On Wednesday 6 November, the last day of her visit, Belarusian Human Rights Defender Olga Karach to Belgium teamed up with Gea Meijers, general coordinator of WIDE+ to meet with the Dutch Member of European Parliament, Thijs Reuten (Pvda-GroenLinks), from the European political group Social Democrats.
Feminist Olga Karach, director at Our House and Nobel Peace nominee, is defending peace, human rights and the rights of women in particular, against the militarized dictatorship of Lukashenko that is fully instrumentalized by Putin in the was against Ukraine. Many have by now fled Belarus, if they had not already been captured, and are facing security threats. Olga is convicted as a terrorist by the Belarusian government with a 12-year prison sentence and is monitored by the KGB. Ironically the Belarusian army recently informed her that she is banned from joining them their army -as if she would not be arrested or targeted if they got a chance!
“We need Safe Spaces for exchange and capacity building of the Belarusian civil society in exile!” This message stood out from the meeting with MEP Thijs Reuten. It sounds hardly revolutionary, but still these spaces are extremely sparse. There is a lot of attention to the few opposition leaders considered to be the face of the resistance. However there is much less attention and focus to grassroots support and (also transnational) collective movement building. As feminists we strongly believe in a leadership model that is not developed top down, but bottom up. Leadership skills of many should be enhanced as well as collaboration in a fractured diaspora haunted by trauma and threat. This is what we tried to bring in the meeting with Thijs.
What can be done in Europe to promote the causes Olga is fighting for? Olga Karach has a broad vision for promoting peace and democracy. When it comes to promoting feminism, it is important to acknowledge the specific circumstances and leadership of women and LGBTQI* people. They need political support, financial support, and capacity building. “We need to break the isolation faced by individual women refugees and be able to connect to European progressive values and people. We need safe spaces for exchange among Belarusian activists in order to help rebuild our civil society, which is my final objective”.
Olga Karach has previously addressed, as part of an online event co-organised by WIDE+, how Belarusian women and women activists face additional precarity. They have the roles of taking care of families next to all other work they do. For example, they cannot just leave Belarus without arranging alternative care systems for people they have a responsibility towards. At the same time, women have shown huge strength and solidarity, enabling humanitarian support under almost impossibly circumstances.
Many in Belarus and Lithuania, the country Olga is residing in, have traditional patriarchal views leading to consider women as political subjects instead of agents of change. Gea Meijers concluded: “Transnational solidarity and connection is very important in a Europe and world in which so many women individually are countering backlash against progressive values. If we are able to connect, we feel and become strong in standing up for our feminist values including respect for democracy, (peaceful) dialogue, women’s rights, and a more horizontal model of leadership. This solidarity is what we can bring to the table”.