Music, Politics and Censorship in Lukashenko’s Belarus'
Lemez Lovas and Maya Medich turn their attention to Belarus, an authoritarian former Soviet country buffering the EU and Russia, where freedom of information and expression have become the unrelenting victims in an increasingly destructive battle for political control.
For the past two years, many Belarusian rock musicians have been unofficially banned from radio and TV, their applications for concert licenses denied and interviews with the state press shelved. The unofficial ‘blacklist’, which includes virtually the entire independent Belarusian rock scene, coincided with a controversial referendum allowing President Lukashenka to remain in power, and marked the beginning of a concerted government crackdown against musicians, political opponents and the independent press.
It also marked the beginning of a more deliberate use of music as a political tool in the ideological battle between the authorities and the opposition, clearly dividing Belarusian musicians into pro-government ‘official’ and pro-democracy ‘unofficial’ camps. Now that rock and Belarusian language music in particular have come under fire, it has become a central rallying point for the beleaguered political opposition.
The regime’s fear of music as potential fuel for revolution and unrest, as in the Ukraine in 2004, has led to restrictive broadcasting legislation and the reinvigoration of a huge bureaucratic system of censorship that is pushing independent musicians back into the role of Soviet era dissidents. As in the Ukrainian ‘Orange Revolution’ in 2004, language and culture are key components in social and political opposition to President Lukashenka, dubbed ‘the last dictator in Europe’ by the US State Department.
Examining the historical context of the political associations of music-making and sharing in the USSR, the report identifies two main and mutually reinforcing aspects of music censorship in Belarus today. One is the deliberate and systematic government pressure on ‘unofficial’ musicians- including ‘banning’ from official media and imposing severe restrictions on live performance.
The other is use of the government’s control of mass media and other resources in promoting ‘official’ music as a tool of government propaganda in furthering state ideology and loyalty to the leader. The potent combination of these two strategies, and the revival of the deeply engrained culture of compliance and fear reminiscent of Soviet times, means that independent music-making in Belarus today is an increasingly difficult and risky enterprise.
Download the 88-pages report written for Freemuse by Lemez Lovas and Maya Medich under «Bücher / CD Tipps».
