In this episode, Nicole shares an interview originally released on the Final Straw Radio about long term prison support. 

It shares a discussion with three anarchists doing prisoner support in different national contexts, prompted by topics brought by the guests. You’ll hear first from Moshe of ABC Belarus, then Nicole of the Solidarity Apothecary and finally from Anya of Solidarity Zone speak on topics such as service work in solidarity, gendered dynamics of care work, difficulties in organizing ongoing and long-term anti-repression work from within exile and diaspora communities, burnout and self-care.

Links & resources from this episode

• Final Straw Radio - https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2025/08/24/prisoner-support-panel-discussion/
• Transcript - https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2025/08/24/prisoner-support-panel-discussion/#PrisonerSupportPanel
• ABC Belarus - https://abc-belarus.org/en/main-page/
• Solidarity Zone - https://solidarityzone.net/
• Zhensky Srok (Women’s Term) - https://www.womanterm.com/podcast/
• Herbalism, PTSD & Traumatic Stress Course – https://solidarityapothecary.org/herbalismandptsdcourse/

Find them all at solidarityapothecary.org/podcast/

Support the show

Music from Sole & DJ Pain – Battle of Humans | Plant illustrations by @amani_writes | In solidarity, please subscribe, rate & review this podcast wherever you listen.

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with.

Your host, Nicole Rose from the Solidarity Apothecary.

This is your place for all things plants and liberation.

Let's get started.

Hello.

Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.

I hope you've been enjoying this series all about herbal support through repression and

that my ramblings about care packages was helpful for anyone interested in doing sort of

similar work.

So this episode today, I'm actually resharing a podcast interview from another podcast.

So I was interviewed on the Final Straw Radio, which is an amazing anarchist podcast that's

been going for ****** years.

Shout out to Burst, who does all the editing.

And yeah, it's just super consistent.

So I was invited to talk on a panel with two comrades, one from Belarus and one from

Russia, to talk about the kind of impacts of like long term prisoner support and just like

general prisoner support dynamics, you know, like, like gender and all sorts of things.

And yeah, like when, when I was being interviewed, it was actually like the day

after Taylor's my friend who killed himself in prison, like his anniversary.

So I was like very,

very tender.

And yeah, I definitely,

yeah, he did.

A lot of editing to like take.

Out my swear words or cover them up.

But yeah, I was, I was really going hard about how important prison support is and how

devalued it is and kind of little bit of **** talking.

About some other anarchist groups.

So anyway, I hope you, yeah, enjoy this episode.

I'll put some links in the show notes to where you can find the Final Straw Radio and the

transcript and everything else.

I guess just like a content warning that, you know, we are talking about, about prison and

state violence.

So.

Okay, take care.

Thanks.

Airing on Asheville FM 103.3 LPFM in Asheville, this is the Final Straw Radio, a

weekly anarchist and anti authoritarian broadcasts and podcast emanating out of

occupied Chalaghee land, southern Appalachia.

We bring you voices and perspectives from

projects and struggles all around the world.

And you can find our archives, transcripts, ways to follow us and Support us at.

Thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org in this episode we're sharing a.

Discussion we had with three anarchists doing.

Prisoner support in different national contexts, prompted by topics brought

by the guests themselves.

You'll hear from Moshe of ABC Belarus,

then Nicole of the Solidarity Apothecary, and finally Anya of Solidarity Zones as they speak

on topics such as service work in Solidarity,

gender dynamics of care work,

difficulties in ongoing organizing and long term anti repression work from within exile

and Diasporic communities,

burnout and self care.

Check our show notes as usual for links to the

projects that our guests work on or resources that they mentioned.

I'll start.

My name is Masha.

I speaking here as an individual, but also I'm part of the Anarchist Black Cross Belarus

collective that has been supporting predominantly anarchist and anti fascist

prisoners in Belarus.

And right now We've got around 25 persons behind behind bars and eight of them are long

term prisoners.

That is like 10 plus years sentenced.

But also myself, I've been in a relationship with someone before who was in prison for five

years.

So it might be also useful for this chat where we are speaking about supporting prisoners and

what it means for us to be a supporter.

Cool.

I can.

I can go.

Hey, I'm Nicole.

I use she her pronouns.

I'm based in the southwest of England and yeah, I am from a project called the

Solidarity Apothecary.

So I focus on supporting people experiencing

state violence with herbal medicines.

And I've been supporting people in prison for over 20 years now.

My first boyfriend went to prison when I was 16 and just ever since I've had different

friends and comrades inside.

And I won't like name the collectives other

than the Soledari Apothecary because my voice is kind of.

I've got my own podcast so I can't do this anonymously unfortunately.

But yeah, I've been involved in like a bunch of different prisoner support projects and I

have various close friends still in prison who I'm sure I'll talk about through the interview

and kind of their experiences and how it's felt supporting them long term as well as

friends who have,

you know, killed themselves or died in prison as well.

But yeah, thanks for kind of creating this conversation and this space to talk about all

of this stuff.

I'm Anya. I'm here like an individual, but I'm also a member of

Solidarity Zone collective who supports those imprisoned for militant anti war actions in

Russia.

And mostly all these people who we support

faced long term imprisonment and it's important conversation for me about long

distance support and about our resources and ability to restore ourselves.

Awesome.

Thank you all so much for joining and for

being willing to share this difficult conversation and all the experience that you

have.

So we're here to talk about these difficulties of doing anti repression work and in

particular in the midst of bad dynamics in society and also repression.

I wonder if each of you would talk a bit about the groups that you've participated in.

You've already named some of them who you support and some more about your experiences

around incarceration.

If you have a history of it, if you've been close to people that have experienced that.

Yeah, so like I said,

Anarchist Black Cross is a group that deals with anti repression work and supporting

prisoners currently in Belarus.

Unfortunately, after 2020,

after like a big uprising in Belarus against a dictatorship that was unfortunately wasn't

successful,

the regime still goes on.

So many of our comrades, including myself,

the ones that did not end up in prison yet,

so we had to leave.

So we mostly now live in exile and it makes it

problematic actually to support prisoners from like another country and not being able to

actually have, be in touch with them, be in touch with the families, see faces of people I

don't know, talk to lawyers and just generally not share the same space and the same,

let's say, political landscape with the people that are just left behind there.

Right.

So it's one thing which I think for us as a

collective, but also as people, it gives a lot of this feeling of maybe feeling that we have

it better,

like that we are not so affected by all this, but actually we are in our own way.

And so it's always this kind of comparison between, oh,

somebody's in prison for 20 years and I'm just there living in a European country and like

just waking up in my cozy bed or something like this.

So in many cases it's like there's no space to talk about your own experiences, which is many

cases is like migration experience and like living in exile and not being able also to see

your family or,

I don't know, losing all these connections.

Yeah, but at the same time, like a lot of guilt or shame for this, like, for not

sticking around or like, yeah, like just not being strong enough, let's say at least me, I

felt it in my first year of like exiled existence that okay, maybe I should have

stayed.

And so it's very much connected with the inability to continue your political activity

as before and like now suddenly seeing yourself,

someone who is not there anymore.

And also I think in our case the problem is

mostly that throughout the whole history of existence of our collective, and because of

the security culture in the movement,

the ABC Belarus has always been an anonymous collective.

So it's never been like people would identify us as members,

which made sense because police didn't come for us in the first.

And this is why we also are able right now to continue the activities.

But at the same time that created this like,

so in the movement that we kind of started to represent that structure that would like

maintain the work and the care, like I would call it care work.

Right.

For on the one hand it's political work

because anti repression and supporting prisoners is political.

But at the same time it becomes a little bit like care work that we become this specialized

force that is just maintaining, that is collecting money,

that is,

you know, thinking of how we don't get burnout and like keep doing that while the rest of the

movement can just do their thing.

And yeah, so, so, so that was like,

I'm probably going to start with that.

Right.

And so yeah, and myself,

like I said, I used to be someone who would support, who was supporting people, not, not,

not just my friends and comrades, but also like a part saw what it's like to see that

person being released and what prison does to a person and how it's important and invisible

Sometimes all this work of resocializing that person again and not in a way that adapting to

the society,

but in the way that adapting even to the movement that is five or 10 years later than

from within the time that they were picked up.

And so yeah, that is another thing that I'm most probably, I'm going to touch upon deeper.

