordinary people. While the arguments go on, the acts of protest continue. Their multifunctionality becomes more apparent with each passing day.

A function is a role, a purpose. What purpose do the acts of protest have? What kind role do they play?

There are several roles. They can all be varied. The parents and others close to the political prisoners of December 19 protests were trying to use all of them.

The main function of the acts they say was psychotherapeutic: to overcome the fear paralyzing the Belarusian people by joining together in social awareness and awareness of the specific people suffering from repression by the authorities, which have become particularly severe after December 19, 2010.

These youth’s fears, the fear of protesting and the fear of thinking, was in large part created by the department of education by a great many pedagogues acting under orders, led by their own fears of  “not passing the competition for a position” and “losing their jobs.” At a faculty council meeting at one of the country’s universities during one of such competitions the dean sadly noted that quality teaching and results of contestant’s scientific research must be added with the results of ideological work, and that is where the problem is. There are some who were arrested and even some convicts”.

In the world education there are certain set criteria for an institution calling itself a university. Dear colleague, I am referring to you! This list does not include a criterion “no students should be arrested during protests” or “loyalty of university heads to certain governmental powers”. But there is one principally important criterion – quality of education, on which the economic wellbeing, political system and national security are based. It has competitive future professionals, capable of leadership, creativity and independent decisions.

Would it really help to form that potential – dragging all the students to a disco night organized by the youth-relations department on purpose, on the day of the protests? It’s time to realize – our young people are no farm animals! With all our love to agriculture and farming it’s a crime – herding them all into reservations encircled by “cowboys” in police uniform, and telling them  to “Party!”. It’s time to remove propaganda and ideology work from our teachers’ agenda. Our overseas colleagues do not have that on their teaching plans. And what is there to plan anyway? Except for “prevent three students and one colleague from participation in protests and do not participate in them yourself”? Where is the sense in such ideology if it’s purpose is not to unite but to disintegrate the youth of one country?!

The interviewed see the value of silent acts of protest in a possibility for “mutual infection” and positive mimicking, in strengthening confidence that a protest is necessary, that a citizen has a right to it. Look at the photographs taken during the police raid of the protest! During the raid people are behaving honourably. Such behaviour models can be adopted by them after observing the participants of the 19 December protests. How bravely they held themselves in prison and during long court hearings – the presidential candidates A. Sannikov, N. Statkevich, D. Uss, V. Neklyaev, members of their teams D. Bondarenko, D. Drozd, N. Radina, A. Lebed’ko, journalists A. Otroschenkov and I. Khalip, young activists D. Dashkevich, E. Lobov, N. Likhoved, A. Kirkevich, V. Eremenko, D. Bulanov, P. Vinogradov, I. Vasilevich, F. Mirzayanov and others! How fearlessly did the presidential candidate A. Mikhalevich made the statement about KGB tortures! But especially effective are the behaviour models of the young participants. Most of the participants of 19 December protests and summer silent protests have the same age, the same interests and problems.

All those who observed or participated in the silent protests will agree that they are mainly of a flashmob nature. It’s true: and this is both their strength and their weakness. However all the people I have interviewed have mainly highlighted another important role of the silent protests – organizational. By gaining experiences of success and failures the participants are learning to be more organized and mobilized.

The interviewees say that the two other roles of such actions are stimulation and unification. The protest action itself contains a call for the young people to unite, to the educated classes, the workers (maybe using other forms of expression), to unite and protest against the freedom restrictions existing in the country, to make demands for economic and political changes, to free political prisoners. Even if the latter demand is not openly claimed, but they at least make it explicit. In the streets the mothers, wives, girlfriends of political prisoners are approached by strangers with words of gratitude and support. Here is this very supporting role of the silent acts of protest!

So do we or do we not need the silent acts of protest? Of course we do! In the stuffy air or restricted freedoms, debris of red tape, fear, “over-population” with the law enforcement officers the protest participants and, strangely enough, even mere bystanders breath in a light breeze of the air of freedom and the changes they are bringing to the country. In their letter to the outside world the participant of the Square Ales Kirkevich writes: “Don’t think of the reason why you’ve been locked up. Think of the purpose? I know what it all is for, it’s part of my way, a small one but still a part of the newest history of Belorussia. And I feel peace.” Here is another – modifying role of the silent acts or protest! Their participants are creating the HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY.

