So what happened, yes, you have Alexander Lukashenko. Belarus is sometimes described as the last dictatorship in Europe. I mean, a very authoritarian regime there, which really doesn't permit protest in any sense.
On Valentine's Day 2022, a pontoon bridge appeared near the border of Belarus and Ukraine. One day, an empty river.
These . Um-- these guys are in NATO. NATO-- NATO-- so Belarus isn't, Ukraine isn't, Moldova isn't, Georgia that we're getting out of Europe aren't. But the Rumanian's are-- so you're kind of NATO-Europe over here.
the most democratic country in Eastern or Central Europe. So I've always been fascinated by the questions of basically democratization and how do you actually promote democracy in a country like Belarus without necessarily having to send in the Marines or -- Steve Grove: Um-hum. Evgeny Morozov: or anything of that sort. So I've always been interested in sort of finding some softer morals in which to open up the country and to promote democratic
So no one would actually, no one inside would think that the protests there were actually organized by the CIA. That would not seem like a realistic hypothesis. In the case of Iran or China or Belarus or many other countries, that would seem like a realistic hypothesis. So when some protests break out, the initial assumption is that, "Hey they must have been orchestrated by America, by the State Department training young activists abroad or training
male #1: How could it be anything else? Now in Belarus, for example, where I come from we had protests in December after the presidential elections, just months ago. Now there are reports that the government is actually
Take the Olympics, for example. In the history of the modern games the United States has won 2,549 medals. Great Britain has won 737, and China 429. Even the small Eastern European nation of Belarus has taken home 73. But you have to scroll almost to the bottom of the league tables to find India. It sits just above the desolate central Asian republic of Mongolia and just below Slovakia. In the whole of the Olympics history, India has won only 20 medals. Given the country's vast population, it's a mystery that's confused sports writers
It's a seaborne empire. They surged into what is now Belarus, taken Smolensk.
Because when the fortunes of war turned and the Germans were in retreat from the Russian front, it became perfectly obvious to those in Belarus that the Russians would be back sooner rather than later. Because they could see the retreating army of Germany.
And had negotiated with them for people to be saved who were due to be executed and so on. And when I went to Belarus, I found a woman who still prayed for him every day for saving the life of her husband. He, sadly, developed Alzheimer's before the case could be heard, and was found unfit to stand trial, and died very shortly afterwards.
What happened was even the biggest bones were substantially dissolved. He shared the Peace Prize with the Belarus State Police, who were arrested a one-armed man for applauding.
Steve Grove: We should back up for a second and tell people in the room about your own story -- Evgeny Morozov: Yeah. Steve Grove: you're from Belarus -- Evgeny Morozov: Yes. Steve Grove: you didn't start out with this opinion necessarily but -- Evgeny Morozov: No.
enemy was doing something as well. But by 2007 I think early 2008 I just realized that we were kind of losing the fight. In addition to that many of the projects that were funded by American donors in countries like Belarus or San Alaysia actually had the opposite effect because what happened is that you had this big foreign funder come in and hire all the most talented new media entrepreneurs and put them on grant money and basically kill all local innovation because now they didn't want to build a Website unless they got a
Evgeny Morozov: which has a policy based on what? male #1: If we want democracy in Belarus ? Evgeny Morozov: Yes. male #1: and if democracy relies on the ability of the people to ?
view as serving as a pretext for eventual denuclearization of North Korea. And also at the same time due to its close relations with Russia increasingly closer relations with Beijing Belarus and others you know you can see there's there's not really much incentive for Mr. Kim to come out and connect with
And had gone out to villages where locals were shot. The position was that when the Nazis originally invaded Belarus, they were looked upon by liberators, by many of the locals.
She is also an author, poet, musician, mother of a young son, and an actor, having appeared as herself in an episode of "House of Cards" and on stage this week in Seattle in the Belarus Free Theater's production of "Burning Doors," which is a play based on her life and those of two other activists, which runs through this Sunday at On the Boards.