Yeah. And it's actually a little bit my fear like what happens after all these years that

our prisoners who are stuck in Belarus right now,

what happens after all these years with them when they got out and the movement is

literally inexistent and so what happens to them and their political ideas and are we

actually able, are we a movement yet or not?

So all these things are in my mind and in my head and I feel a little bit alone with them

because yeah, there's no open space where things like that could be discussed on this

level.

I can go.

So yeah, like, I guess over the last 20 years I've been in different,

different crews and sometimes it's like a small kind of anonymous, like closed anarchist

group supporting like very specific prisoners who are in prison because they've taken some

kind of like political action, whether that's like a riot or whether that's, you know, a

campaign that they've had like repression for or direct action or whatever.

And then because I forgot to say an introduction, like I also did a three and a

half year prison sentence when I was 21, which is where I met like lots of close friends who

I then like continue to support.

So then I was in this like weird space of like wanting to organize solidarity and like build

a kind of like abolitionist anarchist movement to like just,

you know, destroy the prison system and the state.

But, like,

I was then supporting a lot of people who were just in prison because of, you know, like,

class dynamics or trauma or, you know, like, because they're like a racialized person and

often would be, like, pushing up against other anarchist groups that wouldn't maybe,

like, want to support them because they weren't like, quote unquote, political

prisoners.

So I've got like this whole bugbear about that

around, like, who gets solidarity and who doesn't.

But I know that's like a whole other podcast episode,

but yeah, like, I think that's also meant that I've done a lot of, like, family campaigning

with, like, prisoner families around.

There's a sentence in the UK called the ipp,

the Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection, which is like a kind of life

sentence for people where there's like, no end date and you get one for,

like, a minor crime.

They've.

They've been like, the.

They're not in existence in the same way

anymore, but there's still like thousands of people in and out of prison with this IPP

sentence.

So anyway, so I've done a lot of, like, solidarity work with families, like, trying to

get their loved one free or, like, support their specific person.

And yeah, like,

I think there's this whole other layer of doing this work,

like, as an ex prisoner, because it's like.

Or like the comrade mentioned about,

you've also experienced your own forms of oppression or you still are.

Like, I don't have the experience of living in exile, for example, but,

you know, I've got the experience of being raided and arrested and all of this stuff.

And it's.

It's definitely difficult supporting people in

prison because you know exactly what they're going through.

Like, you know, just the things they describe, the things you've seen, like, people being,

like, attacked or hospitalized or, you know, like beaten and dragged into solitary

confinement, or, like, just everything that when you interact with someone, like, it

presses that button of your kind of own trauma and then similar dynamic.

Like, I feel like through my 20s, I just was stuck in this pattern of, like,

I can't enjoy my life or experience any freedom because my friends aren't free and,

like, people aren't free.

And, like, why should I have a break if

friends in prison are getting, like, tortured?

And so that led to, like, a, you know, a huge amount of sort of burnout and kind of a lot of

trauma and distress and PTSD stuff,

which, you know, I've now worked through.

And I talk About a lot.

And I, you know, talk about herbal medicine in support for trauma and things like that.

But yeah, like, I think there's just so many layers.

Like if you're close friends with someone who's inside, if you like are in love with

someone inside, like it's so different.

But also like if you're just a human being

that cares about other human beings and you're seeing them suffer like day in and day out

through sometimes like the worst like imaginable trauma,

it's.

Yeah, it's, it's hard.

And I think like the comrade mentioned before me, like it, you know, it's extremely

invisibilized and I know we'll talk about that more today.

But you know, your friend is somehow completely invisible and going through this

trauma and then your support for them is also somehow completely invisible without any sort

of like validation that it's like difficult or like necessary work.

Because you, yeah, you do feel like you can't complain because you've woken up in a bed and

you can go outside and you can see the moon and you can put your feet in the ocean and

your friend can.

And it's.

Yeah, it's like living some weird kind of

double life.

Yeah.

As for me, I started some years ago as a person who supports friends in,

in detention.

And since that time I participated in several groups in support of political prisoners and

engaging in other kinds of political work.

And when full scale war in Ukraine began with Group of Friends, at first we just found out

that two guys were imprisoned with very weird situation during the arrest.

And we decided to try to find them and offer them our help.

And that's how our group called Solidarity Zone started.

Then we found more and more persons imprisoned for direct action against ongoing war.

And yeah, in this more than three years,

we supported more than 20 persons accused on such cases in Russia.

And for me it's important to care about the community as well who involved in this

political work and work of care.

Because several years ago I started to organize workshops on activist safety.

And it became more and more actual because of growing repressions and growing sense of

unsafety and vulnerability in communities and different activist groups.

And now I see the dynamics I actually don't like in exiled communities and between those

who are still inside Russia and working on the ground.

I often see people in exile just lose all their energy on organizing.

And for many of us, living doesn't go smoothly.

It may involve physical persecution, crossing the border through forests.

And many people change several countries before being able to settle down for any

extended period of time to be able to organize there.

And of course, the difficulties common to any person with migration background also do not

add any strength and energy for activism.

And as a result, the post Russian communities are fragmented not only by borders and

oppression,

but also by frustration, burnout, fears, and different kinds of internal conflicts.

And secondly,

it's I think important to note that it's often the same few people who are involved in work

of care for years,

and of course we are there,

experienced much pain and disillusionment over these years and have questioned our own labor

objectives values for more than once.

And as for the post Russian context,

I also see the split into talking heads from the activist networks and those engaged in

invisible social reproduction itself.

And surprisingly, it's generally Flinta persons.

Yeah.

And just because a lot of the audience in the US may not be familiar with

Flinta,

correct me if I'm wrong, but it refers to people basically who are not CIS men.

Right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you for that.

I was thinking because of the amount.

Of experience in this chat, if at any point,

like right now,

I've been kind of conducting it like an interview, but if it wants to feel more like a

panel or a discussion where you all respond to each other's statements with questions or what

have you,

I think that would be wonderful if you feel like you're up for it.

So please feel free, any of you, to jump in at any point if you have a counterpoint or

counter experience or something to bolster what someone's just said.

Does that sound okay?

Yeah. Cool, thanks.

Sure thing.

Cool, thank you.

Otherwise, I'm just going to kind of go along

with the flow of the prompts that I sent.

What happens when the movement is crushed.

And support is left within a few hands, often living abroad?

What difficulties do you face when you're hounded into exile?

So, yeah, like I said, I gave some background information about our movement and

I think I wanted to expand on the issue of how movements generally function, at least in, in

my part of the world,

is that basically I'm part of the anarchist movement, which means there's no like, party

system where people are accepted and then they can leave.

Or maybe they have some consequences before they leave, so it's not so easy to leave.

Or we've got like 20 years in one party.

That doesn't happen.

So mostly what we are facing is that people come into the movement,

they stay there for like some years.

There is like very huge rotation because

people get interested, then they leave,

and sometimes they are leaving without even announcing that.

Right.

So. And they don't have to because they're not

like really responsible or accountable to anyone.

And so it's like,

yeah, I mean, it makes sense in this kind of situation where you are maybe like hunted by

the cops all the time.

And maybe at some point you realize that,

okay, yeah, I'm interested in the ideas, but also that becomes like too dangerous for me or

I can't keep up with my work.

Because for example, in Belarus, anytime you get entertained, you're also getting fired

from work.

And then you, like, you, you start looking for another job.

And then maybe you have a problem because there's like a KGB agent at a new workplace

that says no to you, to your application and stuff.

So it like, it really destroys, like being part of that movement really can destroy also

like family connections and stuff.

So it's like, I understand why we were so few

and so like, and that people are coming and going,

but at the same time, when you're exiled, right?

That means for us as a, as a collective that is like, I think any, any basically solidarity

group, right? So we've got people,

our comrades, some of our friends,

some of our partners.

And then like we are in exile and then the movement literally,

it deteriorates in a way that like, it just dissolves itself.

Because,

okay, we cannot really influence anything in Belarus anymore.

So we maybe we form some collective in.

Around something else.

Or maybe people just start living their lives.

Maybe people just go and work or study or moving to further, further countries.

And so what it leaves us with is that people who are not really like part of any structured

collective that is, that said, okay, this is our task and we want to support prisoners,

just feel more free to just say, okay, I'm done with this politics and I'm just living my

life while people are like, you know, the people that you knew still are behind bars.

And so for me it creates this kind of, I would say like a weird dynamics like that we are in

a way expected because people can leave only because they know there is some structure that

would anyway be there and take care of it.

And you know, otherwise they might be feeling more,

you know, more.