L. Mirzayanova: New Types of Fears

Results of fears’ scientific investigation of law enforcement authorities

There are no people that do not experience fear. Another thing is that the fears that people experience might vary. The degree of fear expression differs among people as well. The main source of fear development is the self-protection instinct. Fear can be closely linked to a certain object or a situation, or can be free-sources, i.e. it can be caused by any object, creature or situation. This is also called groundless fear. With this type of fear a considerable number of feared objects may accumulate.

Fears can be caused by almost everything. One person is afraid of heights, another is afraid of rolling down the social ladder. One has been afraid of his mother since childhood, another of a police guy. Some are scared to loudly express themselves in the society using swearwords, do something indecent, dirty, others are afraid of being discovered. All these fears that are not at all alike cause similar psychophysiological changes in human body. Moreover, they are followed by similar subjective worries.

A myriad of obsessive fears (phobias) has been detected among people. There are a fear of open spaces (agoraphobia), a fear of closed spaces (claustrophobia), a fear to catch a disease (nosophobia), a fear to lose one’s mind (tanatophobia). There are also some weird phobias such as fear of bald people (peladophobia), fear of laughter (gelophobia), fear of the mobile never ringing again (nomophobia), fear of theaters (theaterphobia), fear of the Pope (popephobia), fear of two-wheeled vehicles (cyclophobia), fear of clowns (culrophobia) and so on. People with obsessive tendencies have been identified to have a fear of the imminent. These people can not stand changes, and if changes happen, they try to shut themselves from them or get rid of them.

During evolution the Belorussians, as all other people on Planet Earth, got rid of many biological fears. So one may think why not just live a happy life and enjoy but  it’s not that easy. For the past seventeen years many bigger fears entered lives of Belorussians, such as a fear of total checks (“andropovophobia”), a fear of accounting reports (“bukhgalterophobia”/accounting phobia), a fear of weekly political information sessions in educational establishments (“politinformphobia”), a fear of compulsory events (“zagonyalophobia”/forcing-to attend-the-event-phobia) and so on. However, the majority of Belorussians got used to these fears, seeing no possibility of getting rid of them. Some display feelings of fear and worriedness to such extent that they need to be hospitalized.

But this is not at all bad. The most terrible thing is that during past months, while observing the law enforcement authorities, Belorussians noticed fears that have been unknown to us before. The following story required special investigation. The experimental group consisted of 300 people. A list of fears experienced by law enforcement authorities has been compiled according to the survey conducted among voluntary and involuntary participants of silent actions (it was them who encountered the unknown types of fear). Here are the results of the survey. The fears are categorized from the biggest to the slightest:

–      fear of applause (earlier only mosquitos had been afraid of applause);

–      fear of collective silence;

–      fear of mass media people (journalists, photographers, operators);

–      fear of spreading information about one’s own outrages (law enforcement authorities try to do everything in order not to let their actions get discovered);

–      fear of opposition (fear of the “5th column”);

–      fear of the expression “Long live Belorus!”. Imagine if they put you into jail for saying “Long live Russia!” in Moscow or “Long live free Ukraine!” in Ukraine;

–      fear of one’s own last name (the proof of that is a fact that law enforcement authorities refuse to introduce themselves while attacking the inhabitants);

–      fear of the uniform (refusing to wear the uniform while chewing out its fellow citizens);

–      fear of boss’ fears (a proof for that was the following fact: people’s arrests by law enforcement authorities became very brutal after Lukashenko’s threatening warning that he’ll take off all the shoulder straps off them if the actions continue);

–      fear of one’s own fear of silent protest actions which grows into a nightmare.

 

 

The survey results obviously require some confirming facts. The law enforcement authorities have to be questioned directly about their fears as well, and then the obtained results have to be compared with the available ones. The number of the surveyed participants of silent protest actions has to be increased. I think there won’t be any problems with that: the sample group will amount to several thousands towards autumn. The young people will also help conduct the statistical data processing.