Steve Grove: you came to write the book -- Evgeny Morozov: Sure. Steve Grove: and -- Evgeny Morozov: Yeah so I come from Belarus which as some of you may know is not probably the most democratic country in Eastern or Central Europe. So I've always been fascinated by the questions of basically democratization and how do you actually promote democracy
with which the people can speak among themselves? Evgeny Morozov: Well I mean there is no Internet filtering in Belarus right now so but again I think there is this virulent, hostile tendency to think that once we build the tools and once people can bypass censorship, they will immediately do certain things, X, Y, Z. And it just doesn't work that way.
the world that follow no international norms. North Korea is a rogue nation. Belarus is a rogue nation. Cuba is a rogue nation. Venezuela was a rogue nation. These countries that completely stand separate from the the norms of an international society.
And these images came from commercial satellite companies. And we could see clearly, Russia had people in Belarus. They were about to come in.
And that is, indeed, the title of the chapter about him in the book. And he was called that because that is how he was known in his village in Belarus. He was from an extremely poor family with no father, hence the name.
What happened was even the biggest bones were substantially dissolved. The Ig Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Alexander Lukashenko, the President of the country of Belarus.
Which I am certainly not. My father was a first generation here, his father came from Belarus because of the Kishinev Pogrom there that caused the Jews to start leaving. And he was a very open minded man.
And while I am now, for almost 30 years, and to the day I die, I am a proud American. My family roots grow deep in the soil of nations that comprised the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Tajikistan. I've gotten to know and have spoken for hours with members of the President's team and people close to him.
And he was killed - they were shot. It was a mass... I said, "It's war, the missiles came from your land, from Belarus, how did you allow this?" Then he replied, "All right, retaliate then."
Of course, the trouble with the war crimes was that the majority of the crimes that concerned people in this country had been committed in that corridor between the Baltic states, Latvia and Lithuania, Estonia, down through Poland, into Belarus and the Ukraine, that were a corridor that was invaded by the Nazis during the Second World War and which had a high Jewish population, following from the expulsion of the Jews from Russia,
But it's a curious story in itself. And they, of course, could not be prosecuted here, because the crime had been committed in Belarus or Poland. And they couldn't be prosecuted there, because when the Iron Curtain was up, there was no question of any extradition in relation
And each time you have the humor, the authorities go like oh, we know this is mocking us, but we don't know quite what to do. It's great. And actually, some extraordinary examples of completely flipping it on its head, so governments got-- this was Belarus, wasn't it? Yeah. Where the government got annoyed about people applauding, because people started applauding in protest.
I'd just been promoted to the senior ranks of the Foreign Office. Everything was tickety-boo. I was well on my way to being an ambassador somewhere, maybe Belarus. But things were pretty good with my career.
the baseline credibility level you have to have that Venezuela meets, that Ukraine meets, the Belarus meets.
Russia, of course, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
But one encouraging thing in wrapping up, this particular thought is that since 1991, we have been working with Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other countries in
Evgeny Morozov: use of media. So I thought, "Gee, I mean great. Let's just use all of that, let's use blogs and social networks and all of those new platforms to basically push against the government. So I joined an NGO called "Transitions Online" which was based and still is based in Prague which was not only active in Belarus. They were acting throughout the former Soviet blocs in like 29 countries including -- Steve Grove: Um-hum.
The question is if you sit at an entity like the State Department right which has to make decisions about the allocation of resources do you want to pour more money into building tools? Do you want to pour more money into training bloggers? Do you want to pour more money into making sure that existing NGO's and political parties in a country like Belarus or Azerbaijan or whatever know about new media, right. And this is I think the question. I mean there are different levels in which we have to answer this question. As a private
the tools and once people can bypass censorship, they will immediately do certain things, X, Y, Z. And it just doesn't work that way. And again from the perspective of someone who wants to spend a pot of money, 10 million or a million dollars on fostering democratic change in a country like Belarus, I'm not sure that building tools is the way to go. Maybe you want to go and make sure that your network of activists on the ground knows about how to campaign, how to resist police pressure,
male #1: How could it be anything else? to claim that we can expect the same outcomes to come in, to happen in Russia or Belarus or in Azerbaijan.
male #1: How could it be anything else? older ones which are eager to go online and protest and get written up and end up in jail right. And I think looking at my own country to Belarus I do see a lot of young people
As the season progressed, the Carnies improved a little. A Belarusian man, named Pavel, a paternal gent with salt and pepper hair who none of us had ever met, mysteriously started