How Belarus lives after three weeks of protests
The third week of protests in Belarus started not with loud rallies and actions, but with long lines at exchange offices. The national currency sharply sank in price against the dollar, euro and Russian ruble. Therefore, people rushed not into the streets with flags and slogans, but into bank branches with wallets, and there it was empty. Due to the hype, some banks suspended payment transactions via the Internet and stopped issuing loans. Alexander Lukashenko hastened to assure people: “We will not allow the collapse of the national currency.” And, according to him, he agreed with Putin to refinance $1 billion of the debt to Russia this year. But the Belarusians tensed up...
Alesya Korzhenevskaya, Minsk
Against the backdrop of what is happening in the country over the past couple of weeks, there has been a significant increase in patients in psychoneurological hospitals in Minsk, according to rumors. Unfortunately, this is readily believed. Many of those who, in the first weeks, enthusiastically went to protests and rallies with the hope “that change is about to come,” are now not only emotionally depressed, but also plunged into a kind of stressful state. I admit, it’s simply impossible to talk to some acquaintances and friends now - they cry incessantly into the phone and refuse to leave the apartment.
Moreover, not only impressionable young ladies and older intelligent ladies lose their nerves, but also famous, seemingly strong-willed men. As it happened, for example, with the titled brothers-athletes Oleg and Vadim Devyatovsky. The first is the head coach of the national water skiing team, the second is the chairman of the Belarusian Athletics Federation. Before the elections, both openly supported the policies of Alexander Lukashenko, including on their personal pages on social networks. However, in the 20th of August, an entry appeared on Vadim’s Facebook profile: “Lukashenko is not my President!” On the same day, it became known that the chairman of the BAF was hospitalized with a nervous breakdown, and his brother even tried to commit suicide.
In this regard, some experts have already begun to say that protest sentiments are gradually fading. But from the inside it seems as if they are simply taking on new forms.
Last Monday it became finally clear that the strikes at Belarusian factories ended before they had even really begun. In fact, not a single working group in the country ultimately stopped work - neither miners, nor builders, nor metallurgists. Even in Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s hometown of Mikashevichi, where Europe’s largest granite mining enterprise is located (before these elections, known for its strikes), they did not react in any way to what was happening. Nevertheless, individual activists of the strike movement still remain under the close attention of journalists and the public. Some - due to detentions by law enforcement officers, others - because of their hasty departure from the country, and others - at the instigation of the Coordination Council of the Opposition, which they joined.
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On the eve of the new school year, the ideas of “school protest” are gaining popularity. Many parents in class instant messenger chats are seriously discussing the possibility of putting pressure on the authorities by refusing public education for their own children. The logic is simple: since most of the election commissions included teachers, it means that they support Lukashenko, who “won” the elections. Not taking children to classes is the most effective way to express your dissatisfaction, according to some parents.
“Send your child to a school where teachers openly participated in violating the most important law of the country, where they support the violence and arbitrariness of riot police, where they will lie and upload rotten propaganda? Never!" - some protesters argue. Others echo: “What if we extend the children’s holidays by a month for next summer and don’t send them to school at all? Weak? This is the action." There are also such proposals: “Children are not to blame for what is happening in the country, and should be educated. There are teachers who are honest and want to be helpful. We need to contact them, and I think they won’t mind teaching children not at school, but in groups of 8-10 people in some other place.” Some people still propose not to neglect education and only partially paralyze school everyday life: not to donate money for toilet paper and drinking water, to refuse lunches in canteens and to demand the cancellation of class hours and any extracurricular activities. But the most important thing in this “insidious plan” is not to bring your children to the first of September. Since on this day traditionally classes are held dedicated to the native country, where, among other things, they talk about the state system and symbols. Whether Belarusian parents will risk implementing their protest ideas will become clear this week.
Protesters also appeared in Minsk and “in principle” stopped paying for public transport so that “not a penny goes into the state treasury.” True, the plan of the revolutionary hares has so far failed - vigilant conductors are issuing fines.
Another form of financial protest is to stop buying products from large Belarusian companies that have not reacted in any way to what is happening in the country, which means, in the opinion of those in the opposition, “they are cronies of the Lukashenko regime.” Confectionery factories, dairy companies, fish processing enterprises and distilleries are proposed to be included in the food ban. Mobile operators also fell out of favor, admitting that they were forced to “reduce Internet bandwidth at the request of the authorities.”
Quite extravagant “protest initiatives” also appeared. Next to those who are ready to give up their children’s education or have firmly decided not to pay utility bills, there are also plenty of those who, in the current situation, are trying to find... love.