More necessary that it's not more necessary to

say and do something about it.

And so I sometimes feel like.

And also because we are this collective that cannot just.

We're not the collective that, I don't know, we, for example, a publishing cooperative that

would say, okay, yeah, we're tired, or we don't have any more ideas anymore, so we

disband the collective and that's it, you know, so, and nobody,

nobody suffers in this way, you know, so we just, just, you know, you don't, just don't

have any more books or, or you start and stop a podcast and that's fine.

But how about like, you say, oh, I'm supporting someone in prison and you cannot

just say in one year, oh, actually we are closing the collective down because we're

tired because that person that you supported is actually still in jail.

So it makes it a little bit like impossible to stop or like put on and off your activity

because it's an external condition that is imposed on you.

And when I was listening to what Nicole was saying like that for the, like all these

years, right, like all the 20 years,

like she had someone in prison to care about, right, One way or another.

And so it makes it literally like your whole life would probably not be any window where

you can say, okay, yeah, now there is nobody that I need to care about, right?

And that's horrible to hear,

but also it's a reality that we're in, right?

And so for me that is a challenge that I'm seeing that sometimes when we take on and we

say, yeah, we are going to put our energy into anti repression work,

then other people can just say, yeah, then I just don't have to do anything and I can move

on.

And I know I'm not saying this to shame anyone or anything.

I'm also not taking up any other struggles that some people might feel that are

important.

And yeah, I understand that, but it's just

this reality.

And also in our case, the movement is not like really,

you know, when even in Belarus, like we had some people, some new people, some new blood,

right? So people are growing up, they become

interested, they're students who are more radical and stuff like this.

Being in exile, you only can count on your own diaspora, right?

And this diaspora is very like closed up in a way that is not like there's no new people

appearing and there's no new interest appearing among them.

And also the diaspora is like very limited,

a number of people and also very,

you know, sometimes these, the views they're holding are completely different.

So it's literally like,

you know, like people are, you know, dying out in this way and so.

But also like the cause never stops being relevant.

And I think this is something that I'm struggling with in terms of asking myself,

am I really ready to like be in that collective for the next 15, 20 years?

Because there's more and more people Getting their sentences extended.

And will I ever allow myself to like, say, okay, yeah, now I'm actually moving on, or I

want to join another collective.

And that also, it limits my own activist activism, you know, Like, I had to,

you know, shut down a lot of my other collectives or shrink my activity in anything

that I might be really interested in doing as an activist.

But I'm not doing it anymore and not doing it so much just because I have to focus on this

one thing.

And I think this is also.

Yeah, it like, influences what kind of an activist I am, you know, and like, I kind of

been stuck in that, like, care work forever and this is maybe not what I wanted, you know,

And.

Yeah, but at the same time, I feel trapped in a way.

So I don't know if anyone wants to comment on that too.

I mean, I'm happy to talk about that feeling of feeling trapped.

Like, I think,

yeah, I think that is a reality.

And like, yeah, I recently had a baby, which

has been amazing, but it was like really putting a line in the sand for me of, like,

hey, I matter.

Like, my happiness matters.

Like, other things I need to do in my life,

like, there is life beyond prison, if that makes sense.

And yeah, that's been challenging because now I just have like a whole new form of care work

on top of all the other care work that I was doing.

But yeah, like, I think for anyone who wants to do prisoner solidarity work, like, I think

it is worth saying that, like, for a lot of people it is like a kind of short or medium

term experience.

Like maybe a close friend is inside for a few years, which is still, you know, can still

feel like a really long time and it's a long sentence.

But I'm also sometimes frightened of like, talking so honestly about it because I'm like,

how the hell will.

Why would anyone then want to do this? You know, like, if it's kind of like so

politically invisible, like, there's no, like, social capital to it, you know, it's just like

99% invisible.

And like,

okay, maybe there's some like, nice opportunities, like traveling and meeting

comrades or doing like, speaking tours, things like this.

Like, I know that ABC Belarus crew have lots of amazing, like, merch.

And like, you know, there's like, like obviously amazing things that like, being

involved in any kind of movement, like, brings to your life.

But yeah, I think I just want people that are listening to reflect that, you know, you do

have power to interact with it how you want, if that makes sense.

Like, I know some people that organize a lot of like abolitionist stuff like in the so

called US against new prison builds.

And they've kind of like consciously chosen

not to have like one to one intense support relationships with prisoners because they can

see how much it sort of takes over like the other kind of stuff they want to do in terms

of like really like bringing the system down.

So yeah, but I don't know, maybe it leads on to the next question that you'd prepared burst

about like the gender of care work if you wanted to introduce that.

Unless the comrade from Solidarity Zone has anything to add as well.

For me there are several things I would like to say about communities itself,

the community or communities originating from Russia.

I would say that I see just the beginning of building these connections and learning from,

for example from Belarus communities because a lot of people used to live after 2022 when

full scale war in Ukraine began and repression start to grow.

And I think it was like survival mechanism to build these connections between each other

because we all of us end up in very different places, very different contexts.

And yeah, we had to interact with each other to help each other and learn how to build a

movement finally.

And also I would say that connections between people who stay inside this state borders and

those who are outside and organize some part of the work from here that we are able to do

from here.

I think it's very necessary to constantly address this community inside because if you

don't do that,

you are just losing the mechanics of this repressive system and the logic of your, of

your political work, of your care work as well.

And I can share the feeling of being trapped when you as an individual or as a collective

have taken responsibility for this Solidarity and the prison terms.

Now in current Russian context the prison terms can be like 20 years and it's as if you

can't burn out or give up.

And for me it's scary and powerful thing at the same time.

And yeah, I also feel that I can't choose any other field because we are very few.

We are like 10 people in collective and thousands of criminal cases and hundreds

against someone who we sympathize politically or personally who we know maybe.

Yeah, just to sort of comment on what you all have said too.

As someone who has done anti repression work for a while as well, including supporting

individual prisoners,

I'll attest it feels very difficult to see suffering and to put in boundaries to say that

like this is as much time or energy or as many phone calls as I can take for a period of time

and not to feel burnt out.

That's very much my inclination is to just give it and see this increasing need on the

other side as the state increases or sustains its repression.

To see that suffering and be like, well, I've got five more minutes here.

Or I don't really need to.

I could take the day off of work or I can do whatever.

It's hard for me to recognize that like, well,

I can't carry everything.

I need to be able to sustain myself through the next day.

And if I burn myself, I won't be all that useful to people.

Yeah, just to sort of throw that in too.

Moving on to the next prompt.

Often the people who offer support to incarcerated people are relatives or close

friends.

Most often the work is done mostly by women.

Like social reproduction or care work more widely.

Can you talk about your experience of this?

I'm, I'm happy to go on that one.

Yeah. Like,

it's so interesting, like visiting prisons because you see who the visitors are and it's

like always the mums or the like sort of devoted girlfriend or partner of a prisoner.

And then you visit like a women's prison and it's like so rarely the male partners do, you

know, I mean like most of them get like.

Yeah, ditched by their partners or whatever when they're inside.

So it's like.

Yeah, it just like really compounds that kind

of gendered effect,

I think.

There's so many layers of.

It's just so entrenched.

Right.

Like how we are so like socialized.

Like we as in, I'm talking here as like a CIS woman,

are so socialized into caring about everyone else's needs and putting other people above

ourselves from like such a tiny age.

Like I grew up with a single mum who had like

very severe kind of mental health issues, like lots of kind of depression and suicidality and

abusive boyfriends and all the things.

And it's just like not ironic, but it's like structural that I then ended up like repeating

these patterns in adulthood where I'm just like endlessly supporting people who are

suicidal, mostly because of the state violence they're experiencing.

But yeah, I've been writing a piece which I haven't finished yet, but about like

solidarity versus like codependency of where are we getting our kind of sense of self worth

from and is that relationship kind of healthy and nourishing or is it kind of reproducing

oppressive dynamics?

And yeah, maybe that blurs into like some of the other questions you prepared, but I'm

still untangling that of what does it look like to be in relationship with someone when

there is like such a huge power imbalance of, you know, I've been the person inside who is

dependent on my girlfriend visiting me and the visits like keep me going and my whole day

revolves around lining up in the queue and calling her for that like 10

minutes of connection.

So I know that kind of pressure from the inside and.

But I also can see the pressure from the outside.

And yeah, I think it's really challenging.

But.