Talking about fear of one’s own fear of silent protest actions, one has to admit that law enforcement employees don’t fear the clapping and the one who is clapping as much as they fear the character of a protester which is shaped in their minds by the authorities. As we all know fear is the ancestor of brutality. That’s why we witness incredibly brutal arrests during protest actions, usage of tear gas, numerous arrests, cruel sentences. One may think that if law enforcement authorities get rid of their own fears – it’s over! True, but the problem is that everything has been paid for. Yet there’s still hope, which, just like fear, dies the last.

The arrested started a round of applause on July 3 in Moscow regional office of internal affairs in Minsk. It was 11pm. They swiftly moved to the third stage of the action in that way. Having heard the applause, the employees ran out of the offices nearby. This time their reaction towards applause was normal, as they were in a situation they are used to: “Keep applauding, but keep in mind that this will prevent us from signing the protocols quickly”. So, one can clap not only at a theatre or stadium, but also in the office of internal affairs. By the way, when the court announced the sentence, this very applause affected neither the number of days to be served in remand prison, nor the amount of penalty to be paid.

There’s a suggestion of installing a monument to fears of Belorussians in Minsk! One could even announce a contest for the best monument among creative young people. I’m sure that it would stand there sound and solid. And next to it there’d be a monument to «culture»: a well-known granite figure of the leader standing on the postament.

The Belarusian Judge as a Product of “Evolution”. Ludmila Mirzayanova, the mother of the political convict Fyodor Mirzayanov

The distinguishing feature of the political court cases relating to the 19 December 2010 events has been noted by Anatoly Lebedko (a Belarusian political activist, Head of the United Civil Party or UCP). The judges at these infamous proceedings are “women only”. Thus, displaying social guile, the male judges build their own vertical career by  women’s hands. Taking into consideration the opinion of the UCP leader I want to stress that the point is not only in the social guile of a Belarusian male judge.

Watching the legal proceedings connected with the cases of “Decembrists” (The Decembrist revolt took place in Imperial Russia on 14, 1825. Following an announcement of the results on the 19th of December 2010 Belarus president election, around ten thousand people gathered in the central square of Minsk to take part in a peaceful pro-democracy rally. They were set upon by the police and the KGB, and hundreds were beaten, arrested and taken away to KGB detention centres), communicating with politicians who went through the threshing machine of Belarusian justice led me to a sad conclusion: “There is a species – a Belarusian judge as the result of evolution! And the gender does not matter here! During the 17-year rule of the present authorities a great many of court officials/officers have successfully adapted to modern conditions when the orders given by much higher officials come first and law comes second. There is a point for the major selection workers’ personal pride who are teaching to work with papers, instructing on how to work according to a telephone call, but they are not educating how to work with people in agreement only with the law! ”

Of course, the adaptation to the Belarusian system of justice is not passed on genetically from a mother judge to a daughter judge or from a senior colleague to a novice in the profession (it is known that ‘experience does not retire’!).

Personal and professional changes occur gradually, they are caused by the work of special conditions in which a Belarusian judge has to perform his/her professional functions.

By the time that a Belarusian judgeis entrusted to conduct infamous political court proceedings, the judge has no doubt successfully passed the survival test in Belarusian reality, had adjusted to it, had got a job, had been promoted, had got a certain status and  pay. A friend judge confessed that he has got ‘things to lose’ in a similar situation, but he didn’t mean the loss of honour. It is clear now that by accepting a mission from the top echelon he enters the fight for his further existence in this system implementing the principle “the administrative resource gets the upper hand of those who are not in power.”

