Salute the spirit of resistance to tyranny - 'We can only help ourselves': women in Belarus take protests into their own hands
The first chain of women appeared on Wednesday: a few
hundred brave souls, dressed in white and holding aloft flowers, in a quietly
powerful response to the gruesome violence inflicted on thousands of
Belarusians over the previous days. By the next afternoon, columns
of flower-waving women were everywhere, parading along the broad avenues of
central Minsk smiling, laughing and resolutely demanding political change.
“We are here to show solidarity with all our men who were
beaten up and abused,” said Tatyana, a 31-year-old waitress who was at the very
front of a column of about 1,000 women holding flowers – one of many such
groups walking through the centre of Minsk. She and her friend were holding a
white flag, which she said was a sign of their desire for no more violence. On Friday evening, thousands of protesters descended on the
Belarusian parliament, potentially setting the scene for a new show-down with
riot police.
As the demand for change intensifies and reaches even the
factories that are the pride of Alexander Lukashenko’s neo-Soviet economy, the
authoritarian ruler ends the week clinging on to power in defiance of an
ever-broader coalition of opponents. But from the beginning, this has been an
uprising inspired and led by women.....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/14/women-belarus-take-protests-into-their-own-hands
