These same themes of gender and weaponized social media are playing out today, too, in the ongoing protests in Iran. As Kazharski explains, Lukashenko “did try to shut down the internet in 2020 for a couple of days but then realized it was way too costly.” Instead, agents of the regime went door to door, searching laptops and phones and torturing those who wouldn’t give up their passwords. In both Egypt and Belarus, protesters turned to social media to distribute images of the bloodied martyrs or share images of graffiti or other symbolic visuals.Īs a response, both the Egyptian and Belarusian governments tried to squash the social media branches of the protests. “But in reality the people who took part in the protest turned them into heroes and visual icons.” “There were people who were tortured and humiliated by the regimes, and they were meant to be turned into the victims,” explains Grancayova.
One prominent theme was an idea the researchers call the iconization of victimhood. Provided by Michaela Grancayova and Aliaksei Kazharski After a video showing her beating, during which her abaya came off and revealed her blue bra, event went viral, protesters used the image of the blue bra, as seen in this social media post, as a symbol. Not only were there similarities between Lukashenko and Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian leader who was overthrown during the Arab Spring, Grancayova noticed that the protest movements of both countries fought against these gendered ideologies in much the same fashion, too.Ī woman known as the ‘girl in the blue bra’ was beaten during protests against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which ruled Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. “And in a society that’s more or less traditionalist, this image of a strong leader, a macho, real man actually appeals to many people.” “These ideas of hegemonic masculinity and gender basically substitute for an official ideology, which is missing from those regimes,” Kazharski explains. “Or how an ideal man should look like, should behave – in this case, hegemonic masculinity.”
“The regimes in both countries were relying on the traditional gender images, images of how the ideal woman should behave and should look like,” she explains. As she was watching the protests in Belarus unfold, Grancayova noticed some striking similarities to the Arab Spring, her own area of research. Michaela Grancayova is a researcher who focuses on language and politics, particularly in the Middle East, and was studying at the same university as Kazharski in 2020. Ulf Mauder/picture alliance via Getty Images Belarusian people rose up in massive protests after Alexander Lukashenko claimed to have been reelected to the presidency in 2020.
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