But yeah, I think unfortunately it is just kind of like a bigger pattern in the world in

terms of patriarchy, of just women's caring.

Labor is just completely taken for granted and completely expected.

And yeah, and I think that is part of the challenge with prisoner support is,

you know, people in prison can.

Sometimes it's a mix.

Like some people in prison don't want to depend on anyone on the outside.

They won't have visits from their family, they'll cut people off.

They just want to go alone.

You know, that's a kind of like trauma, hyper

independent survival pattern.

And other people will just like really kind of, you know, desperately seek support

because, you know, you need it when you're in prison.

But that can often mean that there's like a lot of emotional pressure on the person on the

outside.

And maybe then it doesn't always feel like a

kind of.

It feels sometimes like something you're like forced into doing rather than something you're

like embracing with kind of full consent the way that you might be forced to do more

childcare labor than you are hoping to do or expected to do.

Or you know, you're the daughter so you're expected to take care of your elderly parents

or you know, you're the only friend that shows up for friends with chronic illnesses or

disabilities or you know, other forms of health challenges, blah, blah, blah.

But yeah, I feel like people listening to this probably, you know,

all the things about gender, but it's just hard because it is just reproduced again in

prisoner support.

And you know, I know some like incredible male

comrades that do like anti repression work.

But it is this thing of who does the kind of sexy public talk where they get a lot of kind

of a bit more social capital or a bit more like adventure traveling around and who does

the kind of, you know, the visits and the phone calls and they're like trying to support

someone to not kill themselves that day.

And I think that kind of labor is like, yeah, often like excruciatingly gendered.

But yeah, I'm sure that other comrades have lots to say as well.

So I'll.

I'll stop there.

Okay.

Yeah. I guess I haven't realized my.

How my gender,

let's say, defines what I'm doing and how I'm doing it and like, how people see what I'm

doing.

Until recently,

probably.

But I guess I have experienced during when my partner was in jail,

there was always like, people never ask how you are, right?

They always ask,

how's the partner? Like, how's the person in prison going?

And most of the people would always want to contact me, but mostly these contacts limited

themselves to actually asking because I was.

And like you said, Nicole, there is this power imbalance and power dynamics between.

Also between the prisoner and the supporter, but also between the supporting person and the

movement.

Because in some way you become that, like,

point of,

you know, point of contact for the whole movement.

At least in Belarus it's like that.

Because in Belarus, like, one cannot visit or

call a prisoner unless they are their close relative, like a wife or a mom or something.

And so these people hold enormous amount of power in this way.

I mean, maybe unwillingly, but like, basically everyone wants to talk to them and ask about

the prisoner because this is where the information is flowing, right?

And so basically what, yeah, like, what happened is like, nobody ever asked me about,

like, how I handle this.

And I think back then I was also.

I mean, I was in my 20s.

I probably.

I wasn't prepared for questions like that.

And like, I wouldn't understand why people would care about how I am, because I also felt

like I'm numbing myself in order not to feel anything.

But also,

after this experience was over,

I also felt in many ways like an extension,

like forever.

You kind of stuck with that label of a wife of

someone, you know.

And so I also talked and I was in a chat group

with some other female, like, supporters, most of them like wives or girlfriends, let's say

partners of somebody who was in prison.

We didn't have a single man there.

So in this chat, so all of them said that the way journalists or the media or even, you

know, like even the anarchist media or, you know, so anyone who.

Who asks about something about like, a prisoner is always focusing on the prisoner.

And you're always like a partner of that guy, a partner of a wife of that guy, a mom of that

guy.

And in many cases, the journalists don't even give a name, you know,

so they are just.

It's just enough **** to be like a wife,

you know, or prisoner Met his wife and that's enough.

You know, like, she, she, she's.

She's, she's a no name.

And yeah, I mean,

in this way, it's like, it's also like a huge backlash,

let's say, when somebody decides to break, to break up during somebody.

When somebody's in prison.

And so I have heard from some women that decided to, you know,

break up after the sentence, after the verdict, or like, just because they didn't,

like, you don't.

They didn't feel like being in this

relationship anymore or they would break.

Like the breakup was initiated by the prisoner or something.

But anyways, it was always like she was supposed to endure it, you know, like she was

supposed to be like a nicer, a nicer woman or, you know, because he has all these like, bad

things happening to him in prison and stuff like this,

and she's on the outside, so she had to like, handle it in a better way.

And not like Nicole was saying, like, just understanding that you can be happy or like

you have the right to also care about your needs is not there.

And I think I kind of felt that.

I mean, it's not that I wanted to break up, but I think that there was always in the

background of like, how dare I, you know, like, not in that,

not at that moment, you know,

and yeah, so I guess all this woman work is, is, is there.

It's, it's, it's real.

And yeah, and I'm also thinking, you know,

and,

and again, like when, when the person is released, there's always this,

oh, the.

All the information,

attention is for that person and that person really easily and fastly becomes somebody very

famous, you know, because everybody wants to talk to them, everybody wants to invite them.

And so.

And then you are immediately forgotten.

Even though, like we said before, before the arrest, for example, both of you were like on

the same level as activists, as, you know, like in some collective.

And I think that is something that we should take care of.

I mean, also like, as a movement, I don't know, like,

for example, I didn't haven't heard any conversation or any text like that where

people who are supporting are talking about us,

not about necessarily prisoners.

And yeah, so I think that should be just more conversations about that.

And I think including that would make it more reasonable for people to join.

Right.

Like Nicole was saying that it's not sexy

work.

Nobody wants to do that because it's like, not gratifying.

And so I think one way to make it visible is through talking about this and maybe kind of

helps people, helps other people who are in a similar situation to understand that, yeah,

there's more people sharing this.

Yeah. And create their own spaces to talk about it.

And I often noticed that when the woman called, like prisoner's wife without a

name,

it's quite common to say that it's because of her safety,

maybe she wants to remain anonymous,

of course, without asking the person herself about her anonymity.

Yeah. And I would say that Russian prison culture is very, very patriarchal.

And like this state, this construction is,

I guess, much broader than prison itself, than prison system.

And it's kind of a way that affects how we interact with prison and with prisoners and

how we tell their stories and how we silence some stories and care less about them.

And also I would like to mention here the project I really love and which is opposing

this structural problem with invisibility of women in prison and lack of support of

incarcerated women.

The project called Zhensky's Rock or Woman's Term.

And there are only two female activists who work to support women in prison,

not only and not necessarily political ones,

because often women get huge sentences for self defense, for example, or drug on drug

charges.

And often not even their own, but their partners or husbands.

And in most cases they have absolutely no contact from the outside,

not even with letters or calls.

And personally, I see their persecution as no

less political than one for speaking out.

And the girls from Women's Town,

in most cases, the only ones who help them with defense, with sending parcels and

spreading the word about their cases.

Yeah, of course, I would like to call everyone to check their work and subscribe to them and

support them in whatever way you feel you can.

I see this project as the crucial example of anarchist solidarity in Russian oppressive

context.

And now we see more and more cases against women,

political motivated ones.

And I still see imbalance between support

given to men and even the number of letters, the number of,

I don't know, articles.

Some kind of public campaigning for men is much more than this.

Activities for women prisoners.

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Because we're approaching a half an hour after,

you know, the, the midpoint of an hour and I know that Nicole has to go soon.

Would anyone mind if I skip the next question for the moment, Talk about burnout and invite

Nicole to respond first because I know that she's done a lot of work on this topic.

Yeah, I wanted to suggest the same.

How do we identify burnout when it arises and what skills have you learned to

combat it, avoid it or treat it?

Oh,

juicy question.

I think I'll just share a little bit about my

own experiences and then what that's led to in terms of like tools and connections and

things.

So yeah, after I think I hit maybe the,

maybe the like 15 year point or something of like really intense stuff of you know,

everything I've mentioned just I was literally visiting a prison like every few days,

three prison visits, sometimes a week.

Like I think.

Yeah, I realized like a third of my life was being spent in prison or traveling to a prison

and then doing all this like organizing stuff as well and all prison related.

And my like brain just like popped and my nervous system just.

Yeah, I had like a major kind of nervous system breakdown where I just couldn't leave

the house.

Every time my friends rang me from prison I

would violently vomit.

Yeah, just, it was really, really bad and I think that was me neglecting the warning signs

for a really long time.

But in that recovery period, I started kind of just literally blogging, writing random post

about.

I just called it like overcoming burnout.

