Past few years have showed that Belarusians more and more often go on hunger strikes as the last means of fight for their rights; they more and more often go on regular strikes as well. All this points out to increase of social tension in the society. However, these are single instances which still attract attention, especially as regards hunger strikes.
Unlike rallies which are openly political means of support or protest, strikes and hunger strikes are always a form of social protest. Their participants want to solve mostly often some particular everyday-life problems and therefore force the authorities to enter into a dialogue with them. Conduction of strikes points out to miscommunication which takes place in the society as well as shows that population doesn’t see other way to settle the conflict.
Strikes in Belarus are a seldom event as they happen only when the idea of protest absorbs the entire working staff or at least its major part. It is hard to organize a strike without strong independent trade unions, and this is why strikes are mostly often spontaneous in Belarus.
Hunger strikes are usually launched by individuals, and their collaborators may also join them for solidarity. It should be noted that this is a more extreme method of struggling for rights than a strike but it is efficient only when the government (e.g. its penal system) is responsible for life and health of its participants. This is why hunger strikes in jails become a real emergency situation while hunger strikes at home are nothing more than an issue of talks.
Nation opinion polls show that less than 1% of respondents have an experience of such struggle while 7.7% of respondents express readiness to participate in regular strikes and 3.8% – in hunger strikes. As for hunger strikes, this is a very high indicator of intentions as every single citizen can carry on his own action. As for regular strikes, the figure is not very high as this is a collective form of struggle. Comparison of these two indicators takes to the conclusion about high atomization of the Belarusian society.
Also, younger respondents show greater readiness to participate in such forms of struggle while this readiness declines among elder respondents. (See Table 1). Especially sharply goes down willingness to go on hunger strikes: apparently, this is maturing attitude to personal life and health. Determining in the strikes is probably the experience of settling work conflicts acquired by respondents. We should like to underline yet that personal acceptability of participation in these forms of social protest is characteristic of the age groups to which traditionally economically most active population belongs.
Table 1. Readiness to participate in strikes and hunger-strikes depending on age, %
| Variant of answer |
18-19 |
20-24 |
25-29 |
30-39 |
40-49 |
50-59 |
60 years and over |
| Ready to take part in strikes |
18.0 |
19.9 |
11.7 |
9.2 |
7.3 |
4.6 |
1.2 |
| Is not going to take part in strikes |
76.6 |
73.3 |
79.6 |
84.9 |
85.1 |
88.5 |
95.5 |
| Ready to take part in hunger strikes |
13.4 |
8.3 |
6.8 |
4.9 |
3.2 |
– |
1.0 |
| Is not going to take part in hunger strikes |
85.2 |
83.9 |
85.9 |
91.5 |
91.2 |
95.5 |
95.9 |
* Table is read across
From the viewpoint of regions, the Mogilev region is the leader in the readiness to go on a strike – 12.1%. The second goes the Grodno region (11.5%), then the Minsk region and Minsk (8% and 7.3% respectively). Hunger strike as a form of upholding the rights is more often proposed in the Mogilev and Minsk regions (6.2% and 5.1% respectively) and in the Grodno region (4.5%). The Gomel region represents the opposite camp. Readiness to go on any of the two forms of protest doesn’t exceed here the margin of error.
Remarkably, the village shows a very high readiness to both strikes and hunger strikes. The capital takes an average stand and small towns as well as regional cities end up the list. There may be several explanations of this. On the one hand this is the very existence of a conflict situation which influences readiness to participate in a protest action and on the other hand – personal understanding of how the conflict can be settled with regular and not extreme methods.
Communication failure between population and government urges population to radical forms of protest. High level of readiness to go on a hunger strike indirectly discloses despair of a tiny man to find truth in a huge bureaucratic machine. If these forms of protest prove to be ineffective, despair may push some individuals to self-burning as a form protest or, on the contrary, violence can be directed after the authorities.