COUNTERING AUTHORITARIANISM: A CONVERSATION WITH SVIATLANA TSIKHANOUSKAYA

On May 18th, 2022, the IE School of Global and Public Affairs and Club de Madrid hosted Belarusian human rights activist, politician, and two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Sviatlana, who stressed that she does not identify with the label of “opposition leader,” recounted the event that triggered her involvement in politics, namely her husband’s imprisonment by Belarusian authorities in May 2020. After her husband’s arrest, she took over his political campaign and ran against long standing Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko.

Tsikhanouskaya has become a global leader in the fight against Russian influence and is vocal in the opposition against both Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Lukashenko. She analyzed the current global situation caused by the invasion of Ukraine and reiterated the importance of winning the war there as a bastion of the fight for democracy in former Soviet regions of influence. If the war in Ukraine is lost to Russia, she stressed, there would be little hope for the freedom of Belarus.

A multicultural audience asked Tsikhanouskaya a variety of questions in which they linked their situations in their home countries with Sviatlana’s story. Santiago Urbina, from Nicaragua, asked her about authoritarianism in other regions of the world. Two of our Russian students shared their sympathies with her cause, inquiring into her trajectory as a global leader in the opposition to authoritarian regimes and asking for her advise on how to support the cause of freedom in their country, while abroad. Tsikhanouskaya stressed her belief that it should be “not if, but when Ukraine succeeds” against Russia, which will create a catalyst in other countries, such as Belarus, for an uprising against their authoritarian leaders.