And I just,

yeah, just shared my journey of learning all about the nervous system and kind of polyvagal

theory and what's like the fight flight response and what's cortisol and you know, all

these stress hormones and how does this connect to like gut health and how does this

connect to, you know,

I wrote a post like Patriarchy makes me Tired where I was talking about gender dynamics and

I talked like a lot about like class and you know, and it's still really coming from this

very kind of white working class English context where I'm still just like swimming in

a sea of privilege.

But, you know, like really talking about, yeah, the violence and the trauma of the

prison system and growing up on benefits and all of this stuff and how it all connects and

blah, blah, blah.

And yeah, it just went really viral around the world and people really resonated with it.

And so active distribution.

This anarchist publisher, like put it into a

book, book called Overcoming Burnout, which I now sell and the proceeds go to, to prisoner

support, basically sending other books to prisoners.

And yeah, it was this process that led me to really intensely studying herbal medicine and

doing clinical training for four years for the school in Ireland and you know, doing like

thousands of other studies and different courses about trauma and all of the things.

And yeah, now I offer support to people as a herbalist where I'm looking at how plant

medicines can support people at various stages, you know, whether that's they are in

this like chronic, unrelenting, kind of stressful situation.

Because I recognize it's not just,

you know, you individualistically becoming calm or sleeping well or whatever.

Like it is,

you know,

things that are outside of your control.

And unfortunately state repression is

something that creates like massive uncertainty and you know, unprocessed trauma.

And people live with like constant threats of, for example, deportation, like, you know, can

see all these ICE raids like in the US and obviously they do them in the UK as well.

So it's like people are living with this like constant state of like hyper vigilance and

fear which just, yeah, wreaks havoc on the body.

And there's whole fields of medicine that study,

you know, they call it in their like status language, like social determinants of health.

But like how does racism affect your health? How does class affect your health?

Like all of these things.

So we can't separate out the individual from these massive systems of oppression.

But at the same time, and I had to learn it all back to front, if that makes sense, I had

to learn that,

okay, we can't maybe change overnight these massive systems of oppression.

And I know the limitations of kind of lifestyle changes, but at the same time there

is a lot we can do that we have to do to support ourselves like as human beings, like

with a body.

And I know people would maybe like to like not have a body and emotions but like, we do.

So it's like, how do we tend to our nervous systems?

Like, how do we manage our feelings when we've had like a really stressful phone call with a

loved one in prison,

or how do we cope with our friend's cancer diagnosis in prison or the death of our friend

in prison or, you know, and, and yeah, how do we kind of like keep this work going?

And I think there's so much I've learned about practical interventions like supplements and

nutrition and the sleep cycle and trauma therapies.

Like, I literally have a whole online course about herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress,

which no one is turned away for lack of funds.

Like hundreds of people join it for free.

And it's like, yeah, I won't, I won't go on a shameless plug about the course, but it's like

a resource for people,

you know, living in like states of chronic stress and burnout and how to work with plant

medicines to recover.

But yeah, I think in terms of identifying it like, I think everyone has their own, I call

them like fault lines in my practice.

So, you know, when I am getting run down, I'll

get like a bit dizzy.

Like I'll have like sort of vertigo and sinus issues.

Someone else will have of, you know, instantaneous loose bowels or someone else

will get neck pain.

And I think we have all of these signs that

our body is communicating to us that we need different things, like we need rest or we need

more affection and intimacy or emotional support or just in sleep.

But unfortunately, capitalism obviously just teaches us from a very young age to repress

our feelings and ignore our bodies and not listen to those signs.

So it's a really like,

you know, like life changing process to become someone who's like aware of their own body and

their own needs.

And then God forbid, once you know what your needs are, trying to access them when you've

been socialized to think that they don't matter, for example, which is like super

gendered class thing.

But yeah, I've got, I've recorded the book as a podcast as well, so people can listen to it

for free.

That's on my Solidarity Apothecary website.

And yeah, and I just, just, you know, I just want to say about burnout that it is,

you know, it is like a collective responsibility.

And I've supported like so many people go through repression from just the smallest

thing of, you know, maybe it's a one off arrest that doesn't go anywhere.

And I've seen the impact of that stressful situation on their nervous system.

And then I've supported people that have had huge, terrifying cases hanging over them for

years or people that have done 20 years in prison and got out, you know, and have

horrific ptsd.

Like I've seen that kind of spectrum.

But yeah, like all of these different people who have these different kind of contexts.

But yeah, we all just come back to the point that like,

we're just humans that have like needs, you know, and trauma ultimately like shapes us in

different ways and we can't recover like on our own.

Like for someone to get out of prison,

you need to build a sense of safety.

But like, how do you build safety if you don't

have any money and you can get a job? And even if you get a job, maybe it's like

super precarious and maybe you don't have those like close relate relationships and

friendships and that like social support.

And I think like,

you know, we've been talking this whole podcast interview between these tensions of

like how sort of politically recognized prisoner support is and is it more sort of

like, does it feel like a kind of charity thing or whatever?

But like, like ultimately like keeping a friend alive in prison to me felt like the

epitome of anarchism because it was.

I am not letting the mistake kill another

friend of mine.

You know,

sorry, I'm a bit tender.

It's the anniversary of my friend who killed

himself in prison yesterday.

No, the day before yesterday.

So it's all a bit like close at the moment.

But like,

yeah, I think, you know, lots of, lots of anarchist authors have written about the

importance of love and relationships and you know,

ultimately like, that is kind of what we've got, if that makes sense.

And yeah, like a person in prison, like isn't, isn't a project, right?

And that's what's challenging is like projects give us structure and boundaries and you know,

shared responsibility.

But it's so much, it's just not possible in a relationship when you love someone so much to

have that kind of system because we're just human beings.

And you know, like, like bas you mentioned, like if someone's pulled you from prison, you

can't be like, oh, I have to go now because I have this thing.

But yeah, I just wanted to plug that.

My friend Hevan Thakra, he's like a long term

prisoner in the UK who's in like literally the worst conditions of solitary confinement and

has been for a very long time.

And he's just really politically active in his writing and trying to Encourage people to

support prisoners.

And we can put it in the show notes.

But he wrote a piece of called Prisoners are Human Beings where he kind of critiqued how

some people had made him feel when he was in prison.

When he's in prison, in terms of,

you know, not replying to him or treating him like this kind of someone to brag about, that

they've got a relationship with him or something, or, you know, just like, so many

different interpersonal dynamics.

But I love his writing because he's just really communicating, like, how vulnerable you

are in prison to the relationships that, like, keep you going and.

Yeah, how that can be kind of, like, mistreated by comrades.

But, you know, thankfully, like, everyone on the call, like, you're all, like, amazing,

dedicated people.

So.

Yeah.

Anyway, that was a long run, but I have to get

back to the baby.

Was there any last comments on that before I go?

How do we.

How do you recognize when you become looked at

as a resource by the prisoners that you're supporting?

There was a mention earlier in, like, the.

The message thread about,

you know, if a prisoner decides to rate you on Google Maps or Yelp as giving poor,

poor prisoner solidarity or not sending enough resources or whatever.

The kind of expectations,

especially when people are giving so much of themselves and at.

At points living at a lower economic standard than their comrades that are on the inside.

But it's not,

you know, you don't.

That's not a thing that you want to share with

the person on the inside because you're not trying to make them guilty, but they maybe

don't realize how hard you're struggling and how much you're not getting paid for this.

It's not like you're working for a charity.

I mean, I'm so lucky that my friends in prison have just been, like, the

best friends to me.

And I think that's because for, say, Sam and

Taylor, who I work.

Taylor's the one who died.

Because I met them in prison.

There was this kind of horizontal relationship

at the beginning.

Does that make sense?

And then I get out, and then I'm in, like, a position of power somehow.

But I've never felt kind of, like, taken for granted or kind of dehumanized by them, if

that makes sense.

But I think in other collectives, like, often

we're, like, operating sometimes from, like, a place of anonymity, and then it's, like, a

little bit harder.

But I think, think,

yeah, like, I know for, for example, experiences with comrades in Belarus, like,

the.

The number of people inside and the Economic pressure to fundraise for them every single

month.

So much bigger than what it is in the UK that you can only spend a certain amount each

month.

So we don't have like the same,

like we have a lot of like fundraising pressure.

But I don't think it's like the stakes aren't as intense, if that makes sense.

But yeah, like I think there are humans are humans, right?

And there will be difficult dynamics.

