In 1989 13% of Russians agreed that Russia had enemies, in 2013, before Euromaidan, already 78% of respondents believed that. This is the dynamics. This data shows the effectiveness of “five minutes hate” against external and internal enemies, which are broadcasted on Russian TV 25 hours a day since March.
Enemies are a simple and lucid explanation for economic failures; their presence relieve power and society of responsibility. Here is an example of how A. Lukashenko used it in his Message-2011, two months after the ruble devaluation: “Analyzing what have happened, last year’s end, this year’s beginning, you may understand that somebody wants to hump our young independent state, which has its own internal and external policy, to make us dance to a whistle. Belarus is under a massive pressure. They begin with political threats: they don’t accept the results of the last presidential campaign, they make lists of travel banned people, they introduce economic sanctions. Then they create panic and rush on currency and consumer markets at the instigation of some “locals” and other foreign “analytics”. Then there is “a dancing on the bones” after what have happened on subway station “Oktyabrskaya”.
The head of Belarusian state regularly says that “they want to hump us”. And there is no shortage of grateful audience. Table 1 confirms this. March 2011 survey was conducted before the crisis, nevertheless 53.3% of respondents agreed that Belarus has internal and external enemies. Today 62% of Belarusians share this point of view. In this case, as you can understand, it is Russian TV that has contributed to this situation.
Table 2 gives an opportunity to compare socio-demographic characteristics of respondents that agree and disagree that Belarus has enemies.
Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question: “Do our people and our country have enemies?” depending on demographic characteristics and attitude to A. Lukashenko, %
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Characteristics
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1*
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2*
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3*
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4*
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Gender:
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||||
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Male
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12.3
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34.7
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17.5
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29.6
|
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Female
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13.3
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24.6
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23.5
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28.8
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Age:
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||||
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18-29
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10.8
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30.9
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17.8
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30.9
|
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30-39
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10.8
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26.9
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17.2
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38.4
|
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40-49
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9.5
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34.6
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21.2
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28.3
|
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50-59
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12.1
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28.0
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24.6
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28.0
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60 +
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19.8
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25.7
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23.2
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22.3
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Education:
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Primary
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32.6
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12.6
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31.6
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13.7
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Incomplete secondary
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19.2
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28.2
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23.7
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19.9
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Secondary
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11.8
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28.9
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19.5
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30.4
|
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Vocational
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10.4
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30.3
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19.6
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33.6
|
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Higher
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8.5
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33.6
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20.0
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31.2
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Attitude to A. Lukashenko:
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||||
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Trust
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15.9
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28.3
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27.0
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18.7
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Don’t trust
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9.8
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29.2
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12.5
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42.9
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* 1 – Our country is surrounded by enemies; 2 – Our most dangerous enemies are hidden insiders; 3 – There will always be enemies for our nation on the way of revival; 4 – Why look for enemies when the root of evil is in our own mistakes
Women, unlike men, are busier with everyday problems and are less interested in politics (especially, external politics). That is why they more often mention presence of internal enemies than men (+10.1 points). People from the age group of 40-49 years old agree with women.
Retired people “drop out” as usual. They agree that our country is surrounded by enemies twice as often as other age groups. This is a typical example of displaced reaction: they compensate their miserable lives at the expense of realization of their own virtues against the background of guile and inferiority of the enemies.
This very reason may explain the “drop-out” of respondents with primary education. They feel the presence of a circle of enemies around Belarus four times as often as people with higher education.
Taking into account that women, retirees and people with low level of education are the basis of electoral support of the “national leader”, the distribution of answers depending on the attitude to A. Lukashenko looks quite natural.
But it’s one thing to admit the presence of external and internal enemies, and totally another – to believe in a real threat of war. Nevertheless, 37.1% of Belarusians consider it real. Among the supporters of A. Lukashenko this share is even higher – 42.3% (Table 3). We don’t know the results of all-Union surveys in the period of “the cold war”, so we have no materials for comparison, but we have an impression that long forgotten slogan “lest war break out” gains his popularity again.
Table 3. Distribution of answers to the question: “How do you think, is there a threat of war for Belarus from other countries?”, %
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Variant of answer
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All respondents
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Attitude to A. Lukashenko
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|
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Trust
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Don’t trust
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||
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Certainly yes/Probably yes
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37.1
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42.3
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32.6
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Probably no/Certainly no
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58.4
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54.5
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61.7
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DA/NA
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4.5
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3.2
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5.6
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Survey results show that 31.2% of respondents disagree with the statement that in Belarus people live worse than in the West, while 29.7% of respondent agree with it. 52.8% of respondents from the age group of 60 years old and elder, for whom pensions are the main source of income, disagreed with that statement. Among A. Lukashenko’s supporters the share of disagreement amounted to 49.4%. It should be noted that among young people (18-29 years old) this viewpoint is shared by every fifth respondent.
Belarus is still on the first place according to the number of Schengen visas per capita among all the countries that have visa regime with the EU (there are about 140 of them). In 2013 80 visas were issued per 1000 Belarusians. Compare with 48 visas in Russia or 34 visas in Ukraine. But these intensive contacts are weak in the face of purposeful propaganda. And it’s not about professional level of propagandists. From a stream of information people choose only those chunks that correspond to his “picture of the world”. And the centre of a Belarusian pensioner’s “picture” is occupied by the paternalistic state and its permanent leader. Agreeing with the fact that people in the West live well than Belarusians means for them loss of last hopes on life improvement.
It is natural that in split Belarusian society every part has their own mass media: “majority” has the state media, “minority” – non-state. That is why it is difficult to answer the question “Does a person choose mass media, or do mass media choose a person?” unambiguously. In June 27.2% of Belarusians, that trust state mass media, disagreed with the statement that people in Belarus live worse than people in the West. Among those who trust non-state mass media this indicator amounted to 41.8%.
Only 13% of respondents think that it is the people that are to blame for the worse standard of living (Table 4). It is natural: power blames external enemies and people agree with the power. But avoiding responsibility for their own destinies, they add the power to the list of sources of problems. And they even put it on the first place!
Table 4. Distribution of answers to the question: “If “yes”, than why, according to you, people in Belarus live worse?”, % (more than one answer is possible)
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Variant of answer
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04’02
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06’14
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Our people can work as hard as in Western countries; bad governmental administration is to blame
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60.1
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47.1
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We don’t have raw material resources
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17.9
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23.7
|
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Our people are in general less hard-working than Western people
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10.0
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13.0
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It’s all because of internal and external enemies
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8.0
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5.6
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Other
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4.0
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10.6
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Total:
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100.0
|
100.0
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* Data was reduced to 100% for the sake of comparability
Such distribution of responsibility doesn’t arrange the power, thus it tries to shift it on “objective circumstances”, in particular, on the absence of raw materials in the country. They have achieved a certain success over the last 12 years.
For the “homo sovieticus”, who is the basis of the so-called “majority”, social reality is divided into our people and strangers, into us and them. Thus the eternal search for enemies, either internal, or external. But the habit of evaluating all the negative events as a result of intentional sabotage and machinations of the world evil lowers the chances to adequately evaluate what’s going on. And without this it is impossible to find effective answers on internal and external challenges.