A separate chat with the self-explanatory name “Protest Tinder” has already appeared in the Telegram messenger. Here young people arrange dates in squares and find out whose selfie with opposition symbols looks cooler.
Faith and neighborly help
While ordinary citizens dissatisfied with the government are contemplating overthrowing the regime from below, the top opposition leaders, in isolation from them, are working according to their own program. Ex-presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is in Lithuania, actively communicates with the foreign press. Its support in Belarus is the Coordination Council, assembled from several thousand people, “repels the attacks” of the Investigative Committee of the republic. Members of the organization's presidium are summoned one by one for questioning by the Investigative Committee, but what they are being interviewed about is not yet known.
Moreover, the less talk about protests on the territory of Belarus itself, the more widely they are discussed abroad. Primarily in Lithuania and Poland. Politicians there not only declare their readiness to act as mediators between the civil society of Belarusians and Alexander Lukashenko, but also hastened to open their borders to everyone who seeks to leave the republic “for political reasons.” Last week, the Russian president also broke the silence about what was happening in Belarus. Vladimir Putin, unlike his Western colleagues, did not invite Belarusians to his place, but said that, if necessary, he would send “a reserve of law enforcement officers” to the country.
In addition, East-West influence in Belarus is also felt through the clergy. From the very first days, some of their own free will, others reluctantly, were drawn into the political cycle. Individual priests and priests were seen at protest rallies. Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz even personally met with the Minister of Internal Affairs Yuri Karaev and “discussed the current situation.” The head of the Belarusian Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Pavel, noted differently: the day after the elections, he congratulated Alexander Lukashenko on his victory. True, a couple of days later he took back his words, apologized for the premature statement and went to the hospital to talk with the protesters who received serious injuries during the arrests.
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Lukashenko did not have to wait long for a reaction. “I am surprised by the position of our confessions. My dear clergy, settle down and mind your own business. People should come to churches to pray! Churches and churches are not for politics. People should come there with their souls, as they always have,” the president said. And last Wednesday, when protesters tried to hide in the Church of Saints Simon and Helen in the center of Minsk (they had pulled off such a trick in other churches before), riot police decided to act in a new way - they blocked the exit for half an hour. It seems that no one suffered from this, but a new scandalous turn has emerged in the relationship between the church and law enforcement officers.
The change of Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus did not go unnoticed: Metropolitan Pavel submitted his resignation and Bishop Benjamin, who had previously headed the Borisov diocese, was appointed in his place. People on the Internet immediately began to evaluate the new head of the Belarusian Orthodox Church from all sides: “Finally they installed our man” (the two previous exarchs were Russian by nationality), “Well, he also has the Presidential Prize “For Spiritual Revival” and the Ministry of Internal Affairs badge “For Assistance” " “Everything is clear,” burst out in social media comments. And one of the online commentators noticed the external resemblance of Bishop Veniamin to Felix Dzerzhinsky. The comparison, as they say, has gone wrong.
Protest echo
Meanwhile, what is happening in the regions? At first glance, small towns and villages in Belarus now exist in some kind of parallel universe. There, even if you find a rare protester on one of the central streets, he will be expectedly calm, quiet, and his expression of will ends suspiciously quickly. As it happened, for example, in Oshmyany, Grodno region. The local opposition, numbering a couple of dozen people, planned to “set the heat” on the participants of the rally in support of the current government in the capital. The details of the action were discussed in detail on the Internet. We agreed that they would greet the “Lukoshenkoites” on the way back by chanting the words “Shame!” A small group of Ashmyany residents with white-red-white flags actually gathered in the city center that day, but, after wandering back and forth, they dispersed to their homes without waiting for their opponents. “We were even a little disappointed when we saw that no one was meeting us,” shared a resident of Oshmyany, who specially traveled to the event from Minsk.
At the same time, it cannot be said that the residents of the province do not have their own political ambitions. Here's an interesting example: 46-year-old Kolya lives in a village in the Brest region and works as a laborer at a military airfield forgotten by the authorities and the Ministry of Defense. Telegram channels, however, like news on state television channels, are not included in his circle of interests. And in general, he is “out of politics.” Nikolai honestly went to the polls on his legal day off. True, even his wife refuses to tell him who he ticked off the ballot for. But even without his confession, she guessed everything: last week, her husband painted the gate leading to his yard in the red and green colors of the national flag. Like Kolya, on the other side of the country, someone painted a satellite dish on a rural house in white, red and white colors. Doesn't this sound like a political statement?