Like someone,

you know, develops a crush on you or someone else slags off someone else or whatever.

Like there's always these kind of relationship challenges, communication challenges.

I've never like had pushback from a prisoner that we're like a charity or that.

I think there's always been an appreciation that support is like, like very grassroots.

And I think because it's such a novelty to people in prison in the uk, like they have

just.

Most people I've met that I've organized support for like IPP prisoners and things,

they've never had support from anyone most of their lives.

And so to even just receive letters or to be added to a website or for someone to organize

a letter writing evening, you know, like Taylor was trans, so lots of trans groups

would organize letter writing events and send him cards and things.

People have no idea like how much that meant to him and how different that was to a life of

shifting, like emotional neglect and abuse.

So yeah, but,

yeah, so I think people haven't taken for granted the thing.

I probably get a backlash for this but like the thing that has frustrated me the most has

been other so called anarchist groups.

Someone called our particular crew,

well cool, like said, okay, you're a bunch of like lefty charity workers because we were

like supporting people in prison and like refused to repost action alerts for friends in

prison who you know, were like IPP prisoners or like quote unquote social prisoners.

And that to me just, it just, just still puts like rage in me because it's just like, how

dare you? You know, like when you're in prison, like the

difference between someone sending you money so that you can buy some shampoo you like,

that doesn't give you a rash or you can actually have a snack in the evening to take

away the hunger so you can sleep,

like that isn't charity work, you know.

Okay, like I can see some critique of, you

know, like I love working with prisoners who are really political, who are comrades, who

want to build power in prison, who want to kind of unionize, who want to do ashen lurch.

Like, you know, my Friend.

And Sam inside is always passing me people's

details because they want to campaign or like, fight against some injustice in the prison or,

you know, whistleblow on something.

And I love that.

Like, I think as anarchists we should be

focusing on kind of organizing the prisoner class and supporting people to,

you know, fight back about against these systems.

And that is much better than just kind of quote, unquote, charity work.

But at the same time, yeah, I think unless someone like, has been ing present to me, they

can just shut their mouth like if they think it is charity work because it's when you're

inside.

I'm sorry, but a letter can sometimes be the difference between someone killing themselves

or not.

And that to me is why it's like so important and should be so politically high up the value

ladder of what people think is politically important.

There's amazing texts about the Anarchist Black Cross and its history with Anarchist Red

Cross and supporting prisoners, like, and yeah, this is part of like our legacies and

our traditions.

So it should be,

you know, like, powerful, recognized, like sacred kind of work, in my opinion.

I can't remember what the second question was, but I really have to leave.

I'm sorry.

I think you got it.

It was about whether it's charity or like,

feeling like it's a charity.

Thank you so much.

You're lovely.

You do great work.

Yeah, thanks.

So nice to see you're the applause.

Okay, take care.

Have a good rest of the interview.

I can't wait to hear it.

Bye, Nicole.

Thank you.

Bye. I just wanted to comment about this.

That, that, that feeling of wanting to vomit when somebody like, from prison calls you,

right.

And like, like you need to again, you know,

offer some of your energy and, you know, share some of your empathy and, you know, do

something about it and be on the supporting side.

Yeah, I guess I felt it and I think I didn't feel it back when I was supporting my partner,

but I only now, when many of my friends and comrades are in prison and suddenly I needed

to start writing a lot of letters again after like 5 years of not being,

not dealing with like somebody in prison that I know,

I, I suddenly, like, I really felt the same feeling that I, I didn't want to write a

single letter.

And I think I felt, I felt so ashamed and so

guilty for that, that, come on, you know, like, you're here, you have time.

Instead of, I don't know, scrolling your Instagram, you could write a letter and.

Yeah, I mean, I wrote a few,

like, just forcing myself to do that.

But then I just realized I just can't.

And so it's been five years almost, right?

And I haven't written letters anymore.

And.

Yeah, so I think I still feel bad about it, but also I kind of realized that, okay,

yeah, maybe.

Maybe I should just, like, accept that this is my boundary on that.

And maybe I should just accept that.

Yeah, I was traumatized by that.

Five years of supporting my partner and needing to write every day, like, or every

second day a letter and be there, you know, and so I just kind of.

It's just like flashbacking to me.

And so,

yeah, I think maybe, like, one way out of it for me was to actually accept that.

Yeah, maybe I prefer to, I don't know, run a fundraiser for someone rather than talk to

their relatives, you know, or again, or, I don't know, hear some.

Some frustration from a wife of a prisoner that I'm supporting, you know, and so I think

that should be also normalized and we kind of have to understand and also,

yeah, like, put.

Put boundaries with the.

In the communication with the people that.

That, you know, are involved in the support

that, yeah, we are there, but also that there's not, like, not 100% that I can be

always there for someone and not with any type of activity, for example,

because, I guess, like, I mean, because you could be.

You could make demonstrations, right? You can write letters, you can organize letter

writings, you can fundraise, you can give donations yourself, right?

You know, like, and there's so many ways that you can be in solidarity with someone, and if

you want to start doing all of them,

it's just not, like,

you are not enough for that.

And I think what also is a little bit haunting

me in this way is that I realized that my feeling of,

like, I don't know, failure or the fact that this movement kind of collapsed or, you know,

it's not anymore in the same shape and form as it used to be or in the shape and form that I

think the prisoners are expecting it to be when they are out.

Right.

So I kind of feel responsible for how the reality looks like and for the world that they

are, like, I'm gonna see when they are being released.

And so I kind of feel like I don't want to talk or see some of my friends or comrades

when they are released.

Not.

Not that I don't want to see them as people, but it's more like all these uncomfortable

conversations about why we found ourselves in this situation and how are they going to

integrate in this world where there's like literally no comrades anymore that they know.

And so I kind of feel that again, I am responsible for that or I am responsible for

leading them in this world, which I'm not.

And I mean, I don't have to,

but it's just like, I think that the problem that I mentioned in the first place, that this

kind of feeling, a specialized force,

gives so much pressure on me that I feel like it's just me who can do that and not other

people.

And if I am the person who says no to this,

then I'm gonna be like the last person that ever hears this question, you know, like,

there's no other people, there's no other friends, there's no other comrades who could

do things like me.

And so, yeah, and I think maybe I am too,

Masha centric, you know, in this way, because the world does not spin around me.

And in, in the end, right? So when people have other friends and family.

So. But that's, that's what I wanted to say about this feeling of like not wanting to do

certain types of activity.

And I think I, I want.

I liked how Nicole kind of find.

Found her way out of burnout by trying to actually like, because why she started writing

about it,

I guess, right.

Is, is.

Is like because she realized, okay, this is really affecting me.

And so I want to journal in, in this.

It's a way of journaling, right?

Like you're writing about something you experience and then you find a feedback.

Find feedback from people who experience the same or who say, yes, this is so important

that you're talking about this.

And then it becomes a passion, your passion

work, you know, like, and, and.

And then you make it politicized.

And so it's like,

I guess if we are asking ourselves what are the ways out, it's probably acknowledging

that, yeah, this is my limit.

And now I'm going to talk about this limit so the whole world hears me and I'm going to

write or record something about it and then I'm going to be in the conversation with the

movement about it and then maybe all of us get some useful stuff from it.

So that's what I wanted to say.

I had a funny story about letters and like responsibility to write it.

My ex partner,

with whom I started relationship after he.

He was in prison,

the first question he asked me when we met for the first time was,

hmm,

you haven't ever write me letters, right?

And I felt like it was kind of attack on me that I should to write him letters.

But I didn't and about burnout,

I tried to keep forcing myself to slow down.

And in fact,

the more repressive it becomes, the more clearly you realize the impossibility of

reaching out to all those you genuinely want to help.

For example, I'm horrified by the thought that thousands and thousands of Ukrainians have

been kidnapped and incarcerated in Russian prisons and the community's efforts are

insufficient even to find each of them.

And I feel huge responsibility on this case.

But I'm learning to recognize that my thoughts will always be not enough,

which means I just need to do the best I can.

Yeah,

yeah, I think that's really insightful.

So we've got the question about toxic dynamics because you both kind of addressed burnout.

Would it be helpful for anyone to readdress that question as a whole, or do you think that

that was sufficient on the topic of burnout?

I think the big role in the emergence of service relationships between

prisoners and activists was played of course by NGO policies and the ideas of, of so called

efficiency.

And we as a collective get a lot, I would say too many letters to the collective's mailbox

just asking for money or for a lawyer.