According to Darwin the changes in the course of evolution may take two shapes: distinct and indistinct. The behavior of the women judges at the courts concerning the 19 December events is likely to demonstrate the certainty of changes. All of them follow the same scenario demonstrating similar patterns of behavior, delivering identical verdicts. It turns out the evolutionary doctrine is in the hands of injustice. I wish the courts hearing the cases of Statkevich, Uss and the youth activists disproved the conclusion! (Thursday, May 26, the Leninski district court of Minsk convicted six persons involved in the “case on December 19.” The judge considered the defendants’ guilt proved and sentenced former presidential candidate Nikolai Statkevich to six years in reinforced regime colony for organizing mass unrest on December 19, 2010. Ex-presidential candidate Dmitri Uss was jailed to five and a half years for committing a similar crime. The remaining defendants in the case were sentenced to the following prison terms: Alexander Kviatkevich – to 3.5 years of security colony, Andrei Pozniak – to 2 years of imprisonment, Dmitri Bulanov – to 3 years of intensive regime, Artem Hribkov – to 4 years of intensive regime of forced treatment for alcoholism for active participation in the riots.) It would be nice to make sure that the same conditions of authoritarian rule affect the representatives of the same profession differently.

I admit that the attempt to understand and explain the behavior of the Belarusian women judges during the political proceedings from the evolutionary standpoint is a bit of a rough model. Do not drop or omit their personal peculiarities, needs, values, levels of ambition, and fears.

 

It’s not my Fault! The Crisis Came on its Own! Author: Ludmila Mirzayanova

There’s an indicator of a leader’s relationship between himself and the surrounding reality. In psychology this is know as the locus of control, meaning the tendency to see the source by which his life is directed as either an external means, or primarily from oneself.

Locus of control can by external and internal. If a leader has developed an internal locus of control, they are more likely to accept responsibility for unexpected problems in the sphere of his own competency on himself. This kind of leader attributes the problem to their own character, actions or abilities.

A leader with and external locus of control deals with this matter differently. He’s more likely to shift responsibility for whatever happens to someone else. The role of  someone else could be filled by anyone: the opposing party, the media, those in office in neighboring governments. The scapegoat could be the people sweeping the sugar from the shelves. “He has three at fault: God, Nature, and the weather” say those working under the leader with and external locus of control, characterized by being short-tempered, overly defensive and aggressive.

The formula explaining the failure, peculiar to the leader with an external locus of control, have been shown by the Belarussian leadership in their concern of the country in the economic crisis.

We’re reminded of the film “The Diamond Arm,” featuring Yuri Nikulin. Members of the public without warning burst into a hotel room, in which the circumstances are intimate. The half-dressed heroine, played by  Svetlana Svetlichnaya, trying to redeem herself in terror cries out, “It’s not my fault! He came here himself!” Well yes, it came, but the president and the government should have carefully thought it out, and in turn accepted systematic measures to prevent or soften the negative impact. The spontaneous economic crisis should have been put under control by the president and the government. Democratic means were supposed to be used for that.

In order to develop the economy, the government could have projected the crisis, and that means planning it out, forecasting its consequences, and through the creation of special circumstances lead an educated handling of it. You say it would be difficult for the people? Isn’t it difficult for people now? And who expects a crisis to be easy? The Greek translation for crisis is a turning point, a change, and finally a solution. At least a turning point would be predictable and clear to everyone.

Unfortunately, the authorities are worrying about elections, so they kept quiet about the crisis, promising higher wages. Once the people were told to expect growth, they expected it. And it’s well known that the greater the difference between expectations and reality, the greater the worrying. That’s how the economic crisis provoked with so many Belarussians, giving their vote in December for Alexander Lukashenko, the presidential election crisis.

As life has shown, projecting and competently handling the economic crisis is something the Belorussian ministry hasn’t been able to do as of yet. It has little to do with executives having diplomas, academic degrees or experience.  Modern economics require a different kind of specialist with a developed economic mentality, skills in crisis management, serious preparation which our universities do not offer yet. I’ll point out that people capable of solving economic problems  were among those who came on to the square on December 19, 2010.Unfortunately, the planned dialogue of the candidate was never heard, rather bludgeoned away by the judges and unjust sentencing. Many of those young people, going to the elections for the first time, thirsting for economic reform, are now behind bars, now concerned over, what Fedor Mirzayanov spoke of in his final remarks at court, a crisis of faith in the justice of the Belarussian justice system.