Disquiet On The Eastern Front: Ireland Backs Colour Revolution in Belarus

The re-election of Alexander Lukashenko in August as the president of Belarus spurred protests and initiated widespread outcry on mainstream media. Much lionising has been made of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the opposition leader, who has recently called on Ireland to be “braver” and to move “faster” in denouncing the head of the state. Tikhanovskaya is the wife of Sergei Tikhananovsky, an erstwhile presidential candidate who has been detained for public order offences in the run-up to the election.

In the aftermath of great outcry from lobby groups and international governments, Ireland has announced it is to spend €50,000 supporting civil society organisations and NGOs in Belarus. This also follows explicit endorsements of the protests by Fine Gael globalists, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney, a former attendee of the infamous Bilderberg meetings.

Tikhanovskaya has been moulded by the international press as a quasi-Joan of Arc figure. Irish legacy media outlets have spun human interest stories of how the “Chernobyl child” spent summers in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary. As a leading representative of a wide-ranging political bloc that pushes for the liberalisation of the Belarussian political society, she has repeatedly claimed that these protests are simply a desire to respect the will and plurality of the Belarussian people.

But one must always ask who is condemning the government of Belarus, and what interests are at stake? After some analysis, it becomes quite apparent that the desire for liberalism also matches the desire to be within the European Union, NATO and the Atlanticist sphere of influence. That being the widening of their frontiers. 

Despite being known as “Europe’s last dictatorship” since its breakaway from the crumbling USSR in 1990, the intrigue towards “democratising” Belarus hasn’t ever flared up as heavily before now. Such intrigue is often a projection of what the contemporary Western power structure wants. This explains why the foreign policy and international relations of governments such as Iran, Syria and Armenia are either viewed with objection or ignorance, whilst those of states such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel are viewed less so. 

A chief ally of Russia and to an extent isolated from the international community, Belarus can be regarded as a “stubborn” outlier that needs to undergo the same processes that have shaped the absorption of the Baltic, Visegrád and Balkan states into the EU’s sphere of territorial and political influence. A recent event that can be compared to the unrest in Belarus are the astroturfed Euromaidan protests in 2014, supported by the EU, the CIA, a nexus of global NGO’s and civil advocacy groups, as well as liberal and ultranationalist parties in the Ukraine. This came after former President Viktor Yanukovych suspended signing an association agreement with the EU. After a successful “revolution”, both the oligarch “chocolate king” Petro Poroshenko and comedian Volodymr Zelensky have served as heads of state.

A similar coincidence has struck Belarus, and a country which has stood on the periphery between an expanded EU and Russia for many years now finds itself subject to large and supposedly “grassroots” protests. A proposed Covid-19 relief fund of $900 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was also rejected by the Belarussian government, after Lukashenko stated in June that the IMF demanded that they impose a lockdown in order to receive the funding. These measures coincide with an intensification of civil unrest, and the occurrence is as coincidental to what happened in the Ukraine.

Additionally, President Ursula Von der Leyen of the European Commission stated that €53 million of funds will be mobilised to “support” the people of Belarus. Up to €1 million is to support “civil society and independent media”, another €2 million to assist “victims of repression and unacceptable state violence”, and €50 million is for “coronavirus emergency support”. Furthermore, the statement by Von Der Leyen stresses preparedness to “engage in all possible ways to accompany peaceful democratic transition of power in Belarus”. 

Complaints of fraudulent elections and illiberal practices are essentially a smokescreen to project a colour revolution through soft power. Hard power has already been enacted by the EU’s sanctioning of Lukashenko and other officials, in the forms of an EU travel ban and the freezing of assets. Along with Sweden, an otherwise far more liberal, progressive and passive society on social and cultural issues, Belarus didn’t respond to Covid-19 by imposing a lockdown. 

Economically, the state has far greater control over enterprise, services and banking than any post-Soviet state or any of its EU neighbours. According to the United Nations Development Programme, the income inequality of Belarus is one of the lowest in Europe and the entire globe. The lack of domination by an oligarchic private sector renders the economy of Belarus more immune than neighbouring states to usury and speculation. 

The allure of liberalism is for individuals to do, act, move and dress as they please in the public realm without restraints, judgements or penalties. Often confused with traditional individuality and eccentricity, the outstanding human being need not solely rely on an external façade to differentiate from the other. With globalism now having a firm stranglehold on various mainstream and alternative strands of popular and youth subculture, we can expect various young Belarussian “exiles” to become the proxy footsoldiers of an anarcho-bourgeoise controlled by international finance capital. 

Much like the spiteful mutants and mid-wits of Ireland that dominate campuses, Antifa, lobby groups, NGO’s and progressive newspaper columns; their resentments can be nurtured in neighbouring states such as Poland. It is here that the same pattern of liberal agitation is cast against the ruling populist-conservative Law & Justice Party and the Catholic Church in the form of “Women’s strike” that advocate legislation to allow for the killing of the unborn in the womb. 

Such faux-grassroots parades have exactly the same PR savvy aesthetic as did the “Strike 4 Repeal” demonstrations that littered Ireland in 2018. Whilst Poland has long been seen as a bastion of cultural conservatism, it is not surprising to see this being undermined by external forces. Key to this is the role of George Soros, who described Poland (along with Hungary) as “internal enemies” within the European Union. 

This astroturfing is aided courtesy of his Media Development Fund having purchased shares in Agora, which owns one of Poland’s largest daily newspapers Gazeta Wyborcza, as well as authorising a full takeover of Poland’s second biggest radio station Radio Zet, with Agora buying 40% of the station and Soros-backed SRS Ventures group taking over the other 60%. 

This has been accompanied by his Open Society Foundation donating up to €1 million to the Stefan Batory Foundation, which subsequently rewards grants to NGOs that act as Eastern Europe’s frontline in radical liberal subversion. These cloak and dagger tactics came about as a result of the Law & Justice Party replacing the management of public broadcasters to reflect more patriotic, traditional values on air. 

It is obvious that governmental measures like these, not unlike those sought by Belarus and the Ukraine, are clearly adverse to the West’s neoliberal conglomerates, hegemons and oligarchs. They sow anarchy to affect regime change, and recognise no country, border or limit as being beyond their reach. Their desire to conquer those who do not accept liberal totalitarianism is a gluttony dressed as love and empathy. Here is praying that not just Belarus and Poland, but the rest of Eastern Europe stays strong in its collective spirit, and overcomes the storms that her Western neighbours may someday stave off too. This is a battle for your soul.