Even though we constantly remind on our resources on socials or website that we are

just an ethical collective with crowdfunding sources and know our own like foundation and

try to spread the message that anyone can organize a solidarity group on the ground.

And often we get passive aggressive replies in response to us saying we can't help.

I think the Russian propaganda which paints the image of activists and human rights

defenders as some kind of best and funded agents,

is also doing this trick.

And for me it's not even clear whether it's necessary to convince some mother of a

prisoner that we are actually a group of anarchists who in addition to organizing,

often earn our living costs through other service work.

And of course moments like, like this make us wonder how and why we got to this point where

the desire for solidarity needs to be explained to someone in parapolitical

categories that have always seemed obvious to me, to me, to us.

And of course it's enduring and disorienting.

Okay, I guess you, you talked about rather the service and NGO stuff, right?

Rather than the toxic dynamics supporters and prisoners, I guess.

But I, I mean I, I can go on with that and just say,

yeah, like this service perception of groups that give support.

Also I think what I find problematic is that they kind of strip you off a political

element.

Right, of your work.

Because like I said at the beginning,

when we were forming the collective for us it wasn't like, okay, we are now just wanting to

support prisoners for the rest of our lives and not be activists in any other ways.

No, it was more like, yeah, the movement needs that,

right? And so we are offering,

like, we.

We make a division of activists who remain in

the movement and who continue doing political work, because we also see it as political.

And I think,

unfortunately, after 2020, when we also had to restructure the work of the collective and,

like,

partly operate in exile and stuff, so we also became a little bit like, more like

fundraisers because there's so many prisoners, and we mostly speak about them and about,

like, the money that they need.

But also in many cases, the,

like, the regime,

they stopped.

They prevented the prisoners from talking to the solidarity groups, to the relatives, and,

like, maybe producing the political messages, right?

So the trials were held in camera.

The correspondence is banned in many ways, and basically the prisoner becomes this apolitical

humanitarian object, I would say not even subject.

And then,

like, we cannot comment on their ideas because it might be a problem for them.

And so we stop talking about politics in this way.

And then we are also seen mostly as, you know, that we can be approached mostly as, yeah,

give us money or help us find a lawyer and stuff like that.

And so I guess this,

you know, like, it changes your identity in this way.

And we.

This is not something we want to do,

but unfortunately,

this is how it is.

And also,

I was meaning to ask Anya about this,

because I think when I first got to know you and the collective and everything, and I

realized, okay, like, there is.

You have to tell me if this is not something.

Not something that you can or want to talk about publicly.

But I'm still.

I'm gonna ask about this.

Like,

okay, you.

But also some other collectives said that,

okay, like, there is a way to donate to the prisoners, right?

And there's also a way to donate to the collective, like, to the work,

and to basically sustenance of substance, cost of the people in the collective.

And, you know, and, like, for me, that was like.

Like, oh, wow.

It. Was it, like, even.

Like, is it even legal, you know, like,

to do something like this? Because we've never asked ourselves in the

collective, for example,

do we, like, can we cover any costs or, you know, like, can you.

Can we, like, use the money that we receive for.

For that.

For ourselves, you know, in this way? Like, yeah.

And so for me, that was interesting, an interesting approach.

And I wanted to ask you, how is it going? Like, how are people reacting to this?

Are you actually receiving any kind of donations for this work.

Because I think that this is exactly how we can see if people are even accepting this

request for,

hey, please finance us too.

Not as a salary, but just because maybe we

cannot work while we are doing this type of activism.

And yeah, so this question.

But also I realized that how much the work of

the collectives are neglected in this way.

For example, when I'm comparing this to the

solidarity collectives in Ukraine, right, that are dealing with supporting the anti

authoritarian fighters on the front lines.

And so I've talked about them, with them, and they were saying that, yeah, most of them need

some more subsidies, some like money from the outside to just keep, keep living, you know,

like, because many of them lost their jobs, some of them are experiencing, you know,

destructions in their homes,

you know, that are not covered by the state or, you know, and they need all this money.

Some of them get depressed because of the war that is there for three years, right?

And so,

and they're still like, like afraid or ashamed to ask publicly, for example, to post that.

Yeah, you can also donate for our own needs, you know, because they are not, like, it's not

enough, you know, like, it's if, if somebody can die in the front line, they, they need the

money,

but not us.

And, and so I was thinking about it and like, I was also thinking of, oh, is there any

foundation that can help in cases like this? You know, like, can they apply to, I don't

know,

antifascist defense fund or Anarchist defense Fund?

Actually they can, you know, like, because most of these funds, they support people that

are repressed or suffered something, you know, and war is not repression.

Right? So it's like if you just,

you know, like if your windows are broken because of a bomb, this is not something that,

you know, like any existing foundation that I know of can help with, you know, and so this

also shows that how important it is to be in this community,

that the community understands that this is not an individual case that somebody doesn't

have a job or somebody's window is broken, or that somebody's depressed because of doing

solidarity work for 10 years or something like this.

So this is something that we started doing our work as a political act.

Then other people have to also accept,

like not accept, but like recognize this and also do some political acts towards us because

we are like still comrades in this way.

So coming back to my question, so how, how did

it work?

Does it work for you to kind of get the donations for, for the.

Work you're Doing Anya,

we decided when we like invented this call to our audience,

we decided to separate the donations from people for prisoners and for the collective.

For the collective, we started Patreon page and all the donations we collect from other

sources we spent only for prisoners needs.

For me, it was like the most clear policies for like, for collecting money for us.

And we started to do that because some of us ended up in not so sweet immigration.

Like for example, mine because I'm in Europe and some part of our collective are in Georgia

or Armenia where they have no like some.

Some money from state or they even have no possibility to find paid work there.

And it's not only migrant problem,

it's the same for Georgian or Armenian residents.

There are not so much work that can cover your like very basic needs,

rent for your room or flat,

and just a very like basic menu for everyday surviving.

So we decided that we really need to support somehow those who.

Not,

how to say, stable maybe situation.

But I can't name my situation.

Stable because of other migrant troubles.

Yeah, and I think it's an important part to speak about that, that we do this political

work and work of care,

but we also need to be able to do that.

And each of us, I think now that it can last for 10 and more years because of huge prison

terms and we don't know if we can change our living environments for something better.

So we need to survive somehow to keep on doing.

And yeah, for me, it's important to separate this.

These calls call to prisoner support in different ways, like financially,

with writing letters, with raising awareness and to help the collective to go on.

Well, that kind of addressed the last few responses, kind of addressed the

prompt about how do we socialize the work of prisoner support by finding ways to spread it

out further among our movements so that, you know, in this very clear way that Anya was

speaking of,

you know, getting support in supporting others.

Yeah, that's really important.

Did you have any other thoughts on that

before? I maybe prompt more about dynamics,

toxic dynamics that can come up with individual prisoners and challenging that.

Well, I think maybe what would be perfect for me is thinking about this whole

concept of labor division, let's say in the movement as something that is done on a

rotation basis or something that is like not just some people decided,

like some five people, let's say, decided that they would like to suddenly do that and other

10 people are doing another thing.

So it would be perfect in the.

In my ideal world,

the movement would be just, you know, like deciding what they need in what form for how

long?

And then they would like basically send people to, to, to, to do the work there and you know,

like on a rotation basis.

Understanding that doesn't have to be always like the same people doing the same work

forever,

but we can like all learn, you know, how to be in solidarity, how to arrange lawyers, how to,

you know,

I don't think it's possible in the current situation that the movement are facing and the

shape of the movements right now.

I don't think we're ready to work on the

collective level like that.

Especially in the west where everything is so individualized and nobody owes anything to

anyone anymore.

So yeah, otherwise I guess probably this should be done by the collectives themselves,

you know, understanding that.

Yeah, how do we make ourselves.

What is it called? Like resilient.

Right.

And ongoing and long term work.

How is it going to be organized? You know, if we all feel tired?

So how do we like what do, what is our communication?

What is our message to the movement about it?

And so rather than like me always, you know, many cases finding myself like in this like

lonely corner grumpy about some things,

probably makes sense to like actually open up and like, like talk to people and say it, you

know, and like see the response.

And then if there's no response, then you decide, okay.

Like then I do my, like make my decision on an individual level.

Like am I, am I able to go on or I'm just shutting down some, some projects or some,

some areas of activities, you know.

And so yeah, so that would be probably the best.

