Dear Director, I would like to share a reflection with you. Just got back from 2016 World Youth Day, which took place in Krakow. Predictably, given the presence of the Holy Father and numerous Polish institutional figures, the level of alert was high, also in view of the previous and contemporary terrorist events (including the murder of the priest of Rouen); therefore we all expected a certain deployment of forces.
What we did not expect was a similar display of strength. The entire 6a Aircraft Brigade, I learned from several locales, had been fully mobilized, and contributed to safety in all the most crowded places in Krakow and the surrounding area, also guaranteeing a patrol of helicopters over the city practically at any time. Police forces were reinforced by elements from neighboring districts; but perhaps the most curious thing is that even our lodgings were guarded. My diocesan group had been assigned to an elementary school lost in the woods, in a village far from Krakow an hour's drive. Yet every evening three firefighters, deployed as police forces for the occasion, were near us and controlled the area where we were temporarily residing.
This is the first large-scale event in which I saw this demonstration of power and safety, which, moreover, has not affected the Polish hospitality, the latter truly exceptional.
Speaking with our "guardian angels" (with whom we made the friendship flight) we realized that for them the presence of the military is not an obstacle to any civil or constitutional freedom, nor the intense police controls are seen as limitations and violations. They lived the thing with tranquility, as the villagers confirmed.
This is why I ask: is their perception of security and protection needs (of the population, pilgrims, pope and high dignitaries) so different from ours? Are these conditions that could replicate smoothly even in countries like France or Belgium?
Paolo Squillaci
Dear Paolo, first of all thanks for sharing the experience with other readers Online Defense.
The answer is not simple. Especially because the terrorist dynamics have increasingly involved loose dogs or emulators that are difficult to predict. In addition, despite various precautionary tools available to national security, the European legal culture does not contemplate (any longer) any eternal constraint for the crime of "suspected".
Among the 311.000 single readers of the last month there will surely be someone able to respond more comprehensively to his question. I leave the word to them.
Andrea Cucco
(photo: Stanisław Wasiutyński, World Youth Day Kraków 2016)