Although not everything in the province is perceived calmly. The real drama against the backdrop of the elections took place in the small town of Gantsevichi. One of the local policemen became famous throughout the country back in June after a photo appeared on the Internet where he was pressing the head of a detainee to the ground with his knee during a protest. On the Internet, he was immediately compared to a US police officer who was responsible for the death of an African-American man in the spring. There were no casualties in Gantsevichi, but the pressure on the policeman and his relatives reached incredible proportions. Moreover, the guy’s mother got the most. A modest nanny from a kindergarten, doted on by both children and colleagues, turned into an “enemy of the people” in a matter of days. Threats against the woman rained down non-stop via the Internet and by phone. Residents of a quiet provincial harbor, without hesitation, began to stop her on the streets and come to her work to personally express everything they thought about her son. It got to the point that the local newspaper published a poem by its journalists, where the policeman allegedly blames his own mother for poor upbringing. The result is a woman in hospital in serious condition. The chairman of the district executive committee was forced to take control of the situation. So he said: God forbid she gets worse, we will deal with everyone who uttered even one bad word about her.
Borderline mental disorders
Borderline mental disorders are disorders that are on the border between normal and pathology, health and disease, i.e.
mildly expressed disturbances of mental activity. Borderline states unite a group of disorders in which the so-called neurotic level of mental activity or behavior disorders predominates, in which:
– a person’s critical attitude towards his condition remains;
– painful changes occur mainly in the emotional sphere of the individual and are accompanied by a violation of autonomic functions;
– the disorder is caused by mental (primarily characterological characteristics of the individual), and not by organic reasons.
These disorders are distinguished by the absence of psychotic symptoms, increasing dementia and destructive personality changes, since they are not organic, but psychogenic in nature.
Assessment of the state as healthy or borderline is most often associated with the action of the mechanism of adaptation of the individual to the environment.
Any mental disorder can be interpreted as a persistent violation of adaptation to new and difficult external and internal circumstances of life.
In some cases, maladjustment is caused by psychotic (delusions, hallucinations, automatisms), and in others by neurotic (emotional and behavioral) disorders.
The neurophysiological scheme of the mechanisms leading to mental maladjustment is as follows: the brain, as a functional system that provides a behavioral act, includes as a basis afferent synthesis, during which a decision is made on a possible action, taking into account the expected future result. Decision making and implementation are associated with the activity of the acceptor of the result of the action, which, thanks to the mechanisms of memory and reverse afferentation, predicts the situation (“anticipatory reflection”), controlling and correcting behavior. In psychotraumatic situations, strong negative emotions arise, pushing for a more energetic search for ways to satisfy the need, which can lead to disruption of afferent synthesis, mismatch in the activity of the acceptor of the result of the action, and inappropriate behavior.
The emergence of a state of mental maladjustment is possible not when individual subsystems are disorganized, but only when the entire adaptation system as a whole is disrupted.
One of the most important conditions for the occurrence of borderline disorder is the discrepancy between a person’s social and biological capabilities for processing information and the speed of its receipt, which may be excessive or insufficient.
Excess information leads to breakdown if a person is not able to process and use it. The lack of information leads to maladaptation in situations of limited time.
The ability to search, perceive, analyze, synthesize, store and apply information is influenced by both biological and socio-psychological factors.
The nature of the information also matters: in a devoid of novelty, monotonous and monotonous, maximally predictable environment, the functional activity of mental processes decreases.
To maintain an optimal level, novelty and unpredictability of the meaning of incoming information are necessary.
Emotions play an important role in the information exchange between the body and the environment (therefore, primarily in borderline disorders, emotional disturbances occur). Emotions signal the results of an action: whether the simulated parameters coincide with the received ones.
The impossibility of receiving positive emotions in the process of reverse afferentation leads to a disinterested search for ways to satisfy the blocked need.
Emotional states not only influence behavior, but also depend on it, since human emotions have a pronounced ideational character. The mismatch between aspirations, ideas and capabilities leads to emotional disorders.
The most common experiences in borderline states are fear, melancholy, depression and mood lability. Emotional stress occupies a special place in the development of any mental disorders.
The basis for maladaptation of mental activity in borderline forms of disorders is determined by the weakened activity of the mental adaptation system, while in mental disorders the activity of the mental adaptation system is not always weakened: it is more often distorted or has partial or total lesions (destructions).
In Russian practice, painful manifestations of mental adaptation disorders are usually conceptualized as neuroses and psychopathy.
At the same time, this also includes short-term neurotic reactions, as well as personality anomalies.
In addition to neuroses and psychopathy, a number of borderline disorders also include subpsychotic disorders (quasi-psychoses - ideological-obsessive, insanity of doubt, hysterical, senesto-hypochondriacal, paranoid).
Source: https://studopedia.su/10_85728_pogranichnie-psihicheskie-rasstroystva.html