But also I, what I, I saw is the best functioning and efficient groups,

like solidarity groups are usually the people that are the most or like the closest to the

specific prisoner because they are, you know, like if it's, it's, it's.

If it's my friend, I'm usually more motivated to fight for them and like wait for them as

long as it takes rather than I'm just like joining and then unjoining a group.

And so maybe would be more,

it would be better if there would be like little cluster groups for every prisoner.

They could for sure exchange and use the same resources, for example,

rather than there would be like one separate specialized group that is doing some things

for all the prisoners at the same time.

So that would be my wish.

But yeah, I'm not sure it's possible to.

Do we want to address specifically toxic dynamics that come up with prisoners and

prisoners families in terms of charity models or where do we want to move from here?

Maybe I have a little Addition to what I told about before is that at some point

I can understand the prisoners, relatives when they are addressing us like we are a source of

money.

Because most of prisons in Russia located in very,

very different regions.

And unfortunately,

like, the territory of Russia is too big and obviously needs to be much smaller.

And for like prisoners, friends and family,

it can be not affordable to travel, to even meet the person.

It's also, for me,

the point of keeping the connection with movement with others from outside,

because in lots of cases,

the families have no chance to meet someone in prison.

And yeah, I can imagine how it affects,

like,

seeking for money for financial help at first.

I mean, I have something to say about this dynamics of like making,

about this power dynamics of making a prisoner like this kind of humanitarian project.

But I, I don't know if this is,

you know, it's, it's.

If it's the topic of our conversation,

because, yeah, it is about the dynamic and this is what we as a collective have been

fighting a little bit recently.

But it's not really like, about us.

It's more about like,

people on the supporting side deciding what's best for the prisoner, you know.

And so I don't know how much this is, like,

I need to say this.

It kind of feels like it could be, if you do want to talk about it,

a reflexive of like, reflective of the.

There's something.

There's a lack of mutuality that sometimes can

develop when somebody is viewed as a project or when we're viewed as service providers.

And so I think it does relate to that.

So if you do want to, want to go into that a

little bit, then that could be a good topic and maybe we could have some closing thoughts

after.

Yeah, cool.

Yeah. So in our experience as Belarusian solidarity group supporting prisoners,

we are not like.

It's important to note that we are not like, anarchists are not the only prisoners in

Belarusian that like,

are convicted on political grounds.

It's, I think it's like several thousands.

And so what we've been dealing with is that for many of the other prisoners getting into

prison and for their families, in many ways the fact that somebody in from their family

gets in jail,

they don't look at this as a political case.

You know, they, they see, oh, it's like just the state is not fair to, to them.

And so they choose to either minimize the,

the, the weight or the influence of the politics in this case and say, oh yeah, this

person didn't do anything,

not like the other terrorists or like, not like the Other anyone, you know.

And so that is now has created the dynamics in which part of this like, diasporic exiled

movement that is intending to free all the political prisoners has started to promote

this idea of like, hey, we need to get back into the dialogue with the regime and ask the

regime to like release all these prisoners that are just like soft,

naive, these, you know, kitty cats that haven't really meant what, what they did, you

know, and so what.

And, and, and this is usually done by the

relatives and by, because like I said, the relatives in, in, in Belarusian case, they

became the only point of contact with the prisoner.

And so if relatives say, oh, our, our prisoner doesn't want to be considered a political

prisoner because it can harm them.

Oh,

you know, stop writing, for example, stop making Solidarity actions or stop publishing

anything about that prisoner because it can harm them, you know.

And so what it, it does is basically it creates another shift, another disbalance in

this,

in this support work because suddenly the prisoner and their ideas,

the reasons, the motivations, why they ended up behind bars,

what they feel,

how they feel about what their family is doing on the outside or what their Solidarity Group

is doing on the outside,

it becomes like negligent and inexistent.

And it's expected from everybody else that we

are only going to talk, I don't know,

we're not going to publish anything about them because this can harm.

We're not going to talk about their politics, we're not going to call them anarchists

because this can be a problem.

And so what we found problematic is that, that some families really want us, you know, like

the Solidarity group, to, to shut up about certain things and, and, and then, but we know

for sure because we know that our comrades, that they would most probably be against this,

you know,

but we cannot confirm it in any way because we are not relatives and we cannot talk to them

in any way.

And so that creates this problem that people,

you know, like the family,

however non political it might be, sometimes it's even, you know, like anti political or

like the, the political views in the family can be contradicting to the prisoner's

political views.

And so they become the, this kind of carer, like a caretaker, taker of the prisoner.

And they, you know, like their message sounds more loud in this way.

And this is why we wrote like a longer text, unfortunately only in Russian, about this idea

of thinking what's best for the prisoner or thinking that, oh, we should do that.

Oh, we should do that, this.

And also it creates a lot of Divergence between different kinds of prisoners.

And this is exactly what the state wants.

It wants that the prisoners and their

relatives are divided.

And some identify themselves as oh, we are just, we did something unconsciously, you

know, like we did and didn't do it deliberately.

Maybe we left a little comment online that was offensive, but we didn't mean it.

And the others are like the real criminals, you know, like they, they kind of deserve to

be in jail.

And usually people with the shorter terms,

they prefer to be like anonymous because this is like they're gonna, gonna get out in three

years.

And so they, they don't want to be public.

Like they want, they don't want their case to be publicized.

While people who with the stance with of.

Of 20 plus years, you know, like their

families are usually the most loud because they, they don't hope right that the,

the prisoner will be released sooner if they shut up, for example.

That's not going to happen.

And so yeah, like the idea here is that we as

a collective are trying to always,

you know, analyze how much we are playing in this power dynamics and how we are we end up

treating or not treating our prisoners as these like cases, you know, that we just work

on and we are waiting for this case to just be over.

And so yeah, we are trying to like check ourselves on that.

But it's also quite hard because the society, like the public or the families are expecting

a completely different thing because for the family they just need, they don't need you to

stay anarchist.

They don't need you to you know, keep like, keep to your ideas.

They don't need you to.

They just want you back, back in the family and that's it.

And so for us this is also where the political part and this kind of humanitarian and like

charitable let's say and political side of this lies in.

Yeah.

Anya, is that a dynamic that you feel like commenting on or should we just move

into like closing thoughts?

Yeah. I have a note that I see here actually two problematic, poisonous Soviet

narratives.

On the one hand,

it's kind of Tavary Stalin.

There is a horrible mistake often like

reproduced by relatives of the prisoners.

Like Masha said about innocence and mistake in criminal case and believing in justice in our

courts and our prison system which is surely can't work as relatives want to imagine this.

This system.

And on the other hand in relation to our,

our everyday work everyday like political development other narrative is about

glorification of shock workers and that we are not allowed to have breaks,

not allowed to be tired and the Idea of shame, of needing to recover.

And yeah, for me,

these two narratives intersecting a lot in rhetorics around prisoners and around prison

systems.

We should work a lot, but we also should,

should be as silent as possible and we should gain resources but not write anything that can

cause harm to prisoner and.

And so on.

Well,

yeah, thank you all for participating in this conversation.

I think that you've given listeners a lot to think about and hopefully talk about.

And I wonder if any of you have any closing thoughts that you want to share with the

audience before we end this call or tell us where we can find out more information about

the groups that you participate in and want to uplift.

Yeah, I just, I mean, I don't have any more thoughts just like appreciations for

creating this space because I felt like I needed it.

I felt like even though I know both Anya and Nicole, right.

And I could talk to them,

but I didn't because that was not,

you know, it was not structured in any way.

And again, like,

even though it's kind of showing that even though we might know people that might go

through the same,

we are sometimes struggling with approaching them and learning from them or like sharing

some emotional burdens with them because in my case I just feel like, okay,

there's going to be just another emotional burden on that person because they already is

having so much on their shoulders.

So, yeah, thanks for the space and hopefully it was useful not only for us, for me, but

also for the listeners.

And yeah,

our group is easily googled, I guess, and you might probably leave some information in the

show notes.

It's ABC Belarus.org and yeah, we like, we are

welcoming donations, of course, and unfortunately no letters will reach the

prisoners in Belarus, but you could still.

And, and again, like I was saying about this decentralization of solidarity a little bit.

And for example, we have this little project where we are inviting people to create a

little solidarity group that doesn't need to do much other than just gather some donations

on the monthly basis and thus cover up the expenses of like one Belarusian anarchist in

prison.

That would be immensely helpful for us rather than fundraising for all of them.