Chapter Eight - Belarus

CHAPTER EIGHT

Belarus

THE LAST DICTATORSHIP in Europe

Most people couldn’t point to Belarus on a map.
That’s not an accident.
That’s how Lukashenko likes it. Forgotten, quiet, and controlled.

It doesn’t scream like North Korea.
It doesn’t shock like Saudi Arabia.
It just freezes everything in a kind of slow, Soviet silence where nothing changes and nothing’s allowed to grow.

They call it “Europe’s last dictatorship.”
But it’s not history.
It’s now.

Alexander Lukashenko took power in 1994.
He never left.
He ran every election since and won them all.
By landslides.
Because of course he did.

He’s a Soviet-style strongman in a modern suit. Obsessed with order, allergic to opposition, and terrified of losing control.

The courts are his.
The police are his.
The media is his.
The votes? Also his.

In Belarus, freedom of speech is a theory. Not a practice.

Criticize the government? Jail.
Attend a protest? Jail.
Post a meme about Lukashenko? Jail.
Report on the crackdown? Tortured, then jail.
Run against him in an election? You’re exiled, targeted, or just vanish.

You don’t need to break the law.
You just need to exist visibly in opposition.

Even carrying a blank sign has gotten people arrested.
Because they know what it means.
And you know they know.
That’s enough.

After yet another rigged election in 2020, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians flooded the streets.

It was the biggest protest in the country’s history.
Old women, teens, students, parents, tech workers, everyone had finally had enough.

Lukashenko responded the only way he knows how:
With batons, bullets, and black masks.

People were dragged off the streets.
Beaten.
Stripped.
Mocked.
Locked away for years.
Some were never seen again publicly.

And yet… the movement didn’t die.
It just went underground.

Belarus doesn’t feel like a warzone.
It feels like a waiting room with armed guards.

There are stores.
There’s electricity.
There’s internet (mostly).
But there’s also a fog over the country.
One where everyone whispers, no one trusts, and the only safe opinion is none.

It’s not dystopia.
It’s stagnation in chains.

But even the coldest winters thaw.
And one day, Lukashenko, like all men who tried to rule forever, will vanish.

The question is:
What will be left when he does?