How to be fearless in the face of authoritarianism | Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2020

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

How do you stand up to authoritarianism? And what does it mean to be “fearless”? In this powerful talk, housewife-turned-politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya describes her unlikely bid to defeat Belarus’s long-time autocratic leader in the nation’s 2020 presidential election. Painting a vivid picture of how small acts of defiance flourished into massive, peaceful demonstrations, she shares a beautiful meditation on the link between fearlessness and freedom, reminding us that we all have what it takes to stand up to injustice -- we just need to do it together.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Elise Hugh. You're listening to TED Talks Daily. The people of Belarus have been under authoritarian rules since 1994, subject to police violence and everyday assaults on their freedoms. This year, something started changing. Tens of thousands took huge risks by taking part in anti-government demonstrations,
0:22.0	showing fearlessness against state violence. What happened and what can we learn from it? From her talk
0:27.6	at TED Women 2020, Bella Russian politician Svietlana Sianuska has an inspiring lesson for the
0:33.8	rest of us. On August 12, 2020, two groups of girls went out to protest in Minsk, the capital city of Belarus.
0:45.8	They put on white clothes and went barefoot out into the street.
0:51.2	In the morning, some went to Komarovsky Market in the center of town. Later that day,
0:57.3	the other group gathered with flowers at the Eternal Flame under the Victory Monument. They stood
1:03.6	together, holding hands, and they started to sing the Belarusian lullaby, waiting for the police cars to arrive.
1:12.7	They knew the police would pick them up just like that, barefoot, with flowers in their hands,
1:19.8	that they would take them to the police station, beat them up, and try to humiliate them.
1:27.2	And yet, they did it anyway. This year, something changed in
1:33.0	Belarus, a country of more than 9 million people that has been ruled by an authoritarian leader
1:39.5	since 1994. These young women were protesting the latest strict election result, which had taken
1:48.5	just a few days earlier. Their small expressions of protest very quickly expanded into massive,
1:57.5	peaceful, women-led demonstrations all across the country.
2:02.8	Within just a few days, a few hundred thousand people took to the streets,
2:08.3	and demonstrations have continued ever since,
2:11.8	the likes of which Belarus has never seen before.
2:16.6	All this, despite the fact that the president proclaimed
2:20.9	himself re-elected and that more than 10,000 people have been detained, hundreds tortured,
2:28.4	and at least six killed. Many people wonder why the people of Belarus are speaking up now, what makes them
2:38.4	keep taking to the streets, despite unprecedented police violence, despite state lawlessness?
	...

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